Random stuff

planetmule.com

planetmule screenshot

Finally! An excellent remake of a legendary game called M.U.L.E. One of the first multiplayer games developed originally for Atari 400/800 and from where the 4-player gameplay originates from, but then also ported to C64 (and some others) on which probably most remember it from. It is dated to my birthyear and the cover graphics for the original is great in an phenomenal level. It doesn’t stop there: The game itself has one of the best tunes to my remembering from the 8-bit era.

Following text is about the 1.0 version of the game:

The java-version is developed by Blue Systems and Turborilla and is played over the internet while being an very accurate copy of the original gameplay wise. There is some slight cosmetic changes though and the graphics and sounds are totally new. What this really provides is to play the great original game again on a modern computer with friends sitting in their own homes. Which is one of the biggest downsides: This game was designed to be played together in real life. Even though this version does have the in-game chat there, it is still just a vague illusion of talking about the game in real time. Also what tells about the lack of intensity on that side is that every time there is waiting period in the game, it feels like forever even though it might be less than in the original. One downside is also the A.I: It currently cripples the gameplay by selling all the good straight away. But in general the game is very good and well done. Some slight bugs are still to be tackled but the 1.1 version is already on its way.

Skip this if you’re familiar with the game:

Although the gameplay probably attracts more the nerds of us it is still a great simplification of economy. In the game you buy M.U.L.E.’s to gather resources from your land plots and then use, sell and buy them between players and the common storage. Most of the resources have connection to the gameplay in clear ways and the value of certain good is dependent on the needs of both the common store and other players.

Wikipedia – M.U.L.E.

c64 laptop casemod

Benjamin J Heckendorn created an absolutely wonderful mod of c64. He created a laptop out of the original c64 hardware but what I’m in awe of the most is the design of the laptop. The look and feel is so… so… c64. Straight from the 80’s but something the people at that time wouldn’t have come up with. Nice example of retro design where the wonder of it all probably sprouts from the childhood memories.

And of course that would be a nice casemod even in the case I would ignore the fact that it looks just perfect.