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Games Entertainment

Salon on M.U.L.E Creator Dani Bunten 273

Posted by michael from the wish-i'd-spent-more-time-with-my-computer dept.
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."
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Salon on M.U.L.E Creator Dani Bunten

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  • Mule? What about Modem Wars? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by lennywood1 ( 571226 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @05:09PM (#5539410) Homepage
    I think Dan should be better remembered for Modem Wars, Possibly the very first online RTS than MULE. It was great fun playing against a friend of mine in MI who was possibly the best MW player out there on my C64 at 2400 baud.

  • Behind my time (Score:2, Insightful)

    by f97tosc ( 578893 )
    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

    I must be behind my time, I still prefer flashy action games over those involving social interactions.

    I suppose, multi-player is preferable over single-layer, but nobody can say Counter-Strike involves social interactions...

    Tor
    • What about a nice round of capture the flag Quake(1/2/3), or some Unreal Tournament? I know people who have cut off all social interaction to gain status on those games.

      • Re:Behind my time (Score:5, Funny)

        by Enzondio ( 110173 ) <jelmore@@@lexile...com> on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @05:18PM (#5539502) Homepage
        What about a nice round of capture the flag Quake(1/2/3), or some Unreal Tournament? I know people who have cut off all social interaction to gain status on those games.

        But in all fairness, how much social interaction did these people engage in anyway?
      • As an FPS multiplayer addict, I can tell you there is social interaction -- of a sort. There's chatting during the game, and each server usually has a webpage with forums, etc. for more lenghty discussion (such as the 20-page-long "war on iraq" thread at udpviper.com)

        You can start a clan with your buddies if you're really into it, and chat away on AIM.

        In the game I play, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, you really have to play as a team -- Lieutenants handing out ammo, Medics healing people -- so there is a
      • Please put "status" in quotation marks when using it in that context...

    • Re:Behind my time (Score:5, Insightful)

      by localman ( 111171 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @05:23PM (#5539544) Homepage
      but nobody can say Counter-Strike involves social interactions...

      Sure they can. I've played both ways: online and just with bots (in CS and in other games). Despite the shallowness of the social interaction, there is quite a lot of it when the players are human. The way that you form quick non-verbal alliances with teammates to get a certain thing done. The way vendettas come and go. The brainless voice commments...

      But that's just it - it's _not_ brainless. I mean, it certainly isn't what one might call intelligent, but it's very human. In fact it's so human that we think it's brainless. But I've yet to see any AI that provides even a dash of the thrill or depth of going against humans - even in a flashy action game.

      Nothing wrong with the flashy graphics in and of themselves, but I bet even you would prefer - over the long term - a satisfying game with average graphics to an empty game with flashy graphics.
      • Well, of the things you listed - non-verbal alliances, vendettas, and "brainless voice comments" -- only one of those is really social interaction. And a rather negative one at that. Most computer players wouldn't bother with a vendetta - it's not very efficient, especially if the opponent is much better than you and not merely lucky.

        The others are essentially poking holes in the AI. Human opponents are better than bots because they're much more "interesting" -- humans can learn and adapt far better than b

    • Re:Behind my time (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kfg ( 145172 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @05:33PM (#5539626)
      I don't think there's any doubt that computers have raised the single player game to levels previously unimaginable.

      We've gone from puzzle games, crosswords, solitaire and such to fully immersive interactive worlds like Grim Fandango and IL2.

      I, for one, think that there's too *much* emphisis on multiplayer these days, to the extent that single player is often totally ignored.

      However, all that being said, whether you *think* you are acting socially or not, a multiplayer game of Counter-Strike is an entirely different, ummmm, ball game, just because you *know* those are actually other people out there.

      And while I may spend many, many, *many* more hours driving Grand Prix Legends in solo mode it's the online racing against real human beings that gives the game the spice that has allowed it to remain the king of Driving Sims for over 4 years, in a world where a game more than one year old is considered dead.

