#games by developer Microprose

[i-just-give-you-the-vidya-songs]

The song is "Tanc a Lelek" from the game 'Highfleet', a 2021 action-adventure strategy game developed by Konstantin Koshutin and published by MicroProse. Released on Windows.

-Submission by anonymous

[everygame]

Sid Meier’s Pirates! (C64)

Developed/Published by: Microprose Released: 05/1987 Completed: 16/07/2024 Completion: Took down the treasure fleet, rescued my sister and retired early ending up a mere sergeant.

I recently polished off the second season of Our Flag Means Death, the now sadly cancelled piratical comedy that ended up as a really delightful, sweet show after a slightly wonky start, and I was struck by an urge to keep the seadog vibes afloat, which gave me an excellent excuse to boot up Sid Meier’s “seaman”al [“seminal”--Ed.] pirate sim.

Now, the interesting thing about Sid Meier’s Pirates! (which I’ll just refer to as Pirates! from now on if you don’t mind) is that in my own gaming history it doesn’t factor. The first Sid Meier game to blow me away was Civilization–the first game of any to truly get its hooks into me–and then it’s Covert Action that I’d pick up and adore (actually, I played quite a bit of Railroad Tycoon too, now I think about it.) I’m sure I played Pirates!, here and there, but if I remember it at all, I remember being a bit nonplussed by the game’s completely open-ended beginning. Civilization has a supremely clear beginning: find the best place for your first city, and start growing your empire. Covert Action has “solve this crime.” Pirates! says: “You’re a pirate now. Do that?”

What that ultimately means is a few simple things. To start with, there are four countries busy colonising the Caribbean setting: the English, French, Spanish and Dutch, you select one as your nationality, and can quite happily pirate from one or all. You can sail your ship around and get into random encounters with other ships–choosing to attack, ignore, or sometimes you'll be attacked yourself. You can go to different towns and settlements–if they’re friendly, you can meet with the governor, hire crew at the tavern and trade; if they’re unfriendly, you can attack them by sea or by land. And if you’ve managed to find any treasure maps, you can hunt for treasure.

All of this is done via a simple and clever menu-driven system, or extremely simple action games. Sailing and sea battles are simple–viewed from overhead, your main issue will be dealing with the unusually realistic wind, slowing your ship to a crawl generally at the most annoying moments. Land battles are… baffling, and I’m unclear why anyone would ever do them when you can attack settlements from your ship (I think a small number of settlements are inland?) but they’re real-time strategy adjacent; you can move your whole crew or split it up into parts as you try to attack the town’s fort–though you’ll take heavy losses. In both battles, it often concludes in a one-on-one fencing game–as you see your troop numbers deplete, you must force your opponent to yield via the ferocity or skill of your attacks. Lose any of these modes and it’s not game over, but you are imprisoned for a length of time, lose all the loot from the current expedition and lose your crew; a serious punishment considering the short life of a pirate and that the game makes you weaker as you age.

With prison an ever-present threat, the game invites you to push your luck. You can choose to end your pirate expedition whenever you like and “bank” your ill-gotten gains, but at the cost of having to rebuild your crew and fleet–but you may have to anyway, lest your crew get tired and mutiny. After every expedition you can start at a higher difficulty to push your luck ever further–or simply retire and see where you end up.

If you have any familiarity with Sid Meier’s oeuvre, you can see him absolutely in this open-ended game design, and it should work, right?

Right?

Above, you’ll notice I mentioned my love for Covert Action. Covert Action is legendary not because people especially like it. It’s legendary for Meier’s own “Covert Action rule”:

“One good game is better than two great games.”

This rule occurred because of Meier’s belief that the separate modes of play in Covert Action–infiltrating a base, or code-breaking–interfered with the metagame (solving a crime.) In many ways, he isn’t wrong, but I’ve always found Covert Action a terrible example of it, because I never struggled with understanding how the mini-games fit into the narrative whole! In fact, they only enhanced my experience of the story I was telling via my play.

Meier maintains that Pirates! doesn’t break the Covert Action rule because the mini games, ultimately, are so slight, and the narrative so simple. And I guess he’s correct, but I’d have to argue for a “Pirates! rule” in place of the Covert Action rule:

“Several crappy mini-games don’t equal one good game.”

Sorry. Sorry. I know this is sacrilege. Pirates is a key text. But I realised in playing it now, as an adult, that the reason it never stuck as a kid is because it’s boring.

