Document
Research timelines, creators, versions, engine families, notable projects, and community history.
Preserving Online Worlds, One Engine at a Time
The Indie MMO Museum
A living archive dedicated to the engines, browser platforms, developers, communities, and half-forgotten dream projects that helped a generation learn how to build persistent online worlds.
The Mission
More museum than download graveyard.
The Indie MMO Museum will document the software and the culture around it: releases, creators, screenshots, communities, notable games, surviving files, lost versions, and the stories of the people who built worlds with them.
Preserve
Archive installers, source code, manuals, screenshots, videos, tutorials, and old websites when permitted.
Remember
Collect interviews, personal stories, development memories, and artifacts before they vanish into the digital fog.
Initial Collection
Engines currently on the research list.
This is the starting catalog, spanning desktop engines, browser-based MMO systems, commercial middleware, open-source projects, and the many forks that connected them. Each engine will eventually receive a full exhibit.
Mirage
A major root of the VB6 indie MMO family tree and the foundation for numerous later engines and forks.
Exhibit plannedEclipse
One of the best-known descendants of Mirage, with a large community and many versions, forks, and rewrites.
Exhibit plannedRealmCrafter
A commercial 3D MMO creation system remembered for making online world building feel unusually approachable.
Research starting soonXtreme Worlds
A long-running indie MMO engine with roots in the classic online RPG development scene.
Exhibit plannedNEAB
An engine with a direct connection to this project: it was once owned by the museum's founder.
Priority exhibitHalls Node
An early Node.js backend created for browser-based MMOs, developed by the museum's founder during the platform's formative years.
Priority exhibitNew Worlds Engine
A popular PHP and MySQL engine that helped web developers create persistent browser-based MMORPGs during the classic browser MMO era.
Priority exhibitAbyssal Engine
An indie MMO development engine from the era when small teams were building their own world-making toolsets.
Research neededTorque MMO Kit
An MMO-oriented toolkit built around the Torque engine ecosystem and its active indie development community.
Exhibit plannedHeroEngine
A collaborative online game development platform aimed at building large persistent multiplayer worlds.
Exhibit plannedEsenthel Engine
A flexible 3D engine that became known among indie developers for RPG and multiplayer game creation.
Exhibit plannedRage of Magic SDK
An MMO-focused development kit from the early indie online game era, now part of a rapidly fading software landscape.
Research neededIntersect
A later open-source MMO engine shaped by the Eclipse community and the long evolution of accessible 2D online RPG tools.
Exhibit plannedEclipse Descendants
Eclipse Evolution, Eclipse Origins, Orion+, Net Engine, and other branches deserve individual records within the wider family tree.
Catalog in progress
Planned signature exhibit:
an interactive engine family tree tracing Mirage and Eclipse descendants alongside browser MMO engines, PHP platforms,
early Node.js backends, commercial middleware, rewrites, forks, and related communities.
Museum Galleries
Explore the different paths to an online world.
Indie MMO development did not follow one family tree. Desktop engines, browser platforms, commercial middleware, and open-source descendants evolved side by side, often borrowing ideas from one another.
Desktop Engines
Mirage, Eclipse, RealmCrafter, Xtreme Worlds, NEAB, Abyssal Engine, and other downloadable world-building systems.
Browser MMO Engines
New Worlds Engine and other PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, and browser-focused platforms that powered persistent web worlds.
Commercial Middleware
Torque MMO Kit, HeroEngine, and larger platforms that promised more ambitious online development pipelines.
Open Source & Successors
Intersect, later rewrites, community continuations, and projects that carried the indie MMO tradition forward.
Founder-connected collection:
NEAB, Halls Node, and RealmCrafter have direct links to the museum's founder and can be documented with firsthand history,
surviving files, development memories, and other primary-source material.
Open Call for Artifacts
Old hard drive full of MMO history?
Installers, source code, screenshots, manuals, forum backups, videos, project files, and personal stories may be the only surviving copies. A future submission system will help bring those artifacts into the museum.
Contact the Museum