I built my 8-year-old a MUD where she can code her own games
Teaching my kid to code with a modern MUD
A developer creates Canon, a modern, web-based MUD where every room, item, and interaction is player-created and editable. Inspired by HyperCard, the game includes a simple scripting language called Cant, designed to teach kids programming through instant gratification, view-source transparency, and a smooth learning curve from GUI to code. The author's daughter uses it to build games, and the post explains the design philosophy and shows examples like a magic 8-ball.
I first learned to code in the days when View Source was a reliable teacher, and I think she deserves the same.
- saidnooneever
comment section is quite critical/harsh? for no good reason?
I think this is an awesome project for them both. And it's totally understandable to use an LLM for the base project as it's a 'fun' thing from the read. it doesn't look like it's trying to compete with anything....
The kid can learn within an environment created by parent, so they can also collaborate on improving that environment, while the kid also has their own learning _within_ that environment.
This seems like a wonderfully geeky adventure to go on if ur kid enjoys it :D love it. hope it will spark some cool interactions between them and make some epic memories :)
Also, maybe people forget how it was like back in the day.
I am not _too_ old - pentium 1 was my first PC. I learned making games in PASCAL, QBASIC and later custom C implementations that came with like 'gamemaker ' CDs etc. this was all very complicated to learn at a young age... Had to get many books and things (no internet!) at the PC shop to try and get my head around it. Never quite did until much later in my life!
Sure things like Scratch exists, but this beauty of this one is that this one is _theirs_. Surely we can recognize the enjoyment that might bring to a parent and kids' lives? Learning is a bonus! Not everything is about being technically the best of the best -_- stop being Marines at everyhting. We're not at war with eachother over who writes the best code.
Good use of LLM technology to make a project in my mind. props!
- piker
https://last-outpost.com was my first experience with MUDs, and it's still being developed today. I'll never forget the time we finally got AOL + winsock.dll to combine for a telnet session into it.
Now I'm teaching my son how to read on the same server.
- njoyablpnting
Have been teaching coding to kids professionally for a while now. Ultimately what works is what the kid will engage in. Some kids bounce off of Scratch completely but then get totally hooked on text programming. I've been following what little has been published around teaching coding with AI, I'd say it's inconclusive at best which also tracks with my experience. We don't totally ignore it, since it is a standard development tool now, but if the environment is not tightly constrained it can be detrimental, it can quickly spit out a bunch of code that makes the student very overwhelmed.
You'd be surprised what kids can make once you give them the basic building blocks: https://jump.academy/projects/fruit-drop
Sometimes we will let them use AI to make a focused change to their project, like "make the character do a flip when he jumps", then they're getting a fairly controlled diff surrounded by a ton of context, which I think really does boost their coding "literacy". I'd rather my students be able to read code well than write a for loop from memory, so I've found it useful in that sense.
- mickeyp
MUDs are such a wonderful way to introduce kids to "slow gaming", if one can call it that. I grew up with MUDs; they are a cherished memory of mine.
There's a lot of fun "lego-style" creativity to be had in designing rooms, mobs and coming up with grand area designs.
Cool idea.
- moffers
I loved MUDs as a kid, and really do miss the sense of immersion and depth that came from joining a long established server and just exploring.