M.U.L.E. is a seminal multiplayer video game originally written for the Atari 8-bit family by Ozark Softscape and published in 1983 by Electronic Arts.

Four colonists land on a barren planet, and go on to build a colony around a town square. In order to survive, each player must purchase M.U.L.E.s, which stands for Multiple Use Labor Element, and outfit them with a particular job program, and put them to work on each of their plots of land. M.U.L.E.s could be outfitted to harvest food, electricity, and smithore. Each commodity was essential to successful (and economic) life on the colony. As a result, players could choose to sell their surplus of supplies to other players who might be in need, or sell excess to the colony store for later purchase.

https://strategywiki.org/wiki/M.U.L.E.

There is an active M.U.L.E. community too with new versions of the game and online playing!