Every two weeks, we will present a game that has influenced us as designers. This installment: M.U.L.E.

It's hard to think of Electronic Arts as ever being a new company, but everybody started somewhere. It doesn't hurt that the very first game they published was a sublime classic, pioneering multiplayer gameplay, economic simulation and a twisted sense of humor with the use of only a joystick and one button. "Ask most game designers what their favorite computer game of all time is," says Will Wright, "and you'll get M.U.L.E. as an answer more often than any other title."

So what is M.U.L.E? The game, originally released for the Atari 800 in 1983, puts the player in the role of a prospector on a forlorn planet. With the aid of your Multiple Use Labor Element, you mine property for one of four resources. And then you engage with other prospectors to buy and sell those resources. All of the interaction is handled through unique and simple graphical interfaces - when buying or selling resources, players simply move their characters vertically to meet at a mutually-agreed price. At the end of twelve rounds of play, the player with the highest net worth is the winner. However, just like a real economy, profiteering and hoarding can cause the entire colony to collapse, so players need to juggle avarice and philanthropy. Despite the simplicity of the game's elements, there are a wide variety of play strategies.

Dani Bunten, M.U.L.E's lead designer, wanted computer games to be first and foremost social experiences. Unfortunately, she was years before her time and, although M.U.L.E. occupies a position in the pantheon of classic games, it was not a financial success and marked the end of her involvement with EA. Her later games, including Seven Cities of Gold and Modem Wars (the first game designed specifically for head-to-head play over phone lines) furthered her philosophy of gaming as a social experience. She died in 1998 and was inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame this year.

By K. Thor Jensen, project manager.