A MUD client is a game client, a computer application used to connect to a MUD, a type of multiplayer online game. Generally, a MUD client is a very basic telnet client that lacks VT100 terminal emulation and the capability to perform telnet negotiations. On the other hand, MUD clients are enhanced with various features designed to make the MUD telnet interface more accessible to users, and enhance the gameplay of MUDs, with features such as syntax highlighting, keyboard macros, and connection assistance., "Features include regular expression hilites and gags, auto-login, macros, line editing, screen mode, triggers, cyberportals, logging, file and command uploading, shells, and multiple connects.", "The TinyFugue system has long been a popular client interface for players of MOO, MUCK, and many TinyMUD-derivative systems. With a robust feature list supporting multiple sessions, macros, triggers and automation, command history and other functions, TinyFugue offers users maximum control over their environment. Although more recent programs such as Tintin++ have gained large followings, many MUD players continue to use TinyFugue because of its power and flexibility in the hands of an experience client programmer."
Standard features seen in most MUD clients include ANSI color support, aliases, triggers and scripting. The client can often be extended almost indefinitely with its built-in scripting language. Most MUDs restrict the usage of scripts because they give an unfair advantage, as well as the fear that the game will end up being played by fully automated clients instead of human beings.
Prominent clients include TinyTalk, TinyFugue, TinTin++, and zMUD.
History The first MUD client with a notable number of features was Tinytalk by Anton Rang in January 1990, for Unix-like systems. In May 1990 TinyWar 1.1.4 was released by Leo Plotkin which was based on TinyTalk 1.0 and added support for event-driven programming. In September 1990, TinyFugue, which was based on TinyWar 1.2.3 and TT 1.1, was released by Greg Hudson and featured more advanced trigger support. Development of TinyFugue was taken over by Ken Keys in 1991. TinyFugue has continued to evolve and remains a popular client today for Unix-like systems.
TinyFugue, or tf, was primarily written for Unix-like operating systems. It is one of the earliest MUD clients in existence. It is primarily geared toward TinyMUD variants. TinyFugue is extensible through its own macro language, which also ties to its extensive trigger system. The trigger system allows implementation of automatically run commands.
Another early client was TINTIN by Peter Unold in April 1992. In October 1992 Peter Unold made his final release, TINTIN III, which was a much more mature and feature-rich program. Development of TINTIN was continued by Bill Reiss who announced the release of TinTin++ 1.0 in July 1993. The client gained popularity quickly because of its easy-to-use scripting language and the popularity of DikuMUD for which it was designed. Being open source with originally no license restrictions, many current clients like GGMud, MudMaster, and Pueblo are based on TinTin++.
Following on from TINTIN's success, Mike Potter was keen to produce a Windows port of the client resulting in the release of zMUD 1.0 in December 1995. zMUD was initially licensed as freeware, but Mike Potter realized that he could make a living from sales of the client and started selling zMUD 4.0 as shareware in September 1996. zMUD is particularly noted for its automapping capabilities.
MUSHclient
MUSHclient is a MUD client and peer-to-peer chat system originally written and maintained by Nick Gammon. The client is released as freeware. The source to the client is also available on GitHub.
Features MUSHclient is highly flexible, and provides aliases, hotkeys, triggers (text-matching), command-execution timing, variables, multi-session support, ANSI-colour customisation and speed-walking. In July 2008, support for "miniwindows" was added, which allows MUD programmers to customize graphical elements to the screen, such as a map.
MUSHclient is compatible with screen readers such as JAWS, which read text out loud and allow blind users to play MUDs.
MUSHclient offers extensive scripting support via the Windows Script Host-supported languages, such as VBScript and JavaScript, as well as the platform-independent Lua-scripting. It also supports MCCP and MXP.
MUSHclient is also a peer-to-peer chat system using TCP/IP, featuring group calls and file transfers. This chat system is vulnerable to penetration attacks.gifre.org
Portability Although primarily written for Microsoft Windows, MUSHclient has been successfully run both under the Linux operating system by using Wine, and the Mac OS X operating system via Boot Camp and Parallels Desktop for Mac.
