''M.U.L.E. Returns'' was a strategy

mobile game A mobile game is a video game that is typically played on a mobile phone. The term also refers to all games that are played on any Mobile device, portable device, including from mobile phone (feature phone or smartphone), tablet computer, table ...

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

-based developer Comma 8 Studios. It was a licensed

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

remake of the 1983 classic ''

M.U.L.E. ''M.U.L.E.'' is a multiplayer video game written for Atari 8-bit computers by Ozark Softscape. Designer Danielle Bunten Berry (credited as Dan Bunten) takes advantage of the four joystick ports of the Atari 400 and 800 to allow four-player si ...

Gameplay

The gameplay of ''M.U.L.E. Returns'' closely follows that of the original ''

'', though the controls are adapted for

mobile device A mobile device or handheld device is a computer small enough to hold and operate in hand. Mobile devices are typically battery-powered and possess a flat-panel display and one or more built-in input devices, such as a touchscreen or keypad. ...

touchscreen A touchscreen (or touch screen) is a type of electronic visual display, display that can detect touch input from a user. It consists of both an input device (a touch panel) and an output device (a visual display). The touch panel is typically l ...

s. Improvements over the original include a pause feature, three difficulty modes,

social media Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...

integration, and the ability to apply custom

skin Skin is the layer of usually soft, flexible outer tissue covering the body of a vertebrate animal, with three main functions: protection, regulation, and sensation. Other animal coverings, such as the arthropod exoskeleton, have different ...

Development

In 2012,

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by former Apple Inc., Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry ...

was in licensing negotiations with ''M.U.L.E.'''s original developers, Ozark Softscape, though these were unsuccessful and Ozark ultimately awarded mobile platform rights to Comma 8 Studios. Comma 8 began developing the game simultaneously for

and

Android Android most commonly refers to: *Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), a mobile operating system primarily developed by Google * Android TV, a operating system developed ...

, using

C++ C++ (, pronounced "C plus plus" and sometimes abbreviated as CPP or CXX) is a high-level, general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup. First released in 1985 as an extension of the C programmin ...

and a framework

middleware Middleware is a type of computer software program that provides services to software applications beyond those available from the operating system. It can be described as "software glue". Middleware makes it easier for software developers to imple ...

. To create as faithful a reproduction as possible, the developers traced and reimplemented the original

8-bit In computer architecture, 8-bit integers or other data units are those that are 8 bits wide (1 octet). Also, 8-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) architectures are those that are based on registers or data bu ...

code.

Release

Comma 8 released an official trailer for the game on 27 June 2012, and discussed the game's development at

World of Commodore World of Commodore is an annual computer expo dedicated to Commodore computers. The shows were initially organized by Commodore Canada or its sister companies, and took place at the International Centre in Mississauga, Ontario, though in som ...

2012 in December. The game was originally slated to be released in mid-2012, though this was pushed back repeatedly, first to the end of the year, then to early 2013, and finally to late 2013. The game was eventually released for iOS on 25 November 2013 and was presented the following week at the 2013 World of Commodore in Toronto. However, further development on the game has been discontinued.

Reception

Reviewers' attitudes to ''M.U.L.E. Returns'' were split. Matt Thrower of ''

Gamezebo ''Gamezebo'' (sometimes stylized ''GameZebo'') is a website which reports on and reviews video games. Founded in 2005 by Joel Brodie, it was billed as the first website to solely cover casual games and expanded its scope to social games in 20 ...

'' appreciated the game's "unique and enthralling mixture of strategic concerns propelled forward by real-time pressures" but criticized its patchy tutorial, sloppy

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

, and showstopping bugs. ''

Pocket Gamer ''Pocket Gamer'' is a video game website and former print magazine that focuses on mobile, portable and handheld games. It was launched in 2005 by Steel Media Limited. The publication covers portable and mobile gaming formats, including iPhone, ...

'' Harry Slater, who is not a fan of the original ''M.U.L.E.'', criticized the remake as "outdated, with sloppy touch controls and far-from impressive backdrops". ''148Apps'' had a more positive opinion of the game, awarding it four out of five stars and praising its sophisticated

supply-and-demand In microeconomics, supply and demand is an economic model of price determination in a Market (economics), market. It postulates that, Ceteris_paribus#Applications, holding all else equal, the unit price for a particular Good (economics), good ...

economics. Like ''Gamezebo'', however, they bemoaned its failure to implement the original's

multiplayer A multiplayer video game is a video game in which more than one person can play in the same game environment at the same time, either locally on the same computing system (couch co-op), on different computing systems via a local area network, or ...

mode.

References

External links

* {{Official website, 1=http://mulereturns.com/ 2013 video games Android (operating system) games IOS games Single-player video games Turn-based strategy video games Video games developed in Canada M.U.L.E.