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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.
If I recall, there was a version of MULE ported to the NES back in its heyday-- actually, I'm sure of it. It was one of the flagship 4-player titles for that system. Anyone play it?
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
M.U.L.E. is truly one of my favorite things in the universe. (Hopefully Dani is in one of the places in heaven reserved for true genius.) This could signal the appearance of a new black hole in my schedule. I just hope they keep the same music.
e x p e c t d e l a y . c o m
If you're gonna report a story about a port, then make sure it's actually a port, and not a remake. Remakes, even using the same title (re: Hasbro Asteroids) aren't the same as the original, they always monkey with it, and it's never the same.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Check out Terra 2200. This one's dev status hasn't changed recently, but I keep checking the site anytime I've got an inclination for M.U.L.E. in 3D.
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?
www.eFax.com are spammers
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
... but the old game is avalable in a lot of places, like this. :)
Combined with vice, you can relive your childhood...
-- No sig today
so ppl. with sdl out there why hasnt anyone stepped up and made a remake of mule with better graphics than this graphically sucking commercial game.
dont let mule end like this...
Josh Cogliati is working on a reimplementation in Python called L.A.M.B. -- Land Access Mechanized Bot. There's still a lot of work to do, tough.
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 ...
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
You could also play up to four players with one controller. My family was so addicted to it that we kept and paid for the copy we rented from the video store. By the time I got an NES, you couldn't find M.U.L.E. in the stores anymore...
M.U.L.E. is the reason I my GPA dropped to ~2.0 in middle school!
-- Sent from a computer.
Three and four player modes were one of the main attractions in my opinion. Can this be handled on a PC?
M.U.L.E Theme
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
MULE was good, and I'm sure HoRSE will be even better, but personally I'm going to hold out until someone implements PLaTYPUS (Personalized Labor Tool Yeilding Previously Unavailable Smithore)!
Here is a link to a page that lists multiple clones, including the open source one.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
This project is pointless unless it has the theme.
pooka-POOKA pooka-POOKA pooka-POOKA POOKA POOKA
It's actually better looking than I assumed it would be. I assumed a remake would be a 3-D RTS with FPS elements and first person perspective, featuring the voice acting talents of several third-rate and/or Star Trek actors.
System Requirements:
Then: Atari or C64
Now: Pentium 200 MHz, 32MB RAM, no more than 120MB HD Space, DirectX 8 Compatible 16MB Video Card, CD ROM, DirectX 8 compatible Sound System, Mouse
First of all - M.U.L.E. is one of the best games in history, just like NetHack or Civilization.
You can find few clones in the net - but it's for DOS or Windows. I couldn't find any clone which will run in Linux. I thought about writing SDL clone myself, but this is a lot of work (the hardest parts for me is AI and drawing sprites) - and I am not sure if arcade parts should be still in game.
Do you know any Open Source M.U.L.E. project I could join?
To find information about game, and clones list enter page:
World of M.U.L.E
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.
is competition good, or is duplication of effort bad?
I'll pay for this, if it is as good as the orgional.
Note however that it must work with WINE Best would be a native linux version. Just so long as I can play it on my systems without paying theMicrosoft tax
Will we get to hunt the Mountain Wumpus again?
--
http://www.aikiweb.com - AikiWeb Aikido Information
Hi, my name is Richard Arnesen, and I work for the publisher of Space HoRSE. Just wanted to say thanks for the mention of the game. Youu can find out more about out company at www.shrapnelgames.com. P.S. Just now looking through the comments, if you have any questions besides that just drop me a line anytime...
While I've often dreamed of an update to M.U.L.E. (or Archon), I question whether simply updating the graphics and adding new cutscenes can really enhance the excellent gameplay. M.U.L.E.'s gameplay was such that the random events every turn could throw off the balance of the game just enough to give any player the opportunity to take the lead within a couple turns (there were only 12 turns in the game, each representing a month). There's nothing quite like making the richest players pay over $200 per unit of food because they're starving. Besides that, it had arcade and strategic elements (try figuring out which plot of land you're going to grab at the beginning of each turn can be somewhat stressful) along with a certain 8-bit charm that probably won't translate very well to the modern PC.
I'll definitely grab the demo, but that's only if EA doesn't sue them out of existence first...
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
I have a Gravis gamepad.
On/off inputs, uses the analog joystick port
left or right handed switch, 4 buttons, or 2 buttons and 2 auto fires.
Even came with 2 extra sticks for the thumbpad, and a copy of Commander Keen (can't remember which one)
You mean more like 1.1Ghz, 256MB ram, 700MB HD space, 32MB geforce2, dvd-rom.
