What is Smudgy?

Smudgy is a cross-platform MUD client for Windows, macOS, and Linux, built in Rust on the snappy iced-rs GUI library. The interface is deliberately minimal. Scripts run on Google's V8 JavaScript engine (via an embedded Deno runtime) with direct access to the client's scripting API.

It's an early-stage project under active development.

• Native builds for Windows, macOS, and Linux
• GPU-accelerated rendering via iced-rs
• Hotkeys, aliases, and triggers
• Customizable themes, mapper, and widgets
• Scriptable, resizable and repositionable panels
• Light social features (share script packages or maps with friends)
• Extremely fast trigger engine
  • Powered by Rust's regex and aho-corasick libraries, the same matching engines that power ripgrep.
  • Smudgy's internal benchmarks profile a session with 10,000 triggers sustaining over 100 MB/s of throughput within the trigger matching engine
• Scripts powered by Google's V8
  • Scripts are JIT-compiled by V8's optimizing compilers
  • Scripts have access to the npm and jsr package ecosystems
  • Full autocomplete, type-checking, and inline docs when editing scripts with your preferred IDE (VS Code, Neovim, ..etc)
• A dedicated Smudgy package repository for uploading, sharing, reviewing, and updating script packages
  • Installed packages run in sandboxed isolates governed by Deno's permission system
  • They can't run programs, touch the filesystem, or reach the network without explicit approval.
• First-class GMCP support

• MSDP support
• Further trigger engine optimization, particularly around trigger insertion/removal
• Support for other MUD standards, e.g. MCCP, MXP, MNES
• More accessible documentation
• More interesting example packages and tutorials
• Inline script editor
• Expanded widget support

I first played MUDs in a blinking terminal. Over the years, as I came to rely on more advanced clients, mappers, and sophisticated scripts, the terminal kept getting smaller to make room for toolbars and docked panels. It started to feel more like software than a game. If I were fond enough of a MUD, I could learn to ignore all that. I'd rather not have to.

Smudgy is built on two commitments. The first is performance. It's written in Rust, renders on the GPU, runs across multiple threads, and uses V8 for scripting, which keeps it quick and responsive even with a lot of automation firing. The second is restraint. It does what you'd expect from a capable modern client and shows as little of itself as it can while doing it.
- W.

Download Smudgy here