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"Its casual pace belies a fiendishly competitive classic where friendships are made and lost in minutes"

Playing around with Super Bomberman 2 got me thinking about the truly great multiplayer games. The best ones always allow for that extra edge. It's fun to outmaneuver your friends, but when you can really put the screws to them, you're on to something. A brilliant example, one of my personal favorites, is the computer game classic, M.U.L.E.

MULE was the product of an Arkansas-based development team called Ozark Softscape. The team was comprised of Dan Bunten (project leader), Bill Bunten, Alan Watson, and Jim Rushing. These were the heady days of the early 1980s, with the fall of dedicated consoles (Atari 2600), and the rise of home computers. There was a great desire to experiment and create games that stretched out in new directions. An upstart company named Electronic Arts was entering its own ''golden age,'' with a solid string of excellent, original games like Pinball Construction Set, Archon, and One on One.

Electronic Arts followed the trail blazed by Activision. Game designers weren't stereotypical computer nerds, but young, creative, and above all, craving attention. They imagined themselves as the new artists, and their games as a creative work. These were not merely children's games, they were…something more. Different. New. Electronic Arts promoted this idea, and Bunten and his team were willing to accommodate.

Just what kind of game is MULE? It really is difficult to describe, since it seems so different from the conventional shoot-em-up, sports, and adventure genres crowding today's market. Perhaps it is most similar to Monopoly, with a dash of arcade action and commodities trading added to the mix. Taking place on the world of Irata, four alien settlers set out to develop the land over the course of 12 monthly turns. Each player selects a plot of land, and then equips that plot for production of food, energy, or mining ore and crystite. At the end of each turn, the plots bear fruit, and the players buy and sell their goods at the market.

I'm afraid that I am making MULE sound boring, but it is anything but. The casual pace belies a fiendishly competitive atmosphere where friendships are made and lost in a matter of minutes. If you do not grow enough food, you will lose precious time for your turns and risk falling behind. If you do not produce enough energy, your plots will suffer. And if enough ore is not made, there will be a shortage of mules.

The mule (for Multiple Use Labor Element) is one of the game's more clever touches. Each plot of land needs to be equipped for the proper function, and for that, you need mules. A mule is bought at the colony store, equipped, and then added to your plot.

This development phase is only one part of the game. The other part is the trading phase. After the monthly harvest, players meet at the market, watch the progress of their crops, and buy or sell with each other or the store. This is where MULE can become so fierce. True, it would be nice to share your extra food with everyone for the good of the colony, but what fun is that? Sharing is for losers. The real fun comes from cornering the market. When there is plenty of food in the store, for instance, the price is very low. But when there are shortages, the price soars.

This is where you screw your friends into the ground. How desperate are they for that extra unit of food or energy? Make them run up the screen and raise the price. Skilled players can learn how to control the market and make a killing in the process. And, yes, this is where shoulders start getting punched between curses.

The bidding in MULE is simple, with buyers on the bottom and sellers on the top. A price is found by both parties meeting somewhere in the middle. There is a certain, almost masochistic joy in watching other players desperately running up prices while you sit safely at the top of the screen. Another great ''screw you'' moment comes during plot auctions; the leader runs up the price, then quickly darts back down at the last second, sticking someone else with the bill.

In the end, we are all competing for bragging rights and the rank of ''First Founder'' at the end of the game. However, in another inspired stroke, the colony as a whole must survive together. If the colony fails to make enough money at year's end, nobody is the winner. Think about that while you're cutting everyone off at the knees.

There are still more surprises to be found in MULE that I haven't mentioned. Mules go crazy and run off; pests eat your food; pirates steal all your crystite (diamonds); there are earthquakes, acid rainstorms, and meteorite strikes; the store catches fire, taking with it all surplus goods. And the game itself subtly teaches market economics: supply and demand, economies of scale, the Learning Curve theory of production, the Law of Diminishing Returns, the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs.

There really has never been a game like MULE, and that is a tragedy. It deserves to be seen by anyone who considers themselves a lover of videogames.


Reviewer's Score: 10/10 | Originally Posted: 03/19/03, Updated 03/19/03

"This game is one of the best C64 games ever!"

M.U.L.E. is perhaps one of the greatest games in the history of video gaming. Created in 1983 by Electronic Arts, it allowed up to four players the chance to colonize a planet and compete with the other players. You pick from eight alien races (human included), and you colonize the planet Irata. (Atari spelled backwards.) Depending on the difficulty, you spend either six or twelve months on the planet gaining resources and buying property. Outfitted with M.U.L.E.s (robotic pack animals, in essence,) you purchase property and obtain resources from it, for money. (Like other games, he who has the most money in the end wins.) While you attempt to create the greatest colony on the planet, obstacles such as pirates and weather can ruin your property. After the time has expired, remaining money and property are tallied up to determine the winner.

