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[Syrion]

http://www.planetmule.com/

It's a unique, free, competitive mini-economy sim, and it seems to be really good. It's a remake of the 1983 game M.U.L.E. and pretty much identical to it, apart from obvious technical upgrades and online multiplayer!

I've never heard of M.U.L.E. before, but I'm sure some others will delve into nostalgia right now. It seems most unfamiliar at first, but just check out the "how to play", play a training round with that on your side and you'll be right at home. It's a highly simple game and its brilliance appears to lie in just that fact.

Maybe we could get together for a match or two?

[Alex Vostrov]

M.U.L.E. is required playing for anyone who fancies themselves to be a game designer.  It's brilliant in its elegance - I only hope that I make something like it one day.

[Radix]

MULE is somewhat unique in video game history, but the whole auction economy thing is really common in European board games. I can understand why people who have only ever played American-style board games might be dismissive, but if you're a designer interested in clever mechanics, particularly (but not exclusively) relating to player interaction, it's pretty interesting to learn what can be done with a few handfuls of tiny wooden cubes.

[Wella]

Looks interesting for sure, but I'm not that kind of gamer. :|

[Alex Vostrov]

MULE is somewhat unique in video game history, but the whole auction economy thing is really common in European board games. I can understand why people who have only ever played American-style board games might be dismissive, but if you're a designer interested in clever mechanics, particularly (but not exclusively) relating to player interaction, it's pretty interesting to learn what can be done with a few handfuls of tiny wooden cubes.

Yes, the German boardgame industry is quite an oasis of creativity.  One thing that I was struck by is how diverse the themes of the games are.  This is very much in contrast to computer games where the available themes are: man, gun and man with gun.  Where's the game set in the court of Louis XIV?

[supershigi]

Ah!  I played this on the NES... actually I played a ROM version of it on my PC since I didn't discover it until years after it had been released.  It was pretty fun, so I think I'll check out this newer version.

[Parthon]

I look forward to playing it when I get home. :D

[increpare]

I hadn't actually played it before.  I just tried it there, against my housemate - it was pretty much both of us just learning how to play, but very excellent...

[bigpants]

I don't know if this evil strategy from back-in-the-day works, but it's worth trying. Buy smithore immediately, as much as you can. It's very cheap early on because no-one wants or really needs it. However, this means the store can't manufacture MULE's so eventually the other players can't do anything - there's no smithore to buy and they can't mine for it since there are no MULES! This causes the smithore price to skyrocket, and you eventually sell back to the store for a huge profit. It winds up being a horrible game, the planet is a disaster, but you're the "winner". When everyone tries this strategy, it becomes a literal race to the top of the screen to buy smithore.

The Wiki entry on MULE touches on this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.U.L.E.
"while a shortage of Smithore will raise the price of M.U.L.E.s in the store and prevent the store from manufacturing new M.U.L.E.s to make use of one's land."

[eobet]

Fun that somebody finally discovered this. I worked on that game for a while.

I also made an extremely feeble attempt of getting it on the front page, which I'm really rather embarrassed about now.

Anyway, you should know that it's an officially endorsed remake, and not a shady clone.

It also may expand/branch in interesting ways in the future, as we already designed a whole lot of goodies that didn't make it into the release version.

[Dragonmaw]

Destroy friendships, but awesome.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

hahaha

and don't be embarrassed by trying to promote it, i wouldn't have played/reviewed it if you (or someone on its team) hadn't asked me to in irc.

[Jonathan]

It's actually really fun; I had forgotten how to play but it was pretty easy to get back into again.  Did anyone else notice that they kept some of the same snazy tunes from the original?

[Core Xii]

I don't know if this evil strategy from back-in-the-day works, but it's worth trying. Buy smithore immediately, as much as you can. It's very cheap early on because no-one wants or really needs it. However, this means the store can't manufacture MULE's so eventually the other players can't do anything - there's no smithore to buy and they can't mine for it since there are no MULES! This causes the smithore price to skyrocket, and you eventually sell back to the store for a huge profit. It winds up being a horrible game, the planet is a disaster, but you're the "winner". When everyone tries this strategy, it becomes a literal race to the top of the screen to buy smithore.

That happened in my last game. But oh how karma comes around! After the smithore was sold at ridiculous prices, mules cost 560 a piece and the player that did this was clearly leading, something awesome happened:

His only energy mule freaked out from radiation and fled.

He had also skipped building a farm to boot up this strategy as quickly as possible... So he was crashing on energy and had no food to get the time to get a farm up.

The other 3 players completely deprived him of food and energy until he fell dead last and ragequit in frustration.

[Dragonmaw]

I once pulled off a food monopoly and starved every other player. They couldn't do anything because they were at -4 food every round, and I refused to sell them food unless it was at ridiculous prices ($600 per unit). They'd gone for the smithore tactic, so I managed to get all of the riverbed spots and just produced shitloads of food that I never sold.

It's hard to get a food monopoly, but if you can, it's extremely effective and almost a guaranteed win.

[Core Xii]

Food monopoly is impossible because everyone puts down a farm on either round 1 or 2, and since there are 4 river plots, you can get at most 2 of them. Unless... So far, I've never seen a river plot being auctioned; Is that even possible?

[Dragonmaw]

Food monopoly is impossible because everyone puts down a farm on either round 1 or 2, and since there are 4 river plots, you can get at most 2 of them. Unless... So far, I've never seen a river plot being auctioned; Is that even possible?

It's possible sometimes. And man, when you pull it off, it's HILARIOUS.

Also river plots generally aren't auctioned because, at the most, all of them are gone by round 4. There's also only 4 river plots, compared to the massive amount of plains.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i've seen a river plot auctioned and seen someone get 3 plots. fortunately for us he was stupid and just sold us whatever food we needed at low prices. i don't think he really knew how to play the game.

as an aside, i'm now rank 90 (last i checked) in the game -- top 100. mainly that's cause i've been playing against bad players (namely, tigirc players). the only tigirc player who is actually good at the game besides me is podunkian.

[Dragonmaw]

i've seen a river plot auctioned and seen someone get 3 plots. fortunately for us he was stupid and just sold us whatever food we needed at low prices. i don't think he really knew how to play the game.

as an aside, i'm now rank 90 (last i checked) in the game -- top 100. mainly that's cause i've been playing against bad players (namely, tigirc players). the only tigirc player who is actually good at the game besides me is podunkian.

I'm pretty good

[moi]

not in the Pauleresphere