Sailing is tedious. Sea battles are slow and often anticlimactic. Fencing is sloppy and generally played by just attacking as much as possible. They simply aren’t fun! And any moments of narrative don’t feel anywhere near rewarding enough. They all just lead to… maps. Capture a pirate, get a map. Rescue a family member? Cool, another map.

Unlike a game of Civilization, or Railroad Tycoon even, there’s not enough going on in the world to react to, to give you a story worth telling. It’s neat that the colonisers scuffle and declare war on each other, but that’s about the limit of it. While researching this I was surprised to discover that Zzap! 64 gave it a middling review (a mere 68%!) and you can see that they just couldn’t, really, see the point in playing it once you’ve got the basics down. And I agree!

It’s a shame, really, because the entire thing is dripping with theme. The manual is beautiful, and much the way that Civilization locked terms like “phalanx” into my mind, the recreation of the Caribbean here should do wonders to my score on Pointless when it comes to geography rounds.

I just don’t want to play it!

Will I ever play it again? “Sea” [“see”–Ed.] above.

Final Thought: So, something you may quibble with here is that I chose to play the C64 original rather than any of the later versions, which I chose because it’s Meier’s own preferred version (and one that he largely coded himself–using Basic of all things for the menu system, which is incredible, even if you feel it in how slow the game can be.)

I don’t think this was a bad decision; I wanted to really see what Pirates! was at its core, and it remains quite charming visually (if, as I’ve said… slow.) If there’s one thing I’ll say, it’s that I possibly haven’t given it a fair shake in the context of mid-1987. I can’t, at this moment in time, compare it to, say, EA’s Starflight, or Cinemaware’s Defender of the Crown (which both came out in 1986!) so I’ll have to just take Zzap 64’s word for it.

Still. As much as I wouldn’t play this version again, I’ll admit that I’ll probably fire up Pirates! Gold, or the 2004 remake, the next time I’m feeling the nautical itch [“crabs”–Ed.].

Support Every Game I’ve Finished on ko-fi! You can pick up digital copies of exp., a zine featuring all-exclusive writing at my shop, or join as a supporter at just $1 a month and get articles like this a week early.

[archoneddzs15]

Sega Saturn - Sid Meier's Civilization

Title: Sid Meier's Civilization / シヴィライゼーション 新・世界七大文明

Developer: MicroProse

Publisher: Asmik

Release date: 2 May 1997

Catalogue No.: T-2003G

Genre: Turn-Based Strategy / Simulation

Released by Asmik in Japan, Civilization should keep you happy for a very long time if you like this sort of thing. The presentation overall is quite nice. Sure, it is easy in retrospect to point out all the things that some sequels did better. It is also easy to forget how many others tried and failed by simply destroying the balance, sometimes exhibiting fundamental misunderstandings of what had made the original game so great. Most importantly, it is always much easier to take something existing and improve on it. The original Civilization came out of nowhere. It showed us, how large computer games could be. How big developers could think. How could the powerful technology of the day enable such grand visions? All this, Civilization gave us. Something we always have to remember.

[bitmapbooks]

MicroProse Soccer - Featured in our book - A Tale of Two Halves: The History Of Football Video Games

Across its 628 pages, A Tale of Two Halves also features a foreword by legendary commentator Clive Tyldesley, hundreds of meticulously realised screenshots, and 13 interviews with pioneering football game developers.

BUY NOW: https://www.bitmapbooks.com/collections/all-books/products/a-tale-of-two-halves

#bitmapbooks #book #retrogaming #football #soccer #ataleoftwohalves #microprosesoccer

[z2z-gaming-and-random-art-ai]

Back Cover to AI Art S3E52 - Sid Meier's Covert Action

Older video games were notorious for back cover descriptions that have nothing to do with the game so let's see what a text-to-image generator makes of these descriptions. each episode of Back Cover to AI Art Season 3 will feature 4 ai art creations for each game.

1. Intro - 00:00 2. Back Cover and Text Description - 00:10 3. Creation 1 - 00:30 4. Creation 2 - 01:00 5. Creation 3 - 01:30 6. Creation 4 - 02:00 7. Outro – 02:30

Sid Meier's Covert Action (MS-DOS) Sid Meier's Covert Action (1990), developed by MPS Labs and published by MicroProse Software, is a unique spy simulation game where players take on the role of special agent Maximilian (or Maxine) "Max" Remington. Tasked with thwarting international terrorist plots, players gather evidence, break codes, and hunt down masterminds behind criminal conspiracies across the globe.

