Early Applications Open for Untold Dawn
After a full year of hard work and dedication, we are opening early applications for Untold Dawn.
After a full year of hard work and dedication, we are opening early applications for Untold Dawn.
Untold Dawn is a next-generation Role-Play Intensive (RPI) Multi-User Dungeon (MUD) game developed in Rust, using Bevy as its engine. This project has been a labor of love for our team, driven by the passion to create a game made by roleplayers for roleplayers.
Untold Dawn was born from the desire to bring a new generation of RPI MUDs to life. We aim to redefine the boundaries of interactive storytelling and systems-driven gameplay. Set in a futuristic colony on the distant planet Artemis, our goal is to create an immersive experience where players can explore, roleplay, and shape the world around them.
Artemis is the main planet where Untold Dawn unfolds. Discovered by Professor Callysto, Artemis is one of the best candidates for human life due to its near-earth conditions and strategic presence in its own solar system. The colonization mission attracted individuals from diverse backgrounds, each with their reasons for embarking on this journey. Professor Callysto’s mission is just the beginning. Mega-corporations envision sprawling colonies. The colonists will play a crucial role in shaping the future of this new world.
Our pre-alpha focuses on innovative systems and dynamic gameplay that will be developed par-in-par with those who join us. Keep in mind that while we may not match the feature depth of decades-old RPI MUDs, we bring modern innovations to the table and aim to keep developing our core featureset alongside our community. Some of these are:
- Unique Currency System: Players can create various credit wallets and share them.
- Flexible Group System: Allows anyone to start and manage groups.
- Renting: Rent out machines, pads, or even entire compounds. The backbone is there to allow players to own nearly anything.
- Mining System: Offers engaging resource gathering mechanics that can then be sold to other players or the corporations of the station.
The main goal of the pre-alpha phase is to develop the game alongside our players. Please keep in mind that our pre-alpha is lacking many of the features that are expected to come in the future versions; it will likely not be the fully-fledged experience that we'll have on full launch.
How To Apply
Due to the nature of our pre-alpha, applications are limited.
Throughout our pre-alpha, applications will be handled through our Discord server. If you have not joined the Discord server, you can do so here:
Requirements For Application
Please, open a ticket on our requests channel in Discord and include the below information. Feel free to use it to workshop concept ideas with staff and see what's possible!
You can apply with your friends in a joint concept. If you have plans to bring your vision to life or to create a clan in game, let us know in the request as well.
We will finalize applications as we get closer to launch date.
Applications may include:
- Your prior experience with playing RPI's
- A rough character concept including background, bio, rough appearance.
- Any queries you have regarding support for your character creation, unique items needed or back stories involving other people/NPCs on board.
Don't worry if you change your mind closer to the time, this is just to get you in the door with a game invite code. Once applications are accepted, you will create your character in the chargen, add your finalized background and input your character descriptions in full.
Example Application
Example 1 )
Hi, I played RPI's for a few years now, Harshlands and Armageddon were my favorite ones, so I'm experienced with the nature of them. I tend to prefer playing an antagonist, so hoping there's room for that.
Concept: A young man named Lucas, who wants to be a guard on board. Was always a trouble maker back home and his parents forced him to join the mission or be disinherited. Gonna make his sdesc "The stocky, black-haired young man" I think.
Is it possible he can have a memento from his home, like a Canada flag he wears round his shoulders?
Example 2:
Hi! Have played RPI's for over a decade, so I'm very experienced. Mainlined Sindome for most of it!
Do you think there's room for a medical role in the colony?
Can I start off as a nurse? My concept is someone who was woken up a few days earlier than others, to start treatment of anyone suffering from sickness after the cryo sleep. I'd ideally like a medical uniform if thats possible? Im aware the medical skillset isn't there yet but I think I could base this on RP only.
Example 3:
Hi, I haven't played an RPI before, but I'm looking forward to giving it a shot. I hope to play a man who's a real magpie and just steals anything that's not nailed down. Not for financial gain, he's just a hoarder. Would that be okay? Im hoping to flesh him out from his experiences in the world.
He'll be in his thirties, named Kelvin and pretty antisocial.
About Untold Dawn
Untold Dawn aims to break from the mold of old MUD games and adapt the genre to next-gen technologies.
At its core, Untold Dawn is programmed using the Rust Programming Language.
Rust is blazingly fast and memory-efficient: with no runtime or garbage collector, it can power performance-critical services, run on embedded devices, and easily integrate with other languages.
Hundreds of companies around the world are using Rust in production today for fast, low-resource, cross-platform solutions. Software you know and love, like Firefox, Dropbox, and Cloudflare, uses Rust. From startups to large corporations, from embedded devices to scalable web services, Rust is a great fit.
Untold Dawn is also using the Bevy Engine for its game world.
Bevy is a refreshingly simple data-driven game engine built in Rust, free and open source.
All engine and game logic uses Bevy ECS, a custom Entity Component System.
