M.U.L.E. Is Back

jmp_nyc writes "The developers at Turborilla have remade the 1983 classic game M.U.L.E. The game is free, and has slightly updated graphics, but more or less the same gameplay as the original version. As with the original game, up to four players can play against each other (or fewer than four with AI players taking the other spots). Unlike the original version, the four players can play against each other online. For those of you not familiar with M.U.L.E., it was one of the earliest economic simulation games, revolving around the colonization of the fictitious planet Irata (Atari spelled backwards). I have fond memories of spending what seemed like days at a time playing the game, as it's quite addictive, with the gameplay seeming simpler than it turns out to be. I'm sure I'm not the only Slashdotter who had a nasty M.U.L.E. addiction back in the day and would like a dose of nostalgia every now and then."

Re:never can get enough of the theme song.

[Anonymous Coward]

I always preferred the Atari 800 version of the music- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWvQQuLPmzg&feature=related

There's an OSS version

[slim]

http://www.codenautics.com/openmule/ [codenautics.com] ... although development appears to have stalled in 1997.

Re:never can get enough of the theme song.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Atari original, played at NTSC rate, with more harmony (4-voice sound chip):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z48FWWCG4dU

Re:Oh, I am so ready...

[antek9]

I played it on the C64. This game set the ground for turn-based strategy and sim games, and it is just incredible to learn that it never sold more than 30,000 copies. And yet, _everybody_ was playing it. Today's piracy 'problems' are nothing compared to that.

If Dani Bunten were still alive I'm sure lots of people would be glad to donate quite some amount of money to make up for lost and long time overdue revenue.

Another version

[Manax]

I personally did a port (download here [heroicproportions.org]) of an earlier rewrite (though the site I got it from is gone) back in 2005. It's a pretty decent version, as far as I can tell, though honestly I didn't play the original hardly at all. The main drawback is local multiplayer only...

Re:Insult towards original author..

[Mister Whirly]

Seeing as they are a SOFTWARE company, I believe they want people to concentrate on the actual GAME, and leave all the stupid arguments about gender out of it. So, way to fail. The only person that seems to have any issue with the gender change so far is you AC.

Re:M.U.L.E.

[edmicman]

I dunno, I played Oregon Trail semi-recently and found it still to be engaging and entertaining. And what about classics like Tetris or Dr. Mario? Some of those old games I see similar to Monoply, chess, checkers, etc. Games that are fundamentally fun no matter how old they are.

IBM PCjr MULE

[Anonymous Coward]

only slightly off topic, but if you ever come across the version of MULE released for the IBM PCjr, waaaay back when, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make it available on the interwebnets. it is so incredibly rare and needs to be archived before it fades away forever.

Re:IBM PCjr MULE

[Purity Of Essence]

only slightly off topic, but if you ever come across the version of MULE released for the IBM PCjr, waaaay back when, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make it available on the interwebnets. it is so incredibly rare and needs to be archived before it fades away forever.

I hope people saw that despite your AC posting, it really needed to be modded up more. This is the Holy Grail of M.U.L.E. disks. The lack of a ripped disk image of the PCjr version of M.U.L.E. represents an important and dismaying gap in the historical preservation of all things M.U.L.E. Will this search never end?