366 · M.U.L.E

• SIT BACK AND ENJOY YOUR WEALTH AND POWER, OH MIGHTY RULER
• MULE stands for Multiple Use Labor Elements and I can’t imagine anything more boring for a kid to hear.
• M.U.L.E. was one of the first five games from new company Electronic Arts
• Resource Management: The core gameplay revolves around managing resources on a newly colonized planet. Players must buy, sell, and trade goods like food, energy, and ore.
• Turn-Based Economy: The game takes place over a series of turns, where players make decisions about their M.U.L.E. units (robotic workers), the production of resources, and trading with other players or the game's economy.
  • Most players start with $1,000 in money and $300 worth of Food and Energy - goods." However the Flapper starts with $1600 in money and $300 worth of Food and Energy, and the Humanoid starts with $600 in money and $300 worth of Food and Energy.
• WALKING THROUGH THE GAME
  • You select a plot.
    • The Land Grant is your chance to get one free plot each turn.
  • You decide to produce on your river land.
    • Decide what you want to do with your land. Mountains are best for mining Smithore, river land is best for farming for Food, and flat land is best for producing Energy.
  • You outfit a MULE
    • Go to the corral When the time bar runs out, your turn ends regardless of what you are doing.
    • Install the M.U.L.E where you want it on your land
  • When installed, your M.U.L.E. turns into a production symbol. Your property is ready to produce Food, Energy, or Smithore.
  • Wampus Hunting
    • The Wampus lives in caves in the mountains. When he opens his door, his bell rings and his black door flashes. If you catch him, he will pay you to let him go.
    • To catch the Wampus, you have to be outside of town, without a M.U.L.E. Then, when you see his light, jump on him. Good hunting!
  • The Pub
    • Going into the Pub is an automatic way to win money. But it also ends your turn. The more time remaining, the more you win.
  • Random Events
    • You can't really plan for "random events" like Planetquakes, Acid Rain, and Pest Attacks, but they can happen.
  • Auction
    • Controlled by the computer, there are 16 units of Food and 16 of energy. After that its based on what the players have bought and sold
• Why don't I always get the plot of land I want in the land grant?
  • The Nintendo figures out who has the least amount of money, land, and goods and gives that player the land. Or else it is because your "trigger finger" is just a little too slow.
• Competition and Cooperation: Players can work together or sabotage each other in the competitive auction phase, where they bid on resources and M.U.L.E. units.
• Winning Criteria: The goal is to accumulate the most wealth (in space credits) by the end of the game, achieved by successfully managing resources and making strategic moves to outwit your competitors.
• Multiplayer Focus: M.U.L.E. is often celebrated as one of the first great multiplayer strategy games, supporting up to four players, where each player can either compete or cooperate.
• Economic Strategy: The game revolves around economic strategy—players must anticipate market trends, decide when to invest in resources, and when to sell, all while managing their M.U.L.E. units.
• PAUSE WITH SELECT
• Interesting tid bit - The manual keeps referring to “THE NINTENDO” as the computer or game. As if it is another player playing against you
• No Sequels: But a lot of modern European board games have a similar focus to the resource management of this game
• Initial Name and Concept:
• M.U.L.E. was originally called Planet Pioneers during development.
• Aimed to be a more graphic-intensive, playable version of Cartels & Cutthroats, with a focus on multiplayer.
• Real-time auction mechanic inspired by Danielle Bunten's Wheeler Dealers.
• Influences from Monopoly:
• Modeled after Monopoly for social interaction and several gameplay elements:
  • Land acquisition and development.
  • Production advantages for grouped plots.
  • Random events similar to Chance cards.
• Setting and Story Inspirations:
• Inspired by Robert A. Heinlein's Time Enough for Love, with galactic colonization in the style of the American Old West.
• The M.U.L.E. is based on the genetically modified animals in Heinlein’s novel, designed to resemble the Star Wars Imperial Walkers.
• The lack of government or external authority is inspired by The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.
• Gameplay Adjustments:
• Early design featured an auction-based land sale, which caused a wealth feedback loop (wealthiest player gained the most land and money).
• Introduced the "land authority" system, providing each player with a free plot of land each turn.

Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.

00:00 M-U-L-E, sit back and enjoy your wealth and power, oh mighty ruler.

00:23 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. And I'm Joe. M-U-L-E stands for multiple use labor elements. And I can't imagine anything more exciting for a kid to hear. Well, I mean, I think that's like maybe one of the more, I mean, and I agree with you, but I think it's going to get a lot less exciting for kids as we get more into this game. And of course, you can, you don't have to, we don't have to keep calling it M-U-L-E or M.U.L.E.com. We can call it M-U-L going forward. Are you okay with that? M-U-L-E, I concede. M-U-L-E, I don't know if that makes sense. M-U-L-E, sure, yeah. No, you wanted it to be something else and you immediately caved. M-U-L-E, we were arguing about it.

01:15 M-U-L, before we talk about the game at all though, just one thing in my research that I usually save for the M, but I think it's worth talking about at the top here. It's a pretty big headline. M-U-L was one of the first five games from brand new company Electronic Arts. No way. I had no idea even while playing this that that's who made it. Yeah, it's in the game. I missed it. No, that's a reference, remember? I get it. Yeah, okay, good. Took me a second. Yeah, you concede, right?

