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Simple and flexible mud framework for people with only basic knowledge of python

Project description

# Novamud

A very simple and flexible text-based online multiplayer framework.
Dungeons can be built with pure python in very simple classes. The required
python knowledge to work with this is:

- Native python data types (integers, strings, numbers)
- Basic data structures such as lists, dictionaries
- Defining and calling functions
- Running a script
- The basics of OOP
- Creating classes
- Overriding functions and how to call `super()`

[Check out the API for a functionality reference.](https://gitlab.com/hershaw/novamud/blob/master/API.md)

## Tutorials

### Overview

#### API overview

The novamud api provides a way to build `Room` based `Dungeon`s. It cannot be
stressed enough that everything that goes on here is centered around Rooms.
`Room`s decide everything, hold everything, where functionality is defined,
and can be connected to other `Room`s.

Although the `Room`s contain the heart of the functionality, the `Dungeon` is
the master coordinator of it all. The `Dungeon` is the where you initially
create the rooms and connect them.

You can find each of the tutorial dungeons in the `tutorials/` section
of the repo.

#### Playing the game

The `Dungeon`s themselves just runs a websocket server. After you have written
the code for a new `Dungeon` and have it running on your local machine,
you can go to [the novamud client](http://novamud-client.herokuapp.com/index.html)
and enter `ws://localhost:8080` and hit the connect button to start playing
the game. By default it listens on all IP addresses so anyone on your
local network should be able to connect to it if they know your internal IP
address.

#### Chat functionality

The novamud framework comes with builtin chat functionality. You can either
chat to everyone that is in the same room that you are in OR you can chat
with everyone that is in the other rooms.

- `say ...` is how you chat to everyone in the same room as you. Examples:
- `say hello everyone!` And everyone will see `hello everyone!` show up
on their screen next to your name.
- `say hey guys, how are you today? for lunch I had a bitoque and it was magical`
and everyone will see `hey guys, how are you today? for lunch I had a bitoque and it was magical`
show up on their screen next to your name.
- `say_dungeon ...` - works the same as `say` but everyone in the Dungeon will
see your message rather than just everyone in your room. Be careful using
this one because you don't want to be spamming the entire dungeon...

### Baby's First Dungeon


```py
# in tutorials/babys_first_dungeon.py
from novamud import Dungeon, Room


class BabyRoom(Room):
pass


class BabyDungeon(Dungeon):
def init_dungeon(self):
hr = BabyRoom(self)
self.start_room = hr


if __name__ == '__main__':
BabyDungeon().start_dungeon()

```

You can run this dungeon by executing `python examples/babys_first_dungeon.py`.

Now with this Dungeon you can get all of the default basic functionality of the
novamud framework up and running. So go ahead and run this file and you can get
the following experience:

```
Please enter a name less than 8 chars long
```
At this point I enter my name `sam` and hit the enter key

```
Welcome to Default Dungeon, sam
Default description for a default dungeon... did you forget to add a description?

Hope your are ready to start your adventure! Hit the enter key to enter the first room and then and then call "describe_room" and "show_commands" to get started!
```

Now that I have read about the two most important commands I can hit <enter>
to go onto the very first room!

```
Welcome to the Default Room room
```

Okay cool, I know the name of the room that I am in but not much else, so I
will use the `describe_room` command
```
This is a default room description. Be sure to come up with something better for this or your players will be bored AF.
Contains 1 players and 0 items
This room has no active doors to other rooms
```

Okay, looks like a coder forgot to do some work. Whatever though, let's see
what I can do by using the `show_commands` command
```
Room commands
say - Say something to everyone in the room you are currently in
say_dungeon - Say something to the entire Dungeon (all people in all rooms)
pick_up - Pick up a thing by its ID
drop - Drop the item you are currently carrying
describe_room - Describe all objects, things
list_things - List all things that may be picked up in the room
describe_thing - List all things that are in the room
go_to - Select a room to leave to
show_commands - Show all commands that are available to the room
```

All together it looks like this:

