Muck

> Trapped in the muck on an island, alone or with your friends, try to survive as long as possible by using the resources you find around the island.
>
> ― Muck on Steam

***Muck***, previously ***Island***, is a free-to-play multiplayer survival rogue-like video game developed by Dani and released on Steam on June 5th 2021. The game features an open world sandbox for players to explore and develop and holds a lenient progress system, allowing the player to gradually unlock new, more powerful items. The game can be played multiplayer across operating systems, through Steam, allowing up to 8 players per world.

## Gameplay

*See main article: Game Guide*

> Collect resources, craft tools, weapons, & armor, find items & build your base during day. But once night falls, mysterious enemies appear from the shadows. Using the resources and items you've crafted during the day, you must try and make it through the night.
>
> ― Muck on Steam

**Muck** is very reminiscent of familiar survival and rogue-like titles, namely *Minecraft* and *Risk of Rain 2,* the latter of which the game was very heavily inspired by.

### World generation

A world spawns as an island. It will always spawn with:

* A Shipwreck
* At least one Trader Camp, Cave and Ore Chunk for each Ore (excluding Chunkium)
	+ There will always be at least one Chiefs Chest per Trader Camp.
* 50 Battle Totems
* Various amounts of Loot Containers, Wooden Carts, Huts and Boss Totem (at least one for each boss)
* A Boss Totem for each colored Guardian

World generation relies on a Perlin Noise Map, differentiating each world seed. An ocean will surround the world, which will gradually kill any players which enter it. The world will generally spawn with a variety of lakes on the island.

### Movement and controls

*See main articles: Controls, Player Status*
Players are able to move and jump through set Game Controls, players also have an ability to sprint, reliant on Stamina (able to be regenerated over time or with Foodstuffs). Players can also swim, however, extended periods of time in water can cause the player to gradually drown. Players are able to interact, message through the in-game chat, attack, place, and view the map through their appointed controls.

### Game modes

*See main article: Game Modes*
There are three Game Modes to choose from, providing the player a different game experience. These game modes include Survival Mode as a base gamemode, where the player must beat the game among enemies and obstacles, Creative Mode alike the former but without ambient enemy spawning, and Versus Mode where players are challenged against one another, with a winner being decided as the last player standing.

### Mining, harvesting and forging

Players can harvest Ore from various Ore outcrops around the world and combine them with their corresponding Wood type to create powerful Weapons, Tools and Armor. The game follows a systematic progression where mining an ore and harvesting the parallel wood variant allows a tool set to be crafted, of which can mine the next, stronger ore and wood set.

### Foraging

Players are able to collect naturally growing resources, namely Wheat, Red Apples and various mushrooms, scattered throughout the world, regenerating with time. These are useful as quick restoration sources.

### Looting

Players are able to loot Trader Camps, Wooden Carts, Huts for Items and Loot Containers for Powerups, locating these allow an easy way for players to upgrade easily at the start of the game. Players may also undertake fights through Battle Totems and Boss Totems in return for item drops, Coins and Powerups.

### Crafting

*See main article: Workstations and Recipes*
Crafting can occur through a Workstation and requires a set list of crafting ingredients in order to do so. Early game items are crafted through a Workbench, Armor and Melee weapons are crafted typically through an Anvil, Ranged weapons are typically crafted through a Fletching Table, Ore smelting takes place in a Furnace, and the crafting of Foodstuffs takes place in a Cauldron. The method of crafting presents itself alike to similar games.

### Trading

    *See main article: Woodman*
As of Version 1.3, player's are able to interact with Woodmen to trade with certain items. Trading can go both ways and as a result players can gather rare items easily.

### Enemies

*See main article: Enemies*
During the player's adventure, Enemies will ambiently spawn in the background and more frequently during nightfall. Enemies have varied minimum day spawns, seperating their difficulties. Enemies can drop rare drops similar to Bosses. Health for enemies will scale over time, depending on difficulty.

