Hi,
Love the game. We are used to playing the Atari 800 version. In this version, how do you pause the game? Also, how do two players collude during a trade? On the Atari 800, it just required two people to press the button on the joysticks simultaneously. We are running the Windows version and using two XBox type controllers. Thank you!
Thanks for the feedback.
Pausing
I recently implemented pausing in offline games. It will be in the game's next update. The game will pause when the main menu is activated. And the gamepad method of bringing up the main menu will switch to the "start" button from the B button. I realize this pausing method will obscure the screen, unlike pausing in the original game. I do plan on eventually adding a pause without the main menu, complete with the clock ticking sound, but it will have to wait for some other important features to be implemented. Concerning pausing in online games--it gets complicated and I don't know of a nice way of doing it.
Collusion
There is no ability to collude, in the classic sense, in MULE Online. The decision to leave that feature out comes down to 2 things:
I'd like to hear your thoughts on the purpose of collusion. Perhaps I am missing something.
I have a very large backlog of a lot of other (better) features that I think you'll enjoy.
Thanks for the quick response. We did try pausing by clicking the B button in an offline game. It went to the main menu but the game continued underneath the obscured screen. We will look forward to the next update! This is the one video game my wife of 30+ years and I both enjoy playing together and we usually will play in offline mode though we will use the online mode to play with our sons (one who lives in a different country). Collusion does go against the free market mechanics, but it helps when teaching new players the game without letting them get crushed, especially by a computer player. Thank you for all of your hard work with this game!
I played a LOT of MULE on Atari 800 with 4 human players, and collusion is a critical and fun element of the game. Could it result in hurt feelings? Perhaps, but it also allows a player with a monopoly on a resource to maximize their profit, try to maintain a majority resource position, etc. I've been in many games where 2 players collude and later collude with others - it's not been my experience that it results in 2 players "dominating the game" against others. If you have concerns about misuse, make it an option during game setup.
I appreciate people providing feedback on this matter. I have been convinced that it is worth bringing back into the game. I am something of a hypocrite to think I can withhold the feature while purporting to provide classic MULE. I had settled towards making it an off by default option, but perhaps it should be on by default but optionally disabled.
New purchaser today, just did a quick beginner one player round and it worked flawlessly on Linux with a PS5 USB connection controller.
We had an Atari 800 and M.U.L.E. was one of the first games purchased on floppy disc; I still love this game and soundtrack!
I had no idea about collusion back then https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/M.U.L.E.#Trading_Stage until reading this post today, so I won't miss it. But that's pretty cool to learn after all these years!
Ha, yea, talk about discoverability! I talked a bit about this with someone in the World of MULE discord server. I have an idea to allow for collusion again: since horizontal controller movement is not used, I think I can introduce an interface that will allow players to indicate they wish to collude with a specific other player. And if the other player reciprocates, collusion occurs as it used to do. Depending on how I present it, it may only be a smidge more discoverable than before, but it'll improve upon how people used to have to count out (1... 2... 3... press!).
Excellent! I wonder if collusion was in the game documentation from back then… Looks like it was, makes sense it was tournament only: http://muttoo.on.ca/mulemanual/