🕵️‍♀️🔓💻🚗🕵️‍♀️🔓💻🚗🕵️‍♀️🔓💻🚗🕵️‍♀️🔓💻🚗🕵️‍♀️🔓💻🚗🕵️‍♀️🔓💻🚗

The game combines several gameplay elements, including puzzle-solving, surveillance, and real-time action sequences. As Max, players perform wiretaps, search safehouses, and decode intercepted messages to collect clues that lead them closer to the top-tier criminals. Each mission demands careful planning and stealth, though if things go wrong, the game also features top-down shooter mechanics and fast-paced car chases.

🕵️‍♀️🔓💻🚗🕵️‍♀️🔓💻🚗🕵️‍♀️🔓💻🚗🕵️‍♀️🔓💻🚗🕵️‍♀️🔓💻🚗🕵️‍♀️🔓💻🚗

For more Back Cover to AI Art videos check out these playlists

Season 1 of Back Cover to AI Art https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFJOZYl1h1CGhd82prEQGWAVxY3wuQlx3

Season 2 of Back Cover to AI Art https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFJOZYl1h1CEdLNgql_n-7b20wZwo_yAD

Season 3 of Back Cover to AI Art https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFJOZYl1h1CHAkMAVlNiJUFVkQMeFUeTX

[playitvison]

The new WW2 strategy game breaks its goal in Kickstarter with more than 1000 %

Simulation and new strategy game ww2 The Admiral Action Squad She shattered her goal in Kickstarter, raising more than ten times her desired financing. Six years in making and bearing the name of the legendary computer developer MicroProse, which brought us the likes of early civilization and Xcom games, this new project puts you responsible for American aircraft companies during the Pacific…

[streampcgames]

Sid Meier’s Colonization v3.0 Torrent PC Download

Sid Meier’s Colonization v3.0 Torrent PC Download is a Turn-Based strategy video game developed by MicroProse which was released in 1994.  Although the game follows the colonization timeline rather than being a sequel to Civilization, it carries a lot of similarities such as exploration, resource, and “put it simply” national management. Throughout the years, some fan-made copies have appeared…

[linuxgamenews]

Unforgettable Repella Fella Adventure: A Unique Australian Gaming Experience

Repella Fella adventure for the interactive point and click game is re-released on Linux, Steam Deck, Mac, and Windows PC. Thanks to the creative minds at Misadventurous for bringing it all to life. Available on both Steam and GOG with its 97% Very Positive reviews. MicroProse, the classic devs we know and like for all those unforgettable simulation games, are back at it again. This time they’re teaming up with Misadventurous to bring us the Repella Fella re-released adventure. If you’re ready for a fresh twist on the post-apocalyptic genre, this is it. Since it all take place in a wild, futuristic Australia, and it’s full of choices. Along with, wild exploits, and a lot of unique Australian vibes. So, what's the game all about? Repella Fella follows three main characters, each with their own story in this adventure. Since each one’s trying to make it in a world that's been totally flipped upside down. Survival isn’t just about fighting or hiding — it’s also about making the right calls. And, with over 120 different choices to mess with, you can expect a ton of different ways the story can go. That means multiple endings, so if you’re into replaying games to unlock every possible path, this one’s definitely made for you.

Key Features:

Here’s a quick rundown of what the Repella Fella adventure brings to the table:

Choices That Matter: Your decisions are gonna steer the story and impact each character. With 120+ choices, you’re in control of how the adventure unfolds, giving you multiple endings to uncover.

6+ Hours of Cinematic Fun: Think of it as an interactive movie with more than 540 unique scenes. The animation is a high-res vector style, giving it a crisp, eye-catching look.

Voices to Remember: The adventure game boasts a cast of over 90 voice actors, bringing the gritty, yet quirky world of Repella Fella to life with genuine Australian accents.

Full Aussie Vibes: This isn’t just any post-apocalyptic setting. It's all about Australia, complete with authentic accents, outback references, and that classic “down under” vibe.

Repella Fella point and click adventure - Publishing Announcement

Designed for Replay Value

If you’re the type to dive back in and replay games, Repella Fella has you covered. Each time you play, you’ll discover new ways to approach situations, hidden content, and fresh outcomes based on the choices you make. No two runs have to be the same, which just adds to the fun.