01:45 I challenge everything. Okay, very good. Yeah, this is a pretty big deal, I feel like, but also anybody who's, you know, aware of video game history or anything, that should be a sign that this game is also very old because EA did not become a company in 1990. They became a company in like 1981, 82 or something like that, and that's about how old this game is. This game was released on computers first and foremost and is now just like part of this wave that we're getting recently of just, well, I feel like this can be on the NES because anything can be on the NES now. And that's exactly what happened here.

02:28 Mule is a resource management game. The core gameplay revolves around managing three different types of resources on a newly colonized planet where you basically have to manage buying, selling, and trading goods, the goods being food, energy, and smithor. And it plays in a bit of a board game-like fashion. It kind of reminds me of the kind of board games, Joe, that we were playing during our board game nights a few years ago. Absolutely. I was thinking the same thing while I was playing, and I did not get to, usually I can scrap together a crew to play multiplayer. I was not able to this week.

03:11 But the whole time I was playing this against a computer, I was like, this would be so much better with like three other people and like playing it like a board game. Yeah, and we'll talk about why, but I agree with you completely.

03:23 This game is, even though you can play with three other computers, you have to play with four players, by the way. There's no like just 1v1 or anything like that. Yes, there is. Oh, there is?

03:34 Yeah. So I just said I couldn't get people. I did. My girlfriend and I did try it at first, and after like a minute, my girlfriend was like, I don't think this is my type of game. And I was like, you know, okay. Like I said an episode earlier, that she's not a big video game person. So this is probably like the most boring thing that she could just jump into for her second ever video game. I feel like that's so interesting, though. We should really talk about what the game is. But like, I feel like that's so interesting because that makes me question like a lot of the strategy elements when you just have two players playing.

04:06 But of course, let's talk about the game. It is a game that works on a turn-based economy. So basically, one by one, players make their decisions. And the decisions that you make in the game revolve around owning plots of land and producing goods on those land in order to survive seasons and then use your surplus or rather the resources you no longer have to buy, trade, and sell these goods with other players. To accumulate a score where the player with the highest score at the end of the game, aka the one who was able to best manage all three of their resources appropriately, will win the game.

04:53 So the way it works is you first select a plot of land. And the way that happens is a grid of a map moves in square boxes from left to right. And any player at any time can say, I want this piece of land. And then they own it. And they can't buy another plot of land in the same turn. So it becomes a race to make sure you get a good plot of land, like a mountain or a river. You want to be in a good location and preferably probably near the general store too because you'll have to walk to and from the general store to your plot of land. Joe, let's pause here for a second. Selecting the plots of land.

05:39 You know, did you have a strategy for this? Did you have a thought process that went into like, you know, how you were developing your land? Well, so as far as which plot I select, yes. I mean, so like you said, you know, you want to pick a good plot, like whether you're near a river or you want to be near water if you're going to farm. You want to be near in the mountains if you're going to mine. And you want to be on the plains if you're going to try and generate energy. Now, I'm not sure exactly how those affect your output. Like if I were to get a plot of land in the mountains and try to farm, how much less stuff I would get or how that would work.

06:22 But intuitively, it seems like that's what you want. And, you know, secretly, I think that that's like kind of all there is to selecting what to select. It's like there's three types of land. There's three types of resources. And one coincides like one to one with each other. But then there's also this like and I don't have a strategy nailed down here, but there is something interesting about the way that you select where it the computer just shows you like here's plot one. A here's plot one beat one. See one. You know, it just goes right down the line and you're selecting. So like there is something.

07:03 There's something there that's strategic that I haven't fully locked down yet about. Like, do you select something early or do you wait until everybody else has selected, see what they've done and now there's nothing they can do. And now you can select what you want based on what everybody else has. You know, that's that. So like that part, that's an interesting gameplay element that you wouldn't be able to really do in a board game. I mean, I guess there's probably some way you could figure it out. But this is like it's reliant on like you have one second to select this plot of land before. Like, OK, no one's buying this. We're on to the next plot.

07:41 So, yeah, I think that there's a lot of potential for strategy there. It's hard to really come up with strategy when you're planning as three NES AI computer characters rather than other players. And it's interesting because the strategy is one consistently throughout this game that as each turn goes and turn would refer to all four players or however many players you have each completing their own turn. When you get to the next like selection of land plots again. Well, now you can't select four tiles that were previously selected. Those are all owned. And so you have less to choose from.

08:16 And by the end of the game, you only have, you know, like the the only choices remaining. So it kind of becomes a game of lockout where you say like, OK, well, this person desperately needs food. And this is the only food tile left, you know, like the only one that would produce near the river. So I'm going to make sure I grab this. What's interesting about that, of course, is that if everybody needs food and everybody wants the the land that's still directly on the river, the AI in the game, not even the computer players you play against, but just the computer itself will give it automatically to whoever needs it the most. Now, I find that very interesting.

08:58 All ties and in any in any area of like choosing at the same time or selling off things, the computer always gives it to whoever is deemed to need it the most. What do you think about that, Joe? I mean, my gut reaction to that is I don't like it because it takes away kind of like your ability to monopolize something or to, you know, to to really use this economic system that's in this game to your advantage. But then the more I think about it, I do see the the merits of it also, because like what we're talking about right now is just selecting the plot of land.

