Dan Bunten and M.U.L.E.

54 points by gmkoliver 13 years ago | 14 comments

gnosis 13 years ago |

"Dan Bunten was an idealist from an early age. At university he protested the Vietnam War, and also started a bicycle shop, not to make money but to help save the world. According to his friend Jim Simmons, Bunten’s logic was simple: “If more people rode bikes, the world would be a better place.” When he watched Westerns, Bunten was an “Indian sympathizer”: “It just seems like such a neat, romantic culture, in tune with the earth.” A staunch anti-materialist, he drove a dented and battered old Volkswagen for years after he could afford better. “I felt like I sold out when I bought a 25-inch color TV,” he said. That 1960s idealism, almost quaint as it now can sound, became the defining side of Bunten the game designer. He campaigned relentlessly for videogames that brought people together rather than isolating them."

It's quite fashionable to be condescending towards hippies and the 60's counterculture these days, but I find them incredibly inspiring.

I wonder how different today's gaming world would be were more game designers and studios more concerned with expressing their idealism through their games rather than squeezing out a few more FPS, making prettier graphics, or making games according to tired formulas.

gillianseed 13 years ago | |

Heh, I quite agree.

Maybe it's me projecting but I've always been more of a fan of Jeff Minter for what I perceieve of him as being a really cool down to earth dude rather than his games (despite me liking many of them).

vidarh 13 years ago | | |

Jeff Minters autobiography series is a fun read: http://minotaurproject.co.uk/lshistory1.php

Someone just needs to get him to keep writing - last post was 6-7 years ago.

bhauer 13 years ago |

MULE is one of my favorite video games of all time. It has been years since I last played (via emulation) but it's one of those games like Warcraft II and Starcraft where I find it's all to easy to say, "How about one more round?"

The music is burned into my mind.

I haven't done a search, but I assume there are some modern homages to MULE?

Edit: Only 30,000 copies were ever sold? Just goes to show how uncommon it was to own a computer back then. I think I still have my disk and cardboard flip-case somewhere... I should dig that up.

Kronopath 13 years ago | |

There was the free Planet M.U.L.E., from 2009, which had online features and updated graphics.

Here's some videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LiqbEvEnrg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1W52wQUkKc

Unfortunately, the website for that game seems to be gone.

discostrings 13 years ago | | |

Planet M.U.L.E. is still around--at least as of a week or two ago! I haven't played in a while, but I check the site everyone once in a while to see if there's any news and whether people are still playing. Here's a cached version of the site from January 29th: http://web.archive.org/web/20130129005307/http://www.planetm... . I'm guessing they're just having minor issues.

I highly recommend it!

cstuder 13 years ago | |

M.U.L.E. Returns will be a modern, faithful remake, officially licensed: http://mulereturns.com

The release date has been pushed back repeatedly and should be any day now. Apparently making software is hard.

I can't wait. When playing M.U.L.E. on the C64, I've never was able to get four people together. Now I've got a second chance.

gillianseed 13 years ago | | |

Interesting, although I have to say that judging by graphics alone, the Planet M.U.L.E version referenced in this thread looks alot better (imo).

eropple 13 years ago | |

There was a more-or-less faithful (unlicensed) remake released as a commercial title perhaps...ten years ago? I can't for the life of me remember the name, though.

busterarm 13 years ago | |

Likewise. I LOVED that game. I still play it at least a few times a year and it's one of the basis for comparison that I use for all other games.

waterlesscloud 13 years ago | |

Marathon sessions with a few friends in dorm rooms in college. Hotseating, taking turns. Lots of fun.

Those wild college years.

unimpressive 13 years ago |

Old video games are particularly interesting as artifacts because they implicitly highlight the capabilities of hardware and the sort of peripherals that could be expected during that period.

One of these days I'm going to find the time to sit down and play Colossal Cave Adventure.

And then after that maybe I'll find somebody willing to play Spacewar! with me.

ts4z 13 years ago | |

If you go to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, they have a PDP-1 running Space War.

The day I played it, the docent giving the demonstration was Steve Russell.

jbattle 13 years ago |

I loved this game as a kid - I remember getting my whole family to play a few times, what a blast!

It's touched on briefly in the article, but another thing I remember from this time in gaming is a short-lived but fascinating push to make the makers of these games public figures. It wasn't a ton of games, but I think it was EA (ECA back then) that would include pictures of the game design team and a brief blurb inside each of their games.