1.) Players settle a galaxy- a collection of planets.

2.) Each planet you have can produce three of any of four different items, food, energy, smithore, and crystite. (You could have 2 energy, 1 food, 1 smithore, etc.)

3.) Players would have to hire troops to protect planets from attack, and also hire mercenaries to use for attacking. It would take at least a 2 to 1 advantage to overtake a planet with some randomizing thrown in.

4.) Players could use shuttle crafts to do the placing of mules, troops etc. An upgrade to the shuttle craft would be available. ( A one time fee, same for all.) Ship one that everyone starts with can hold 4 mules and up to 8 troops. Ship two would hold 8 mules and 12 troops and also travel 30% faster.

5.) Food- Troops and settlers would use the food, so food would have more to do with feeding troops and settlers than with time. For every 8 troops you would need 1 food unit. Troops can be bought at the store at a price that increases as the game progresses, start at $10 per troop and increase to $40 by games end.

6.) Planets- All planets can do all 4 operations, some do one thing better than another. Planets are dished out the same as with the original mule game. You push your button when the planet you want flashes. Planets are marked to indicate what they do best. Planets can also be bought during an auction, where players bid for them-You can't back down after starting to bid in an auction. (No artificially inflating the price of a planet only to back off at the last second) Planets could also be won over if you attack and win, but you must re-outfit the planet.

7.) Store- You buy and sell food, energy, smithore and crystite during the buy/sell phase. You buy mules, troops and can upgrade shuttles during your turn. the time you have will always be the same, but the speed of your shuttle would change, or bad news could decrease your time or return your shuttle to regular speed.

8.) Food is made by your mules to support your troops. Troops will die without it. If you don't have enough food after the buy/sell phase, a number of your troops will die on random planets. Attack troops will die off first.

9.) Energy powers the mules and shuttle, each mule need one unit per turn and your shuttle needs one unit or two if it has been upgraded. Having excess would rot.

10.) Smithore makes mules as in the original game.

11.) Crystite is just a cash crop, same as mule1.

12.) News- Good news could be added cash, food, energy, troops etc. Bad news could be losing cash, food, energy, troops or even a planet going on strike. You could also go to jail for a turn and not be able to make any changes or additions to your planets.

13.) Attacking- During your turn you can drop your troops off at opposing planets, and they could attack and win, later you can load your shuttle ship with double troops when no mules are on board.

Troops and colonizing the galaxy has been done, specifically Master of Orion 2. Mule 2 should stay as far away as possible from this very successful game. The sequel should emphasize what made the original great instead of incorporating ideas from other games. I prefer playing the capitalist pig then the space conqueror :).

Have Mule 2 start off with you picking a single character (what alien and male or female), which is basically only for looks and what you begin with. Then you choose which of the newly colonizable planets to buy a bus ticket to.

Once on the planet you’ve chosen, the game begins like the original. You have various choices of raw materials you can produce.

Food / energy have immediate uses and ore / crystite will have uses later in the game. For food, you have an option to grow various types of plants (high / low risk or plants specific for different terrain).

Energy can be produced various ways (cheap solar or expensive fusion,etc).

Ore and crystite also having more choices.

Included options are the ability to play dirty (always a fun thing to do). Like sabotaging your competitor’s mule or bribe the auctioneer. If done right, nobody notices anything, and if you screw up, you will be punished depending on how badly you messed up.

Also, the emphasis of crushing your opponent to the ground. In the original, you could not do this for reason like you never had to worry about not having food or energy. You may have less time and low production but you didn’t have to worry about dying. A final tweak would be to eliminate the random events. Have daily weather. If the mule goes wild, give reason like low maintenance.

And now to judgement day (not necessary by time like the original). If you lose big on this planet, as long as you have some money, you can buy a bus ticket to another newly colonizable planet. If you win big, you can go on to the next step, manufacturing. You can either hang around the same planet as it grows into an industrial colony, or go to another industrial planet.

The manufacturing phase of this requires you to buy raw materials and create a product to sell. The game still runs like Mule but in a different gear. The ore now has a purpose. And again have the ability to play dirty like hiring pirates to go and do something nasty to your opponents.

After this, perhaps a final phase, the production and trading of information. The galactic nation itself has a virtual economy giving a purposeful reason of the high and lows in pricing. The planets in this galactic nation are also realistically placed with the newly colonized planets on the outer fringes and the industrial ones closer in.

And finally and most importantly, keep the wacky alien theme going. This is what made Mule, Mule and not another finance sim game. Of course, the internet has to be incorporated. A larger ongoing virtual galactic nation can be running online. Hop on and see how well you compete with real people.

My ideas for MULE by Jack:

The new version should preserve as much of the charm and playability of the original as possible. Graphics should be updated as much as possible, without affecting smoothness and playability. The rules and events should stay the same as in the original game.....Now the changes come in: When going to the store, 3D animation should come into play---you see the store through your own eyes (as in DOOM type games), then when exiting the store, you are on the map, as in the original game. At the end of each month, there is an animation, i.e. you actually see the "flying cat-bugs" come and eat the roof off your house. You can also see the package from home get delivered and such things. However, there should be a button to push to turn off these animations for the game, if experienced players are more interested in speed of play than in seeing all the frills. Now for the rule changes:The game can be a one-year game (following the original scheme), or a multi-year game---given as an option when starting the game. Also, there should be provision to save the game, so play can be resumed at a later time. Also, since there are plans to develop an on-line game, players should be given the option to play either on-line or just at home. Since the original game talked about the planeteer families (your child was bitten.....) We could see the homes and families of the planeteers. The turn could start with the planeteer leaving his home and going to the store to get his mule.....with the mule theme playing between home and store.....and, of course, the button to toggle this animation off, if a player wants a fast moving game with no frills. My favorite player is the gollumer....would be interesting to see what a female gollumer looks like. It would be interesting, in multi-year tournament level games, to see a player set up his own store, and compete with the "company store". A player could build his own mules, and even start selling mules to the other players, perhaps with added optional features. In subsequent years, the colony could be expanded further out on Irata, and more products or even industries could be added. For a time, I was thinking that there should be some restraint on how far this is taken, but after further thought, I came to realize that where it is taken would then be up to the players, not the developers, especially those playing the game online, so I began to really like the idea of unlimited possiblilities. Just a few ideas...will write more as they come to me.

M*U*L*E* 2 in the eyes of Chris G.:

Well, I'd keep the basic land format the same (though with enhanced graphics of course), but to add to it, I'd do a few things different. First, just for appearance sake, allow for female versions of each race. Second, also for appearance sake, I'd allow for more colors. Third, and this would make more of a difference, I'd give each race a special benefit as follows:

Mechtrons: Allow extra time in development rounds. This reflects the Mechtrons quick thinking and logical nature.

Gollumers: Always first when tying to buy land at auctions when more than one player wants it. In case two or more players are Gollumers, the one in the lower position gets it first (wants the land more). This reflects the Gollumers love for land.

Packers: +1 production to all food-based plots. This reflects the Packers excellent farming skills and love of food.

Sphereroids: +1 production to all crystite-based plots. This reflects the Sphereroids love of round things (we can assume Crystite is a round gem).

Humans: No bonuses. However, allow them to start with normal money since they'll have no special bonuses for being so smart.

Leggites: +1 production to all energy-based plots. This reflects the Leggites having their heads above the clouds and coming from a land with planes.

Flappers: Keep starting money and add 50% bonus to all gambling rolls in the pub. This reflects thier love of money and luck in aquiring it without heavily unbalancing the game.

Bonzoids: +1 to all smithore-based plots. This reflects the Bonzoids love of mountainous terrain and therefore, makes smithore mining 2nd nature to them (since it's found int the mountains).

The fourth change I would make is to allow for RANDOM races to be chosen for the computer players instead of just having mechtrons all the time. Also allow players to pick thier computer players (though I'd prevent some easy winning by allowing computers to be humans. After all, humans should be played by REAL humans).

The last change I'd make is to allow different computer player levels of play. Computer player levels would be rookie, experienced, thrifty, and cutthroat with each level reflecting how smart and good a computer player would be. It just got tiresome with computer players either always making smithore or making decisions most players never would make. I think with those changes it'd make the game more interesting :)--Chris

Here is an idea from Allen W.
Hi how about having the mountain wampus do different things for a charater besides granting money for it's freedom. Examples might be having the wampus provide items like smithore, food, etc. Or better yet have the wampus randomly take surplus supply from the charater that captured it so you can't make money from the sale. ;)

Here are a few very good ideas from Troy A.

-The Land Grid should be larger, say 11 x 7, this would allow for games that go 18 turns or so.

-A new commodity should be added to the mix: Liquid Crystite. You can outfit a MULE to drill for liquid crystite. Liquid crystite would deplete a plot of crystite (there would be less every turn it was drilled), but a super fuel can be made out of liquid crystite that does two things for MULES: 1) it makes them run much faster on the board so you can do more things in a turn, and 2) it makes MULES more efficient, which means higher production for all your plots. Liquid crystite is used up like food when you use it to move very fast with a MULE, and it is used up like energy when it is used to boost a plot's production. When you sell liquid crystite, it goes off-world (like normal crystite). The store doesn't carry it. But the good news is that Pirates don't steal liquid crystite (it's too unstable for them to carry safely in their ships). You can sell liquid crystite to the store, or other players, but the price is pretty exorborant as you might expect.

-A branching mission structure would spice up the single player game, where when you become first founder on one planet, your race's company sends you off to another colony they are seeking to dominate. You gain fame and fortune within your company, eventually becoming the company president and presiding over all the colonies you have become first founder of. Finishing second, third or fourth puts you on a different path that you must attone for later in your career as you continue to try and steer towards the top.

-Add a stock market in the Colony Store that allows you to invest in commodities that you can't produce on your current planet. This also gives something better to do at the end of your turn than hunting the mountain wampus. And it puts your money to work instead of it just sitting there.

-Add hundreds of random turn events instead of a dozen or so that were in the original M*U*L*E.

-Add an insurance office that you can go into to buy insurace from Crystite Pirates or from other calamaties. The proceeds from the sale of insurance leave the colony's economy, so if they don't pay off, buying them hurts the colony score. But I like the dynamics that their existence sets up.

That's about it for my ideas for now. If I come up with more, I'll sure to let you know.

Here are a few very good ideas from Robert R.

I think the original could be improved with more of the same. 40 different commodities instead of just 4. 10 different kinds of food (each a different food value and enviornment to grow in (mountain moss, desert spineless cactus etc...) same with minerals (silver for solar collectors, iron for mining mules etc...)
All with different prices so that people would be able to grow food in a drought by selecting plants that grow with low water, or in mountains etc...
Power is the same concept, solar in plains, wind in mountains, hydro in swamps. It would increase diversity, in the stock market as the diversity increases, so does the complexity of the game and stability of the economy.
You could handle selling such numbers of different items jointly with a market. Two dimensional with 10 different stands of each item and 4 markets total food, crystal, mineral etc...people would wander around in all directions touching each other when they wanted to sell a particular item, if they did'nt have any items to sell the computer would not allow a transaction unless one of them had something to trade. Then if you had to sell 3 units of grain. you could wait in front of the grain stand, or sell 4 units of mountain moss in front of the moss stand, and everyone would be running around the market buying and selling at the same time,with a time limit of course.
This is exactly the way the real stock market is...racing around desperatly trying to sell your product to the buyers before he buys from the stand and at the same time dump your units of strawberries at another stand. people who did'nt have enough food would buy from the stands that have enough product. and each item would have it's own price.
This would not be a problem because of the nature of competition between different items in each market.. if moss were $50 per unit and grain were $10 per unit. People would just buy grain until exhausted. then be forced to buy moss.
More land... 44 squares is not enough, should be 2000 squares, so that people can buy more of their land in one place if they want to.... also increase the diversity of the land itself. e.g. veins of silver on one land with a percentage of each mineral, so that people could make money on smithore, but would make more on silver if they assayed the land correctly.
Play over the internet, mule is ideal for games of 20 players and the same time!!!
The original game was at 320 x 200. on current computers at 1024 x 768. the same scale would allow thousands of squares and several players.
As more players enter the game the economy will change dimensions dramatically.
Drop the land grant method and simply allow players to click on the land they want.
Resolving disputes with an auction between the two players that click on the land at the same time (or 3). with thousands of squares, land grant scanning down the page would be too slow.
Give up ideas about turning this into a wargame. Mule had no warrior elements and I say it should stay that way. Mule is an economic game.

Here are a few good ideas from Kevin

Alot of the stuff I would look for has already been mentioned, and alot is common sense. Different stats for different races, better graphics, etc. Two things I would like to add.
1. For internet play - make it free so you dont have to subscribe to an online service, and make it so that "lag" or "ping" wont affect gameplay.
2. Include an option for turning off all random events. I know, I know, everyone is going to scream at me for this one, but theres nothing worse than losing a real close game and knowing that you could have won, except for something that is totally out of your control. That sucks. Sure, alot of people will still play with the random events, but some people prefer a game of total skill. Especially in a game like this. If you include the option to remove events, everyone can play the way they want.

Here are a few good ideas from Aaron L.

PRACTICAL STUFF
Internet play is MOSTLY feasable. Lag doesn't matter, so long as your turn is processed locally on your own system. However, there's the little matter of between-turn trading. Those auctions happen in real time, and they're perfect that way. You could change the trading system to accomodate differences in connection speed, but I think that would be a mistake. It would be less elegant, and change the game too much. If it is an online game, the subscription service thing is practically inevitable. It just costs too much to keep a server going, especially after your product's a few months old and you have less and less people buying it. You can get it set up on the Internet Game Zone, or let one player act as server and everyone else has to know their IP address, but neither of those really let you patch the game without causing huge problems. You're pretty much stuck with the game as shipped. No new levels, no new add-ons. No fun. I guess that's okay if we get it right the first time. And there's always MULE 3. I can't decide whether I like Robert R's idea of 40 different commodities. That's way too big a jump for a first sequel. 3 variations on each of the 4 commodities adds the diversity he's seeking, while allowing the developer more room to experiment with the trading if the first implimentation doesn't test well. "mule is ideal for games of 20 players at the same time!!!"
No, it isn't. MULE is ideal for games of 4 players at the same time. That's why you couldn't turn off the computer players if there weren't enough humans to make up 4. MULE had a pretty heavy classic board game influence. You took your turns one at a time. There could have been a MULE outfitting phase where everyone buys their MULEs all at once, then a production phase where everyone puts their MULEs in place all at once and hunts the wampus and tries to get back to the pub entrance before their individual times run out. There was no technical reason not to do that - the auctions were certainly up to speed with four players simultaneously interacting. But it was important that players be able to watch what the other players were up to. Am I suggesting that MULE 2 be limited to 4 players? No. But maybe 6. Anything more than that, your opponents lose their personality. (watch me pretend I didn't say this later) One underappreciated features of MULE was that the games all ran about the same length. You could commit to a game, know you'd be playing for X amount of time, and still make plans for the rest of the day. It was long enough to be satisfying, but short enough so you wouldn't get angry when you're losing beyond repair. In MULE, each game an end. In MULE 2, each world should have an end. You can have an indefinite number of worlds, but each one should be playable to a logical conclusion in about the same amount of time. This precludes people from coming and going mid-game, but I think the basic game design precludes that anyway. Someone joining at month 6 wouldn't stand a chance against the original settlers. They could never catch up by game's end, and if the game never ended, they could simply never catch up. Following that logic, winning in one world can't possibly give you any advantage in the next. On the contrary--winning in one world ups your rating, so the server tries to give you similarly experienced players in the next world. Having established that... You could start the game with only one set of rules available, but many more greyed out. As your rating passes some arbitrary threshold, another set opens up. Hmm.. Let's try to organize these thoughts...
GAME DESIGN
A new player starts off in the Irata galaxy. There are several classes of planet available to colonize, which we will call "Beginner," "Standard," and "Tournament". (see the original MULE documentation for a description of each) Let's say you're limited to the Beginner worlds until you earn the Standard colonization permit by winning two games in a row, or six games in total. You can then choose between Beginner and Standard, and you will face opponents in either whose skill level has proven close to your own. (if you're playing offline and/or there aren't enough human players available, the computer will step in at an appropriate skill level) You will earn your Tournament permit in the same manner, though it's important to note that your track reckord for Beginner and Standard are completely seperate from each other. Winning a thousand consecutive Beginner games will not give you your Tournament permit, or affect who you play against in Standard matches. When you've mastered the Tournament worlds, your ship is upgraded, allowing you to travel through a wormhole to the next galaxy that needs colonizing. You can revisit Irata at will, but as before, you must earn your permits to proceed further. The planets in this galaxy are fundamentally different from what you're used to. Each world is devided into a hexagonal grid. There are forests, producing a new commodity: Wood. It takes 5 players to colonize the Standard worlds. And in Tournament, you can set a MULE on overdrive, which will double the production for that turn, but destroy the MULE and render that plot of land unusable for whatever commodity it was fitted for (lowering the surrounding land's values appropriately). Upon defeating the second galaxy, your ship's navigational computer is upgraded. You immediately detect two wormholes, so you've got two new galaxies to choose between. We'll call them Tribola and Brobdignag. If you like one, you'll probably hate the other, so we branch 'em off here. =) The first galaxies encountered in Brobdignag and Tribola are both devided into regular patterns of squares and octagons. (each square is adjacent to four octagons. Each octagon is adjacent to four octagons and four squares) You can sabotage your opponents by setting -their- mules into overdrive. The second galaxies encountered along either branch are devided into erratic, uneven shapes. Each plot of land is large enough to house a MULE, but there's no maximum size limit, and any given plot may be bordered by any number of other plots. This will be easier following one branch at a time. We'll look at Brobdignag first.
Brobdignag:1 is large and complex. 7-20 players. (players take their turns simultaneously, and watch quick replays of everyone else in town) The world is sized large enough for however many players you have, and the map scrolls as needed. There are up to 5 towns (1 for every 4 players), spaced evenly apart from one another. Every town has a pub, MULE store, etc. Trading takes place within each town among whoever's there. The MULE supply is devided equally among the towns at first, as are the players. Neither stay that way as the game progresses.
Brobdignag:2 is larger and more complex. However many players are available, that's how many there are, with the computer filling in if there's less than 15. 1 town per 7 players. 3 variations on every commodity. 2 axis trading as Robert described.
Tribola:1 is inhabited by natives. Friendly natives will help your food supply. Hostile natives will destroy your MULEs. If you haven't angered them by destroying their land, you can gain loyalty by offering gifts (made by mixing various commodities and tracking them down like the wampus monster).
Tribola:2.. A unique feature here is the God Machine, which basically amounts to really precise environmental controls. Remember how the acts of God worked in Populous? Same deal. Sacrifice a ton of money, or smithore, or whatever, and something you have no right to do becomes available. Different prices for different acts. Random selection available each game. (Show Crystite, Move Crystite Deposit, Turn River, Flood, Earthquake, Flash Fires, Summon Pirates, etc. Huge variety. All nasty)
GRAPHICS
By now, you're probably wondering how the hell we can pull all this off.
Me too.
My thoughts are this: The landscape starts off as a flat mesh, perhaps a quad patch, tesselated into many triangles. You have a number of bitmaps. They include: Grass, Sand, Mountain, Stream. You put them in front of each other, 1 pixel apart. You reduce the opacity to 0 on all but one of them. Then, you go through one plot of land at a time, turning up the opacity within for whatever bitmap belongs there. (you want kind of a noisy radial gradient on the alpha channel, probably) Point the camera straight at it. Copy that page out of video RAM and paste it onto your mesh's texture. Make a displacement map the same way, and use it to deform the mesh along the Y or Z axis as appropriate. With any luck, that will generate something akin to a 3D version of your standard MULE landscape. Random dispersion of mountains. Stream running down the center if that's where you want it, etc. It'll take a second or two to generate, but you only have to do that at the beginning of a match...
The animation itself is simple enough. 3D polygonal animation or hand drawn sprites. Whatever.
Jack's idea, using lots of animations to make things visually appealing, I don't quite agree with. The timer's always running. If we're talking multi-player, there'd be no point in one person shutting off the animations - one person has them on, the turn takes that much longer for everyone. But if the animations are short enough, it's not an issue.
And, finally: Kevin! Your random events toggle insight was brilliant. Why would anyone scream at you?
That's it.
--Aaron

Here are some GREAT ideas from Max H.
1. Keep the game exactly like the first one with changes on in the quality of graphics, sound and in the custom features of the game.
2. The custom options should you to allow you to change the grid size, change the game length, and would in turn, place more than one store for larger grids.
3. A smarter setup would be nice. Right now High Crystites are sometimes placed on top of one another, shorting you on good Crystite plots, or they are in the water or under the store. This should be fixed.
4. The number of High Crystite plots should be determined by Grid size. For every 15 plots, there should be 1 High Crystite.
5. Standard 1 year, 2 year and 3 year game setups should be available. 1 year would have about 44 plots for taking (9 x 5 with a store), 2 year would have 96 plots for taking (14 x 7 with 2 stores), 3 year would have 150 plots for taking (17 x 9 with 3 stores). There should also be a custom game available for up to 72 months with an option of up to a 20 x 15 grid. The number of stores should also be customizable ranging from 1 to 6 stores.
6. In grids in 2 year and up, 1 super high crystite should be hidden somewhere on the map with a high to every side, then a medium to the sides of the high and lows to the sides of the medium. This should be an option that can be turned off as well. Customable game play should be key.
7. On top of the Crystite, Energy, Smithore and food, there should be one more category. Hydro-energy units. This would force the player to choose between a super high energy producing unit, or a food. Hydro energy units would be increased, not decreased by thunderstorm activity. Outfitting for Hydroelectric energy should be VERY expensive. Maybe $1000 to outfit for hydro energy would make it a unit to be used later in the game.
8. Food requirements should go up one unit for every 4 months passed starting at 3 units of consumption for the first month (as the original). 1 river plot for every 12 spots of the grid should be available with a minimum of 4.
9. Make it possible for a player's colony to FAIL during the game where his land was auctioned off. For example, if a player had no food for 3 months, he would DIE. This applies mostly to the computer who is so terribly stupid now.
10. Keep good and bad things RANDOM. Don't penalize somebody for doing good in a game and make it possible for something terrible to happen to poor Mr. Last place.
11. Another bad thing to add should be the spontaneous combustion of M.U.L.E.s. Why let the run away when we can see them burst into flames and explode right on the spot. Running around on fire before they exploded would be a nice touch too.
12. I don't want to see JUST Crystite pirates. Darn it, if there are going to be pirate ships, let them come after smithore sometimes too. No more than 1 pirate ship of each category should be allowed in any 12 month period. 2 Pirate ships for 12 months really is enough.
13. Don't complicate the game beyond this. I see posts to have troops and a hundred other things added in. If other things are added in, they should be options only. Any option that goes beyond what the original game did, should be only an option.
14. GOOD LUCK. If you pull off the programming on this, I see game companies pounding down your door begging for the license to publish your game. We are all behind you.

MAX

There are a few things I'd like to add to a sequel says Robert I.
*) Futures - Sell your stuff before it is actually produced.
*) Stocks - Buy and sell your opponents stock and raise money by offering shares in your own firm.
*) Insurances - Protect yourself from bad things for a fee.
*) Loans - Loan money from the local bank office for a nice little interest rate.
*) Logistics - Actually a new commodity. To get your stuff from the colonies to the shop, you need transport mules. No transport and your products will go to waste. Unless you buy storage facilities on the actual plot.
*) Statistics - I want to see graphs that shows trends. I want to see pie diagrams that shows who owns how much of what. I want to see linear diagrams over prices. A.s.o.
*) Longer games, better graphics, smarter computer opponents, more simultanious players aso - The game is almost 20 years old. And it shows. Needs to be updated.
These concepts are very close in thought to the main ideas of the original. Maybe all of them in the same game would make it to complex, but as long as you can turn them off...

Regards,
Robert I.

Not sure if you are still upkeeping your MULE site, but thought you might be interested in my views on what MULE 2 should be. Personally I would love the game if they just remade it as it was! Since you only need 5 buttons to play (Up, Down, Left, Right and Fire) you could have 4 players all using one keyboard on a PC version.


However if we are talking an updated MULE:

I think that the map could be done in 3D (looking a bit like Ground Control, say). You should recieve your square plots as in MULE, but you should be able to place your MULEs anywhere within the plot. Thus your energy dishes would work best if placed on hillsides in the sunshine, your mining MULE would be more successful the further you took it into the mountains etc. Choosing your plots would be more difficult and would require quick thinking to realise the potential of each plots specific terrain. The Crystite "Map" could be done on a pixel by pixel basis so you could reposition your MULE until you had the best yield.

I think the idea of 40 resources is really bad. The whole point of MULE is that it was simple - everyone knew what each of the 4 resources was for and the effect of a shortage was. Maybe adding 1 or 2 would not be bad - or alternative MULE versions to gather the same resource (like Solar Panel, Windmill, Water Power for energy). Or the option to outfit MULEs for things other than resource gathering - e.g to protect adjacent plots from pest attacks or pirates, or a Wampus Hunting MULE. I like the idea of loads more things to spend your money on - vehicles to transport you more quickly around the planet. Perhaps some items only available to particular races. Or "bragging rights" items which did not actually improve your position in the game (like gold plated MULEs, big houses to live in, statues of Your Character Catching The Wampus).

I see no reason why the game should not have more than 4 players, but should have a minimum of 4 with the numbers made up with computer players. If playing over the internet/a LAN, there is no reason why you could not take your turns simultaneously, perhaps with opportunities to interfere with the other players. Food shortage could be represented by a slowdown rather than less time. I think I would prefer it if the pace of the game were kept - periods of frenetic action followed by (slightly!) more calm and considered trading. Alternatively you could experiment with a continuous game where if you wanted to trade you went to a trade hall.

It would be essential to maintain the "communal" aspect of the game so that although you were jockeying for position the status of the final colony was also important. Perhaps an 8 player game would be played as two 4 player games, so you were not only competing to be first founder of your own colony, but together you were competing to beat the other colony. Extend this over the internet and you could have dozens of colonies all competing at the same time.

There was a game released on the ST(or possibly Amiga, or both) called Traders which was heavily "influenced" by MULE, but just didn't work as well. I had trouble defining exactly what the problem was, but it just didn't have the same charm. This would be my concern about a new version of MULE which strayed too far from being a remake.

Hope you are still enjoying MULE. I may have a quick look on eBay in a minute and see if anyone has a battered old 800 and 4 joysticks for sale...

Regards

James

Last Update: 06/01/2002
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