Resources
MUD Clients
A good client makes a huge difference. These are the ones worth knowing about.
Mudlet
The gold standard for modern MUD clients. Cross-platform, scriptable in Lua, and actively maintained. If you're not sure what client to recommend to your players, recommend Mudlet.
MUSHclient
A Windows classic with decades of history. Highly scriptable, extremely stable, and beloved by the MUSH community. Not pretty, but endlessly capable.
TinTin++
A terminal-based client for those who live in the command line. Lightweight, scriptable, and available on Linux, macOS, and Windows via WSL.
BlowTorch
The go-to MUD client for Android. Supports MCCP, MXP, and custom aliases. Worth pointing your mobile players toward.
Engine Documentation
Official docs for the engines Mudkeep supports.
Evennia Documentation
Comprehensive and well-maintained. Start with the Getting Started tutorial, then work through the Component overview. The Evennia community on Discord is also active and helpful.
PennMUSH Documentation
The official PennMUSH docs covering installation, configuration, and softcode. The MUSH Manual is essential reading for anyone building a softcode-heavy game.
Communities
Where MUD people gather.
r/MUD
The largest general MUD community on Reddit. Good for finding games to play, asking build questions, and keeping up with what's happening in the ecosystem.
The MUD Connector
One of the oldest MUD directories on the internet. A solid place to list your game once it's ready for players, and to explore what others are building.
Top MUD Sites
A long-running MUD listing and voting site. Good for discoverability once your game is open to the public.
Books & Learning
MUD development draws on a broad skill set. These are worth having on the shelf.
Learning Python (O'Reilly)
If you're building on Evennia, Python fluency is eventually necessary. This is the definitive reference -- dense but thorough. The 5th edition covers Python 3 fully.
The Linux Command Line (No Starch Press)
Even with Mudkeep handling your infrastructure, understanding the command line makes you a better admin. This is the best beginner-to-intermediate resource out there.
Code Complete (Microsoft Press)
Not MUD-specific, but if you're serious about building systems -- softcode architectures, game mechanics, admin tools -- this is the book that sharpens your thinking about construction.
Tools & Utilities
Useful tools for MUD administrators and developers.
PuTTY
The standard SSH client for Windows. If you're managing anything server-side on a Windows machine, PuTTY is what you want.
Visual Studio Code
Free, cross-platform, and excellent for editing MUD code locally. The Python and remote SSH extensions make Evennia development significantly smoother.
Raspberry Pi 4 (Amazon)
Want a local test environment that doesn't cost anything per month? A Pi 4 runs Evennia and PennMUSH comfortably for development and testing. Cheap, quiet, always on.