09:39 And that like if there's just one plot of land that that you two of you need, I can see them wanting to do something where it doesn't just come down to whoever has the fastest reflexes is going to be the like that's not this kind of game. So it's not like it's it's it's maybe not a perfect way to do it, but it's I think it's trying to stop people who are just quicker from just like kind of bullying the person that's just not as fast on the reflexes. And after every player selects their plot of land, then you go into your individual turns.

10:11 And this is where a timer suddenly appears on the screen. It's basically just a bar that depletes like an hourglass and you have to do everything you want to do within that timer. If the timer runs out, you won't be able to do whatever remaining tasks you have. So anything you want to do in the game has to happen on this particular turn has to happen within that timer.

10:36 More than likely, the most important thing you're going to do is you're going to go buy a mule, a M-U-L-E. If you remember, that is one of those multiple use labor elements in this game. In the game, not so much, but in other iterations of a mule on like the computer, they look exactly like Star Wars AT-ATs. Really? Yeah, like like that's interesting.

11:04 And OK, because not sure why that's allowed, but it's kind of funny that like EA still works with Star Wars. Yeah, maybe this is like what LucasArts was like, OK, that's that means that they're they know Star Wars like this. That was like their like their interview is like, oh, can you make can you make an AT-AT or AT-ST? Which one? And they're like, oh, yeah, they made these AT-STs before. Maybe let's let's give them let's give them the Star Wars IP. Right. And so you buy your mule and you do that in the store. So you're actually now walking around as a character. You go in there, you buy your mule and then you have to decide, well, what's this mule going to do? Is this mule going to generate food, energy or smith ore?

11:47 And you pay a fee for that as well. And then you take it out of the shop and you're now on that overworld map screen again. And you walk on over to the plot of land you just bought and you say, OK, this will now be where I'm going to place this mule here and we're going to generate food here. Then you're going to leave that plot of land, go back to the general store and probably just go into the pub.

12:11 The pub is the way to end your turn. It's an automatic way to win money. It depends on how the more time remaining is the more money you win. Oh, I didn't even realize that the time correlated to that, but that makes so much sense now. So, so, you know, obviously it's just like I did everything I need to do and I'm going to end my turn. You can go wampus hunting.

12:30 Did you go wampus hunting at all, Joe? I did not go wampus hunting. Tell me about it. It's a fool's errand, OK? Because any kind of money that you might get out of this will not benefit you in the long run because you have a higher potential to waste your time and run out of time doing anything. And you need money to sell goods, to buy goods in this game, of which, of course, allow you to win the game. So why wouldn't you just finish your turn rather than go try to catch a wampus? Like, sure, the payout is higher if you do catch the wampus, but it's not easy to do.

13:10 Right. I wonder if there is some, like, reason if you're, like, in the deep strategy of this game, if there's ever a reason to do the wampus hunting. Maybe there's, like, a different play style that we haven't thought of or something.

13:22 Also, speaking of wampus hunting, have we mentioned that this is an alien planet and you play as a bunch of aliens? I just want to make sure people are clear on that. No, because we didn't mention all the alien characters that you play. Yeah, I'm sure we'll get into that. As we're talking about this, I just want to make sure it's not, like, yeah, we're not, like, just, like, on Earth here. Yeah, yeah, this isn't, we're not playing civilization. Yeah, yeah. We're not about to build the Roman Empire again, but this time with George Washington.

13:47 Yeah. I never played. And then there's also, at the beginning of your turn, there's a chance for a random event to happen, like acid rain or pests can take over. Pest attacks, yeah. Yeah. I think there's not earthquakes there, there's planet quakes, which sound bigger. Like, earthquakes, I never put together that they were talking about, like, the entirety of the Earth, but when you call it a planet quake, now it sounds like literally the entire planet is shaking. Yeah, right. Which is violent.

14:21 Well, what you're talking about now, too, these environmental things, that also informed my strategy of where to pick my plots of land. Because at one point I had, I don't remember exactly what it was, I might have had, like, a farm and an energy producing thing, or maybe it was two farms up in the north. And an acid rain storm came through, and it kind of goes in, like, a horizontal line across, like, one or two tiles.

14:56 And having all my stuff in one area means that it's more likely to get hit by one, like, it's almost like you want to, you want to separate your stuff just to have contingencies. So, like, that factored in as well. Like, I didn't want, like, two farms right next to each other, which the river runs vertically, so I don't know why I would have done that anyways.

15:16 But it's good to have things on, like, different sides of the, I don't know, if it's the whole planet or of the land, just to, like, to spread it out a bit. And after everyone has successfully completed whatever they want to do with the mules or just go right to the pub or try to catch a wampus, we head into the auction part of the game where it does show, like, how much you yielded in these different categories of, again, energy, food, and smith ore. And then how much were depleted by the end of that season.

15:52 And then basically, like, a goal line of, like, where you needed to be. And if you weren't there, it's time to start buying up some food. If you weren't generating food, it's time to start buying. And if you had a lot of smith ore, it's time to start selling. And this is the most interesting part of the game. This is also the crux of the game, so I understand why it's the most interesting part. Like, this is the only part that really involves any kind of interaction other than strategic blocking of other players' plots of land. So in the auction, the way it works, you can decide if you're a buyer or seller.