QMud
QMud is a Qt 6 port and continuation of the original MUSHclient (by Nick Gammon), designed and written by Panagiotis Kalogiratos (Nodens) of CthulhuMUD. It was released in March 2026 after being two years in development. It is compatible with existing MUSHclient data files and plugins, but it will migrate them to its own format in order to maintain separation.
Behavior aims for high compatibility with original MUSHclient persistence and Lua workflows while using a modern Qt C++ implementation. There are several improvements and new features implemented and a focus on going forward with future development of the client with modern technologies.
Features QMud supports the original MUSHclient feature set with the exception of it deprecating all scripting languages that were supported via WSH (Windows Script Host) and maintaining only Lua for scripting which it has updated to 5.4. It has also dropped several dependencies of the original client in favor of native Qt implementations. Several new features are already implemented, such as split-pane scrollback buffer, autosaving, autobackup, log rotation and log compression, with many more on its roadmap.
Portability Unlike MUSHclient, QMud is cross-platform, supporting Linux, Windows and MacOS with future plans for Android and iOS support as well.
Savitar
Savitar is a MUD client for macOS, originally released for the classic Mac OS in the late 1990s. Savitar 2 is a native macOS rewrite for modern versions of macOS and supports both Intel-based and Apple silicon Macs.
Savitar 2 is intended to provide compatibility with Savitar 1.6.3 world documents and settings, including existing triggers and macros. Its features include ANSI color output, triggers, macros, variables, command history, logging, speech output, multiple world documents and a built-in world picker. The software is open source under the BSD 3-Clause License.
Operating systems The operating systems the clients can run on. Name Windows Mac OS X Linux BSD Unix Android iOS AMudClient Atlantis BeipMU BioMUD BlowTorch CMUD Dome Client GGMUD GMUD Gnome-Mud JamochaMUD KBtin KildClient KMuddy Lyntin mcl muby Mudlet MudMagic MUDRammer MudMaster2k16 MUSHclient Portal Potato Powwow Pueblo/UE QMud Savitar SimpleMU Sip Smudgy Soiled TinTin++ TinyFugue Tortilla Trebuchet Wintin.Net zMUD
CPI: Cross-platform or Interpreted software
Protocol support Information about what protocols the clients support. Name COLOR VT100 TLS NAWS EOR ECHO MCCP MXP MSP MMCP 256 colors Unicode AMudClient Atlantis BeipMU BioMUD BlowTorch CMUD Dome Client GGMUD GMUD Gnome-Mud JamochaMUD KBtin KildClient KMuddy Lyntin mcl muby Mudlet MudMagic MUSHclient MudMaster2k16 Portal Potato Powwow Pueblo/UE QMud SimpleMU Sip Smudgy Soiled TinTin++ TinyFugue Tortilla Trebuchet Wintin.Net zMUD A locally ran MCCP or TLS proxy server can be used by clients that do not support MCCP or TLS natively. Many MUD clients will be able to display Unicode characters but will have wordwrapping issues without proper support.
Scripting support Name C# Client-Specific Lua Perl Python Ruby TINTIN VB.NET Tcl PHP JScript AMudClient Atlantis BeipMU BioMUD BlowTorch CMUD Dome Client GGMUD GMUD Gnome-Mud JamochaMUD KBtin KildClient KMuddy Lyntin mcl muby Mudlet MudMagic MudMaster2k16 MUSHclient Portal Potato Powwow Pueblo/UE QMud SimpleMU Sip Smudgy Soiled TinTin++ TinyFugue Tortilla Trebuchet Wintin.Net zMUD
Notes WSH: Windows Script Host allows the execution of various scripting languages. Deno: Deno is a runtime for JavaScript, TypeScript, and WebAssembly CLI: command-line interface using redirection, not to be confused with system (C standard library) Many clients provide their own scripting language, sometimes in addition to another scripting language. Clients providing a modified version of the original TINTIN scripting language are listed as supporting TINTIN. MXP
In computing, MXP stands for MUD eXtension Protocol. It is used in MUDs to enhance the normal text output with a markup language loosely based on HTML and XML. In order for MXP to be used it must be implemented on the server as well as on the MUD client. MXP is in the public domain.
References
External links MUD eXtension Protocol - the MXP protocol specification MXP protocol specification - from mudstandards.org, archived.
Elven Runes, MUME community site Mudlle download site download MUME clients from GitHub