Has it really been 30 years since M.U.L.E. was first released by Ozark Software? It has! To the benefit of all of us filled with nostalgia for the game, Comma 8 Studios, has brought M.U.L.E. Returns forward to iOS (Android coming in 2014). For those who don't know, a M.U.L.E. (or Multiple Use Labor Element) is a strategy game of supply and demand. You play a colonist dropped with 3 other colonists on the planet of Irata with the goal of developing a successful colony. Here's how it goes.
The game is setup in turns with each turn consisting of land selection, land development, resource collection and an auction of resources. The developer's website has a great strategy guide to help you with all the details of the game, here. Basically, each turn starts with a view of the game board with all of the plots of land shown. As you watch, the plots are highlighted one after the other. When the one you want to own is highlighted, you tap the screen to select it. In a game against AI opponents, this is done simultaneously, so it is possible that your opponents will swipe the plot you want right out from under you. Land is how you obtain resources. Each plot can sustain one M.U.L.E., a mule-shaped robot that you outfit to harvest either food, energy or smithore (think iron). If the plot has a river, you get more food from it, if it is just flat land - more energy and mountains/hills = more smithore.
After selecting land, you then can buy a M.U.L.E. from the colony store and pay to outfit it for the type of resource you want it to develop. Using tapping and dragging controls, you navigate the M.U.L.E. into vendor stalls to outfit it and then exit the store to take it to your land plot. Once at the plot, you tap to install your outfitted M.U.L.E.. The turn continues until you run out of time (how much you get is defined by how much food you had at the start of the turn - too little food means less time). On each land development turn, you can also hunt for the Wumpus, a little creature who pops up on mountain plots that if you are on the tile when he shows up, you can tap the plot and catch him to gain some money. You can also go to the Pub/Casino at the end of your turn to try and earn some extra cash.
After land development, the turn moves to resource collection where you see what your plots have produced. Each one makes a few of the resource you have setup the M.U.L.E. to collect. There are modifiers that can increase or decrease the amount as well as events that may happen to boost or decimate your production. After that, you move to the final stage of the turn: the auction.
The auction is where you convert your resources you have gained into cash, or buy resources you need for the next turn. At each resource auction, they happen one at a time starting with Food, you get to choose to either buy or sell. Once you choose, you use a up/down button to raise or lower the amount you offer to see or buy at until a price is agreed with another player or the store. Here is where the real strategy of the game shines. Will you try to corner the market on a particular resource by buying all of it up? Will you flood the market by selling tons of a resource and making it worthless for your opponents to develop? All are options.
The real trick of the game is that while you are rated on your total score at the end to determine who has won, the colony score (total of all player's scores) at a whole is also considered. The best players will find a way to score high (lots of money, resources and land) while also helping their opponents also score well enough to have the colony overall do well.
M.U.L.E. Returns is a faithful and re-skinned homage to the original M.U.L.E., the original often finding a place in the top 10 computer games of all time. The updated graphics and soundtrack are great. Plus all of the favorite game play elements are there and the game offers the same deep strategy of the original. And multiplayer, which was one of the key features of the original M.U.L.E., is coming soon. You should know, however, that there are some quirks of the touch interface that will take some getting used to. It can be a little touchy to get the right price level in the auctions using the touch buttons. Additionally, it can be difficult to get timing right on stopping buying or selling on the number of items you want when selling at auction. Finally, a end auction button to move to the next auction would be helpful as you are sometimes left waiting for the timers to run down with nothing happening on screen.
[Update: Only a couple hours after posting this review, an update was made to M.U.L.E. Returns for iOS that addresses many of the suggestions/little issues with game play I mentioned above. Great job, Comma 8!]
If you want a great strategy game that feels like a board game made into a video game or if you liked M.U.L.E. and want it back for the 21st century, M.U.L.E. Returns is for you. M.U.L.E. Returns gets 4 Mick Happies. Off to get my M.U.L.E.s to work. See you on Irata.
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