Play Space MUD — A Free Browser Game
I made a game. It’s free, it runs in your browser, and you can play it right now:
No download. No account creation on some third-party platform. You open the link, make a character name and password, and you’re in.
What It Is
Space MUD is a text-based multiplayer game. You type commands, read descriptions, and explore a derelict space station. Think of it like a collaborative fiction that you interact with by typing things like
look,north,attack drone, orrepair reactor.Building Space MUD: A Text Game About Robots on a Space Station
The premise is simple: you wake up on a broken space station. You don’t remember anything. You start exploring, picking up items, talking to other units, repairing systems. And at some point it clicks — you’re not a person. You’re a robot. The whole game uses mechanical language from the start. Your health is “integrity.” You don’t sleep, you go idle. When you die, it’s an “emergency reboot.” The station doesn’t call you a crew member. It calls you a unit.
Designing Games Is Harder Than Playing Them
I’ve played games my whole life and thought I understood them. Then I tried to make one — a simple card game, nothing digital, just index cards and rules scribbled on a napkin — and immediately learned how wrong I was.
Games feel obvious when you’re playing them. The rules fade into the background and you just play. But from the designer’s side, every tiny rule is a decision. Does the player draw one card or two? Can they play on someone else’s turn? What happens when the deck runs out? Each answer creates a different game, and most of those games are bad.