Hall of Fame Game M.U.L.E. To Be Ported To PC

DebateUSA writes "If you ever played the game M.U.L.E. on the Atari or Commodore computer systems in the early 1980's, there's a company producing a new version for the PC. " Ah, resource allocation.

Comments

And why did they change the name?

[wowbagger]

I have to wonder - why change the name, and the name of the resources? What was wrong with "Multi-Use Labor Element", chrystite, and smithore?

OK, I could understand if they changed the name of the planet (irata) for obvious reasons, but do they think the rest of the changes will protect them if EA decides to press the point?

Re:And why did they change the name?

[Rogerborg]

• why change the name, and the name of the resources? What was wrong with "Multi-Use Labor Element", chrystite, and smithore

"Inspired by the 1980's classic, M.U.L.E" they say, which is just about the most stupid thing they could have done. It's clearly not licensed, it's a commercial product, and they've just tried to make money off of EA's trademark. Arguably, they are flat out passing off, something that Slashdot has just happily contributed to by calling this a "port". Note that Gamespot are very careful not to do this.

It is possible to produce a commercial "inspired by" version of a classic game if you're careful to not make any claims about what you're emulating. It doesn't matter if every magazine in the world calls your version a "XYZ clone", as long as you don't try and leverage someone else's trademark, you're safe. But it looks like Shrapnel reckon that the M.U.L.E trademark is abandonware, or they just don't understand what they've done. EA's nose has been tweaked, and now they can either throw a lawyer or ten at protecting their trademark, or they can admit that it's lapsed. Which is more likely?

At the very least, EA will be able to get Shrapnel to stop mentioning M.U.L.E. And if EA can show that they have any plans to produce their own port, they can ream Shrapnel for cutting into their market, even their potential market.

I don't necessarily think that's right or fair, it's just what's going to happen. EA can make Shrapnel dance like organ grinders' monkeys now just by throwing a few lawyers at them. It looks like Shrapnel doesn't have any big corporate backers to fight their corner for them. Damn shame, but they've kind of brought it on themselves.

And incidentally (or otherwise), isn't that an AT-ST walker they're using for cover art? Now they're tweaking the nose of Lucasart? Oh dear. :(

Joysticks

[gotan]

One thing that was putting me off from playing M.U.L.E on a PC (via emulation) was the lack of proper joysticks. I don't think the (analog) PC-joysticks are up to the job (they are unwieldy and don't have clearly defined directions), ideal would be an atari type joystick (i prefered the competition pro with microswitches for directions and metal contacts for the buttons), a game-pad would be the closest equivalent, but i find them too fiddly. There are some adapters out there to connect atari-type joysticks to a pc, and also some do-it-yourself-pages, but then i could just dig out my old C64 and see if it still works ...

Re:NES version?

[coupland]

Unfortunately I've never played the NES version, but I do have a copy of it, still in the original shrink-wrap. Back then all the box art was elaborate artist conceptions that bore absolutely no resemblence to the "ball-and-paddle" graphics of the time. I doubt anyone would have bought the game if the front cover had included screen shots. :P

Man I hope they don't screw it up

[eison]

The official remake/sequel/port of MULE got canned because the company doing it insisted on adding weapons, and the author (thankfully!) wouldn't allow it. ( Source: Read in a game mag interview that I can't find now, and mentioned separately at Retrogaming Times )

But, if the original designer's new version had to be scrapped due to unacceptable monkeying with it, what are the odds of this knock-off *not* monkeying too much, especially given that sufficient monkeying might give them some legal protection? So, I'm not getting my hopes up.

An update was planned by the original developer

[lightspawn]

(in an old article from Gamasutra.com) :

There's a story about Dani that I know contains an element of slander, but it's too good to pass up: (I'll try to correct the slander afterwards)

At one point Dani was negotiating to do a new version of M.U.L.E. At the same time, she was also in the middle of her transformation, which, of course, included the surgery, and everyone who knew her well was secretly wondering about it. Soon afterwards, at some industry function or another, Russell Sipe, then publisher of Computer Gaming World, came up to her. "Well?" he asked. "Did you go through with it?" "No," Dani said. "I decided not to."

Russell was taken aback. "Really! Why not?"

"Well, they wanted to put guns and bombs in there, and I just didn't want that."

"WHAT??!!!!!" said Russell, utterly flabbergasted.

Of course it was all straightened out a moment later. Russell had been thinking about the life- changing, utterly irrevocable business of losing one's genitals.

Dani, characteristically, had been thinking about game design.