16:32 Sellers go up to the top of the screen. Buyers are at the bottom of the screen. And it goes one by one. So first with food, then energy, and then smith ore. I believe that's the order. Anyway, the sellers are on a bar, which shows them, you know, like, let's say their current price. One food, $60. And the buyers are at the bottom, and they're saying one food, $10.

16:56 The two bar graphs have to meet together. So in other words, the players have to meet in the middle in order to start trading. So if sellers have food that buyers desperately need, what's the incentive to come on down, right? But if you have too much of a product that nobody else needs, what's the incentive of anybody to buy from you? Yeah, it's really interesting the way they do it, because I can see if any kids got past the boredom of some of the other stuff that, like, a kid might have in this game, this kind of teaches you, like, some of the basics of, like, how, like, an economy works. Yeah, supply and demand.

17:40 Yeah, and, like, it truly is when you have a resource and, like, nobody really needs it. And, like, say you and I are playing together, and we both have this resource, it becomes a race to the bottom. And this is where I think it could be, like, much more interesting to play multiplayer, because the computer kind of just, like, does, like, whatever one pre-programmed thing. It's like, okay, we need this, they have this, we're going to go here and stop.

18:05 But I could see it being, like, more auction-like. If it's like, yeah, all right, I'm going to come down to $20, and someone's, like, about to come up, and you're like, well, I'm going to go down to $19. And it's like, okay, now they're going to hit you first. So I'm going to go down to $18, and it's interesting. It could be interesting for both sides in that way.

18:22 And it's just, what a unique and interesting way to present this, too, with these, like, little aliens walking down the screen and walking up the screen. Yeah, I really appreciate the line bars, because that is, like, something that I wouldn't, like, if they would have presented it in a different way, right? If it would have been, like, oh, you press the A button to bid up, right? Like, actually holding signs, right? And increasing your amounts.

18:48 And the highest bidder gets whatever the person offered. Like, I don't think I would have came up with this, you know? Whereas, like, I could come up with the inferior one. This is a very smart way, you know, albeit pretty boring for kids. This is a smart way to visually represent, like, coming together on a trade agreement, okay? So this is the phantom menace of video games, where it really rewards people who are into trade negotiations.

19:20 Well, and I think that they seem to be very aware of the idea, like, this economy-based game is going to be boring for kids. And I think they did actually a really good job of presenting every element of this game in a way to up the kind of interest to it. Where it's like, yeah, you have these alien characters. And, like, instead of it just being like, yeah, your character has more money, your character is better at farming. It's like these alien characters with these quirky little descriptions.

19:51 And then instead of just selecting a plot of land, you've got this sort of, like, race where you've got to get to it. And instead of just deciding, okay, this is going to be farmland. I'm going to pay for what I need in farmland. It's like, no, you've got to, like, walk into a little store, get a little robot mule, outfit him with what you want, and then, like, walk him across the map over to the thing.

20:12 And then finally this auction thing. Instead of it just being, like, I'm going to bid this much, it's like this little, all these characters on the screen kind of doing this dance where they have to meet at wherever the agreed upon price will end up being. It's like, they did some, they definitely did good work at, like, trying to, trying to make this more interesting for kids. And after the auction, you're shown the scores. It shows you first place, second place, and so on.

20:41 And then you go into selecting plots of land again. So you kind of repeat that loop, of course, now with more limited resources, right? You probably have less money. You have less land to choose from. And you need to think about which resource you need to produce in order to capitalize on what everybody else has or doesn't have and what you desperately need in order to make sure you meet your quota.

21:05 The one issue I have with this whole loop is that it's not really a series of choices so much as, like, what's forced upon the player because of the way the game is set up. So, for instance, everybody gets a plot of land. Like, it's not like certain plots cost more, and so therefore, you know, like the prime river location for the food to generate the most is now more expensive, and so it rewards players who win more. If anything, it actually rewards players who are behind to keep them competitive.

21:43 That part happens, and then when you get to your turn, well, of course you're going to buy a mule, and of course you're going to make them produce a good. The good is just whichever one you decide you need on, but most likely every game is just going to start with, depending on your land tiles that you grabbed, you know, one food, one energy, and then either another one of those or some smith ore to capitalize on some, you know, good production that you had in those other two categories.

22:12 But it's never like, oh, well, this turn, I don't think I need a mule, like I should save my funds or something like that. Or this turn, I'm not sure which one I'm going to produce, because the land tiles make it so obvious. You know, Joe, you broke down kind of that triangle system of the river, the mountain, and the flatlands. The land that you've been given or selected or lucked into is like, now that kind of defines like which mule you're going to optimally place there.

22:43 Like, yes, you can still go around it, right, and be like, no, I really do need food, and it sucks that I got a mountain this turn, but I need a mule for food. But you're most likely not going to win the game if you do it that way. Yeah, I mean, I guess that might come into play more when a lot of the tiles are taken up, and you have no choice but to take a mountain thing when you need food. You know, like maybe more people are doing that in the end game, also maybe more often when there's more players, you know. Because I feel like it's just easy enough to kind of like outthink this computer, you know.

