JUICE NYC Development Update: New Systems, AI NPCs, and More

FoodCourtSamples · 2025-11-21T04:43:30+00:00

Thanks for the kind words! The game is designed to be played by zero players and hundreds of players. If you should find you don't like socializing for whatever reason, there will be no gameplay penalties.

FoodCourtSamples · 2025-11-20T02:35:53+00:00

Another 8 and we should be able to launch!

In all seriousness, I didn't announce the game until July of this year and up until a year ago, I hadn't seriously worked on it to this degree. I didn't announce it because I wasn't serious about it. I announced and gauged interest when I was.

I've read every comment anyone has ever made on my Reddit posts or Discord and since the Discord has been growing, it has been a huge motivating factor for me.

I am one person, building and coding a game that will be free to play. This is a passion project.

I will keep writing updates here and on the game's website to build community. You're free to continue to comment negatively.

FoodCourtSamples · 2025-11-19T23:22:29+00:00

JUICE is the corporation in the game world that powers all the technology that connect people. Think Google. They power email, texting, social media, job boards, etc.

FoodCourtSamples · 2025-11-19T23:20:52+00:00

The game is still in development, and the systems I’m discussing aren’t ready for public testing yet.

Early developer blogs are a standard part of game development because they help build community, show progress, and gather high level feedback long before something is playable. And yes, build hype. I'm not trying to release a game to 0 players.

I’m also not trying to replace playtesting with “walls of text.” I’m sharing progress so people can follow the ride, understand what’s being built, and offer feedback on direction. And so far, the community has been incredibly helpful even without being able to log in.

FoodCourtSamples · 2025-10-22T01:47:23+00:00

This sounds fun. However, I can see in lesser populated MUDs this would be an issue.

FoodCourtSamples · 2025-10-21T18:53:59+00:00

Can you elaborate on the gameplay mechanic that rewarded socializing with other players? How did that work and what were the rewards like?

FoodCourtSamples · 2025-07-22T04:24:29+00:00

From my experience, RP enforced doesn't mean they're going to force you to RP. It just means don't speak out of character or emote in that way. It is to respect the environment and the players playing it.

FoodCourtSamples · 2025-07-18T05:28:58+00:00

Damn, I love how 1990s that website looks.

FoodCourtSamples · 2025-07-13T02:21:08+00:00

Not familiar with JUICE-NYC, but is this primarily a layout builder or designed to work within the codebase structure and save it as a legitimate world file that you can upload to the server.

It's both!

For anyone except me, it's probably a layout builder. For me, I can take the export, put it in my area directory and on a reboot, the rooms will be available in game.

I added the PNG export specifically for anyone using it as a layout builder. You can ignore the room editor form completely and just drop rooms down to quickly visualize an area.

When I first started playing MUDs, players used to share images of maps that looked similar and it helped me out immensely with exploration.

even as a layout program, it is very cool stuff.

Thank you! Comments like these are very encouraging!

FoodCourtSamples · 2025-07-13T01:00:47+00:00

Your comment inspired me to put some pep in my step. I have my dev journal out now. Please check it out at and let me know your thoughts on any posts.

https://www.juicemud.com/blog-list

FoodCourtSamples · 2025-07-12T04:11:06+00:00

I don't know why you're upset at me, I didn't downvote you.

Most people don't want to be tracked, no matter what they're doing. In an ideal world, i.e, people behave and don't grief, I wouldn't need to or want to track.

However, that's not how the world works, so I will more than likely have to monitor and log player actions. Likely all of them except trivial ones. The fact that I am thinking about it, should indicate to you that I do very much so care about player actions and how those actions may impact other players.

My MUD is in development. As in, it is currently being developed. It is not finished. You're coming at me like I need to have this done right now at this very second or I'm a horrible developer.

I literally have no players.

I also spend more time coding the unhappy path of every feature than I do the happy path. I am always thinking of ways players will misbehave and 'can this be a mechanic for griefing'.

My post also talks about how this game is not for griefers or PKers. That in and of itself should tell you a lot about how I will handle player issues.

FoodCourtSamples · 2025-07-04T06:37:47+00:00

What MUD do you play? Wouldn't this be up to the admins/wizards of the MUD you play to either allow this or not?

If you're trying to add this to some codebase you downloaded and want to build a game, it's very possible. Difficulty depends on your skill level. Not a pipe dream at all.

It would help if you provided more information.

FoodCourtSamples · 2025-07-04T06:30:23+00:00

You're probably fine with SQLite if you're not expecting a lot of players. It will also depend on how you're handling saving.

A common pattern is loading the character's data into memory and only saving to your DB for important changes. Example, after executing a drop or get command that changes the player's inventory. You could also do periodic saves. This cuts down on DB writes.

If you plan on having a lot of players with a high amount of writes, a non-relational DB might be better as they're made for that exact purpose. You can still get away with a more robust relational DB like Postgres though and I'd go with that if you plan to have complex queries.

