A strange little side quest
If Happy Dentist sends you down a curiosity rabbit hole, start here. M.U.L.E. arrived in 1983 with multiplayer competition built around gathering resources and keeping a colony alive, an early example of resource-driven strategy play. The timeline takes another interesting turn: Pac-Man went on sale in 1980, and its creator Toru Iwatani famously linked the character's shape to a pizza with a slice missing. That long chain of experiments is part of why simulation games still feels fresh when a game finds the right twist.