23:20 Yes, and then the other thing, you can transfer your mules as well, so there could be some strategy there of, you know, oh, I accidentally placed a food in the mountains again. I got to transfer that out. I'll bring the food to the river plot I just acquired, and then I'll go grab a new mule and make him the mining one. But that's only if you're bad at the game. If you're good at this game, right, like if you know what you're doing, then you don't really have a need to transfer.

23:51 Because again, you transferred most likely because of the locations that you had on hand. So unless you really did just start off in a bad location and need to adjust accordingly, the transfer thing is kind of not really something you need to factor in at all either. So the game really does just become the auction because otherwise it's just, well, this is the land I grabbed. I'm going to produce with this mule, with this type of element, and then I'm going to go into the auction and hope that I can sell my products for high and buy low. Yeah, I mean, it does feel like that is kind of what the game is.

24:28 And like I'm doing a lot of this exercise imagining what it would have been like playing with three other people. And I can imagine a lot of it would be kind of like, not arguments, but like tension during those moments. But everything else, I mean, I guess there could be tensions during the land selection part too. But like everything else like is just flavor, really.

24:50 You know, I mean, I guess there's that time limit if you don't get your mule back in time, if you're going to do a bunch of things. But like, do you really ever run out of time unless you're trying to do too much? You know, is it like, is it ever really that much of a threat? I mean, I guess it does affect the money you would get from the pub. But yeah, it does kind of all come down to those auction things. And I see what you're saying too about the, like it not being, they're not being like that other layer of like, oh, this plot of land costs more or something like that. And I think the idea was probably like, oh, no, you're, you're setting up your own economy by, you know, as the game goes on in the months or whatever they are go by.

25:35 Like you are, you, things do become more valuable, like naturally, literally more valuable where like more people are trying to get them. And by getting it, you'll get more money because you can sell more things for higher prices or whatever. Like that's, that's interesting to me. And we haven't even talked about the fact that like, not only are you, are you, do you have to think about your economy, but like the whole planet's economy is affected too. And like, you can screw up, like you can just all lose if the whole planet's ecosystem fails. So like, there's a lot of that stuff to factor in as well, but I'm not sure how much it really, like moment to moment, like is on top of mind just because of the way the rest of the game is designed.

26:19 And we should mention that while there is a, you know, we're talking about the mules and, and going into the store and checking in on your plots of land and auctions and stuff. This is not a, a pretty video game. This is not, this does not put graphics at the forefront of anything. Uh, this does look like a computer game at a lot of parts, uh, especially the kind of computer game, uh, you might think of as like an educational computer game.

26:49 Uh, it has that look for me. I don't know about you, Joe, but just like some, some games I would have played in a, at a school setting would look like this. And so I know it's like amazing. I got to play video games at all at school, but this isn't helping its cause. Now I don't feel like this is educational and I did have some fun, uh, you know, manipulating the computers into doing my bidding.

27:11 But, uh, you know, I just don't think like, it, it doesn't really have a lot going for it in terms of like putting itself against other very fun and visually striking NES games. I get that this was a computer game and this is just a port of that, but you have to imagine that it was ported for the reason of capturing the younger audience that the NES grabbed. Right. And I wonder like, did the computer game, did the NES game add a bunch of the like kind of colors and bells and whistles for that? Or, or was it kind of, I mean, I know you said that the mules look different, but did anything else, was anything else like significantly different? Oh yeah, no, for sure. Like it, it looked even more bare bones in, in 1983.

27:57 Uh, if you can believe it there, some of them are like, you know, uh, like stick figures and stuff like that. Yeah. Like, like the boxes are, are really, you know, like the lamb plots are really crude and the mountains are just triangles. Because like you're saying like, oh yeah, there's so much more crude because there's stick figures. Like I can't even think of something more stick figure than the stick figures in the NES game. Right, right. It must get even worse. It's almost like, uh, any, you know, like Atari 2600 games. I see it too, yeah. Like E.T. Yeah, you wouldn't call them a stick figure, but like they have that shape.

28:34 Yeah. And so that's what, that's what it looks like on these older systems. Uh, but again, it's fine there. I think for the NES it could have used a graphical update. Now let's talk about, um, just like the, uh, the, the, not, not, not, not the competition part of it, but just like the, the overall winning goal. Like the winning criteria, right? So the goal is to accumulate the most wealth, right? It's not about like whoever has the most food wins. It's not a diplomatic, uh, it's all about whoever has the most wealth.

29:07 So is that, is that compelling? Like, you know, we were joking about civilization earlier, but civilization has like multiple different win states that you race for, right? Like one person might be like, I just want to do world domination. And so they're focusing on their military, but then another person is trying to like, you know, build enough wonders or, uh, have a diplomacy or, or launch a, uh, land on the moon. Right. It's like, there, there are different criterias for winning and civilization here. It's just about the most wealth. Does that make it too like obvious on your turns of like what you should be doing and, and not spending that much and focusing on production?

29:48 Probably. I mean, I, again, I mean, I'm going to sound like a broken record. I think it might feel a little different playing multiplayer, but like definitely playing as a computer. It's very obvious. I think it'll be just as obvious playing multiplayer, but you're playing at everyone else who finds it equally obvious. So that way it might be a little more competitive in that sense. But, um, yeah, I mean like it's, it's definitely, it's not that it's missing a layer, but I, I would appreciate another layer to it.