Updates for a Smoother Experience

Now, Repella Fella also has some big updates for a more polished adventure experience:

New Engine Upgrade: The game’s now running on Construct r397 for smoother play.

Streamlined Credits: Credits are now at 30 FPS to avoid lag issues, and you can skip them if you want. Plus, they’ve added some dev footage to make it a little more interesting.

Extras Galore: They added a Bomb Dodger’s Bible PDF, three versions of the game’s theme song (including two never before released tracks), and about 200 images from the development process.

Save Game Fixes: Two bugs causing black screens during saves are squashed.

Hacking Game for All: The hacking minigame now has color indicators for order, making it more accessible for colorblind players.

Music Updates: They’ve ditched the “streamer mode” as the original music’s safe to stream. And the so-called “safe” music was getting flagged anyway.

Ready to Dive In?

If you’re down for a point and click adventure that’s full of unique characters, meaningful choices, and loads of Aussie charm, Repella Fella is available. Now re-released on both Steam and GOG.

[ama2024]

https://www.advancemarketanalytics.com/reports/183866-global-mobile-online-racing-games-market

Mobile Online Racing Games Market Uncertainty Prevails

Advance Market Analytics released a new market study on Global Mobile Online Racing Games Market Research report which presents a complete assessment of the Market and contains a future trend, current growth factors, attentive opinions, facts, and industry validated market data. The research study provides estimates for Global Mobile Online Racing Games Forecast till 2027*.

One of the most popular gaming genres is racing. A sense of pleasure, adrenaline, and enjoyment can be felt when playing. These games are entertaining and can help relax, concentrate, and enhance your hand-eye coordination. They are also in charge of improving our decision-making abilities. Because of their ease of play, fantastic visuals, high-speed adventure, and excellent virtual driving experience, racing games are the most popular games. These Racing games offer new life to the gaming ecosystem in a world when everyone loves battle royal games like PUBG and Fortnite.

Key Players included in the Research Coverage of Mobile Online Racing Games Market are:

Tencent (China), Codemasters (United Kingdom), Electronic Arts Inc. (United States), Ubisoft (France), THQ Nordic (Austria), Gameloft (France), Criterion (United States), NaturalMotion (United States), Slightly Mad Studios (United Kingdom), Creative Mobile (Estonia), Microprose (United States)

What's Trending in Market: Increasing Investment In R&D Activities To Develop Engaging Online Video Games

Integration Of Advance Technology Such AI And Block Chain In Gaming

Challenges: Requirement Of High Storage For Premium Games

Opportunities: Rising Number Of Smartphone User

Growing The Online Gaming Awareness Among Children’s

Market Growth Drivers: Growing The Penetration Of Internet

Emerging Virtual Reality And Cloud Gaming

The Global Mobile Online Racing Games Market segments and Market Data Break Down by Racing Games (Simulation-style racing games, Semi-simulation-style racing games, Arcade-style racing games, Street racing games, Monster truck racing games, Other), Platform (Android, IOS, Windows), Component (Free to play (F2P), Pay to play (P2P)), SYSTEM RAM (10MB - 50MB, 60MB - 100MB, 1GB - 10 GB)

Get inside Scoop of the report, request for free sample @: https://www.advancemarketanalytics.com/sample-report/183866-global-mobile-online-racing-games-market

To comprehend Global Mobile Online Racing Games market dynamics in the world mainly, the worldwide Mobile Online Racing Games market is analyzed across major global regions. AMA also provides customized specific regional and country-level reports for the following areas.

• North America: United States, Canada, and Mexico.

• South & Central America: Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Brazil.

• Middle East & Africa: Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Turkey, Egypt and South Africa.

• Europe: United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands and Russia.

• Asia-Pacific: India, China, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia.

[emotionalmultimediaride]

GOG releases 2 new MicroProse games

Two very different games from legendary publisher MicroProse join GOG’s DRM-free catalogue. The company has been around for a very long time thanks to many flight simulations and strategy games (see the GOG releases new games with its Good Old Games Week article), but it has also acquired a few indie titles, among them the following two distinctive ones. Regiments was developed by Bird’s Eye…

[thedoteaters]

A Legendary Naval Conflict on Your Computer

Task Force 1942, by MPS Labs and Microprose for MS-DOS 1992 Take command of either side in one of the more ferocious naval battles of WWII. #retrogames #retrogaming #nostalgia #bitstory

[retrocgads]

USA 1990

[fearepixeuhv]

Videos will be decreasing to 1 video a week. Due to some circumstances. Maybe 2 videos a week if I am able to.