Graphics: 8
The graphics are pretty good when it comes to a C64 game. The landscape of the planet could have been more detailed, but there are limitations on a computer as old as this. This is a game coming from an era where games were made on the basis of good gameplay, and not necessarily graphics. (As such, objects do not ''bleed'' into one another like some modern games.)

Sound: 8
The theme song to this game is one of the catchiest game themes ever. I suggest hearing it immediately, and afterwards, you'll never get it out of your head. I am serious. SMB, Tetris, and M.U.L.E. - perhaps the top three catchiest themes. While the game itself lacks in sound (there is no real need for it) the theme makes up the difference.

Control: 9
You either use the C64 keyboard or a joystick. There are no real control problems in this game; the characters move in the direction you want them to, as the control system is responsive.

Gameplay: 10
This game was revolutionary. It set up a system that has been copied many times over. I could play this game time and time again and not be bored of it. While playing the game may not be exciting for some, it is better playing with friends or family.

Overall (not an average): 10
I highly recommend dusting off the old C64 and playing this game. Find and old one at a garage sale or flea market. This game is definitely worth searching for.


Reviewer's Score: 10/10 | Originally Posted: 03/25/01, Updated 03/25/01

"Its casual pace belies a fiendishly competitive classic where friendships are made and lost in minutes"

Playing around with Super Bomberman 2 got me thinking about the truly great multiplayer games. The best ones always allow for that extra edge. It's fun to outmaneuver your friends, but when you can really put the screws to them, you're on to something. A brilliant example, one of my personal favorites, is the computer game classic, M.U.L.E.

MULE was the product of an Arkansas-based development team called Ozark Softscape. The team was comprised of Dan Bunten (project leader), Bill Bunten, Alan Watson, and Jim Rushing. These were the heady days of the early 1980s, with the fall of dedicated consoles (Atari 2600), and the rise of home computers. There was a great desire to experiment and create games that stretched out in new directions. An upstart company named Electronic Arts was entering its own ''golden age,'' with a solid string of excellent, original games like Pinball Construction Set, Archon, and One on One.

Electronic Arts followed the trail blazed by Activision. Game designers weren't stereotypical computer nerds, but young, creative, and above all, craving attention. They imagined themselves as the new artists, and their games as a creative work. These were not merely children's games, they were…something more. Different. New. Electronic Arts promoted this idea, and Bunten and his team were willing to accommodate.

Just what kind of game is MULE? It really is difficult to describe, since it seems so different from the conventional shoot-em-up, sports, and adventure genres crowding today's market. Perhaps it is most similar to Monopoly, with a dash of arcade action and commodities trading added to the mix. Taking place on the world of Irata, four alien settlers set out to develop the land over the course of 12 monthly turns. Each player selects a plot of land, and then equips that plot for production of food, energy, or mining ore and crystite. At the end of each turn, the plots bear fruit, and the players buy and sell their goods at the market.

I'm afraid that I am making MULE sound boring, but it is anything but. The casual pace belies a fiendishly competitive atmosphere where friendships are made and lost in a matter of minutes. If you do not grow enough food, you will lose precious time for your turns and risk falling behind. If you do not produce enough energy, your plots will suffer. And if enough ore is not made, there will be a shortage of mules.

The mule (for Multiple Use Labor Element) is one of the game's more clever touches. Each plot of land needs to be equipped for the proper function, and for that, you need mules. A mule is bought at the colony store, equipped, and then added to your plot.

This development phase is only one part of the game. The other part is the trading phase. After the monthly harvest, players meet at the market, watch the progress of their crops, and buy or sell with each other or the store. This is where MULE can become so fierce. True, it would be nice to share your extra food with everyone for the good of the colony, but what fun is that? Sharing is for losers. The real fun comes from cornering the market. When there is plenty of food in the store, for instance, the price is very low. But when there are shortages, the price soars.

This is where you screw your friends into the ground. How desperate are they for that extra unit of food or energy? Make them run up the screen and raise the price. Skilled players can learn how to control the market and make a killing in the process. And, yes, this is where shoulders start getting punched between curses.

The bidding in MULE is simple, with buyers on the bottom and sellers on the top. A price is found by both parties meeting somewhere in the middle. There is a certain, almost masochistic joy in watching other players desperately running up prices while you sit safely at the top of the screen. Another great ''screw you'' moment comes during plot auctions; the leader runs up the price, then quickly darts back down at the last second, sticking someone else with the bill.

In the end, we are all competing for bragging rights and the rank of ''First Founder'' at the end of the game. However, in another inspired stroke, the colony as a whole must survive together. If the colony fails to make enough money at year's end, nobody is the winner. Think about that while you're cutting everyone off at the knees.

