Ye shall receive: M.U.L.E. remake in development, iPhone version to follow
When a remake of EA's cult strategy game Archon was first announced for the iPhone, I made a humble request that multiplayer classic M.U.L.E. be next, and while I won't take even an atom's worth of credit, Raph Koster has spotted news that a remake is indeed in the cards.
Melanie Bunten Stark, daughter of original M.U.L.E. creator Dan Bunten, has just launched Ozark Softscape -- a new site dedicated to the Bunten legacy -- and joined the World of M.U.L.E. Facebook fan-page with news (from May, actually) that the licensing process was underway so that work could begin on an online version of the game. More interestingly, Bunten Stark also posted more recently to say that an iPhone and mobile version were also being planned.
There's no word on precisely who will be handling the remake, though it looks to be closely overseen by the Bunten family children, and if I could only have one re-iterated request, it'd be that whomever is involved might think about tapping Niklas Jansson and his brilliant remake character concepts (above) for the updated version.
Follow the Facebook page, the World of M.U.L.E. site proper, and the official Ozark site for updates as they arrive.
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mypalmike
#1 – 10:31 AM September 2, 2009
Best. Game. Ever.
gecko85
#2 – 3:12 PM September 2, 2009
M.U.L.E. was one of my favorite games growing up. I actually bought an Atari 800 and copy of M.U.L.E. off eBay to replace what I had as a kid...the 800 has 4 joystick ports, so you can play 4-player M.U.L.E. Very sweet. I can't wait for the remake! (And the very first website I ever created, an Atari fan site, was named after the planet in M.U.L.E: Planet Irata. The site is long abandoned but will be there until Geocities finally closes permanently. It's pretty embarrassing to look back at my awful web skills at the time - even if they were actually better than some.)
Daemon
#3 – 6:53 PM September 2, 2009
By all the gods, M.U.L.E. is coming back? I played that game to death on my C64.
Screw the iCrap, it had better run on my PC.
therevengor
#4 – 10:00 PM September 2, 2009
They should remake it as a multiplayer flash game.
Egypt Urnash
#5 – 5:27 AM September 3, 2009
waitwaitwait, "Dan"?
Admittedly Bunten's gender transition was not a major success, by her own admission, but she seemed to be using a female identity until the end of her life. This press release, and the entire site, is completely ignoring that.
Brad S.
#6 – 7:50 AM September 3, 2009
React's update of Archon was a bit of an abomination. If they were to somehow get ahold of the rights to M.U.L.E., it would be a sad day, indeed. A new generation of gamers would have no idea why those of us who love M.U.L.E. were ever attracted to the game in the first place.
@5, your link seems broken.
dcparker
#7 – 9:40 PM September 3, 2009
Hello
You can check our iphone MULE clone at http://www.imule.us
You will be able to play MULE on iphone, MAC and PC.
benher
#8 – 8:23 PM September 7, 2009
Oh please oh please oh please!!! Hopefully this version will get farther than the Amiga clone I started and never finished like 15 years ago...
dcparker
#9 – 10:23 AM September 8, 2009
We are creating this based on Dan Bunten's original 6502 code.
We have licensed the mule song for our website and game. We also hired a Hollywood Foley artist to create the various sound effects and atmospheres.
All of the characters are based on Niklas Jansson’s graphics, you can see the rendered characters on the website.
We are working on the rendered game board right now. The characters are fully animated and the camera views/lighting need to be created so they are lighted the same, proper height and have shadows.