mule game sourced
M.U.L.E.
A four-player economic strategy game on a colony planet where players outfit M.U.L.E. robots to produce food, energy, smithore, and crystite and trade them in real-time auctions.
core loop
claim a land grant -> buy and outfit M.U.L.E.s and walk them to plots -> production with shortages and random events -> real-time auctions set prices -> buy or sell -> next round
design notes
M.U.L.E. couples its four resources: food sets how long a player's development turn lasts, energy shortages stop plots from producing, and smithore supply sets M.U.L.E. prices and whether the store can manufacture more. Prices are set in real-time auctions in which buyers and sellers move avatars toward a price, so withholding goods and private deals between players are legitimate tactics. Danielle Bunten built catch-up rules into the systems: tied bids go to the player in the losing position, favorable events rarely hit the leader and harmful ones never hit last place, and land auctions were replaced by free grants because they compounded the leader's advantage. The taxonomy has no mechanic for systematic catch-up rules (proposed as catch-up-balancing).
relations
10 stored edgesAuctions
Each round resources trade in a real-time auction: sellers and buyers walk avatars toward a price line, trades fire when they meet, and ties go to the trailing player.
Resource extraction
A M.U.L.E. outfitted for food, energy, smithore, or crystite harvests its plot each round; output depends on terrain and the plot's development.
Supply-demand pricing
Store prices respond to supply: refusing to sell raises a resource's price in later rounds, and smithore scarcity raises the price of new M.U.L.E.s.
Turn structure
Rounds run in fixed phases: land grant, timed development, production, then auctions for each resource.
Adjacency scoring
Plots grouped with others producing the same resource get a production bonus.
Direct avatar control
Players walk a colonist through town to buy and outfit M.U.L.E.s and lead them to plots under a turn timer.
Goods consumption
Each player needs food and energy each round; low food shortens the next development turn and low energy stops some plots.
Production chains
The store turns smithore into new M.U.L.E.s; with no smithore it cannot build more.
Random disasters
Sunspots, pirate raids, meteorites, and runaway M.U.L.E.s, targeted away from the last-place player.
Rival firms
Computer opponents fill empty seats and compete for plots and auction trades.