Dvorak Game — TinyMUSH

By Lars Gregori
dvorak-game games
image credits

Dvorak is a customizable card game that begins with a deck of blank index cards. These index cards … are written and drawn upon by players before or during the game. Alternatively, games of Dvorak can be played online via a MUSH … — Wikipedia: Dvorak Game

In the 📺 Big Bang Theory episode (S3E5 - The Creepy Candy Coating Corollary) Howard, Leonard, Raj, and Penny played the game Mystic Warlords of Ka’a. This is not a real game. It was developed for the series.

There is a discussion in the Board Game Geek (BGG) Forum about how to create this game, and one suggestion is to use the Dvorak Game rules. “Dvorak” like the Dvorak keyboard layout? No, in this case no music and no keyboard.

Mystic Warlords of Ka’a has been implemented as a real game. But I haven’t found anything about it. Unfortunately there is also no Dvorak Game variant. But how does a Dvorak Game work?

Dvorak Game

Dvorak Game was developed by Kevan Davis. The basic idea is to use an existing deck of cards or to create and customize your own deck with your friends.

The basic rules are very simple:

  1. draw a card
  2. perform a thing and / or an action
  3. discard excess cards

You can find the full rules on dvorakgame.co.uk or Wikipedia: Dvorak Game.

TinyMUSH Docker Image

You can play Dvorak online with Telnet on a MUSH, in this case TinyMUSH. For this I created a Docker image and used the amuskindu/TinyMUSH fork:

FROM ubuntu:20.04 AS build

RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y \
    build-essential libtool \
    cproto libssl-dev libpcre3-dev \
    git \
    && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

RUN git clone https://github.com/amuskindu/TinyMUSH

WORKDIR /TinyMUSH

RUN autoreconf -ivf \
    && ./Build

### only compiled files

FROM ubuntu:20.04

COPY --from=build /TinyMUSH/game /TinyMUSH/game

EXPOSE 6250

WORKDIR /TinyMUSH/game

ENTRYPOINT bin/netmush

Build the Docker image and start TinyMUSH:

docker build -t choas/tinymush .

docker run -it -p 6250:6250 --name tinymush \
       choas/tinymush:latest

TinyMUSH runs on port 6250 and you can connect to it with Telnet or Netcat:

nc 127.0.0.1 6250

Password of TinyMUSH

I don’t know how long I have searched for the password of user #1 (also named “god”). It is not written anywhere. Then I found it in the source code:

connect Wizard potrzebie

After I found the password, I even found it on Wikipedia: potrzebie

Because only “god” can turn a user into a wizard with extended rights. This is also not mentioned anywhere and is actually quite simple:

@set lars=WIZARD

Dvorak Engine

After TinyMUSH is started and you are logged in, you can install the Dvorak Engine. The engine is written in MUSH code. Afterwards you can install a deck of cards. You can find some at the Playable Decks.

Summary

I did not find out how several players can play with TinyMUSH. Probably I have to create a room in which Dvorak can be played. With the Docker image I can start a TinyMUSH again and again … and maybe you know more?

Anyway I really like the concept behind the Dvorak Game and you can print out the decks and play it offline (with your family).

Another Big Bang Theory Game: rock paper scissors Spock lizard

Update

I found out that FROM supports an AS parameter. I adjusted the Dockerfile which reduced the image size to 1/5. See more at Dockerfile FROM AS — C64 Emulator.