      I'm a geek and a Buddhist. I deeply revere hours spent in solitary concentration and contemplation, even in my recreational hours, but I am *not* socially averse or inept either.

      If you think Thoreau was a hermit than if you read Walden for the first time you'll be likely to proclaim him, as did one Amazon reviewer, a "fraud." Thoreau posed an experiment in reducing human living to its bare essentials. He considered social interactions to be one of the things that man cannot truly live *entirely* without and remain a man.

      He strove to find the right *balance* between solitude and social interaction.

      So should you - and so should game designers.

      KFG
      • And while I may spend many, many, *many* more hours driving Grand Prix Legends in solo mode it's the online racing against real human beings that gives the game the spice that has allowed it to remain the king of Driving Sims for over 4 years

        Wrong, wrong, *wrong*! Any racing simulator has online racing. It's the physically correct simulation that puts GPL in an entirely different plane from the others. Be it some of the pitiful "Test Drive n", or NFSPU, all other car sims have that arcade feeling, while G

    • so organizing cs(or any other game) team/clan, community and all that doesnt involve social interaction at all?

      if you're just having few fights every now and then on the servers and never making any contact to other players outside of the game, thinking tactics, hanging around and & etc then thats the equivalent of playing deus ex halfway through the first scene.
    • I suppose, multi-player is preferable over single-layer, but nobody can say Counter-Strike involves social interactions...

      If you're talking about social interactions while the game is going on, you might have a point. There is, however, a fair amount of social interaction that happens outside the game, mostly as part of Leagues & Clans, but also as the result of LANs and even communities that grow up around a particular server.

      And for the anecdotal proof necessary: A week ago my wife & I we

  • This is true.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Gortbusters.org ( 637314 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @05:11PM (#5539426) Homepage Journal
    Warcraft by yourself is pretty fun... multiplayer rules.

    Duke Nukem by yourself is pretty fun... playing against someone was awesome.

    DAOC, EverQuest, heck even all the MUDs [durismud.com] that existed were barrels of never-ending fun.

  • Wasted time (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sumdeus ( 656737 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @05:11PM (#5539433) Homepage Journal
    Ask most game designers what their favorite computer game of all time is," says Wright, "and you'll get M.U.L.E. as an answer more often than any other title."

    I can not even begin to explain how much time I have "wasted" on this game. I'm just glad that as of late, she's gotten some recognition, although after you've passed, I'm not sure it matters. In any event, great game!
    • The only time I wasted more time on than MULE was Seven Cities Of Gold. I was not astonished, but not really too surprised, to learn that Dan was behind that, too.

      • Re:Wasted time (Score:3, Informative)

        by nomadic ( 141991 )
        Yep, 7CoG was an awesome game. Kind of hard to avoid killing the natives though; if they touched you they died, so you had to pacify them by giving them gifts while running away from them to make sure you didn't accidently kill any.
  • However I do remember watching my former neighbor playing it.

    Now she's gotten her comp-sci major and is working in the IT dept for some university in Virginia.

    I guess it was a game for geeks of the time, as it didn't seem to interest me then (before I was into computers).

  • Wasn't just multiplayer... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by demonlapin ( 527802 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @05:12PM (#5539444) Homepage Journal
    The great thing about M.U.L.E. wasn't just the multiplayer aspects (which were fairly limited on the Commodore 64, the only version I played). It was that, like all the other really great building-up games (such as SimCity or Civilization), it had very simple rules that built a completely addictive game.

    I probably played it against the computer far more than against human opponents, and it was still always a thrill.

    (BTW: for those too young to have played it, the stated example of becoming Energy Czar was almost always an appallingly bad strategy, as energy doesn't keep from turn to turn; whenever possible, I always went for a balanced smithore-crystite portfolio, with some food production thrown in. I generally speculated on crystite as well.)

    • The Atari version had support for four players w/paddles. That was where the fun was at, out bidding and selling your friends. Man, I still have my copy, probably the only Atari 800 game I still own apart from Zork.

