[HN Gopher] M.U.L.E. 40th Anniversary Special
___________________________________________________________________
M.U.L.E. 40th Anniversary Special
Author : sohkamyung
Score : 101 points
Date : 2023-05-24 10:43 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.carpeludum.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.carpeludum.com)
| Cerpicio wrote:
| We had a lot of fun playing this in our family on the Atari!
|
| I had a mobile version of it on iPhone, but then it was taken out
| of the store. I stopped playing it for a while and unfortunately
| my phone decided it was taking up too much space and removed it.
| Now I can't get it back. I was very disappointed when I found
| that out.
| JALTU wrote:
| This made my day, and the music posts - thank yous! But, didn't
| everyone think the MULE was an Imperial Walker?
| TMWNN wrote:
| I firmly believe that the world would be better off if every
| politician (and everyone else, really) were to play _MULE_ ,
| _SimCity_ , and _Civilization_.
| toast0 wrote:
| Pretty sure Herman Cain was inspired by Simcity in is 9-9-9
| plan [1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9%E2%80%939%E2%80%939_Plan
| bastardoperator wrote:
| One of the first games my parents bought for themselves. I played
| this on c64 regularly. The theme/intro sound is infectious
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEaBDzp4T7g
| radarsat1 wrote:
| I remember being intrigued and trying hard to understand this
| game when I was a kid playing it on my C64. I also remember being
| a bit sad when 20 years later I tried it again on some emulator,
| and still couldn't understand it. Maybe now 10 years later, I
| should try one more time. Third time's the charm, right? Maybe
| there is a good youtube tutorial on how to play it by now. Anyone
| got a good link?
| spacedcowboy wrote:
| Did you read the manual [1] that came with it when you bought
| it ? Or was the game ( _cough_ ) acquired... ? :)
|
| There are several tips in the manual for how to play the game
| well...
|
| [1]: https://www.mocagh.org/ea/mule-manual.pdf
| radarsat1 wrote:
| Ha I vaguely remember that manual! But as for how I acquired
| the C64 version, pretty sure my father bought it along with
| all his copies of Compute!. Honestly though I have no idea
| because I was about 8 years old. I definitely didn't read
| that manual on revisiting it, so I should give it a go now.
| Looks pretty complicated I have to admit but I bet it's worth
| giving it a good try this time ;). Thanks for the link!
| corysama wrote:
| From the article, https://puzzud.itch.io/mule-online looks like a
| new, officially-licensed port the original with some platform
| updates.
| syngrog66 wrote:
| M.U.L.E. was amazing. One of the many little retro masterpieces
| from the 80s which influences the latest game I've been building
| (Slartboz: see my bio here if curious.)
| sys32768 wrote:
| I...acquired this game without a manual, so I never played it,
| but I sure enjoyed booting it up for its catchy intro song:
|
| https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/GAMES/M-R/M_U_L_E.sid&su...
| davidw wrote:
| Oh man... that brings back memories.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| Don't copy that floppy!
| hotcrossbunny wrote:
| We must have played this for years on the Atari before
| discovering market "collusion" quite by accident when pressing
| both player buttons simultaneously mid-auction. It was features
| like this, and much around the auction implementation that was so
| novel and utterly playable. Brilliant game.
| Vvector wrote:
| My favorite tactic was to monopolize SmithOre, and then
| buy/release all the MULEs so everyone after me couldn't build
| anything. Apparently a need for MULEs causes SmithOre to
| skyrocket.
| fullshark wrote:
| I tried to do that so many times and failed. Every game I
| played basically became a race to mine cristite.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| That was Bill's advice in the manual, along with some
| gamesmanship to try and convince other players that you _meant_
| to get a river plot, but ended up with a mountain plot due to
| bumping the joystick...
| rolae wrote:
| Mine was basically ignoring all the mining, get as many food
| plots as possible, and focus on energy and food. Worked well
| against the computer, they believed there will be enough
| supply. But I actually bought out the warehouse and then drove
| prices extremely high.
|
| So I sold food energy at a higher pricepoint than the ore.
| Often the AI players couldn't afford food / energy anymore and
| therefore their production collapsed and they did not have
| enough food to have enough time to change the installations on
| their plots.
| gee_totes wrote:
| Now kids these days are first exposed to M.U.L.E. through the
| game Deeprock Galactic
| Prickle wrote:
| I did not even realize the game was 40 years old. I played it a
| lot when I was younger, and apparently it was born before me!
| evo_9 wrote:
| Crazy it's been 40 years. I bought this game when it came out and
| played it a ton with all my friends. Super fun multiplayer game.
| I broke out my Atari 800 last year for my birthday and played
| MULE and Star Raiders all weekend, both are still great.. I also
| play MULE on my SteamDeck (Emulator) regularly still. It's one of
| those games that has held up incredible well. I've not seen a
| good clone/knockoff/reboot of it (well any that I actually like
| enough to play), which is too bad, great game.
