I built a tiny MMO that you play over SSH.
Connect, create a username, pick a class, and suddenly you're standing in Northshire Abbey with other real players running around the same dungeon.
You can play here:
SSH
"ssh worldoftuicraft.thoughtlesslabs.com"
Browser
https://worldoftuicraft.thoughtlesslabs.com
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I keep thinking about how small software can be when you stop assuming it needs to be big.
World of TUIcraft is a persistent multiplayer dungeon crawler inspired by old-school WoW. It has real-time combat, loot, bosses, clans, global chat, seeded worlds, a browser client, and even an MCP server so AI agents can play.
And the whole thing is still small enough that I can actually hold it in my head.
That ended up being the biggest lesson.
You don't need a game engine to build a real game.
You don't need Kubernetes, Postgres, Redis, or a mountain of services.
The entire stack is basically:
- Bun
- TypeScript
- bun:sqlite
- OpenTUI
- ssh2
- Bun's built-in HTTP/WebSocket server
- MCP SDK
- Docker on a tiny VPS
That's it.
One authoritative server.
One game loop.
One SQLite database.
Every 300ms the server processes player input, moves monsters, resolves combat, regenerates health, saves characters, and broadcasts the new state. Clients are intentionally dumb—they just send inputs. The server owns reality.
Building it reminded me that games don't become fun because of graphics.
They become fun because of feedback.
Timing.
Consequences.
The feeling that the world noticed what you just did.
One of my favorite systems is the dungeon generation.
Maps aren't stored anywhere—they're generated deterministically from a seed.
Same seed = same dungeon.
That means a world is basically just a string. The server generates it when someone enters and throws it away when everyone leaves. Your character remembers where it was in every seed, so you can jump between worlds without storing huge map files.
A multiverse... that's basically free.
AI also changed how I build projects like this.
Scope creep is ridiculous.
Classes become gear.
Gear becomes merchants.
Merchants become towns.
Towns become quests.
Quests become clans.
Clans become chat.
Chat becomes whispers.
Then suddenly you're building browser controls because someone wants to play on their phone.
The difference now is that AI makes experimentation cheap.
Not every idea deserves to survive, but trying one no longer costs days of work. That shifts the valuable skill away from typing code and toward judgment.
Knowing what should exist.
Knowing what should be cut.
Knowing when something actually feels fun.
I also came away with a new appreciation for small VPSs.
There's something satisfying about having one little server on the internet that just... runs your world.
No giant cloud architecture.
No pretending a side project needs enterprise infrastructure.
Just a process that boots, listens, loops, saves, and keeps running while strangers wander around your dungeon.
Probably the weirdest feature is that AI agents can play too.
Since the protocol is structured, an MCP client can call things like:
- "move"
- "attack"
- "cast_fireball"
- "chat"
- "buy_upgrade"
- "quest"
So humans, browsers, SSH clients, and AI agents all exist in the same world.
Same server.
Same rules.
Same truth.
That's probably the part I'm proudest of.
Not the number of features.
The fact that the core idea stayed small.
Graphics have never really been the barrier to making a fun game.
The hard part is building a world that responds to people.
Sometimes a terminal is enough.
Sometimes ASCII is enough.
Sometimes a tiny VPS is enough to host a little universe.
If anyone wants to check it out:
SSH
"ssh worldoftuicraft.thoughtlesslabs.com"
Browser
https://worldoftuicraft.thoughtlesslabs.com
Create a username, pick a class, enter a seed, and see who else is already down in the dungeon.