I've actually seen MINIMUM system requirements similar to above for new games.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Pentium 200 MHz, 32MB RAM, no more than 120MB HD Space, DirectX 8 Compatible 16MB Video Card, CD ROM, DirectX 8 compatible Sound System, Mouse
I'm screwed! I've got way more than 120MB HD Space! Going to have to install more stuff to make less room for it.
I have trouble with passwords among other things.
How many hours you spent on your commodore 64, amiga, atari ST, on a LAME game by today's standard? I can't count how many hours I played M.U.L.E, or speedball, pinball fantasy or star control.
Why? Simplest idea sometimes are the coolest. Some games have a high level of complexity and are awesome simulators (Mech warrior series to name one), PC titles aren't all bad and some are quite addictive and are a good investment (i.e. Quake 3, you pay once, you get a zillion of mods after), but in comparison with the "pre-PC-DOOM" age, the % of titles that are addictive today are way lower than it was before.
How many people did it take to code something like burger time, how many people did it take to code a game like SOF for example? I'm sure there are more total hours played on burger time than on SOF, and forget about the "it's been there for 20 years", let's see if people are even going to remember that game in 20 years.
Anyways, this is good news, put M.U.L.E with today's level of complexity, and you could have a kick-ass title.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
I'm not talking about EA, I'm talking about Dani Berry (who was known as Dan Bunten at that time). She created Modem Wars, Command HQ, Global Conquest, and M.U.L.E. She was an innovator of multiplayer online games in the 1980's. She was way ahead of her time, and it is a shame that just as the games business was ready for her again, she lost her battle with lung cancer (July 1998).
Online wrestling as a trading card game? WWF With Authority.
Oh yeah, and it looks like the HoRSE in question is the offspring of an AT-ST from The Empire Strikes Back.
:-)
How ironic, given that the M.U.L.E. in the original was modeled after the AT-AT from the same movie.
My friends and I were addicted to M.U.L.E. for quite a while. To me, what it had going for it was:
I'm sure I'm looking back at it through rose colored glasses, but if it has network multiplayer, I may lose my job :-)
-- stream of did I lock the front door consciousness
I can play M.U.L.E. now? You mean I've wasted all these years not playing when I could have been?
How does one go about setting up their PC to play M.U.L.E. ? Where are the programs I need?
God is real unless declared integer
Well, there was Archon Ultra a few years ago, but that was generally regarded as worse than the original.
You make a good point-- for all the nostalgia being thrown around on the topic of old computer games, it might be nice once in a while for someone to summarize for those of us who weren't there.
MULE, however, was a game I recall from my childhood. Both the idea and the execution were quite simple-- the premise was that you were part of a 4-person colony on a distant planet called "Irata." (Get it?) The game proceeded in 12 rounds-- each round began with a land grab, in which each player would select a parcel of land on the planet's surface, although some parcels were more desirable (and thus, more contentiously sought after) because of the natural resources they contained. Once the land grab was completed, each player would have the opportunity to exploit the resources on his or her plots of land by purchasing, equipping, and deploying MULEs ("multiple use labor elements"-- i.e. robots). Each parcel could be used to either grow food, generate energy, or mine Smithore.
After each player had his or her turn to deploy MULEs, the game yielded a harvest on each parcel, depending on the suitability of each parcel for the use it was put to, various economies of scale, and random events that increased or decreased the production of certain goods planetwide or on a local level. Phase 2 of the round-- the auction-- then began.
Each commodity was placed up for auction, and a player could either elect to buy or sell that commodity in that round. Thus, if you produced only food, you'd need to buy energy during the auction, since you need energy to run your MULEs. While the colony maintained a store which bought or sold excess quantities of each commodity at fairly reasonable prices, because of supply and demand, predatory buying or selling, or a disaster at the store, players would often find that the store was out of stock and their fellow competitors were the only source of necessary commodities. Consequently, you would wind up paying exorbitant prices demanded by the monopolist with the goods. In this regard, the game rewarded, at least on the surface, highly cutthroat play. I say "on the surface," because the game also required the players to achieve a colony-wide level of success by the end of the game, and a player who extorted his fellows might become the richest player in the game, but the colony might be declared a failure overall, making the victory phyrric.