[allstartrekgames]

Star Trek First Contact: Aftermath

Original Release: N/A (In development 1998)

Developer: MicroProse

Publisher: MicroProse

Original Platform: PC

Not played: No leaked prototypes.

After making the Generations game, MicroProse set to work on a game for First Contact. Instead of retelling the events of the film, they opted to make a direct sequel: the Borg Queen had managed to copy her brain to the Enterprise’s computer, and the Enterprise kept some of the Borg (for either study, release or prisoners, it’s not clear). A few months after First Contact, this copy of the queen takes control of the Borg on the ship and starts assimilating.

The whole game would have been set on the Enterprise E (although from the screenshots, the holodeck was also used), with parts of the game being random to encourage replayability. You directly controlled all 7 of the main cast, swapping between them at will. You could also give them tasks, such as researching technology to stop the Borg.. There was an additional tactical interface where you order around 49 other crewmembers.

The game itself would have taken around 5 hours for a successful campaign, although from the sounds of the game I would imagine some playthroughs might get to a point where beating the Borg would be impossible (due to bad planning), requiring a restart. It sounded like an interesting idea, but was cancelled when a deal with Activision was made for Star Trek games.

[everygame]

Soccer (NES)

Developed/Published by: Intelligent Systems / Nintendo Released: 2/2/1985 Completed: 12/07/2022 Completion: Beat four levels of difficulty while fighting off boredom as “GBR” which because they’re the team in blue I decided were actually Scotland. Take that, “Federal Republic of Germany”! Version Played: Switch Online Trophies / Achievements: n/a

Well, I’ve suffered through Tennis, and Baseball, and all these other frankly pretty rancid early NES games from Nintendo, so how bad can Soccer be? I mean, I like football, so at least I can accurately judg–[starts projectile vomiting]

It’s… it’s bad, guys. It’s bad. Something that has struck me about Nintendo’s NES sports games is how perfunctory they are. There’s no charm, no spark, and no sense that anyone involved is trying to make a fun video game as much as tick off the box that says “the Famicom has a [name of sport] game”. And apart from some slightly nicer graphics, you’re really not feeling a massive jump from pre-crash video gaming here.

Soccer, for example, is as bare-bones as you get, offering the ability to play friendlies against a variety of (identical) six-a-side teams with a five point difficulty setting. Six-a-side is disappointing (but not particularly unusual in this era) but what’s really the problem here is that the game is so slowww. Actually… not just slow, horribly disjointed? You see, Soccer has the (I guess) noble aims to simulate the experience of actually dribbling a ball, with players kicking the ball each time they move, but rather than fluid movement it’s more like the way toddlers play football–they run to the ball, stop moving, kick the ball, and so on. This makes everything not just slow, but feel unresponsive, as you really can’t do anything unless you’re at the right point in an animation, making it all feel a bit random.

Of course, as with all of the other sports games for NES, my mistake ultimately is to be playing this against the AI, which here might be more horrible than anything we’ve seen before. The opposing team and your teammates seem to have no intelligence on any level of difficulty (the small pitch doesn’t give them much to do, to be fair) and raising difficulty just means that if you put it on the highest level instead of scoring every time the opposing goalie will make a beeline for you when you get close to the goal and take the ball off you (there’s really no lateral movement when you’re dribbling in this game it’s so slow and unresponsive.)

I sort of can’t imagine this was especially enjoyed by people playing it in multiplayer though.

Will I ever play it again? No.

Final Thought: I was mildly interested if I’ve been unnecessarily unfair with judging this with modern eyes considering this is from 1985, and in my head I was like “this is bloody worse than a Spectrum game.” Well, if I’m going to be completely fair… the Spectrum did honestly had better (and deeper) footy games! with Jon Ritman’s first Match Day (released in 1984) is at least as good as this, never mind Match Day II or the likes of Microprose Soccer (Sensible Soccer’s predecessor) showing up a few years later in ‘88.

My suspicion, actually, is that Nintendo’s Soccer is essentially a clone of International Soccer, released for the Commodore 64 in 1983, but as usual I have no way to verify that because… how would I. I have no idea if Nintendo designers had even seen a Commodore 64 at the time. But there’s more than enough similarity between these… and somehow Nintendo’s version still comes off worse!