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| Awesome! I still have my Atari 800 kit in mint condition, with
| two drives, original joysticks, and probably a bunch of stuff
| I've forgotten. Oh yeah, my Star Gemini 10X printer is in the
| attic. My Commodore 1702 monitor needs "re-capping" though.
|
| My first job (at 15) was working on a software store, which was
| when MULE came out. I disagree with this: "which sounds much
| better than the Atari original despite the lack of a fourth
| voice." We had the Atari and 64 next to each other and would
| load up MULE to argue about which platform was better. I
| thought the music on the Atari was better in some ways,
| although the Commodore's synthesizer chip was pretty cool.
|
| Side note: I own an Ensoniq keyboard, which was made by former
| Commodore peeps. And, of course, its disk storage is non-
| standard junk. Still not as bad as the 1541 though...
|
| One thing EA nailed was packaging. Simple but "high-end"
| cardboard folders (like gatefold album covers) with cool art on
| them. I still have my original ones of Archon (great game)
| and... Music Construction Set maybe?
| pico303 wrote:
| I've still got my Seven Cities of Gold cardboard folder
| sitting on my shelf on display and Starflight in a box
| somewhere.
| evo_9 wrote:
| Oh right, Starflight, PC only. I always forget about that
| one and it's the only original title by EA I never actually
| played.
|
| Seven Cities was another classic, they really had quite an
| impressive set of launch titles.
| evo_9 wrote:
| That reminds me, I still have my original MULE disc and
| packaging, you're right they were really nice / very stylish
| for the time. Like mini-LP's, square and very distinctive.
| The original batch of games (I believe) included MULE, Larry
| Bird & Doctor Jay Go One-on-One, Hard Hat Mac and Pinball
| Construction Kit... I might be missing one or two.
| Vvector wrote:
| I remember Archon being in the same type box.
| evo_9 wrote:
| Ah yes, definitely one of the original releases.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| All their early stuff was uniform sizing, intended to be
| analogous to albums. Treating the programmers/designers like
| 'rock stars' was an intentional move.
| ryandrake wrote:
| As for reboots, Offworld Trading Company is kind of in the
| spirit of original M.U.L.E. In fact, one of the things you can
| use in the game is called a MULE, very likely an homage to the
| OG. Sadly, Offworld Trading Company has a pretty badly flawed
| end-game: An opponent will suddenly buy your company out, a
| process that (as far as I can tell from multiple play-throughs)
| cannot be blocked once that opponent gains enough momentum.
| Meaning you can be playing along, your money going up rapidly,
| making no mistakes, and still suddenly lose.
|
| I think an Offworld Trading Company without the "buy shares of
| opponents" game mechanic would have been a really great
| successor to M.U.L.E.!
| erickhill wrote:
| My older brother and I used to play this head-to-head on my
| Commodore 64. He almost always won, but I never gave up. Thanks
| to random events in the game I sometimes won, too.
|
| Last month I bought a gadget that allows the C64 to use 4
| controllers instead of 2 because THIS GAME has an unofficial
| update that supports 4 controllers. Proceeded to play it at my
| Commodore Computer Club meetup here in Seattle. Great multiplayer
| game.
| tombert wrote:
| Well...can you beat your older brother now?
| rstupek wrote:
| The Atari 800 version supported 4 players out of the box
| Vvector wrote:
| C64 supported 4 players out of the box as well. Two
| joysticks, which were hotseated for each players turn. And
| two of the users used the keyboard for the auction phase. It
| worked well enough.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| I still find myself humming the theme music from time to time.
| cpeterso wrote:
| Here's more info about the MULE board game released in 2015:
| https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/182619/mule-board-game
| swayvil wrote:
| That's a pretty darn good game. I played it intensely for a
| couple weeks.
|
| Commodore 64
|
| Also rogue, omega, moria... a lot
|
| Which goes well with early Pink Floyd. Atom Heart Mother.
| Ummagumma.
|
| Little 8bit icons are the best. They straddle the line between
| physical and dream sweetly.
| jimjimjim wrote:
| young me would always choose the flapper because it looked like a
| toilet.
| glonq wrote:
| Oh great, now the song will be stuck in my head for a week! :D
|
| I bought an Atari 130xe in my early teens because a friend had a
| giant box of game disks that I could copy. One of those games was
| MULE. My dad and I played the hell out of it.
|
| RIP Dani Bunten; an amazing game designer/developer.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-05-24 23:01 UTC)