      • Actually, the Atari version had support for 4 players with joysticks -- on an 800 or an upgraded 400. You COULD do 3 players on newer machines (800xl, 1200xl, the xe's, etc.) with one joystick and two paddles by passing around the joystick during each players turn. The paddles were only used during the auction.

        I've got a p166 that I use exclusivly for atari emulation which includes two game-port cards for a total of 4 joysticks. Every now and then I STILL play mule -- usually with my old atari crowd (so

    • I had a better way: I got one new/young kid to produce all the food and energy I needed, and spent all my resources of the mineing. You don't need much energy or food, and so long as the kid is honest (and gets the guy with the food bonus and builds in the valleys which are not minable but get a food bonus) you have plenty of food and energy, and can concentrate on the game.

      It mught suck to be the kid, but I never was. The kid generally was too young to realize that he was being cheated, just happy to

  • I remeber the planet IRATA (Score:4, Interesting)

    by IgD ( 232964 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @05:16PM (#5539475)
    M.U.L.E. was a great game. I remember spending many an afternoon at my friends house playing this game on the C64 about 10-15 years ago. I liked it so much I purchased it for the original Nintendo. The Nintendo version never recaptured the original glory.

    I find myself always searching for remakes of these classics like M.U.L.E., Mail Order Monsters, Star Flight etc. Eletronic Arts should remake those games. I'm sick of all these MMORPG's. There is something to be said about the games you could play in an hour and be done with.

    BTW, IRATA spelled backwards is ATARI!
    • One remake, or follow-up, I didn't care for was Impossible Mission II. The original Epyx game of Impossible Mission was downright amazing for the tiny piece of hardware and humble 3 voice synthesizer it employed very well. I used to finish the game on a regular basis and it was one of the very few I worked at bettering my score (less time to solve) at. The II version came out for the Amiga and was immediately a disappointment.

  • Sadly... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @05:16PM (#5539478) Homepage Journal
    Sadly... Dani[formerly Dan] Bunten died before a re-issue of M.U.L.E.

    As I recall, this was referred to as Edu-Tainment, which fell out of favor when faced by the likes of first person shooters and one-on-one combat games. I still play M.U.L.E. on a 64 emulator and have hacked it various times over the past 15 years. I've had it play as many months as I like, usually by 18 you can see some actualy economic cycles develop, though in the c64 version there's some issues with the money cap. I don't recall which one, but one value rolls over at 32678, the other value does at 65536, which can make for some radical changes in ranking :-)

    Still, it's one of my all time favorites. And it Dani was ahead of her time, then those who enjoyed the game, like I did, were also.

    • Can you give more information about the hacks? I would very much like to be able to play 18 or 24 rounds. Thanks.
    • I think I remember reading an interview with her wherein EA was going to give M.U.L.E. the remake treatment, but they wanted to "modernize" it a bit, which apparently Bunten was OK with, except for weapons. EA wanted to add weapons to the game. Bunten was against the idea, it got deadlocked, and the idea died.

      If you want to play M.U.L.E. online and you don't want to get Space HoRSE, it's a little known fact that in 1993 M.U.L.E. was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System, and the ROM image is floatin

  • M.U.L.E. Clone (Score:5, Informative)

    by Serra ( 42794 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @05:16PM (#5539483)
    Here is a link to a pretty good M.U.L.E. clone named Space HoRSE [shrapnelgames.com]. Not quite the old version, but you can try the free demo for nostalgia's sake.

  • M.U.L.E. is just perfect (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jacek Poplawski ( 223457 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @05:17PM (#5539485)
    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.
    • Please notice year this game was released. Please notice hardware it runs - just 64KB of RAM!

      Hey, back then that was a decent amount of memory - my Atari 400 came with 8K, and it cost $200 and two weeks in the shop to go all the way up to 16K. It just goes to show how importance elegance of code used to be...

    • "Please notice hardware it runs - just 64KB of RAM!"