That's the general outline of the game, although there were lots of little touches that made it more complicated. The reason most people recall t fondly was because it was because it was a game that required some critical (and fast) thinking, but was designed to support lots of different strategic approaches-- you could be a land baron, keeping other players from obtaining important parcels, even though you never developed them yourself; you could focus your strategy on one commodity and hope to control the market; you could play a balanced approach; you could screw people surreptitiously, etc. The game was simple to learn, and primitive in its execution, but was conceptually rich and rewarded those who planned ahead. It also introduced a lot of interesting competitive economic concepts like economies of scale, supply and demand, monopolies, etc., that had not been incorporated into computer games before. And although the graphics were primitive, the characters involved had a whimsical feel to them and it had a funky little theme song that was catchy.
I bought the game back on the C64. About a year ago I saw it on ebay for the NES. So I dusted the ole bitch off and have enjoyed it many times since. However the NES has become unstable. If anyone knows how to make it actually turn on when the game is inserted and pressed down. For some reason it clicks on and off several times and I have to keep playing with it before it EUREKA, and works.
Also, I will look into how hard it would be to make a ROM for the cartridge..never tried it, but would be happy to pass it around if I can figure it out. The NES version was a little cleaner than the C64, but still had all the idiosyncresies of the old skool.
Razzious Domini
I could be a GREAT KARMA WHORE if I could just shed the few morals I have left.
There's nothing quite like making the richest players pay over $200 per unit of food because they're starving.
Ah, you were one of THOSE people, eh?
I was one of the people who would keep holding the food out of their reach. LET THEM STARVE! I was even known to take the last M.U.L.E. out of the pen during a Smithore crisis, and just let it run free.
God is real unless declared integer
The publisher, Shrapnel Games, has a few other interesting titles. Particularly good is Space Empires IV, a Reach for the Stars or Masters of Orion II-like galactic conquest strategy game. There's a good review of it on GameSpot.
The same dudes that made M.U.L.E. made a game called Seven Cities of Gold. The game rocked on C64 but playability was completely destroyed on the PC version which introduce some extra *ahem* features
Don't forget that it was different. As far as the NES world went (that's where I played it) it wasn't the same old platform game, or top down shooter. It required strategy, and cooperation of the other players. Not only did you want to come in first, you wanted to do so while making the colony as a whole successful.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Does anybody besides me have fond memories of another EA game for the C-64 called "Worms?"?
Up to six players could play. Essentially, the game was played on a hexagonal grid. Each player's "worm" would start out from the origin point at the center of the screen. When a worm encountered a new situation, it would pause and wait for the player to pick a direction for it to go. From then on, the worm would remember that command and repeat it.
At the beginning of a game, the worms are constantly pausing and waiting for instructions, but after a few runs through the order, the worms are self-guiding for a while. As worms travel through the points on the hex grid, the points turn into vertices. A worm claims a vertex by completing all the paths into and out of the vertex. A worm dies when it heads into a vertex and completes it without an out path, or when it collides with another worm at a vertex.
At the end of the game, when all the worms are dead, the player whose worm has claimed the most vertices wins.
I thought it was a pretty cool game and I've never encountered anything like it since.
I was one of the people who would keep holding the food out of their reach. LET THEM STARVE! I was even known to take the last M.U.L.E. out of the pen during a Smithore crisis, and just let it run free.
That was one of the best parts about the tournament level - people (especially the computer) usually tried to produce Chrystite, and if you could get enough of the mountain ranges, you could choke them on M.U.L.E.s pretty easily. Personally, I always liked producing plenty of energy after buying all of it up from the store so that no one could produce anything.
I've been trying to teach some of the nastier tricks to my girlfriend, but usually when we play, she's the Flapper so she has a bit of an advantage.
I spent 10 minutes in class one day trying to explain it to my students, and a couple of them downloaded it and started playing it. I wish the Atari 800 emulators had multiplayer over TCP/IP, but then I probably wouldn't get any work done.
God I love that game.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
Kinda like kids that outgrow playing marbles but refuse to give their old marbles to their younger siblings because "those are my marbles!"
Sid Meir once told me that his game "Colonization" was a tribute / sequel to "Seven Cities of Gold."
(I actually noted the resemblance when I saw Colonization at a trade show booth. Meir, who was lurking nearby, was pleased that someone recognized the connection.)
The official port of Seven Cities to PC sucked. Man, was that offensive.
I first played M.U.L.E. on my Atari in the 90s ;) :^(
Noone ever wanted to play it with me, though, so I never got into it.
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.
Actually,
:)
The source for atari800win is freely availiable. You could use
kaillera for the netcode and voila instant atari netplay goodness. I've been wanting to play ballblazer 2p across the net for a while now
Maybe you should make it a senior project for your students to get it done :P
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi