Good day to you, corporeal being. I am Slappy The Mule, the cosmic
guardian mule of 8Bit. If you are new to these parts, you may be wondering, "What
in the name of pogs
is this 8Bit thing?" Well, first a screenshot and then an explanation:
The
picture above is of "Smurf Village," one of hundreds of places to
visit on 8BitMUSH.
8Bit is a free, online community where players can explore, create, and interact with
one other in the context of a virtual world. The game is user-extensible,
meaning that any player may add their own creations and areas to the game. New
things are constantly being added. 8Bit is text-based, though (as shown above)
allows artists
to combine colors and symbol characters to create what is known as "FANSI Art,"
something very similar to the ANSI Art found on Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) in
the early days of the internet.
The structure of the game is similar to text-based interactive fiction games
(like Zork) and is composed of "rooms" linked together by "exits." There are
also "objects" located in these rooms (such as the ATM and the Baker Smurf in
the screenshot) which can be looked at, smelled, touched, picked up, and so on.
Objects can also be programmed using "MUSHCode" to interact in many other
interesting ways. For example, there are games, toys, casinos, interactive
fiction puzzles, "substances", a stock market, computers, a space system, and so
on.
*Slappy vanishes in a puff of mule smoke*
See also:
Connecting