M.U.L.E. - Four Players, Two Ports

[Great Hierophant]

While I know that the best way to play MULE is to have four separate controllers, sometimes that is not possible. While the Atari 400/800 had four ports for joysticks, the Atari XL/XE and Commodore 64 only had two, as did the NES by default. NES MULE supports a Four Score or a Satellite for 4-player, otherwise you are limited to two players.

 

But what if you had a Commodore 64 or Atari XL/XE? As I understand it, you could still have four players, although it would not be as convenient. MULE requires at least one joystick to play, but also supports paddles on these systems. During the development phase, when you need four directional control, player 1 and 2 would share a joystick (not needing simultaneous control), as would players 3 & 4. During the auction or land grab phase, two players would use a joystick while two would use keyboard buttons. If you had paddles, two or three players would be easier. In that instance, everybody would use one joystick and player two (and three) would use the paddle knob and button for the auction and land grab. Maybe a fourth player could use keyboard buttons. I also assume that four players could share one joystick and three use the keyboard keys, but this could be awkward.

[Rybags]

Fairly sure 3 players will work on those machines with 2/3 using Paddle and all sharing the joystick for the dev phase.

 

Maybe someone's done a Multijoy hack that lets you play with 4 players/4 joysticks.

[pinball22]

We used to play 4-player M.U.L.E. on the C64 at my house constantly. Never tried using paddles, but it works fine with two people using the keyboard, as long as you arrange where you're sitting right.

[yuppicide]

I wouldn't play MULE on anything but a C64. Well, I can't say I've tried all versions, but I certaintly won't play the NES one.

[Video]

I remember the hours we'd play on M.U.L.E (C64) yeah, it only had two joysticks, but it also mapped out some buttons on the left, and on the right of the keyboard, don't remember what they were, but you would all play simultanius on there. Man, that game was the shiznit, and the wars it would cause as you'd jump ship to the other side to knock out the other players and the last two to battle it out...

 

Of course...we had a hackedd copy, never saw a real one, but one advantage we had, our copy had a continuous mode where you played until there was only one...strangely, even for the 64, I've never heard of anyone else having this. Whoever hacked it was a genius though, as that mode is sorely missed in the other versions I play...