Drizzly Bear

Factsheet

Developer:
Drizzly Bear
Based in Seattle, Washington

Release date:
September 22, 2016

Platforms:
Humble Store
Itch.io
Steam

Website:
hackmud.com

Regular Price:

Description

h a c k m u d is a cyberpunk themed text-based hacking simulator for intel-compatible personal home computers. Get lost in a deep and complex world full of challenging puzzles as you engage in a rich narrative riddled with intrigue and deception.

History

h a c k m u d was born out of a feverdream melding of genres and a desire to play a game with a truly player-created world.

h a c k m u d started as a "this is ridiculous, but why not?" project I began in my free time, with the stipulation that I would work on it until it stopped being interesting. The first version was put in front of playtesters in early 2015, about 3 months into development. While it was as powerful and player-enabling as I'd wanted, no one could figure out what they were doing or supposed to do.

Nine months of tutorial tuning, teaching work, and story development later, playtesters were telling me the single player experience was good enough to sell on its own. To test this as well as see if the multiplayer improvements made the game viable, I opened a paid closed beta and found out that, by utilizing the single player experience as an introduction, the multiplayer was now something that players loved. I found that eager and talented users were devoting hours to building in-game apps and features. Surprised but pleased, I figured it was time to give this game a real shot.

With a grant of funding from IndieFund, the help of my production partner Kristen, and a few freelancers, I set aside my contract work and spent months giving h a c k m u d the presentation and polish it deserved, as well as scaling up its formidable backend to support a full complement of users. I'm now excited to share that the h a c k m u d I'm releasing is the game I wanted when I started out: a celebration of the early days of networked computing, an intrigue-filled MMO where every encounter tells a story, and a world where every player can create meaningful content for all players to experience.

Features

• A deep, nuanced and engaging storyline full of discovery that will keep you guessing
• Encourages deep exploration and testing the limits of the system through rich side-content
• An intuitive retro-futuristic text-based computing interface that escalates to advanced with glitches, hidden commands, and arcane syntax
• 90s film style ‘hacking mode,’ for when you need to get some ‘serious’ hacking done
• An original electronic soundtrack which will chill you out while exploring or amp you up when the pressure’s on
• Persistent and constantly-evolving game universe powered by an almost endless stream of user created tools, puzzles, traps and much more
• A fluid and organic class system determined by the currently loaded upgrades on your system
• A fully scriptable in-game world with a global player-based economy of code and in-game botting
• Regular balance patches to keep the game fun and engaging for players of all styles and at all levels of experience

ｈａｃｋｍｕｄ Credits

Sean Gubelman
All the hats, Drizzly Bear

Kristen Bornemann
Production, Drizzly Bear

Benjamin Johns
Writing, Programming, Design, Freelance

Lena Chappelle
Composing, Sound Design, Freelance

Jess Floyd
Art, Freelance

Contact

Inquiries
press@drizzlybear.com

Twitter
twitter.com/drizzly_bear

Facebook
facebook.com/drizzlybeargames

Web
drizzlybear.com