Space Moguls – Preview of Upcoming New Commodore 64 Game.

Commodore 64 fans are in for a real treat with the upcoming released of a new turn based strategy game, Space Moguls.

Developed by Carl-Henrik Skarstedt and to be released soon by Protovision, Space Moguls is a modern day tribute to the 35 year old cult classic M.U.L.E. which sees you play as a contestant in a competition that sends four participants out to a new planet, left there with some cash, food, material and energy. It is now up to you to figure out how to best exploit the planet’s resources and build up your wealth to win the ultimate prize.

Key Features

• Space Moguls allows up to 4 players to partake in fun and engrossing resource management play with elements economic principles;
• 8 different playable characters available;
• 4 different planets for the the game to take place on, each with unique land distribution and item production;
• The landscape for each planet is generated as the game starts, providing a unique experience with every game.

Game Play

• A game is made up of a number of rounds with 4 phases within each round: Land Grant, Development, Production and Trading;
• Land Grant phase – each player selects the land type that they wish to develop on. There are 9 different landscapes available for you to choose, each with unique characteristics as to the type of resource you can extract from it. Additional land may be purchased via a land auction;
• Development phase – each player has 40 seconds to go into Town to purchase a droid and outfit with equipment that is compatible with the terrain of your land cell. Get this part wrong and your production will suffer greatly. Once you are ready, exit the Town and walk your droid to your land to ready it for production;
• Production phase – sit back and watch your droid dig up food, energy, materials, ore and if you are luck rare items. Random events may also impact your production output, in both a positive or negative way;
• Trading phase – time to profit from your production and sell your goods to other players. Your ability to get the top price for your produce will depend on how badly the other players need additional supplies to ensure that they remain competitive for the rest of the game. Make sure you are not short on supplies yourself, so you will need to be a buyer as well. No food means no production in the next round. Land installations require energy to produce at full capacity and once the Town store runs out of droids, you will require ore to be able to produce additional units. Note that transactions only take place when a buyer and seller agrees upon a price;
• Players are ranked at the end of each round, with the winner being the player with the most cash and assets combined after all rounds have been completed.

The RVG Verdict

The demo version of Space Moguls (which provided only 4 characters to choose from and one planet) was quite enjoyable to play in single player mode and never became dull, thanks to the infinite variety of the game map generated for each game. As a multi-player experience, Space Moguls is sure to be quiet fun as you try to out smart and out produce your friends in order to finish in first place. The strategy element of trying to determine which land to grab and how best to equip your droid, combined with the economic buy/sell principles during trading made for an absorbing experience for players looking for some intellectual depth to their games. We are confident that Space Moguls will be a game you constantly go back to over the future years for a bit of casual play.

Space Moguls is set to be released by Protovision in late 2018. You can follow their Space Moguls page on their website. In the meantime, please check out the preview video show case put together at the link below.

Louie Dimovski

Retro gaming journalist promoting NEW C64, Amiga, Amstrad CPC & ZX Spectrum games. Runs the Retro Gamer Nation YouTube channel and is a contributor to RVG and Vintage is the New Old blog sites, Komoda & Amiga Plus magazine and various other publications.

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/retrogamernation

Website: http://retrogamernation.com

Email: retrogamernation@gmail.com