# The House of Icarus

**The House of Icarus** is a simple open source MUD inspired by classic early 2000s skilling MMOs like Runescape. It is a low-tech, neo-dark age, sci-fi game where edged weapons and bows are more common than computers and guns.

There is not much here yet.

# Gameplay

- Type and wait skilling.
- Attack and wait combat.
- Semi-AFK and active gameplay styles.
- 600ms game ticks.
- 28 slot inventory.
- Classless. Skills level 1-99 as you use them.
- Solo friendly just like you remember from 2001. Grind and chat with friends.
- Ironman-style, slow, grind up your own gear progression. Vendors generally don't sell craftable items.
- Non-violent ways to use combat skills with "dangerous work".
- Discoverable safespots for chill training ranged and science.
- A detailed casino for you to waste all the credits you grind up for.

## Skills

| Skill        | Description                                                                       |
| ------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Accuracy     | How accurate you are with melee weapons.                                          |
| Strength     | How hard you hit with melee weapons.                                              |
| Defense      | With higher defense you are less likely to get hit.                               |
| Hit Points   | Your HP is your maximum amount of health.                                         |
| Ranged       | Accuracy and effectiveness with using bows, guns, and thrown weapons.             |
| Science      | Accuracy and effectiveness using scrap for utility and combat. Almost magical!    |
| Technology   | Temporary togglable buffs that slowly drain your battery. Recharges at terminals. |
| Fishing      | Relax, AFK, and catch some fish for easy food.                                    |
| Mining       | Relax, AFK, and mine some ore. Or do sweaty 3-tick mining to mine a lot of ore.   |
| Woodcutting  | The best skill. Chop trees to get wood.                                           |
| Firemaking   | Burn logs to watch this number increase.                                          |
| Assassin     | Take on jobs to slay large numbers of creatures and rivals for big rewards.       |
| Hacking      | Follow rumors using illegal computer skills for personal gain.                    |
| Thieving     | Steal limitless credits and farming seeds from the rich NPCs of Gaia 04.          |
| Scavenging   | Pilfer junkyard scrap, then turn it into components for Science.                  |
| Farming      | Grow your own food and reagents. You terraformed Gaia 04 after all!               |
| Cooking      | Cook food for HP and other minor buffs with your fish and crops.                  |
| Smithing     | Turn ore into bars. Turn bars into useful equipment and ammo! Modify weapons!     |
| Crafting     | Create jewelry, clothes, glass, pottery, and fine silver items.                   |
| Fletching    | Create cheap low-tech bows, crossbows, darts, arrows, and bolts.                  |
| Pharmacy     | Clean herbs and brew potions for temporary buffs.                                 |
| Construction | Build a player-owned house for fast travel or to show off rare items.             |
| Agility      | Get more stamina and shorter wait times when AFK travelling with APS.             |

# Building

Install Go then

```
git clone https://codeberg.org/historia/thehouseoficarus
cd thehouseoficarus
go build -o thoi ./cmd/thoi
./thoi
```

Telnet to the port configured in `config.yaml` or bring up the web client.

# Server Options (config.yaml)

The `thoi` binary checks for a file named config.yaml in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/thoi or the local directory. It creates one if it's not found.

The game is designed around 600ms ticks, but you can change the `tick_length` here. You can also set up telnet, SSL telnet, HTTP, and HTTPS on different ports here. For the secure options can provide a private key and certificate. Use something like [certbot](https://certbot.eff.org/). If you enable HTTPS/Telnet TLS without providing certs, a self-signed cert will be generated and used for you.


# Setting

THOI is a low-tech sci-fi MUD. Computer systems are severely regulated following an attempted hostile takeover of Earth by a benevolent dictator AI. Corrupt politicians were jailed. Harmful industries shuttered. Wealth and power were redistributed as the AI began to build Utopia.

The panicked ruling classes pooled their resources into an astroturfed revolution of Neoluddites who embrace techno-terrorism in the name of supposed freedom. It worked. Radio towers and data centers burn in a global wave of misplaced violence. The infrastructure of the internet is destroyed. Wireless networks are banned. A new, intentional Dark Age descends called the Second Collapse.  Demagogues vow to never again let intelligent machines rule mankind.

Pockets of radicalized settlers on the terraformed asteroid Gaia 04 took the tenets of the Second Collapse to their own home, destroying critical communications, astroculture, and manufacturing systems in the name of freedom from AI control. The unrest not only shatters communication to Earth, but stops the few supply and trade ships that ever trucked resources to the outer belt.

Wounded, Gaia 04 struggles on. Everyone from astrobotanists to business executives must remake their lives as farmers, fishers, and miners as they survive in the primitive ashes of the fallen colony.

# AI Disclosure

Huge technical parts of the **engine** were ~~completely vibe coded~~ ~~agentically engineered~~ written with LLM assistance.

**LLMs will not generate any creative content** (e.g. story, characters, rooms, quests). LLMs do generate *example* content for dev testing, so you might see that somewhere, but not in the final game.

# License

0BSD. Do whatever you want. Have fun.