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/9HG4fGB.png"/>

### ToddlerDungeon

So all we did with BabyDungeon was write the absolute minimum code
needed to make something run. We didn't really learn anything at all about
what you can do with the framework so let's dip our toes into something
that has a few more interesting things in it with a ToddlerDungeon:

```py
from novamud import Dungeon, Room


class ToddlerRoom(Room):

def register_commands(self):
return ['hello_toddler']

def hello_toddler(self, player):
player.tell('toddler: hewo der, {}!'.format(player.name))

def hello_toddler_describe(self):
return 'Say hello to the toddler that is in the room.'


class ToddlerDungeon(Dungeon):
def init_dungeon(self):
tr = ToddlerRoom(self)
self.start_room = tr

if __name__ == '__main__':
ToddlerDungeon().start_dungeon()

```

#### What's new here?

So the `ToddlerDungeon` looks pretty much the same as the `BabyDungeon`, no
big thing there. However, there's now some stuff going on inside the
`ToddlerRoom` that we didn't see before. Let's take a closer look at that.

#### ToddlerRoom

There are now 3 new functions defined on the `ToddlerRoom` that we haven't
seen before.

- `register_commands` - Remember when we said that everything is `Room` based
including functionality? The `register_commands` function is how you tell
the `ToddlerRoom` which of the commands should be available. The reason that
we need to do this is that we may have other helper functions that we define
on the `ToddlerRoom` that we don't want to give to the players as commands.
- `hello_toddler` - Remember how we registered commands? Well here is where
we define exactly what it does. All commands get one required argument which
is the player that executed the command. On the player, there is a function
called `tell` which takes a string as an argument and sends it to them. Notice
that the player has an attribute called `name` on it which contains the
name that the person gave us when they entered the dungeon.
- `hello_toddler_describe` - Any time that we register a new command, we must
write another function that has the same name with an `_describe` that
returns a string. It is this function that is called with someone calls
the `show_commands` command.

So if we run the `ToddlerDungeon` and use the basic functionality, we get
the following:

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/DH4xT7r.png"/>


### TeenageDungeon

Now that we have learned how to add new commands and are starting to grow up,
let's take a look at a few more concepts, namely

- Adding descriptions and names to everything
- Adding a `Thing`

```py
from novamud import Dungeon, Room, Thing


class ColdplayPoster(Thing):
name = 'ColdplayPoster'
description = "Much angst, such coldplay"


class TeenagerRoom(Room):
name = 'TeenagerRoom'
description = ("A room full of angst. You find a few coldplay posters on"
"the wall and it smells slightly of disdain for authority.")

def init_room(self):
cp1 = ColdplayPoster()
cp2 = ColdplayPoster()
self.add_thing(cp1)
self.add_thing(cp2)

def register_commands(self):
return ['hello_teenager']

def hello_teenager(self, player):
player.tell(
'teenager: ugh. why are you bothering me, {}?'.format(player.name)
)

def hello_teenager_describe(self):
return 'Say hello to the teenager that is in the room.'


class TeenagerDungeon(Dungeon):
name = 'TeenagerDungeon'
description = "A dungeon that is as dark as the average teenage soul."

def init_dungeon(self):
tr = TeenagerRoom(self)
self.start_room = tr


if __name__ == '__main__':
TeenagerDungeon().start_dungeon()

```

#### Descriptions and names

First thing to notice is that the `TeenagerDungeon` and the `TeenagerRoom`
have a few new variables defined on them which are the `name` and the
`description`. These are both used to help the user understand where they are
as well as give you (the game designer) a bit of creative freedom in setting
the tone and feeling of your game.

Run this dungeon and execute the following commands to see what the output
looks like:

```
describe_room
```

Notice the differences and where the descriptions show up.

#### Things

Notice the new class `ColdplayPoster` that inherits from `Thing`. It doesn't
have anything except for a name and description. True this is quite spartan
but this will actually get you quite far.