- Fast: Massively Parallel and Cache-Friendly. The fastest ECS according to some benchmarks
- Simple: Components are Rust structs, Systems are Rust functions
- Capable: Queries, Global Resources, Local Resources, Change Detection, Lock-Free Parallel Scheduler
Bevy is maintained by the Bevy Foundation, which has been founded to support the Bevy engine which is a critical system for Untold Dawn. Every update they bring (especially to their ECS) affects our game in a positive way.
If you wish to donate to the Bevy Foundation, you can do so here.
Behind The Game
Untold Dawn might aim to break from the mold, but it also draws notable inspiration from several games in the genre and out of it that would be unfair to not mention or attribute credit to.
LabMUD & FutureMUD
LabMUD is a demonstration MUD running on the FutureMUD engine. Its main purpose is to showcase the features of the FutureMUD engine, as well as serve as a platform for bug-fixing, streamlining and balancing new code additions before the engine’s full release. In addition to serving as a demonstration of FutureMUD’s capabilities, it is also a RPI MUD (“roleplay intensive multi-user domain”) in and of itself. It has a unique setting, and a meta-plot narrative. Roleplay is enforced, and character death is permanent.
Rune played LabMUD many years ago and was fascinated by its engine, which he has studied many times and praised. Its focus on realism is something that aligns with Rune's vision of an RPI MUD game engine.
FutureMUD is my favorite RPI MUD genre. Some of its mechanics were ahead of its time and they did a lot of the things that we hope we have done here. I played and enjoy LabMUD, an early demo of the engine, and many things in our vision and pre-alpha are inspired by what LabMUD did.
- Rune
Japheth
Space Station 13
Space Station 13 is a community developed, multiplayer round-based role playing game, where players assume the role of a crewmember on a space station.
It has roleplay-intensive servers and has deep (often excessively deep) simulations going on.
Rune has played SS13 rounds in many RP servers and has drawn from its philosophy for Untold Dawn.
SS13 is an incredible game with deep simulation and emergent gameplay. In Untold Dawn, we want the engine to provide emergent gamplay moments and have learned a lot from Space Station 13. Our medical system vision is heavily inspired by SS13, and many of the mechanics that we have made and have planned in the future for Untold Dawn are inspired by SS13.
- Rune
Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead
Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead is a turn-based survival game set in a post-apocalyptic world. Struggle to survive in a harsh, persistent, procedurally generated world. Scavenge the remnants of a dead civilization for food, equipment, or, if you are lucky, a vehicle with a full tank of gas to get you the hell out of Dodge. Fight to defeat or escape from a wide variety of powerful monstrosities, from zombies to giant insects to killer robots and things far stranger and deadlier, and against the others like yourself, that want what you have…
Rune has enjoyed CDDA many times and draws inspiration from its survival mechanisms.
Dwarf Fortress
Dwarf Fortress is a construction and management simulation and roguelike indie video game created by Bay 12 Games. Available as freeware and in development since 2002, its first alpha version was released in 2006 and received attention for being a two-member project surviving solely on donations.
Rune has played Dwarf Fortress for many years and deeply appreciates several of its mechanics, praising them for their emergent gameplay, as well as its simulationist nature.
Armageddon
Armageddon MUD is an online fantasy game in which players jointly inhabit a harsh, post-apocalyptic desert world. The game requires roleplay; while conflict abounds, the game is not about killing things. Rather, it is about living out a character's sometimes short and always difficult life in the harsh world, Zalanthas. It is a world where sorcerer-kings and their ruthless servants, the Templarate, govern the two main cities, Allanak and Tuluk. Any magick not granted by the Kings is feared and hated, and where the punishment of such a curse might be death. In this harsh realm, life is a constant struggle, and death may occur over a drink of precious water.
Rune and Oracle both played and play this game for many years, appreciating its storytelling but also learning from its history.
Harshlands
Harshlands is a medieval role-playing enforced sandbox environment. Harshlands is a skill-based MUD set on Hârn isle within the realm of Kelestia.
Rune and Oracle have both played Harshlands.
I appreciate Harshlands for how it offers its players the freedom to build a home, decorate it, build a life and really immerse themselves in the gameplay. While we do not share the same genre nor vision, my time playing there has no doubt shaped my vision of what a MUD can be. What we tried to do with the renting system is heavily inspired with the freedom they provide to players with their own housing system.
- Rune
Sindome
Sindome is an online text-based Cyberpunk Role Playing game (RPG) inspired by Neuromancer, Judge Dredd and more. You play online in real-time with other people.
Rune and Oracle both have played Sindome in the past and have studied its place in the RPI genre.
Rune used to code for Sindome in the past.
Sindome is a game that has many mistakes that can be learned from, but they also have many interesting mechanics that are quite interesting. While our game is quite distant both in mechanics and vision to Sindome, it is a game we have played and no doubt influenced some of our decisions here.
- Rune
We want to thank all of our testers, patreons and the members of our Discord for the support given to us in the course of this year.
Regardless of how the pre-alpha launch goes, we will continue to work zealously to bring you all the game you deserve.