Support Every Game I’ve Finished on ko-fi, either via a one-off donation (pay what you like) or by joining as a supporter at just $1 a month and get articles like this a week early.

[transparenttriumphzombie]

Danielle Bunten Berry (February 19, 1949 – July 3, 1998), formerly known as Dan Bunten, was an American game designer and programmer, known for the 1983 game M.U.L.E., one of the first influential multiplayer video games, and 1984's The Seven Cities of Gold.

In 1998, she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Computer Game Developers Association. In 2007, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences chose Bunten as the 10th inductee into its Hall of Fame.

Bunten was born in St. Louis, Missouri and moved to Little Rock, Arkansas as a junior in high school. She was the oldest of six siblings. While growing up in Little Rock, Bunten's family didn't always have enough money to make ends meet, so Bunten took a job at a pharmacy. She also held a leadership role with the Boy Scouts.

According to Bunten, one of her fondest childhood memories involved playing games with her family. She was quoted saying, “When I was a kid, the only times my family spent together that weren’t totally dysfunctional were when we were playing games. Consequently, I believe games are a wonderful way to socialize.”

While attending the University of Arkansas, she opened up her own bike shop called Highroller Cyclerie. Bunten acquired a degree in industrial engineering in 1974 and started programming text-based video games as a hobby. After she graduated from college, she was employed by the National Science Foundation, where she created urban models before starting a job at a video game company.

In 1978, Bunten sold a real-time auction game for the Apple II titled Wheeler Dealers to a Canadian software company, Speakeasy Software. This early multiplayer game required a custom controller, raising its price to USD$35 in an era of $15 games sold in plastic bags. It sold only 50 copies.

After producing three titles for SSI, Bunten, who by then had founded a software company called Ozark Softscape, caught the attention of Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins. M.U.L.E. was Bunten's first game for EA, originally published for the Atari 8-bit family because the Atari 800 had four controller ports. Bunten later ported it to the Commodore 64. While its sales - 30,000 units - were not high, the game developed a cult following and was widely pirated. The game setting was inspired by the novel Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein.

Along with the success of M.U.L.E., Berry also had close ties with the games Robot Rascals, Heart of Africa, and Cartels & Cutthroat$. Throughout her career, she was involved in the creation of 12 games, 10 of which revolved around multiplayer compatibility. The only two which didn't have a multiplayer focus were Seven Cities of Gold and Heart of Africa.

Bunten wanted to follow up M.U.L.E. with a game that would have been similar to the later game Civilization, but after fellow Ozark Softscape partners balked at the idea, Bunten followed with The Seven Cities of Gold, which proved popular because of its simplicity. By the time the continent data were stored in the computer's memory, there was little left for fancy graphics or complex gameplay - the game had only five resources. It was a hit, selling more than 150,000 copies.

The follow-up game, Heart of Africa, appeared in 1985 and was followed by Robot Rascals, a combination computer/card game that had no single-player mode and sold only 9,000 copies, and 1988's Modem Wars, one of the early games played by two players over a dial-up modem.  Modem Wars was ahead of its time, as few people in the late 1980s had modems in their homes.

Bunten departed EA for MicroProse. Allegedly, Trip Hawkins, CEO of EA, did not feel that pushing production of games onto a cartridge based system was a good idea. The shift was important to Bunten, as computer games had previously been distributed on floppy discs, and a changeover to a cartridge system would allow games to be played on Nintendo systems. This was a significant factor in her decision to leave. She then developed a computer version of the board game Axis and Allies, which became 1990's Command HQ, a modem/network grand strategy wargame. Bunten's second and last game for MicroProse was 1992's Global Conquest, a 4-player network/modem war game. It was the first 4-player network game from a major publisher. Bunten was a strong advocate of multi-player online games, observing that, "No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had spent more time alone with my computer.'"

A port of M.U.L.E. to the Mega Drive/Genesis was cancelled after Bunten refused to put guns and bombs in the game, feeling it would alter the game too much from its original concept. In 1997, Bunten shifted focus to multiplayer games over the Internet with Warsport, a remake of Modem Wars that debuted on the MPlayer.com game network.

Less than a year after the release of Warsport, Bunten was diagnosed with lung cancer presumably related to years of heavy smoking. She died on July 3, 1998. At the time, she was working on the design of an Internet version of M.U.L.E..