Inside of the newly introduced `init_room` function, we are creating two
different `ColdplayPoster`s. This is something that is quite different
about things as compared to `Dungeon`s and `Room`s. Each instiantated
`Thing` will have its own `id` which is how you can keep track of which
one is which.

When you call the `list_things` command, you will now notice that there
are two coldplay posters, each with it's own `id`. This is how you can
tell which one you want to pick up.

#### Interacting with things

You can pick up and drop things! Try the following commands to get a sense
for how to interact with the new `ColdplayPoster` things that you have
created:

```
list_things
pick_up ColdplayPoster_1
list_things
pick_up ColdplayPoster_2
list_things
drop
list_things
```

Ask yourself: how many things can you carry at a time? when you pick one up
is it still available in the room? After you drop it again, does it
become available in the room?

### YoungAdultDungeon

Now that we have a sense for all of the important elements of the novadungeon
system, let's make them interact with each other in a way that actually
produces some incentives and a very simple puzzle:

```py
from novamud import Dungeon, Room, Thing


class CarKeys(Thing):
name = 'CarKeys'
description = "You need to have the car keys before you can leave"


class ApartmentRoom(Room):
name = 'ApartmentRoom'
description = ("Spartan but functional. Not particularly clean but that "
"can be taken care of before your parents come by for "
"your Sunday dinner that you normally hold at your house.")

def init_room(self):
self.add_thing(CarKeys())

def go_to(self, player, other_room_name):
if not player.carrying or player.carrying.name != 'CarKeys':
player.tell("You ain't going anywhere without those CarKeys!")
else:
super().go_to(player, other_room_name)


class TascaRoom(Room):
name = 'TascaRoom'
description = ("Your friendly local Tasca. The wine is cheap and passable "
"but certainly nothing special. The bitoque is fantasic.")

def register_commands(self):
return [
'eat_bitoque',
'drink_wine',
]

def add_player(self, player):
player.drink_level = 0
super().add_player(player)

def eat_bitoque(self, player):
if player.drink_level > 0:
player.drink_level -= 1
player.tell(
"Much better! Your drink level is now down to {}".format(
player.drink_level)
)
else:
player.tell("mmmmmmmm, bitoque!")

def eat_bitoque_describe(self):
return "Have a bitoque in case you are getting a bit too tipsy."

def drink_wine(self, player):
player.drink_level += 1
if player.drink_level == 1:
player.tell('The price makes it taste okay!')
elif 1 <= player.drink_level < 2:
player.tell(
"Your drink level is {}, you're still in the good zone".format(
player.drink_level
)
)
elif player.drink_level >= 3:
player.tell(
"It might be good to have some food in order to bring that"
"drink level down a bit... you're currently at drink "
"level {}".format(player.drink_level)
)

def drink_wine_describe(self):
return ("Have some wine! If you have a bit too much, you can always "
"eat some food to bring yourself down")


class YoungAdultDungeon(Dungeon):

name = 'YoungAdultDungeon'
description = ("You are now a young adult. You have a crappy apartment"
"and a car with which you can go to meet up with your "
"friends at a TascaRoom.")

def init_dungeon(self):
ar = ApartmentRoom(self)
tr = TascaRoom(self)
ar.connect_room(tr, two_way=True)
self.start_room = ar


if __name__ == '__main__':
YoungAdultDungeon().start_dungeon()
```

Woah, now there's a much bigger pile of code! What the hell is going on here!
Don't worry your young adult head because although there's more code here
there isn't anything very complicated going on. There's just quite a few
examples of how to make the objects in the system interact with each other.

#### Multiple rooms

Notice we now have several `Room`s! This makes sense as `Dungeon`s with only
a single room can get very boring very quickly. Notice that in the
`init_dungeon` function we instantiate both rooms and set one of them as
the `start_room`.

