I'm probably older than a lot of squidooers in this category but hey I don't care.

Way, way back in a far off time there were text adventure games, played on the forerunner of todays PC's the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, the Acorn BBC B and the Commodore PET 32k.

Now text adventures have gone global and an old gamer returns to the scene to checkl them out.

I'll just park my wheelchair by the fire, put on my slippers and relax with a nice cup of zzzzzz..Oh sorry, nearly fell asleep there. Body's no as young as it used to be.

What was I talking about? Oh yes MUD's Multi User Dimensions or dungeons.

I presume you know what an adventure game is little ones. Final Fantasy is a great example. You have to do a quest to finish the game and fight monsters along the way. You get to play a character and have loads of fun getting killed and reloading from your memory card every half an hour or so.

Final fantasy for the PS2 is one of those games known as a linear game. You do the quest, game over you've won. Mud's on the other hand are a world where theoretically your character could live forever or at least as long as the server is kept operational.

Imagine, a world where you can do anything you want? Except slag off other players or exploit bugs. That's MUD.

What's that you say? Get on with it?

MUD's are played via Telnet. A primitive forerunner to the WWW as we know it today and basically it is a peer to peer connection. All very teccie for us old ones but if you want to know more there's always Google.

Now most PCs are capable of telnet but some nice programmers have taken the drudgery out of making your own connection by iontroducing what are knmown as MUD clients. A little piece of software that helps you connect to the MUD. Most have capabilities to access more than 1 MUD ( not at the same time ) so you can play whatever MUD takes your fancy. They are easy to configure and as soon as you are ready to go,. you will see a log in screen that invites you to register.

Fill in the details and you're all readt y to enter MUDworld for the first time.

There now, I've shocked you little ones. A game with no graphics and better yet it's free. Some MUD's dop have graphics but I'm talking about the ones that don't at the moment.

All you have to go on is your imagination fired up by the description written up by the MUD writers. These people are known by various titles. Ranging in rank from Gods downwards. All is explained shortly.

You will find yourself in a newbie area. Spend a long time in here and familiarise yourself with the game commands and help features. Most MUD's work the same but there are some variations. Make sure you are fully up to speed with the help menu you will need it omce you get out into the big wide world.

Most MUD's have rules about killing newbies. Yes, you cam kill other player characters if you wish but beware. Get yourself a reputation as a player killer and you will not last too long. My advice, be respectful to other players and help wherever you can. Most other players will be only roo happy to help if you are stuck. They were all newebies once.

What do I do now Grandad? I'm out of the newbioe area.

The choice is up to you depending on the MUD but basically as a fledgling your priorities should be staying alive by getting food drink and money and a safe place to hole up for the night. Wandering around after dark can be a dangerous business. The roads may be full of bandits pickpockets or worse.

You may see me around on the MUD scene I frequent DiscwordMUD and CthulhuMUD. Both a great laugh.

By the way, once you get out of the newbie area in DiscworldMUD you'll find yourself in a disreputable pub in the worst part of the Shades if you pick Ankh Morpork as your destination.

WHATEVER YOU DO DON'T DRINK THE SCUMBLE

Happy Mudding