Oxide MUD is a modern, high-performance DIKU-style MUD engine written in Rust. Featuring a concurrent asynchronous network loop, dynamic live scripting, visual terminal-based building tools, and native AI capabilities.
MUD servers are expected to run uninterrupted for months or years. Rust’s strict compile-time checks completely eliminate common crash-inducing bugs, such as segmentation faults, null pointer references, and multi-threaded data races. Your persistent world stays online 24/7/365, giving players and builders a rock-solid, reliable experience.
By compiling directly to optimized machine code with zero-cost abstractions, Oxide MUD utilizes hardware to its absolute limit. Memory leaks are impossible by design, and RAM consumption remains tiny. You can easily host a massive multiplayer world with hundreds of active rooms, NPCs, and players on a basic $5/month VPS without experiencing any network or system lag.
Built using a lockless Entity-Component-System (ECS) data model driven by a multi-threaded asynchronous network loop. Game data (such as character sheets, active spells, and items) is separated from gameplay logic (such as combat rounds or AI loops). This makes adding custom components or systems incredibly easy and highly modular, scaling effortlessly to handle thousands of concurrent game updates.
Enforces a strict driver/mudlib separation. The core engine handles network and database persistence, while quest logic, custom spells, combat behavior, and items are scripted in a safe, sandboxed scripting language. Content designers can edit, debug, and hot-reload scripts directly on a live server instantly—changes go live in real-time with no downtime or recompilation needed.
An optional, terminal-based visual builder utility that allows developers and designers to build and edit text worlds. It displays an interactive map grid, validates references, and parses content files visually. No need to manually write or format raw TOML data; Spade handles the heavy lifting, with planned support for online/remote sync to edit live servers.
Features built-in support for the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard that allows LLM assistants (like Claude) to securely connect to your MUD project. AI agents can read and write game templates directly—automatically generating connected rooms, writing custom script logic, or validating references, speeding up game content creation 10x.