Untold Dawn is Opening for Pre-Alpha!
Untold Dawn, an RPI MUD game developed in Rust, is opening its doors for pre-alpha play.
After a full year of hard work and dedication, we are thrilled to open the doors of our server for pre-alpha play. 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. We try to bring modern game design concepts to a decades-old genre and 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; we allow players to create their own groups and clans dynamically, rent nearly anything that is available in game as long as they have the money; and have a unique currency system that gives players flexibility and freedom to share accounts, create accounts for groups, and much more. Some of our most notable features so far are:
- Unique Currency System: Players can create various credit wallets and share them.
- Flexible Group System: Allows anyone to create 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.
- Medical System: We are building an organ-based medical system, where doctors have to diagnose complex systems to figure out what is happening to another character, and offer the right treatment.
- GMCP Support: We are one of the only few RPI MUDs that have GMCP support, which should make client customization a breeze.
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.
Join The Colony
You have several options to start playing Untold Dawn.
If you already have a MUD client or a web client, you can connect to the following address:
Host: untold-dawn.com
Port: 4000
Keep in mind Untold Dawn uses Truecolor and ANSI color codes; make sure your client either filters these out or supports them.
When you join, you will be able to go through chargen, but only after our Opening Day time will we teleport characters in game.
MUD Clients
MUD clients offer you the best experience. It is a software you download that lets you access text-based MUD games and play them in an interface optimized for it. This is the recommended way to play Untold Dawn.
Mudlet
Vadim Peretokin
Mudlet is a platform for gaming and enhancing game-play primarily with MUDs. Mudlet provides a toolkit and supports a wide variety of protocols for players and creators to tailor an immersive game-playing experience. It is one of the best MUD clients out there.
Untold Dawn is planning to use Mudlet as its officially supported MUD client and will provide all the necessary protocols for it to be an optimal experience.
Tintin++
TinTin++ is a free MUD client for Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS X and Windows, recommended for players who want more optimization in their MUD client. TinTin++ features an advanced automapper, scripting language and VT100 interface. The Windows port named WinTin++ (using the PuTTY derived mintty terminal) is available for those who do not use Cygwin (A Linux/Unix emulator for Windows) and runs on Windows Xp, Windows Vista, Windows 7, 8, and 10. We only recommend this if you are comfortable with advanced configurations.
Next-Gen RPI
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.
Inspiration
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 was one of the earliest examples of a MUD engine that adapts some of modern concepts of game design into the old genre of RPI MUDs. Some of its mechanics were ahead of its time and they did a lot of the things that we hope we have done here.
- 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.
- 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.
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.
- 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 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 genre, mechanics and vision to Sindome, it is a game we have played and no doubt influenced some of our decisions here.
- Rune
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 this game for many years, appreciating its storytelling but also learning from its mistakes.
ArmageddonMUD was my home for many years. It provided some of the most riveting stories that I've played in roleplay. While they are in a different genre and set in a different vision, there's many lessons that we take from our time there.
- Rune