There are still more surprises to be found in MULE that I haven't mentioned. Mules go crazy and run off; pests eat your food; pirates steal all your crystite (diamonds); there are earthquakes, acid rainstorms, and meteorite strikes; the store catches fire, taking with it all surplus goods. And the game itself subtly teaches market economics: supply and demand, economies of scale, the Learning Curve theory of production, the Law of Diminishing Returns, the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs.

There really has never been a game like MULE, and that is a tragedy. It deserves to be seen by anyone who considers themselves a lover of videogames.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 03/19/03, Updated 03/19/03

The initials stand for Multiple Use Labour Element, but the creatures they refer to look very similar to the animals we know and love. Put simply, this is a trading game where mules produce goods for you and you try to make as much money as possible by selling them. It is also one of the few computer games for FOUR different players, although the computer can control up to three of them if you're on your own.

The game is set on the planet Irata (Atari backwards -- ho ho ho), where the four characters, which you can choose from eight aliens, try to develop its resources. A spaceship lands you in the only town with each player having a small amount of money and goods, depending on which character he has chosen.

Surrounding the town are a river, a number of mountains, and mostly plains. This area is broken up into plots of land, and at the start of each turn a cursor moves across the screen allowing you to pick a plot. You can only get one plot per turn on the beginner's game, and you will be in competition with the other players for them.

Having selected your plot, you can go and buy a mule in the town and outfit it. There are three resources which can be tapped: smithore, energy, and food. Once outfitted to get one of these goods, you can install the mule on your plot where it will produce units of the good at the end of the turn. Its success will depend on its location, food going best near the river, energy in the solar rich plains, and smithore in the mountains.

If you've got any time left you can go and gamble in the pub (you never lose), or go Wampus hunting in the mountains (bet you can't catch one). Once all four players are finished a random event may occur, like a planetquake, acid rain, pest attack or pirate raid which can dent your productivity.

The mules now get on with producing and you may get the occasional bonus or bad news scroll across the screen. You take the fruits of their labour to the store where you can trade them with other players or the store itself. Each turn you will need certain amounts of energy, food, and of course money, to keep your mules producing.

You may have shortages or surpluses of goods so you can buy some and sell others. This is done on an interesting auction screen, where sellers at the top and buyers at the bottom move towards each other so as to meet at a mutually acceptable price. If no one is trading, the store itself may be able to sell you goods. You cannot sell below a critical level which are your essential supplies.

After trading has finished you are shown the financial state of each player and the colony's overall situation, before returning to the land screen where you can choose another plot. The beginner's game lasts for six months, at which point the ship returns to check on the colony's progress and award the title of first founder to the player of greatest worth. BW.

Advanced mule marketing

Once you've mastered the beginner's game you can move onto the standard and tournament games, which introduce new features and are both run over 12 months. The standard game had land auctions for random individual plots and also the ability to sell plots. You will also find that mules run into short supply and vary in price, and you have more control over the auctions being able to sell below your critical level of supply and charge enormous prices for goods in short supply.

The tournament game introduces a new commodity, crystite, which sells for high prices but is vulnerable to pirates and not always easy to find. It also has collusion whereby two players can transact a private deal without the general interference of an auction free-for-all. This can be used for lots of dirty dealing against any dominant player.


The text of this review was taken with Dimitris Kiminas' permission from the Gamebase64 site, where a fully htmlized version of it exists.

Bob Wade
I found this to be an excellent trading game. The complexities of pricing and the need for swift action make it more absorbing than most. The graphic action also adds variety and the characters and mules are well animated. Although it won't appeal to all gamers, it should interest a wide range of people, giving you plenty to do in a well-presented program.
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Gary Penn
The comprehensive instructions and helpful hints make it easy to get in to this game. The combination of frenetic auctioneering and strategical development make it difficult to get out. The simple but representative graphics and the boppy, catchy tune, all added to the fun. Recommended to both novice and skilled traders alike.
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Julian Rignall
A really funky bop tune paves the way into an involved and boring game. Unimpressed by the graphics, I played the game in hope of excitement. I found little. Apart from a few breaks (complete with funky bop) and trying to sell products, there was nothing to keep me interested.
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Ratings
PRESENTATION 91%
Delightfully illustrated instruction booklet.

ORIGINALITY 64%
A trading game, but in a bright new format.

GRAPHICS 44%
Not many graphics, but what there are are well animated and fun.

HOOKABILITY 72%
Not too simple, and economics may put some off.

SOUND 62%
Funky tune plus effects during game.

LASTABILITY 86%
Three different games and so much to do. Great for four players!

VALUE FOR MONEY 81%
The best pure trading game we've seen.


This review was typed in/OCRed by Dimitris