Game: MULE Returns

M.U.L.E. occupies a unique and much-cherished niche in gaming history. It was about the first ever game to blend multiplayer and real-time strategy, all way back in the days of 8-bit systems. I never owned one of the platforms it ran on, so had never experience its pleasures, although I knew of its exalted reputation. And that reputation made a modern day remake like MULE Returns all but inevitable.The game is one of those common curiosities that are actually fairly simple but devilishly hard to describe. Each turn you pick a plot of land, and then spend money on buying, equipping, and upgrading MULEs, robotic servitors that work the plot for you. There are three different types of resources: food, which you need to move about; energy, which is needed to power your plots; and smithore, which does nothing but is pretty valuable."After production there's an auction where you can sell goods you have an excess of and buy ones you need. The game has a simple but fascinating economic model that results in oversupply causing prices to drop and scarcity causing prices to rise. To win, you have to play the markets and make money, but beware: beggar your opponents and the whole colony fails, so a level of mutual cooperation is required.