      Just for the sake of pointing it out, if you're referring to the C64, it only had 32k of ram. The other 32k was the os/basic interpreter in rom. IIRC.

      • Wrong, the C64 has 64K of RAM. All the other stuff (IO, screen, BASIC) is mapped into this space but the RAM is accessible if you switch banks. For example, no games to speak of use BASIC, so the first thing you do is bank switch that 8K ROM space to expose 8K of RAM.
        E.g. see this reference page [devili.iki.fi].

        • For example, no games to speak of use BASIC

          What? Telengard [angelfire.com] was written in Basic; I remember one of my first true hacker moments was discovering that if you saved and the tape drive was unplugged, the program would crash to the basic prompt, and you would be able to change the code. (Exp = Exp * 100 was a popular mod to add after killing a monster).

  • Wow (Score:2, Funny)

    by Hatechall ( 541378 )
    "If you're a hacker of a certain age">

    Wow, talk about covering all your bases! It reads like my Humanities short answer essay responses.
  • I was recently trying to get M.U.L.E. to work on my Atari emulator, but ran into problems. I didn't have any interest in the game when I had Ataris in the old days, and now that I'm interested, I can't get it to run in the emulator. ARGH.

  • Social interaction? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by obotics ( 592176 ) <remline@hotmail.com> on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @05:19PM (#5539513) Homepage
    she insisted that games would be most enjoyable when they involved social interactions rather than just flashy single-player action and graphics.

    I have always found this type of game to be rather odd. Isn't social interaction what you are supposed to be doing in real life? Why would you want to play a game of what you do in real life? Now blowing up aliens or shooting up Nazis... that is cool, because you can't do it in everyday reality.

    • Re:Social interaction? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CrazyJoel ( 146417 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @05:39PM (#5539665)
      You might as well say the same thing about board games or DnD.

      Some of the best times I had with my friends were playing poker or Risk.

    • I have always found this type of game to be rather odd. Isn't social interaction what you are supposed to be doing in real life? Why would you want to play a game of what you do in real life?

      Haven't you ever played any board games, like Monopoly, Pictionary, Scattergories, etc.? They are all about social interaction, and that's why people play them. The game is just a medium to facilitate social interaction in interesting ways, just like staff meetings facilitate social interaction in abysmally boring

    • Blockquoth the poster:

      Isn't social interaction what you are supposed to be doing in real life? Why would you want to play a game of what you do in real life?

      Yeah. It's almost as silly as programming physical sports (baseball, football) into the computer... oh, wait.

      The point is, social games on the computer allow interaction of a different and varied type. Your question is something like, "I can buy real estate in real life -- why would I ever play Monopoly?"

    • I have always found this type of game to be rather odd. Isn't social interaction what you are supposed to be doing in real life?

      No, not ONLY in real life. If you have ever played MUDs, the exotic combination of non-real world and 'real' characters (as in played by real people more or less acting as if they were not) is the killer substance that gets you hooked.

      Also consider "but you can interact socially in real life" aspect a bit; wouldn't it be interesting if, unlike in Real World, you could actuall

  • Reason why I liked M.U.L.E. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Tikiman ( 468059 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @05:24PM (#5539555)
    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 [devili.iki.fi], particularly the text on the back cover, and see the cover art here [muttoo.on.ca]. Hilarious!

  • Why won't this wig come off! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Joe the Lesser ( 533425 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @05:24PM (#5539556) Homepage Journal
    (With all due respect)

    That's not a game developer chick! That's a man baby!

  • Sex change operation (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tmark ( 230091 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @05:27PM (#5539583)
    In a profile of a person who had undergone a sex-change operation, you would think they would pay more than passing notice to it. It might not mean much in terms of the *ames* that s/he designed, but what more could define this *person* than his/her struggling with this issue ? Heck, even the book "High Score" dealt with the issue more. I'm just shocked that a profile wouldn't cover one of the more interesting points of a person's life. Imagine a book about Clinton's presidency which only mentions Monica-gate in a few paragraphs.

