New purchaser today, just did a quick beginner one player round and it worked flawlessly on Linux with a PS5 USB connection controller.
We had an Atari 800 and M.U.L.E. was one of the first games purchased on floppy disc; I still love this game and soundtrack!
I had no idea about collusion back then https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/M.U.L.E.#Trading_Stage until reading this post today, so I won't miss it. But that's pretty cool to learn after all these years!
Ha, yea, talk about discoverability! I talked a bit about this with someone in the World of MULE discord server. I have an idea to allow for collusion again: since horizontal controller movement is not used, I think I can introduce an interface that will allow players to indicate they wish to collude with a specific other player. And if the other player reciprocates, collusion occurs as it used to do. Depending on how I present it, it may only be a smidge more discoverable than before, but it'll improve upon how people used to have to count out (1... 2... 3... press!).
Excellent! I wonder if collusion was in the game documentation from back then… Looks like it was, makes sense it was tournament only: http://muttoo.on.ca/mulemanual/