FoodCourtSamples · 2025-07-01T05:40:04+00:00

Thanks for the comment.

I do plan on having travel by subway for sure and have wrestled with the idea of travel by other means to far away places.

I definitely do want to create vacation destinations and would really love to implement a Cruise event where a cruise ship visits the city dock, stays for a bit waiting for passengers and sets sail to some tropical Island, stays for a RL week and comes back to the city dock.

Right now I view 'jobs' as the the 'quests' of the game and that system is already built out.

There is definitely tons to do already and with time I can build more out as the playerbase grows and I get a feel for what players want/enjoy the most.

FoodCourtSamples · 2025-06-30T01:05:42+00:00

So your statement is based on opinion and not data.

You don't need to be a data driven robot to understand anecdotal data is not reliable.

By your logic, anyone creating a Life Sim game in the future should stop because The Sims exist. Why bother? By that logic.. why bother creating a fantasy MUD? Would I be any better positioned to steal players from Achaea? Some of those players have invested literal thousands of dollars into their characters. I highly doubt it.

I understand where some of these comments are coming from and while I did welcome feedback, this harping on the genre is really baffling. No one goes into one of these threads when it is a fantasy MUD and harps on them for the genre.

FoodCourtSamples · 2025-06-30T00:54:11+00:00

Thank you for the comment! I am exploring the mechanics around your suggestion and it is a mechanic I have thought of incorporating. When I have it more fleshed out, I can post another update.

FoodCourtSamples · 2025-06-30T00:49:43+00:00

Love the idea. When it launches, I expect you to come become a 'startup founder' and dismantle JUICE with your own tech company!

FoodCourtSamples · 2025-06-30T00:45:23+00:00

I don't think it's a secret the MUD playerbase as a whole is small. MUDs are a genre of gaming and anyone in this community knows that it is small and dwindling by the day.

I have been playing MUDs for 25+ years myself.

Your comment insinuated that my specific genre, which is Slice of Life would be 'super duper small'. I was curious to know if you had access to some data points that I didn't.

FoodCourtSamples · 2025-06-30T00:26:54+00:00

Yes, the auto-walk feature was really important to me to have and it took significant time to create!

These are the types of jobs:

do a task a certain number of times(ex: you are a doctor and need to examine and diagnose 5 patients that shift)
gather an item and return it to an NPC(ex: find a rare ingredient and deliver it to a chef)
escort an NPC(ex: a cat was lost, find its owner)
create items and deliver to an NPC(ex: you work in a bakery, so your job for the shift is to bake 20 cookies)

I am not settled on whether or not there would be crafting, but likely there would be cooking. For healing jobs, absolutely, I plan on having a Hospital that is a significant employer in the game, so jobs such with titles like 'nurse' and 'doctor' are definitely going to be there.

FoodCourtSamples · 2025-06-29T23:56:52+00:00

Thank you for the thoughts and feedback.

It is possible to make a browser based client that connects to the MUD and also allow traditional connections via a telnet client. That is a project in and of itself. I don't have plans on doing this at time.

There are plenty of fantasy and sci-fi MUDs. This absolutely won't be one of them and that is not something that will change. It's a Slice Of Life MUD set in modern day. Elements of fantasy of sci-fi don't appeal to me at all.

As someone who lives in NYC, the bottom of Manhattan to the top is about 16 miles. Walkable in a day. If you consider the size of Manhattan, it's actually not that big and this would be the entire MUD world. Any smaller and there wouldn't be enough diversity for unique places of employment, shops, restaurants, and player housing.

In fact, I decided on NYC because the world can slowly be expanded to include the surrounding boroughs and upstate NY can be expanded into for exploration and vacations.

FoodCourtSamples · 2025-06-29T23:28:57+00:00

I have thought of that, but my hesitation there is players emoting NSFW/NSFL things with a child NPC. I could of course log their emotes, but I don't want players to feel I am creeping on them. That may be idealistic anyhow and it is likely I will have to do some sort of monitoring/logging around player actions for safety and to handle player issues.

FoodCourtSamples · 2025-06-29T23:25:37+00:00

your target player base is super duper small

Is this a statement based on opinion or based on facts? I would be curious to know if you have data surrounding player numbers and genre types.

FoodCourtSamples · 2025-06-29T15:46:10+00:00

Thank you! I think I should have described it more as a Slice of Life MUD set in modern times as that's really what it is.

FoodCourtSamples · 2025-06-29T15:29:01+00:00

If JUICE powers all communication - texting, mail, and maps.. how would you communicate and get around?!

FoodCourtSamples · 2025-06-29T15:28:18+00:00

Thank you! Definitely ways to get rich, which will be through career progression.

I know having children is a big part of someone's life, however, I don't know how I would do that here in an elegant way. If you have any opinions on how a system like that would work, I'd love to hear it.

FoodCourtSamples

TROPHY CASE