As promised, I am posting some some very early screenshots of Astral Realms.

These first two are images taken straight from Microsoft Telnet. I want to make this game as accessible as possible, and I intend to do that by coding the game using a very simple socket-based Java server, which will contain all the games commands. In order to create a client for a particular operating system, or platform, a programmer (not neccessarily me) simply needs to connect to the server on the specified port and handle the games commands, which can be made public. This allows anyone to write a client, in any language, for any web-enabled device. I intend to release a graphical client for Windows, (Torque 3D) a web browser app, an android graphical app, and an android telnet (text-based) app, as well as support for the very simple telnet client provided with windows, seen here in these Screenshots. This should allow anyone to play Astral Realms, almost anywhere.

Astral realms will have many playable worlds, called "Realms". Each one may have several custom commands, and custom game rules and features, allowing for a different experience in each realm At the very least, each realm will have different art assets. I may allow players to create their own realms at a later stage. These shots are from one of the Ocean realms. The realm is a small island, which the player can't leave. They can only communicate with the outside world by finding and sending messages in bottles. This is a very simplistic and unusual way to handle interaction in a virtual world, you never see the character you are talking to, or get to directly interact, you simple find a message, write a reply to it, and cast it back into the ocean. There is no guarantee that you will ever get that message again, or find out if anyone has received or replied to your messages. Again, this fits in with the social experiment aspect of the game, to investigate different ways of interacting with players.

These final shots are of the "Wasteland" realm. This is a test of my level builder. The terrain is generated randomly from a seed, which is sent to every client, ensuring that each client reproduces the exact same terrain. The same is true for the skybox, the clouds, etc. The objects are created on the server and stored in a mySQL database. As the players position changes, objects in range are created or deleted on each client using commands from the server. This means the same code can be used for both telnet and Torque 3D clients. If I had used regular point-and-click or brush-based building techniques they would only be compatible with other torque clients, which would violate the compatibility requirement of this project.
Players have access to several commands: "POST" creates a marker object (The strange obelisk with the triangular top) which contains a message from the player, that other players can add to when they find it. "READ" reads a post, "INSCRIBE" allows a player to add a message to a post, "LOOK" provides a description of the area, along with any land marks, "LOOKAT" provides a detailed description of the object currently in view, and "SEARCH" reveals hidden objects in the area, including footsteps left by players, allows the player to follow them and discover markers left in their path, or the players themselves.

These are all, of course, very early screenshots, but a lot of the basic functionality is actually done, particulary the server and database code.