Among old school game designers, the space colony game M.U.L.E. is widely admired, not just as a multiplayer milestone but as the best computer game, period. Using just 48K of memory, Dan Bunten introduced 1-4 players to a rich game of economic competition and cooperation on the planet Irata ("Atari" backwards). It's a robot gold rush as players use work-droids, called M.U.L.E.s, to stake claims on the map, which produce energy, food and valuable Smithore. While you can ruthlessly corner the energy market, drive up the cost of M.U.L.E.s, or employ many more Enron-like tactics, everyone loses if the colony fails.
It's anything but a stodgy number game. Bunten's design philosophy was to abstract complex figures with easy symbols and colorful bars. Auctions are joystick-controlled arcade competitions, with buyers and sellers deciding how far up or down they're willing to go to make a deal. Sadly, in the mayhem-oriented marketing of 32-bit-systems, there was no room for a M.U.L.E remake. According to Computer Gaming World's Johnny Wilson, Bunten refused to finish a Sega Genesis port when her bosses (by now she'd had a sex change) insisted on adding guns and bombs to this nonviolent masterpiece.