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# The House of Icarus
**The House of Icarus** is a simple open source MUD inspired by classic early 2000s tick-based skilling MMOs. 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. All attributes are skills that automatically 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 *don't* sell craftable items.
- A detailed casino for you to waste all the credits you grind up for.
## Skills
| Skill | Description |
| ------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Attack | 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. |
| Technology | Accuracy and effectiveness using scrap for utility and combat. Almost magical! |
| Science | Temporary togglable buffs that slowly drain this resource. 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 | A skilling skill with little real purpose. Grind it to show off your pyromania? |
| 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 Technology. |
| 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. |
| Alchemy | 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 make and Go then
```
git clone https://codeberg.org/historia/thehouseoficarus
cd thehouseoficarus
make
./thoi
```
Then just telnet to the port configured in `config.yaml`.
# Server Options (config.yaml)
The `thoi` binary checks for a file named config.yaml in the local directory, or else it creates one.
```
game:
tick_length: 600
```
The telnet/http/https options are pretty self-explanatory. THOI does not handle HTTPS certs for you. Use something like [certbot](https://certbot.eff.org/) on your server. The HTTP(S) server is just for a simple web client.
```
telnet:
enabled: true
port: 4000
http:
enabled: false
port: 8080
https:
enabled: false
port: 8443
cert_file: "/path/to/cert.pem"
key_file: "/path/to/key.pem"
```
# 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.
## Major Factions
**Neoluddites**
Anti-tech mostly-extremists who brought about the Second Collapse by destroying electronic networks and thinking machines. Once pawns of Earth's ruling class, they've evolved into a self-sufficient traditionalist culture with inconsistent views about what technology should be permitted to exist.
**Utopians**
Those who embraced AI control of society and tried to stop the Neoluddites through both policy and violence. Their views range from religious exaltation of thinking machines to mere agreement that life was easier when the AI handled the governance and marginalia.
**Craggers**
Colonists who don't take a side in the conflict one way or the other. Everyone from criminals escaping their past to once well-paid Earth engineers overseeing terraforming operations.
# FAQ
**Can I improve how fast the game responds?**
THOI is designed to run with 600ms game ticks. If you want the game to "respond instantly" to commands, that's not possible and would break numerous things. Ticks are a game mechanic, not a limitation. You'll see that commands like `say`, `score`, or `style` take place immediately without game ticks. Ticks enables advanced techniques like tech flicking (enabling/disabling tech on the same tick to gain a buff without draining battery) and power skilling (restarting an action on certain ticks to avoid delays).
**Why is movement so slow?**
Distance between nodes is an important mechanic (e.g. mining node to bank to furnace). It completely determines the pace of the game. The 4-tick delay in movement simulates the real distance walking between areas and prevents the map from needing more filler areas. It also gives mobs 4-ticks to hit you and prevent you from escaping. There are *numerous* ways to improve movement:
1. The `walk` command allows you to auto-walk to a certain room with one command like `walk 101` to walk to room #101. The number of rooms away you can walk increases with your Agility level.
2. The `aps` command allows you to auto-walk towards an APS node. You can use this even if the APS node is outside your normal walk range.
3. The Graceful Set reduces the delay by 0.25 ticks per piece, or 2 ticks if you have the full set.
4. The Cape of Agility at level 99 Agility lets you move one room per tick with no delay!
5. Higher technology levels allow you to fast-travel.
6. You can use `recall` once every 3000 ticks (30 minutes) to return to room #1.
7. Do stuff while walking! Train Fletching or Technology! Reprocess junk for credits! Talk to your fellow gamers!
THOI is a game of slow progression and many aspects including movement are designed to be "semi-AFK", taking a while but not demanding your full attention.
**Why can't I buy scrap/feathers/etc.?**
THOI is a game about self-sufficiency on a forsaken asteroid. Supply ships aren't arriving to restock shops. More importantly, shops don't stock items produced by skills. A helmet shop removes the value of smithing your own helmet upgrade. A scrap shop reduces the value of scavenging your own scrap. Skills are not necessary chores to get back to combat, they are the game itself. Quality of life will have to be balanced, but the expected grinds should be between UIM and Ironman level to use a Runescape analogy.
# AI Disclosure
Huge technical parts of this codebase were ~~completely vibe coded~~ ~~agentically engineered~~ written with LLM assistance.
LLMs will **not** generate any creative part of the game world (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.
|
