Archives & Historical Writings

Links to various writings from the ’80s, ’90s, and early 2000s, as well as more recent resources that have since been archived.

Books

50 Years of Text Games by Aaron A. Reed - Web series turned book covering one text game per year from 1971-2020. Not MUD-specific, but covers them as part of the broader history
An Introduction to MUD (1985) by Duncan Howard - PDF hosted on Museum of Computer Adventure Game History
Designing Virtual Worlds by Richard Bartle - The definitive academic text on virtual world design; full book, Creative Commons-licensed since 2021 (also a free PDF on his site)
Interactive Internet: The Insider’s Guide to MUDs, MOOs, and IRC by William J. Shefski (1995) - Guide covering MUDs, MOOs, and IRC; scanned copy on Anna’s Archive
Internet Virtual Worlds Quick Tour: MUDs, MOOs & MUSHes by Sean Carton (1995) - Introductory guide covering MUDs, MOOs, and MUSHes; scanned copy on Anna’s Archive
MUD Game Programming (2003) by Ron Penton - chm file available on Anna’s Archive
Playing MUDs on the Internet by Rawn Shah and Jim Romine (1995) - Guide to playing MUDs on the internet; scanned copy on Anna’s Archive
Secrets of the MUD Wizards by Andrew Busey & Joseph Poirier (1995) - Early mass-market Sams.net guide to playing and programming MUDs, MOOs, and MUCKs; scanned copy on Anna’s Archive

A Rape in Cyberspace by Julian Dibbell (1993) - Landmark essay on a virtual assault in LambdaMOO and how the community responded; a foundational text on online social dynamics
Early MUD History by Richard Bartle - First-hand account of MUD’s origins at the University of Essex
Electropolis: Communication and Community on Internet Relay Chat by Elizabeth Reid (1991) - Foundational thesis on community in text-based online spaces; an early, widely-cited work in virtual-community studies; Wayback Machine copy
Mudding: Social Phenomena in Text-Based Virtual Realities by Pavel Curtis (1992) - Seminal Xerox PARC paper on the social dynamics of MUDs and MOOs; Wayback Machine copy

Grim Wheel’s Imaginary Realities Archive - Additional resources and context about Imaginary Realities e-magazine
Imaginary Realities Archive - Tharsis Gate [HTTP only] - Thought leadership about MUDs, published between 1998-2001
Titans of Text - Podcast interviewing creators and legends from the text-based game community, including Richard Bartle; no longer producing new episodes

Bartle’s MUD Writings Archive - Collection of academic and popular articles
Downloadable ftp.game.org Archive - Collection of MUD files and software submitted by internet users in the late 1980s
Erwin Andreasen’s site - MERC/ROM code snippets, the MERC Programming FAQ, the Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology, and the 2000 “16K MUD competition” results
MUD Institute - Academically inclined repository of preserved codebases and curated articles
MUD-Dev mailing list archive - Threaded archive (1996-2010) of developer discussions on design, programming, and roleplay mechanics
The MUDdex - Lauren P. Burka’s archive of early MUD history, including the MUDline timeline and a TinyMUD history essay [HTTP only]
MUDs @ Lysator - Small 1990s MUD hub (last revised 2006): the classic rec.games.mud FAQ, LPC coding docs, quest-design guides, and the 1994 World MUD Conference archive
Orcs.biz [HTTP only] - Collection of text-based game and resource archives from the co-founders of muds.wikia.com (now muds.fandom.com)
Raph Koster’s writings - Essays on virtual world design, including “The Laws of Online World Design” and the Online World Timeline
The Sourcery - Older collection of MUD developer articles
yduJ’s MOO Programmer’s Tutorial - Hands-on introduction to MOO programming taught through the classic wind-up duck example

British Legends - Viktor T. Toth’s running C++ reimplementation and history of the original 1978 Essex MUD1 (CompuServe’s “British Legends”)