    • Re:Sex change operation (Score:2, Insightful)

      by n0rm ( 261621 )
      I don't think this is a problem at all. The article was about her impact on early game development, not her identity.

    • Re:Sex change operation (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ohboy-sleep ( 601567 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @05:43PM (#5539692) Homepage
      When I read the article this morning I was glad that it wasn't five pages on her struggle with a sex change. The thing that endeared her to me and to many other people was that she created a game that was a fun part of our childhood. A number of people have had sex changes but what makes her stand out is her game, M.U.L.E., and the impact on the video game industry of the time.
    • This article is for those who care more about a person's work than their crotch, and as such clearly doesn't apply to you. Please move along.
    • They mention in a couple times, but never in depth. I think they want to focus on Dani's game creation - after all, this article was far from a complete bio. Focusing on her transsexuality would have been way too far along the lines of "sensationalism" for the article.

      Besides, the "sensationalism" of transsexuality has, for the most part, faded into the past, the realm of 80's and 90's talk shows. While a lot of people are still unfamiliar with the details, the idea of it happening has long been mainstr

    • Re:Sex change operation (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Futaba-chan ( 541818 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @06:33PM (#5540068)
      In a profile of a person who had undergone a sex-change operation, you would think they would pay more than passing notice to it.

      The article got it just right -- it didn't try to hide the fact that Dani had transitioned, but it didn't make it the central fact, either. Which is a Good Thing, as there's much more to a person than just the fact of having had SRS or not.

      Dani would have been the first to tell you that, too -- she had a very negative view of her transition, and posted an article on her web site (which didn't make it onto her memorial site [anticlockwise.com]) advising people considering transition not to. I disagree with her perspective on that (stop for a moment and parse the name "Futaba-chan" [otakuworld.com] :-)), but there's a lot more to being trans than just transition.

      BTW, she changed her last name to "Berry" when she transitioned.

    • Sex change operation - archaic (Score:4, Funny)

      by jamiefaye ( 44093 ) <jamieNO@SPAMfentonia.com> on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @07:03PM (#5540285) Homepage
      The correct term these days is "Gender Reassignment Surgery". Not everyone who undertakes a gender transition has this done.

      I know of over 20 transsexual game designers. It is like gays in the floral industry. Dani was the best of us all.

    • In other words, you're looking for typical sensational shlock journalism. Thank god you ignorant twits haven't completely overwhelmed the publishing industry yet, and there's still room for intelligent, insightful writing.

  • M.U.L.E. had the best music ever (Score:5, Informative)

    by DennisZeMenace ( 131127 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @05:34PM (#5539633) Homepage
    For the nostalgic :

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

  • I'm dating myself by saying this (Score:5, Funny)

    by reverendG ( 602408 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @05:36PM (#5539642) Homepage
    But my favorite computer game, before I really got into computers, was leisure suit larry.

    Guess I had a lot of growing up to do.

    I'll get around to it someday. Until then, don't forget to buy condoms before you go to the hooker! Ken sent me!
  • I think the preference in game type has a lot more to do with personality as opposed to what is the "best" kind of game. Personally, I don't like games like the Sims, Starcraft or Black & White. To me, the focus of the game seems to be a power grab, and that's just not me. There is nothing in my psyche that gives me any desire for power, real or imagined. However, I love a good story. That's why I think I liked Myst so much. There was a lot of rich detail in the graphics which enhanced the mystery

  • Command HQ (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Pasc ( 59 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @05:44PM (#5539697)
    Dan was also behind one of the greatest games of all time, Command HQ. It is definitely an ancestor of modern RTS games.

    Oddly enough I had a hankering for classic games this past weekend and downloaded Command HQ (abandonware) and played a few games of it on Sunday. (I bought this game back in its prime and I still have the manuals, but the media is missing.) If only I could play it over the Internet...

