The Chosen One

by nander

Unfortunately, during this Ludum Dare, I had limited time, because I had to study for an Algebra test.

For this reason I decided to interpret ancient technology as ancient game technology.

I decided to make a game which would run entirely over a telnet connection, like the MUD games of yesteryear.

This game is a simple labyrinth-game with a bit of exploration and a monster.

It is tested on Windows with putty, and Linux (telnet), but other clients should work fine.

Controls:

In menus, type the character of the thing you want, and then a carriage return (ENTER) to confirm.

While moving, type either WASD OR NESW (option during startup), followed by an enter for each character. Sorry about that, limitations of telnet....

telnet 37.139.0.65 1337

Additional joke game on

telnet 37.139.0.65 8944

IMPORTANT: Windows users should use a full telnet-compatible terminal. An example is Putty, but others could also be fine. Web-telnet clients often do NOT work.

MORE IMPORTANT THINGS: Set Putty to TELNET, do NOT keep it in SSH mode.

Comments14

McMutton28 Aug 2016, 21:50

Tried putty first, didn't work for me, neither did a random online client.
According to almighty google Putty seems only to send \r when pressing enter. Could that be the issue?

Anyways... I'm suprised to see a telnet game, and even without playing I'm already thinking: THAT'S AWESOME. :)

ReboundGames28 Aug 2016, 21:54

Very cool idea to use telnet. Didn't play a whole lot because it takes so long to get anywhere, but it seems to work pretty well. I appreciate the little pickups that add to the story.

nanderauthor28 Aug 2016, 21:57

McMutton, I think you kept it in SSH mode, not in Telnet mode.
Only sending \r could be an issue, I'll look into it.

nanderauthor28 Aug 2016, 21:58

Only \r is not an issue to my code, since it replaces \r and \n by emptystring, and checks if the length of the string decreases. Ugly, but fast.

McMutton28 Aug 2016, 22:02

Nope... connection mode is telnet. The game pops up and after that the game doesn't react.
The joke game works a tiny bit better by replying with "<1> was not understood"

nanderauthor28 Aug 2016, 22:17

Sorry, there was a hidden, breaking bug that when you entered invalid input on the start screen, the game fully crashed.
I am terribly sorry about that.

nanderauthor28 Aug 2016, 22:25

Sorry if I just killed your session, I was moving the server from a bare SSH session to a session in a screen.

McMutton28 Aug 2016, 22:34

Well I was 75% through the maze at that point :D

But don't worry, I had the patience to restart the game. ^^
I like the twist at the end. The maze is crafted nicely (evil) as well.
At my first try i took all the wrong directions in the beginning first. :D

nanderauthor28 Aug 2016, 22:38

I'm incredibly sorry. I was adding a controls lookup thing during the game, and forgot to check for online players.

Xoko1429 Aug 2016, 07:44

When I try to connect with putty in telnet mode it says: Connection refused

nanderauthor29 Aug 2016, 10:35

Remember, you have to use the correct port. The default telnet port has no game on it, because too many chinese hackers are trying to log in to it.

yoel123429 Aug 2016, 11:26

ascii style i like it, forgot how much fun it is to make these kind of games,like nethack.

would be nice if the controls were more fluent instead of bashing enter all the time.

Geckoo13374 Sep 2016, 21:27

Interesting idea - it reminds me some old hack sessions. Unusual gameplay. Well done ++

g123457 Sep 2016, 09:17

I think I just crashed the joke game on 8944. The normal one is still working though.

Oh, and it's a nice looking labyrinth. The story was actually pretty good.

I've also managed to escape without talking to M. But the game still thinks we escaped together, somehow.