Evennia MUD/MU* Creation System

Evennia is an open-source Python-based framework, codebase and server for creating text-based multiplayer online games (a MUD/MU* etc) using modern technologies and tools.

Live demo

https://demo.evennia.com sports an almost vanilla install of a default Evennia server. It has the tutorial world and a few extra thing to experience and try out. Use it to get a taste for what's possible. You can also ask questions in our support channel directly from inside the demo!

Installation

Evennia is installed by cloning and installing its repo from github. The Getting Started instructions will help you get things set up. Once installed, creating your new game is quick:

  
    evennia --init mygame

    cd mygame

    evennia start

You can now browse your new game's website and play locally in your browser at http://localhost:4001. You can also connect to it with a traditional third-party MUD client on localhost, port 4000. Screenshot

An example of a default Evennia install (hover to enlarge). Top left: Running server just started. Top right: Default website served by Evennia. Bottom left: Game open in included HTML5 webclient. Bottom right: Game open in traditional telnet client (tintin++).

Overview

Evennia aims to take care of all the gritty networking, database-handling and other boring details that all MU*s games need. The idea is to allow you, the game developer, to concentrate solely on designing the game systems. We try to get out of your way as much as possible.

Evennia is game-agnostic. So we have no opinions on what style of play or genre of game you should make. We don't prescribe any skills, classes, races or other things that will be specific for your game anyway. Indeed, people have used Evennia for non-MU*s as well - it's very suitable for wild experimenting and fast prototyping!

Some game concepts and systems are more common than others though. For these we offer a growing library of optional code-snippets and bigger game systems you can build from, copy or be inspired by. These are mostly contributed by our very friendly developer community.

Finally, we have tried to make Evennia's code as readable and well-documented as possible, should you need to dive in. We have also spent a lot of time on our extensive documentation, all in order to to help you get productive in Evennia with less fuss.

Default Content

Whereas your Evennia game starts out with no game-specific content, it's not empty! Out of the box you get a 'talker'-style game: You can create rooms and items, pick up stuff, talk to people, walk around, do light roleplay with emotes ... all the base things you expect.

Here are some of the default resources and tools available out of the box:

Classes for persistent objects, exits, rooms and characters.
Separation between character and their accounts (multi-character play, if desired)
In-game channels and chats (including linking to external chat channels)
About 90 commands for administration, building, chatting, basic roleplay etc
Available commands and even their function can vary with circumstance and game state
Delays, tickers, timers (fully asynchronous, no threading so no risk of race conditions)
In-game menu-creation system
Prototype system, for making variations of objects (like monsters or items) without new classes
Lock and access mini-language for very flexible access control
Tutorial-world with examples
Easy storage of custom data on all game objects
Search, creation, and a large number of coding utilities
A contrib/ folder with optional full systems and shorter snippets

Coding in Evennia is primarily done by normal Python modules, making the codebase extremely flexible - you don't tweak the library itself, you just override the defaults and tell Evennia where to find your changes.

You use Python classes to represent your objects, scripts and players. The database layer is mostly abstracted away but if you want you can also leverage the full power of Django's mature ORM.

Some server features

HTML5 webclient (websocket with ajax/comet fallback)
Telnet, Telnet+SSL, SSH
Website via own webserver (HTTP, HTTPS with external proxy)
Game channels links to IRC, Grapevine
RSS feed, Twitter feed (with snippet from docs)
Different databases supported via Django: Sqlite3, PostgreSQL, MySQL ...
MUD-specific telnet protocols supported:

GMCP and MSDP out-of-band protocols
MXP (inline links only)
ANSI and XTerm256 color support
MSSP status for websites tracking MUDs
NAWS, TTYPE, MCCP etc ...

Based on Django and Twisted, both well-supported and hardened Python projects
Asynchronous, event-driven architecture without risk of race-conditions
Reload server without disconnecting players
Extendable protocols for adding custom integrations

More Information

If this piqued your interest, there is a lengthier introduction to Evennia to read.

To learn how to get your hands on the code base, the Getting Started page is the way to go. Otherwise you could browse the Documentation or why not come join the Evennia Community. Welcome!