  • Information for fans of M.U.L.E (Score:5, Informative)

    by afflatus_com ( 121694 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @05:44PM (#5539701) Homepage
    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 [eidolons-inn.de] as the best starting point.

    The Strategies [eidolons-inn.de] is insightful, giving the designer's own ways of beating their enemies.

    For the diehards, there is screenshots of the long-lost sequels [eidolons-inn.de]: 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 [eidolons-inn.de] 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 (Score:5, Informative)

    by Junks Jerzey ( 54586 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @05:53PM (#5539768)
    right here [dadgum.com].

  • Favorite M.U.L.E. bug (Score:4, Funny)

    by rjstanford ( 69735 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @05:54PM (#5539771) Homepage Journal
    I don't remember which platform this was on, but I have fond memories of becoming a loan shark. You'd borrow small amounts of money until you got a runious interest rate, and then made a payment of somewhat more than you owed. The "banking" computer player would then become a debtor and would continue to make interest payments to you (officially, you were making negative payments to him). Since there was no logic for him to ever pay the loan off, it was a grand way of getting a healthy balance.

    Ah, memories...

    • [...] made a payment of somewhat more than you owed. The "banking" computer player would then become a debtor and would continue to make interest payments to you (officially, you were making negative payments to him). Since there was no logic for him to ever pay the loan off, it was a grand way of getting a healthy balance.

      There was a similar bug in Taipan for the Apple ][ -- overpay Elder Brother Wu, the loanshark, and all of a sudden his horrible loan interest rate works in your favor. You could easi

  • If you're a hacker of a certain age, chances are you played M.U.L.E.

    No, but I played Shamus [retrogames.com]!

    (Atari 400 version, though)

  • Modem Wars! (Score:4, Informative)

    by pumpkinheadgiant ( 601812 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @06:08PM (#5539866) Journal
    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!

  • Play against others in a low system requirement game - social, fun, portable?

    Cellphone makers take note.

    • Having just been to the Mobile Game Developer's Conference the other week, I'd have to agree. And it fits some of the other requirements, too: easy to learn, fairly short games, for the casual player, and most importantly, a good game. Cellphone network latency might be a bit of an issue for those auction chases, but...

  • I Loved M.U.L.E. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Punk Walrus ( 582794 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @06:35PM (#5540087) Journal
    Let me share the love of this game. I got an Atari emulator for Win32 just FOR this game. Play the funky 4-channel music, and mine and work your way on planet Irata. A friend of mine had it, and we'd play for hours. I always beat him because he was so bad at money. I think I learned some of my first taste for business because of that game.

    In the mid 1990s, I told people about it, and they acted like it never existed. But then again, some of these people didn't get into computing until Windows 3.1 or so. But luckily, the web came around, and I was able to get an emulator.

    Now if I could get Mail Order Monster again? I'd be all set.

  • ah.. the golden age.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by merc_sa ( 35777 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @06:37PM (#5540101)
    trying to explain the genius of M.U.L.E today is like trying to explain the genius of greek comedies
    and tragedies..

    The comic and quirkiness of M.U.L.E was unequaled until Full Throttle. The child-like simplicity and
    the complex interactions was unequalled until Tetris.
    The joy of scalping your friends for 150 per unit for energy and food, and the sorrow of pirates
    snatching your hard earned crystite will never be equalled.

    I will never have fonder memories of games than that those of M.U.L.E and Archon.. Even after all
    the computers I've ever owned, the Atari800 will forever hold a special place in my heart because
    of those two games..

    Rest In Peace, Dani. Your foresight and genius was and still is unparalleled, and your
    humanity will continue to inspire us.

  • M.U.L.E.! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by QuackQuack ( 550293 )
    One of the few 8-bit games I still enjoy today. It would be great if we had an emulator that supported four joysticks so the game could be played the way it was meant to be.
  • I remember playing M.U.L.E. on an old Apple II and besides a very cool game I remeber it being one of the first to have a music-like sounds. Most games before then had mind-numbing bleebs or short childish sequences. But M.U.L.E. had kind of a disco beat techno sounding theme running in background. By todays standards it is boring, but back in 1983 it was way cool compared to PacMac bleeps and borks.