30:17 Yeah. I agree with you a hundred percent, by the way. Like I do think, uh, if I was playing this with three other people, they would all just collude against me. And I would believe that nobody's buying my goods because they all talked before they came over and said, yeah, we're going to screw Mike over tonight. Uh, yeah, I already, I already mentioned this to Sean and, and, and Chris.

30:34 Good, good. If we ever play this, that we've got to collude against. Yeah. Uh, and then, uh, you know, choosing your character, uh, of which these are all aliens, uh, you can be the Mektron, the Bonzoid, the Flapper, the Flapper. Like the Flapper was from the twenties. Yeah. The Flapper was my second, my second playthrough. I was the Flapper. And do you know why you were?

30:56 Uh, I'm trying to remember. They started with more money. Yes. They start with more money. Uh, everybody else gets, uh, gets an even $1,000, but the Flapper gets $1,600 and the Humanoid gets $600.

31:11 Yeah. But I mean, I'm assuming that there, it's not perfectly clear, but there are other advantages for each race, right? Like, like the leg guide I did the first time and I, and I just assumed based on the description that it like lives on the plains and it's uses its legs to run across planes that it would be good at like farming or, or maybe not farming actually, maybe energy. Now that I think about it. I think that's incredibly optimistic, Joe.

31:34 You know, so you don't think that there's other like the manual does not hit the manual does not hint at that at all. Wow. So there's even a whole like Q and a section and it doesn't talk about it there. I wouldn't, I wouldn't count on it. I just assumed, man, that'd be very disappointing if it's not true.

31:55 They had tips on the beginner game. Uh, that is to always get land during the land grand section. Duh. Uh, avoid moving through mountains and the river whenever possible. They will slow you down. And I mean, like we got to back up the timer thing. It, this isn't hard and, and you're not moving at a snail's pace when you're in the mountains or the river. Like you're going to be just fine.

32:20 Uh, I, the timer maybe should have been if they wanted to make it a game that was like a race and you only have like 12 seconds or something. Right. Like it doesn't feel like that. I'm not saying that they gave you all the time in the world, but, uh, I, I never felt like, Oh, well, I better not cross that river. Right. Like it didn't matter which way you exit the store. Yeah. I mean, you, it kind of does feel like you have all the time in the world to be honest. Like, it's just like, I guess you are losing money for all the time you're spending. So like there's, there's risk reward there, but yeah, I'm never like, Oh no, time's running out. Another weird thing for the manual.

32:56 The manual always refers to the computer as the Nintendo. What? Like I think my parents wrote this manual. As if another, like, you know, so, so let me try and find like one line here, but, uh, okay. Uh, why don't I always get the plot of land I want in the land grant? It may be because you and another player are both pushing your buttons at the same time and he or she is getting the land. That happens because the Nintendo figures out who has the least amount of money, land and goods and gives that player the land. Uh, it also says, why can't I watch the Nintendo controlled player install a mule? Is it cheating on me? The answer is since the Nintendo never makes mistakes, it's not much fun to watch.

33:47 Well, I will say that, you know, I kind of, I kind of guffawed at it at first, but when I was a kid, I, I, I didn't think I ever even knew it was called the NES or the Nintendo entertainment system. I just called it the Nintendo. I called it Nintendo. I'm going to play Nintendo. Um, and, and then the Super Nintendo. But then when I got the PlayStation, it gets even weirder. I called it the Sony. Oh, that is weird. It's weird. It's really, me and my brothers were just used to the Nintendo. So I was like, yeah, I'm going to play Sony. It wasn't until PlayStation two came out. I was like, oh, it's, it's Sony's Sony.

34:22 Of course, like Sony's not the name of the machine. Right. It's the company. But I always said like, yeah, I'm playing Sony. That company is just so much, they make so much more. Like Nintendo only makes video games. So I get it. But like, you know, you might have like a Sony TV and a Sony, uh, surround sound system. And then you're just like, but I'm going to go play Sony.

34:42 Yeah. That's funny. We all said it. And, and I totally know what you're saying. And I think a lot of people did this, Joe, where they called their console, the Nintendo. I actually just think it's weird here that the way that they're referring to it is like that. It's also the Nintendo is the game, you know, like the Nintendo is the computer. It's the dealer. Like technically I never thought of like the cartridge that you put in the Nintendo now being like controlled by the Nintendo. I think that's the part that's throwing me off. Right? Yeah. I mean, it's, it was, it's also the word, the use, the word the.

35:20 Yes. Makes it like a little weird too. They never miss a the, by the way. It's always the Nintendo, which is good because if they said Nintendo, they'd probably get in a lawsuit with Nintendo for implying things about the company. Uh, just some development stuff here. Mule was originally called Planet Pioneers during development. Do you like that name better?

35:39 Uh, I, I mean, coming at it from the perspective today, I think Mule is a cooler name because it's quirkier and different, but I'm in Planet Pioneers. It's going to, that's a sexier name. Um, and they, uh, admitted, EA admitted that, uh, the game is largely influenced by what board game, Joe? Is it by Settlers of Catan? No, uh, much older. Uh. Much more classic. Much more, oh, oh, oh, what's it called? Uh, I don't know, Risk. No, Monopoly.