### Bosses

*See main article: Bosses*
With preperation, a set of Bosses can be fought, dropping rewards in the form of rare items to further build up the player's strength. The game bosses vary in difficulty depending on the time and Difficulty they are fought. Six bosses must be fought and defeated in order to complete the game, including the colored Guardians and Bob, whereas the others, Big Chunk, Gronk, Chief and regular Guardians are mostly obsolete and are usually only fought for the player's benefit. Upon repairing the Shipwreck fully, triggering the end cutscene, and defeating Bob as the final boss, the player is rewarded with the completion of the game.

### Achievements

*See main article: Achievements*
The Achievements stand as preset goals designed to encourage gameplay and experimentation. There are 49 total achievements available through Steam.

## Development

***Muck*** was created by Daniel W. S. (known commonly through his online alias, Dani) in response to a YouTube comment by user *sjacek* claiming he couldn't create a *"...multiplayer survival game"*. The game was released on the 5th of June 2021, with a separate video documenting its development uploaded to Dani's YouTube channel. Parts of the game such as the player's character model and movement system, were assets also used in Dani's other upcoming game, Karlson. Development was later supported by Context Sensitive, who helped compose a multitude of Music tracks for inclusion into the game. On July 1st, 2021, the game was updated on Steam to support MacOS and Linux operating systems, whence the Itch.io version was discontinued. On the 30th of July 2021, a video was released documenting the development of Version 1.2.

### Scrapped content

On account of the final updating being acknowledged as Version 1.3, there are a few features which were presumed, however never added into the game officially. This includes a feature which may have allowed the use of Shovels for excavating terrain, and another which may have allowed a Shield to decrease damage from incoming attacks.

## Soundtrack

*See main article: Music*
***Muck*** holds a set of 9 music tracks which play on loop during certain times of day and while Bosses are alive. These tracks will generally remain as a background feature of the player's experience and volume of these tracks can be lowered through the game settings. The tracks composed by Context Sensitive can be found as an exclusive album on Spotify.

## System Requirements

 Processor (CPU)
 Memory capacity
 Graphics Card

## Reception

***Muck*** has receieved limited reception due to it being freeware. Public Steam reviews present the game *Very Good* as a consistent rating, with positive reviews recorded at 94%. As of August 2021, the game had over 3.5 million downloads on Steam.

### On other platforms

The game has also gained popularity on Twitch and YouTube, being a renowned multiplayer game. It has also seen great popularity within the speedrunning community.

## Trivia

* The game was created in a little over a month.
	+ At least 2 weeks of this development period were spent programming multiplayer functionality.
* The game was Dani's first full release on Steam, being only preceded by Karlson in development.
* Despite being completely unrelated, there is an island existing off the west coast of Scotland, known as Muck.
* Muck's first two Music tracks were composed by Dani.

## See also

* Muck on Steam
* Muck on the Steam Database

## Media

### Trailer

Muck Trailer (new)Trailer as of Version 1.107.Muck Trailer (old)-2Trailer as of release.
## References

1. ↑ Muck on Steam, Steam (retrieved November 7, 2021)
2. ↑ @DaniDevYT on Twitter, Twitter (retrieved December 23, 2021)
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 He said I Couldn't Make a Multiplayer Survival Game... So I Made One!, Dani on Youtube (retrieved November 10, 2021)
4. ↑ Achievements, SteamDB (retrieved November 10, 2021)
5. ↑ Muck Update4, Steam (retrieved July 23, 2021)
6. ↑ Muck Update3, Steam (retrieved June 26, 2021)
7. ↑ Muck Update2, Steam (retrieved June 14, 2021)
8. ↑ Muck Update1, Steam (retrieved June 8, 2021)
9. ↑ Muck is now supported on Mac (Warning - bad performance), Reddit (retrieved November 10, 2021)
10. ↑ Launch Options, SteamDB (retrieved November 10, 2021)
11. ↑ Muck System Requirements, PCGameBenchmark (retrieved November 10, 2021)
12. ↑ Muck System Requirements, Game Debate (retrieved November 10, 2021)
13. ↑ Adding a Dragon Boss to my Game Because Steam is Mad at me, Dani on Youtube (retrieved November 10, 2021)
14. ↑ Muck on Itch, Itch.io (retrieved November 7, 2021)
15. ↑ Muck reviews on Metacritic, Metacritic (retrieved November 7, 2021)