  • Anyone remembering playing "Seven Cities of Gold"?
    I liked that a lot. and if I remember correctly, they managed to do some nice floppy loading without interrupting the game too much. I tried to make it work on the emulator, but for some reason it would not boot. Perhaps the memory are best preserved that way :)

  • The MULE theme is the ringing tone on my cellphone (Score:3, Funny)

    by CrystalFalcon ( 233559 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @07:51PM (#5540586) Homepage
    I really don't think I need to say more than that.

    To my disappointment though, nobody has recognized it in public spaces... I sort of had half-expected that.

  • Memories of Dani (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Gregg Williams ( 603490 ) <gregg13NO@SPAMinnerpaths.net> on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @09:11PM (#5540992) Homepage
    Wow! This article--and everyone's posts--brings back the memories I have of M.U.L.E. and of its creator. I met Dan Bunten long before M.U.L.E., after he was gracious (and trusting) enough to send me an un-copy-protected version of Cytron Masters when my commercial copy of it refused to boot on my Apple II+. Of course, I was a big M.U.L.E. fan and spent many hours playing it with several friends on the Atari 800 computer. Years later, I bought a Commodore 64 emulator for my Macintosh just so I could play M.U.L.E. again.

    Dan/Dani *was* ahead of her time, largely because of the lack of any technology that facilitated simultaneous multiplayer gaming. Not only did Dani have to invent the game, she also had to find some way to make the day's computers facilitate both input and output for multiple players simultaneously. Think about that! Networking in any form was unheard of, so the multiplayer output had to take place on *one* computer screen. And back then, the entire screen's resolution was minuscule. She did some very clever things to keep multiple players involved in the game at all times, which was quite a feat. In particular, I remember Dani complaining about how flaky the Commodore 64 was and how, after a certain amount of use, when a C64 started crapping out, the only solution was to go to the store and buy another one.

    In the end, I think it was the limitations of the day's home-computer technology that kept multiplayer gaming from working for most people. The graphics of the day were just too blocky to entice the average person to sit in front of a computer screen for any length of time, and it didn't help that the programmer had *less than* 64 K of memory for both the program and its data. (M.U.L.E. ran in 32K on the Atari 800!)

    As for Dani's gender change, she always remained a mystery to me on that. I only met her two or three times as Dani, and the awkwardness was just too great. I remember asking her (delicately) about her motivations for making the change, and her answer was so cryptic that I have never puzzled out what she meant by it. Still, she seemed to be settling into the role quite comfortably, although she felt that her gender change (plus its public nature within the games community) was hampering her search for a job in the industry.

    I wish I knew more, and I would have, had it not been for her illness. I feel deeply that she didn't really get a chance to make her second "life" work, that the cancer overshadowed her new gender role just as she was getting started with it. I'm sorry she didn't get that second chance. I think the world is a lesser place because it didn't get a chance to find out who she would have become.
  • I liked MULE a lot, but this Bunten gem was my favorite.

    When looking at a prototype for COLONIZATION at a trade show, I mentioned to the guy next to me that it looked like an update to Seven Cities. He said, yes, it was meant as a tribute/update. My first run-in with Sid Meier . . .

  • gallery [anticlockwise.com]

    Brilliant designer...I still have my original playable copy of mule for the Atari 800 and my pirated version of 7 cities (sorry Dan...I buy all my games now though)
  • So how many of you would pretend to sell your energy/food/minerals and then run away a fraction of a second before the timer run out?

    Or buy up all the energy/food/minerals just so there would always be a shortage in the game?

    Or stockpile a huge amount of energy/food/minerals (whatever your players were focusing on..) and then selling like crazy just to produce a huge surplus and make the prices drop like crazy?

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