Get behind the M.U.L.E.

[Atari]

Dani Bunten's pioneering computer game inspired some of the greatest designers in the business, but her life story is a testament to how the industry lost its way. Salon has the <A HREF="http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/03/18/bunten/index.html?x" target="_blank">story</A>.<BR><BR><I>"Her most famous game, M.U.L.E., has been cited as an inspiration for generations of game developers. As the frontman of Ozark Softscape, a quartet of game designers from Little Rock, she and her co-workers were the stars of the first publicity campaign to promote programmers as if they were rock stars. The former Dan Bunten also pushed gender boundaries, changing her name, and her sex, in the early '90s. But in 1998 Dani Bunten died of cancer at age 49, shut out from the mass market she envisioned when computer games were only an oddball hobby."</I>

[Dove Sherman]

Dani repeatedly tried to reclaim the rights to M.U.L.E. from Electronic Arts so that she could get it rereleased or do a remake/sequel. But Activision and Electronic Arts wanted to keep M.U.L.E. and anything else which tied their "family" company to a scary transsexual as deeply buried as possible and did whatever they could to push Dani into obscurity.

[Brummbar]

Dani repeatedly tried to reclaim the rights to M.U.L.E. from Electronic Arts so that she could get it rereleased or do a remake/sequel. But Activision and Electronic Arts wanted to keep M.U.L.E. and anything else which tied their "family" company to a scary transsexual as deeply buried as possible and did whatever they could to push Dani into obscurity.

Awhile back, Johnny Wilson relayed (in CGW) something Bunten had told him: She had been approached to collaborate on a new MULE but refused after she found out it was going to feature weapons and combat.

MULE is one of the best games ever. It should be played - hell, it should be STUDIED - as widely as possible.

It's also one of the best arguments I know of in favor of emulators. MULE was released for the Atari 800 and Commodore 64, if memory serves, and never for the PC or even the Apple ][. Unless you've got one of those systems, and surviving FUNCTIONAL floppy disks, you can't play MULE without an emulator and disk images.

And that's just a damned shame. Things like that bother me more than Lara Croft-style controversies ever will.

[icewall]

Awhile back, Johnny Wilson relayed (in CGW) something Bunten had told him: She had been approached to collaborate on a new MULE but refused after she found out it was going to feature weapons and combat.

MULE is one of the best games ever. It should be played - hell, it should be STUDIED - as widely as possible.

It's also one of the best arguments I know of in favor of emulators. MULE was released for the Atari 800 and Commodore 64, if memory serves, and never for the PC or even the Apple ][. Unless you've got one of those systems, and surviving FUNCTIONAL floppy disks, you can't play MULE without an emulator and disk images.

And that's just a damned shame. Things like that bother me more than Lara Croft-style controversies ever will.

A game that others should be judged by. It's too bad that there is nothing that comes close to recapturing the fun this game had. Instead we bury ourselves with endless waves of combat sims.

I hope a new version of MULE rises to the top again someday. Very interesting article.

[aLice.H]

Dani repeatedly tried to reclaim the rights to M.U.L.E. from Electronic Arts so that she could get it rereleased or do a remake/sequel. But Activision and Electronic Arts wanted to keep M.U.L.E. and anything else which tied their "family" company to a scary transsexual as deeply buried as possible and did whatever they could to push Dani into obscurity.

Pardon my ignorance, but what's this MULE about? Is it an RPG, an RTS, an adventure game....?

[Brummbar]

Pardon my ignorance, but what's this MULE about? Is it an RPG, an RTS, an adventure game....?

http://www.eidolons-inn.de/mule/

[Dove Sherman]

Pardon my ignorance, but what's this MULE about? Is it an RPG, an RTS, an adventure game....?

M.U.L.E. predates those terms and doesn't fit into any one of them easily. It was a simulation in which you use a robotic pack mule to stake claims on tracts of land on a new planet. Each claim you stake can produce various resources which you can harvest and then sell at auction. There were several playable alien races, each with their own unique attributes which affected gameplay. If you're thinking that this doesn't sound all that original, keep in mind that M.U.L.E. was the first game to do any of those thing. It even predates SimCity. The only sim-game I can think of which predated M.U.L.E. would be the text-based management simulation Imhotep.

[icewall]

I have purchased a copy of Shrapnel Games (http://www.shrapnelgames.com) <i>Space Horse</i>. It is a modernized windows capable version of M.U.L.E.

I highly recommend it for anyone interested in original MULE. The gameplay comes very close to the original. With the proper input devices, you can play with four people at the same computer. It includes some cute little cutscenes for events in the game and the content is appropriate for the whole family. It costs $30 (US).

[adamb2k5]

If anyone wants to play MULE or Space HoRSE, please contact me!

[Neo Rasa]

MULE was released for the Atari 800 and Commodore 64, if memory serves, and never for the PC or even the Apple ][. Unless you've got one of those systems, and surviving FUNCTIONAL floppy disks, you can't play MULE without an emulator and disk images.

It also received a fairly wide NES port.