36:12 Aw, Monopoly. Yeah, think about it. I guess that makes a lot of sense. Land acquisition. Yeah. Right? It's completely, yeah. It makes perfect sense, but. Yep. Production advantages. I'm just thinking too much of maps. You can only, you can only start building, uh, houses and hotels once you own a group of land, so.

36:30 Clearly, that, you know, that's what they wanted to add into Mule was eventually, and you know, we should talk about that, right? Like, they could have added so much more to, like, the plots of land you own, but instead you just buy a Mule at the store and then bring it on over to your land, and then you don't even, like, really get to, like, see how the land's developing or anything.

36:50 Yeah. Like, it's really, really bare bones there, and, like, it's an old game. I get it. There should be more stuff, though, like, just to, like, supplement, or just, like, add to that. You want to, now you've got your firm and it's producing, but, like, you want to produce more, you can bring this other thing over there and, like, you know, hire more, you know, robot workers or something, you know? Like, but then, I guess that what that is is, no, just start a new farm, and it does the same thing, but it's all, it's all horizontal growth, no vertical.

37:23 Uh, early versions of the game featured an auction-based land sale, which caused a wealth feedback loop, where the wealthiest player just kept gaining all the money in land. Now, that sounds... That doesn't seem realistic. Yeah, that sounds a lot like Monopoly, right? Like, that is the problem in Monopoly. And, uh, it's probably the problem here. They, again, they could have just made it cost more for the nicer ones without an auction part, right? Um, but they did, uh, they, they, they did assume that the best way to fix it was to just make sure that, uh, each player gets a free plot of land each turn. Hmm. Did you pause in this game? I didn't. I didn't even consider pausing. Right. Because you have a timer, and time is precious.

38:14 Right. Uh, you pause with select. Interesting. Does it make a sound? I didn't check for the sound. I should have. Kind of hate myself for not doing that, but pausing with select, I'm not trying to make a big deal out of it, but it is wrong. Yeah, I think I've gotten more comfortable with it because we've seen it kind of several times. Yeah, sure. No, I know. They're, they're young. They haven't learned everything yet. Yeah. And this is coming off of, uh, a game that was played on a keyboard. So who knows what you paused with back then? Did you just escape and close out of the software?

38:46 I mean, I guess like nowadays, I don't know what, what Xbox or Nintendo does, but like PlayStation doesn't have a pause button. It has like an option button. But like back then, the button's name was pause, right? It was written on the controller. Am I, am I crazy? No. No? Which, which controller? Well, I'm thinking the NES controller. Oh, no, it's start and select. Start and select. Okay. Not pause and select. So you're right. Yeah. But I like that. There should be a pause button. That's what the PS6 is going to have. They're going to bring back pause and it's going to have a great sound. And it's not going to be a button. It's going to be a crank. You know what I was thinking actually? Super quick tangent, but I have to tell you now.

39:27 PS6 controller. You know, they like touchpad area that they had on the PS4 and now the PS5. What's that called? Do we know? Does that have an official name? Um. I mean, it does have an official name, but we don't know. Yeah. I don't, I don't know what it is. I would call it touchpad. They need to take that part out and put there like a, a, a LCD screen. Mm-hmm. That's like, I could see that happening. Basically, it's taking the Dreamcast VMU, you know, those little like Tamagotchi that were also memory cards, genius idea, by the way, uh, taking that and now putting it in the game so that your controller has this LCD screen on it so that like when you're away

40:11 from the, from the PS6, you can play on that little screen. Oh, interesting. On the controller. It's kind of like a Switch, but not really because then it also has like a little like menu and other things you can do right on that LCD screen when you're playing on the console. The controller itself is the portable gaming system. So then you can, uh, it still feels like a PlayStation controller, kind of like the portal. Yes. But the problem is like, would it be big enough? No, no, I know. So that's what I was thinking is like, it's meant only for like being in the same room or same house. Like you can't take it to go.

40:49 No, but I just mean, is the screen big enough? No, no, no. That'll be, that'll be terrible too. It's just like the, the VMU, the Tamagotchi screen with like, there was only like 64 pixels on that thing. Like, you know, but man, every time I find out about a cool little thing with the Dreamcast VMU, I'm like, I can't believe we lost it. I can't believe we like, I get it. Tamagotchis were at their peak around that time, but like, I don't think we, I don't think we cracked that nut yet. I think there's more juice to be extracted from that seed. I'm into it. Okay. Back to Mule.

41:24 Uh, what else? The essential games list. No. Um, I don't know. I mean. Did you say no because you're not allowed to do that? Yeah, I can't do that. Okay. Just try it. Cause like, I was fine with it. Actually. I was like, yeah, sure. Let's do it. The essential games list. No, no, no. Oh, come on. No, no, no, no. No, I'm serious. We can't do it now. You've, you've made me aware of how much power I have and I can't just give it away now. It's like in this game, right? I'm aware that I have all the food. I think that this game is sort of. Uh, no sequels for this game, Joe. No. No Mule 2.