#### connect_room

The single most important new concept in this `Dungeon` is the demonstration
of how we can connect rooms to each other. After instiantiating two rooms,
we can connect them with the `Room.connect_room` function. Notice the second
keyword argument `two_way=True` which indicates that there should be a door
from the `ApartmentRoom` into the `TascaRoom` AND a door from the `TascaRoom`
to the `ApartmentRoom`. `two_way` defaults to `True` and although we haven't
demonstrated what it looks like to make a one-way door it is something
that you can use to create different and interesting puzzles later on.

#### leaving the ApartmentRoom

Here we have our first meaningful interaction with a `Thing` as well as an
augmenting of `Room` functionality by overloading the `go_to` method. Let's
take a closer look at it:

```py
def go_to(self, player, other_room_name):
if not player.carrying or player.carrying.name != 'CarKeys':
player.tell("You ain't going anywhere without those CarKeys!")
else:
super().go_to(player, other_room_name)
```

`go_to` is a command just like the other commands that we've learned about
earlier but since it's already defined on the base `Room` class, we need to
take the same two parameters that it takes. Remember that the `player` is
always the first argument passed to any command so we can take advantage of
this to see if they are carrying their `CarKeys` by checking the `carrying`
attribute to make sure that they aren't leaving the apartment without their
`CarKeys`.

This is a very important thing to know because any command that is available
on rooms (except for the `say` and `say_dungeon` commands) can be overridden
in this same fashion to impose limits on them or augment their functionality.

When playing the game, you'll notice that you can't leave the room unless
you have your keys. Pretty cool that we get this functionality with a
4 line function, right?

#### In the TascaRoom

Once you manage to get out of the `ApartmentRoom` and into the `TascaRoom`
you now have the chance to hang out for a while and enjoy yourself. Go ahead
and drink some wine and eat some bitoque and see what happens when you do.
Spoiler alert, if you drink you'll get a bit tipsy and if you eat some bitoque
it will bring your buzz-level back down.

This is a significant development because we are now keeping custom state
on the Player itself and we are doing this by overloading some base `Room`
functionality as well as with our own commands. This combination is very
powerful so let's take a closer look:

First let's look a the overriding of the `add_player` function:

```py
def add_player(self, player):
player.drink_level = 0
super().add_player(player)
```

We can see that we are defining a new attribute on the player which is called
`drink_level`. We can now be confident that any player that enters the
`TascaRoom` will have a `drink_level` of 0. Remember to make the call to
`super()` or you'll break the whole framework!

Now let's have a look a the `drink_wine` command:

```py
def drink_wine(self, player):
player.drink_level += 1
if player.drink_level == 1:
player.tell('The price makes it taste okay!')
elif 1 <= player.drink_level < 2:
player.tell(
"Your drink level is {}, you're still in the good zone".format(
player.drink_level
)
)
elif player.drink_level >= 3:
player.tell(
"It might be good to have some food in order to bring that"
"drink level down a bit... you're currently at drink "
"level {}".format(player.drink_level)
)
```

Remember how all players enter the `TascaRoom` with a `drink_level` of 0? Well
now we can bump that up! Plus we can add a bit of fun to the game by sending
the player different messages depending on how much wine they have had to
drink. Notice that a player can have an arbitrarily high `drink_level`... not
the mot realistic thing but we can easily fix that with a few lines of code
if we wanted to.

Finally, let's see how we can get that `drink_level` down a bit by eating some
bitoque:

```py
def eat_bitoque(self, player):
if player.drink_level > 0:
player.drink_level -= 1
player.tell(
"Much better! Your drink level is now down to {}".format(
player.drink_level)
)
else:
player.tell("mmmmmmmm, bitoque!")
```

As you can see we can easily implement a rule by which we check to see if
the `drink_level` is > 0 and then bring it down if so. If they don't have
any drink in them at all then they will just enjoy their bitoque!


### TavernDungeon

So far everything is just single-player which makes you wonder why the
framework as 'mud' in the name! MUD stands for Multi User Dungeon after all.

To see a dungeon that actually requires at least 5 people to play, check
out the `TavernDungeon` in `example_dungeon.py`. It is made using all of the
concepts that have already been introduced in the above tutorials and nothing
radically different.

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