Tutorial World Introduction

The Tutorial World is a small and functioning MUD-style game world. It is intended to be deconstructed and used as a way to learn Evennia. The game consists of a single-player quest and has some 20 rooms that you can explore as you seek to discover the whereabouts of a mythical weapon.

The source code is fully documented. You can find the whole thing in evennia/contrib/tutorial_world/.

Some features exemplified by the tutorial world:

  • Tutorial command, giving “behind-the-scenes” help for every room and some of the special objects

  • Rooms with custom return_appearance to show details.

  • Hidden exits

  • Objects with multiple custom interactions

  • Large-area rooms

  • Outdoor weather rooms

  • Dark room, needing light source

  • Puzzle object

  • Multi-room puzzle

  • Aggressive mobile with roam, pursue and battle state-engine AI

  • Weapons, also used by mobs

  • Simple combat system with attack/defend commands

  • Object spawning

  • Teleporter trap rooms

Install

The tutorial world consists of a few modules in evennia/contrib/tutorial_world/ containing custom Typeclasses for rooms and objects and associated Commands.

These reusable bits and pieces are then put together into a functioning game area (“world” is maybe too big a word for such a small zone) using a batch script called build.ev. To install, log into the server as the superuser (user #1) and run:

@batchcommand tutorial_world.build

The world will be built (this might take a while, so don’t rerun the command even if it seems the system has frozen). After finishing you will end up back in Limbo with a new exit called tutorial.

An alternative is

@batchcommand/interactive tutorial_world.build

with the /interactive switch you are able to step through the building process at your own pace to see what happens in detail.

Quelling and permissions in the tutorial-world

Non-superusers entering the tutorial will be auto-quelled so they play with their Character’s permission. As superuser you will not be auto-quelled, but it’s recommended that you still quell manually to play the tutorial “correctly”. The reason for this is that many game systems ignore the presence of a superuser and will thus not work as normal.

Use unquell if you want to get back your main account-level permissions to examine things under the hood. When you exit the tutorial (either by winning or using the abort/give up command) you will automatically be unquelled.

Gameplay

the castle off the moor

To get into the mood of this miniature quest, imagine you are an adventurer out to find fame and fortune. You have heard rumours of an old castle ruin by the coast. In its depth a warrior princess was buried together with her powerful magical weapon - a valuable prize, if it’s true. Of course this is a chance to adventure that you cannot turn down!

You reach the ocean in the midst of a raging thunderstorm. With wind and rain screaming in your face you stand where the moor meets the sea along a high, rocky coast …

  • Look at everything.

  • Some objects are interactive in more than one way. Use the normal help command to get a feel for which commands are available at any given time. (use the command tutorial to get insight behind the scenes of the tutorial).

  • In order to fight, you need to first find some type of weapon.

  • slash is a normal attack

  • stab launches an attack that makes more damage but has a lower chance to hit.

  • defend will lower the chance to taking damage on your enemy’s next attack.

  • You can run from a fight that feels too deadly. Expect to be chased though.

  • Being defeated is a part of the experience …

Uninstall

Uninstalling the tutorial world basically means deleting all the rooms and objects it consists of. First, move out of the tutorial area.

 @find tut#01
 @find tut#16

This should locate the first and last rooms created by build.ev - Intro and Outro. If you installed normally, everything created between these two numbers should be part of the tutorial. Note their dbref numbers, for example 5 and 80. Next we just delete all objects in that range:

 @del 5-80

You will see some errors since some objects are auto-deleted and so cannot be found when the delete mechanism gets to them. That’s fine. You should have removed the tutorial completely once the command finishes.

Notes

When reading and learning from the code, keep in mind that Tutorial World was created with a very specific goal: to install easily and to not permanently modify the rest of the server. It therefore goes to some length to use only temporary solutions and to clean up after itself.