42:01 Really? I'm actually kind of, I actually am kind of surprised. Cause it seems like something that like would have been good on like the, the eighties computers and that they maybe would have like, there'd be like an, there'd be like a niche audience for it. The sequel's hanging right there for them too. Moscow Mule.

42:16 Ooh. Or like you put a few other letters between those dots and you got muscle. M dot U dot S dot C dot L E. Oh, it becomes a wrestling game. Yeah. Yes. You develop, uh, you know, your, your local wrestling chapter and you're competing with other wrestling chapters to, but you know, to like control regions of the United States to become the nation. You're a spheroid or a legite. Yeah. No, of course. Sorry. I didn't say United States. I meant, uh, alien country. Yes. Uh, yeah. Uh, it was a, uh, planet produced. It was a robot producing planet like any other. Did you get that reference? What other kinds are there? Okay, good. Uh, all right. I tell you what, Joe, now we can do. The essential games list.

43:08 Listen, listen, mule. I know for a fact, there's one of you out there that grew up with this game, loves it to death, is so angry that we didn't cover all of the possible strategies and that this game's really deep and we didn't even get into that. You don't even need friends because there's different difficulty levels for this game that have different durations and yeah, there's tons more we could talk about, right? Uh, this isn't a let's play kind of show. So I'm just going to get right into it and say that mule surprised me.

43:47 I really like what this game is doing, even if it is so basic, uh, by modern standards. I just like it when all of a sudden you're playing through a library that is like shmups, cross-platformers, um, action games, racing games. And then all of a sudden you're just like, what do I even like put this down on in the giant nostalgia spreadsheet? Like what genre do I put this on? And fortunately we have a tabletop, uh, section. So I think I'll put it in that. But like, wow, um, did not expect such a simple, uh, fun game to give me like, uh, you know, a few brief minutes of, uh, satisfaction and fun in my day.

44:31 Uh, I will not be putting this on the essential games list. It's, uh, way too dry, basic, and lacking any kind of like larger strategy. But if you could get young kids into the idea of playing this game, maybe in their third grade classroom, I bet like there's a lot of critical thinking for them, uh, to have here. And again, that's not a knock on the grand strategy of this game. I am sure that there could be a, uh, global mule championship that happens every year and it's very intense and I would finish in last place. That's not what I'm arguing.

45:13 I'm arguing that there's just so little, uh, manipulation and, uh, things to produce in this game that ultimately it doesn't offer a grander experience of exploration, which is what it's asking for. You're, you're settling, uh, you're buying land plots on an alien planet and you're barely doing anything with those plots other than placing a mule on them. Like, come on guys, let's be real.

45:42 Joe? Yeah, I also really, uh, found this to be a really interesting experience. Uh, I, I enjoyed it. Um, it's, it's surprising how much strategy like you can find with such a simple, like with such simple tools in this game. And I do think that, uh, this game has a lot more value than I initially gave it credit for when I, when I booted it up. But, uh, yeah, in the end, I think for what we're trying to do in mule, this is one of those instances, instances where I think the video gaming industry has evolved past this. And if, if this is what you want out of a game, uh, this is a cool thing to go back to and say, look how we did it back then.

46:31 But I think we've evolved enough where like it's missing too many things that you would have in a game that came out today. Or even like later in the nineties where you, you have this economy, you're trying to, you know, manage your resources and whatnot. But, uh, it's a fun game if you like that thing, but definitely not on the level where I would, could say it's essential. So not essential.

46:55 Well, I'm glad that even though we talked about how basic it was, we both came to the conclusion that we enjoyed it. Uh, because that's, um, that's refreshing. Yeah. Refreshing is the word. That's how I felt about like just playing this game. Like you said, it's different than anything we've played in a while. I want to play just a game. That's just the auction part where it's just people coming together in the middle, uh, to agree on things like that. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of what this is.

47:21 No, no. I meant like, I want like the rest of it doesn't matter. I want like the everybody votes channel, uh, in the Wii, but I want that in this form where like, you know, there's it's, it's, it's not, it's not this form, but it's reminding me of it a little bit. I don't know why more I'm thinking about it. It's not even like it, but it's a, it's a Jackbox. It's a game called split the room.

47:40 Okay. It's not like this at all. What do you do? No, come on, come on. You can't leave us hanging. What you do is what you do is you have a, you know, a room full of people, everybody playing. You have to, you like, it comes up with like a scenario and you have to come up with like the two things you have to choose from. And the more you split the room, the more points you get. So if the two things you come up with, one is the obvious answer, then you're going to not get any points. Like if everybody's like, yeah, of course I would take chocolate over, you know, broccoli.

48:10 It's like, well, yeah, you picked two bad things, but you want to pick like two things like, oh, you're stranded on an island and all you have are blank and blank and you have to blank or blank. And you have to pick the two things that you think will split the room. Huh? Okay. Yeah. How, how much not like what we're talking about now that I said it loud.

48:29 I want a game where, yeah, you just have to walk as far away as possible from another character, not meet them in the middle. I want to walk away. I'm doing it right now. I'm walking away. Can you tell? You don't sound like you're getting further away. Well, that's because you're on my mic that's attached to my head, but the podcast, it'll sound like I'm getting further away. Oh, okay, cool. Oh, okay.