Salon on M.U.L.E Creator Dani Bunten

douglips writes "If you're a hacker of a certain age, chances are you played M.U.L.E. Salon is running a story on M.U.L.E. creator Dan[i] Bunten. Ahead of her time, she insisted that games would be most enjoyable when they involved social interactions rather than just flashy single-player action and graphics."

Comments

M.U.L.E. Clone

[Serra]

Here is a link to a pretty good M.U.L.E. clone named Space HoRSE. Not quite the old version, but you can try the free demo for nostalgia's sake.

M.U.L.E. is just perfect

[Jacek Poplawski]

M.U.L.E. is one of the best games ever.

It has very interesting rules: with other 3 players you land on planet Irata (read backwards!) and start colonize it. Every turn you get and buy new plots, then put artificial mule on it. You not only decide what to produce, but also set price for buy/sell. There is true economy there!

Please notice year this game was released. Please notice hardware it runs - just 64KB of RAM! It's extremely playable and contains multiplayer support (wihout net of course). I don't know _any_ good clone of that game.

To be honest I started playing with Atari800 code, to play M.U.L.E. with my girlfriend (two joysticks support!).

M.U.L.E. is just perfect. Like NetHack or DOOM.

Reason why I liked M.U.L.E.

[Tikiman]

One reason I liked M.U.L.E. was because the goal of the game was ambiguous. You could be a nice guy and sell food and energy at reasonable prices, or you could a ruthless jerk, screwing everyone by hoarding smitore and buying M.U.L.E.'s to just let them go. It was awesome!

Also if anyone is interested, see this text preservation of the M.U.L.E. Manual, particularly the text on the back cover, and see the cover art here. Hilarious!

M.U.L.E. had the best music ever

[DennisZeMenace]

For the nostalgic :

http://www.denisleroy.com/atari/mp3/Mule.mp3

Re:I remember it on the C64

[Saige]

Exactly - Dani Bunten was transsexual. It happens more than you'd expect in the computer realm. I think Slashdot had an article about a year or so ago about someone who had made a huge advancement in the computer field, then disappeared due to being transsexual, and her for the longest time not taking credit for the work she did as "he".

Information for fans of M.U.L.E

[afflatus_com]

The M.U.L.E. scene is alive and well, even now many years after its release. Ah planet IRATA (which was Atari spelled backwards).

While there is no GameSpy planetmule.com website for M.U.L.E, I strongly recommend World of M.U.L.E as the best starting point.

The Strategies is insightful, giving the designer's own ways of beating their enemies.

For the diehards, there is screenshots of the long-lost sequels: namely the Deluxe Amiga version, as well as "Son of M.U.L.E." which Dani discontinued because of EA's desire to add guns and bombs to her creation.

Finally, is Dani's email letter to the site shortly before her death.

A brilliant creator, I wish she was still around making great works.

One of Dani's last published interviews

[Junks Jerzey]

right here.

Modem Wars!

[pumpkinheadgiant]

I must confess that I never played MULE in my com64 days, but I am very familiar with Bunten's work. My favorite of all time has to be Modem Wars. I lost many many hours to this game.

Commanding upwards of 30(?) independently-programmable robots across mountains and through forests while under the fog-of-war (no enemy sightings unless your units do the sighting) all in real time! Vaguely based on football metaphor, each side also had a ComCen unit, which was effectively your quarterback. To lose this unit was to lose the game. The Comcen could also launch massively destructive missles, or attempt to shoot down said missles.

All of this in real time, all over a 1200-baud modem. Wow!

Older articles about Dani

[savetz]

A 1985 interview with Dan from Antic magazine
A 1985 review of M.U.L.E. from Creative Computing