The game's primary premise consisted of players playing with and against one another to establish total control over a planet. The name of the game stands for Multiple Use Labor Element. The game was originally made for the Atari 400 and Atari 800 but was later developed to be compatible with the Commodore 64, NES, and IBM pcjr. The game has a maximum of four players. Players are given different options and choices, and are allowed to create their colony the way they see fit. This can be done by changing races and giving respective colonies different advantages that will impact the way the game is played and determined later on down the line.

Ultimately there are two ways in which players can win the game. The first way is by having the most amount of money out of all four players, and the second way is by being able to survive the colony itself. The game focuses heavily on going out and retrieving resources that can be used to benefit their character. Items such as food, energy, and crystite are some of a number of in-game items that players are able to retrieve and use to better themselves. In order for a player to be able to access these items, they will first have to have access to a M.U.L.E. The acquisition of these items has a direct reflection on what the player will be allowed to do. For example, if a player doesn't have enough food, they will have less time during their turn.

The Seven Cities of Gold was originally intended to be another multiplayer game. It was originally a single player format, focused heavily on having the players travel around the map and collect items to help them strengthen their colony. Once they felt as though they had a solid colony, the players could battle each other to see who could overtake who After much consideration, Ozark Software came to the conclusion that this would not be doable. Instead, they went with a formula that had the game focus solely on developing a colony.

Ozark Softscape was a computer game development team consisting initially of Danielle Bunten, her brother Bill Bunten, Jim Rushing, and Alan Watson. Ozark was run out of Bunten's basement. The company was based out of Little Rock, Arkansas and had profound success with a few of their early titles. Ozark Softscape had a publishing deal with Electronic Arts for several of its groundbreaking games. In the early 1990s, Ozark Softscape left its partnership with Electronic Arts over a dispute to port some games to cartridge format for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It began a partnership with MicroProse to produce two more titles: Command HQ and Global Conquest. A dispute occurred over creating a follow-up to M.U.L.E. with Sega in 1993, and the company dissolved. The employees of Ozark Softscape moved to different areas of the software industry. 

Bunten was married three times. Bunten had three children, one daughter and two sons. After a third divorce, Bunten, who had until then been living as male, transitioned to living as a woman. Bunten underwent sex reassignment surgery in November 1992 and afterward kept a lower profile in the games industry. Bunten later regretted having surgery, finding that for her, the drawbacks of surgical transition outweighed the benefits, and wishing she had considered alternative approaches. She joked that the surgery was to improve the video game industry's male/female ratio and aesthetics, but advised others considering a sex change not to proceed unless there was no alternative and warned them of the cost, saying "Being my 'real self' could have included having a penis and including more femininity in whatever forms made sense. I didn't know that until too late and now I have to make the best of the life I've stumbled into. I just wish I would have tried more options before I jumped off the precipice."

After her transition in fall 1992, Bunten stayed out of the video game spotlight, mostly keeping to herself. She felt as though that after transitioning she was not as good at video game development as she had previously been, stating "So, I'm a little more than three years into my new life role as Ms. Danielle Berry, and her career looks to be somewhat different from old Mr. Dan Bunten's. For one thing, I'm not as good a programmer as he was." On July 3, 1998, Berry died of lung cancer.

Wheeler Dealers (1978)

Cartels & Cutthroats (1981)

Computer Quarterback (1981)

Cytron Masters (1982)

M.U.L.E. (1983)

The Seven Cities of Gold (1984)

Heart of Africa (1985)

Robot Rascals (1986)

Modem Wars (1988)

Command HQ (1990)

Global Conquest (1992)

Warsport (1997)

Although many of Bunten's titles were not commercially successful, they were widely recognized by the industry as being ahead of their time. On May 7, 1998, less than two months before her death, Berry was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Computer Game Developers Association.

In 2000, Will Wright dedicated his blockbuster hit The Sims to Bunten's memory. In 2007, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences chose Bunten to be inducted into its Hall of Fame. Sid Meier, the mastermind behind the video game series Civilization, inducted her at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas.

Bunten was a true pioneer for the video game industry, especially its multiplayer aspect of it. She is regarded by many as one of the best designers to ever grace the video game industry. Her success has even led people to make the claim that the work she did with games like M.U.L.E and Seven Cities of Gold was the inspiration behind highly successful modern multiplayer games like World of Warcraft.

Bunten was known as someone who was very easy to talk to. If someone recognized her in public, she would be more than delighted to have a conversation with them.