UnDUNE II

https://liquidream.itch.io/undune2

by tosh • 2 months ago

181 30 2 months ago

liquidream.itch.io

butler14• 2 months ago

Hah. This takes me back. Classic doesn't quite cover it.

I will say it's nice not having to click and Move on the sidebar manually each time you want to move a unit.

I do seem to remember each unit made a sound when you click them like "reporting" and when you move them "acknowledged"? Which again was incredibly repetitious but also quite characterful!

jnovek• 2 months ago

"Frigate has arrived" is permanently burned into my brain.

I've never met anyone in real life that has the same nostalgia for this game as I do, it's nice to see that HN has my back.

ErroneousBosh• 2 months ago

I never played it but my flatmate did, and they're still ingrained in my brain. Especially "frigate has arrived".

philistine4• 2 months ago

I completed Dune II by building OpenDune from source. It was fun to see how impossible that game would have been with the original controls!

tosti• 2 months ago

The Dune2 soundtrack is forever engraved in my brain. I found a GPLv2 program to play the original files:

https://github.com/adplug/adplay-unix/

The music is in the .adl files and the normal/peaceful music are all on subsong 6 (e.g. adplay -s 6)

larodi4• 2 months ago

It was composed by very ingenious composer Stephane Picq and while digging you the original files I figured he did a remaster with the original music advisor, art director and producer for the album: Philippe Ulrich

https://stphanepicq.bandcamp.com/album/dune-spice-opera-2024...

it seems many people were super-touched by this soundtrack, and is indeed a masterpiece on its own. adding much to the atmosphere of the game.

this Sign of the Worm track most definitely still easily gives chills, and Im amazed it was not extensively remixed through the years.

https://stphanepicq.bandcamp.com/track/sign-of-the-worm-2024...

I'm also amazed they didnt take it for any of the movies, as this is super cinematic-like composition, and very distinctive. https://stphanepicq.bandcamp.com/track/spice-op-ra-2024-rema...

dvhh• 2 months ago

Wasn't it Frank Klepacki that composed the music for Dune 2.

Stephane Picq worked with Cryo interactive for the first Dune game.

madmoose• 2 months ago

Wrong composer, but I very recently managed to reverse engineer the music driver for Dune (or two out of four, at least).

Here's the AdLib/SoundBlaster Pro version of the track Morning played by a reverse engineered driver, rendered by nukeykt's Nuked-OPL3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0l_CYH4njw

burnt-resistor• 2 months ago

It also building a refinery over part of a windtrap. :/

Liquidream2• 2 months ago

Oh dang, really? Never heard of that bug before. Thx for letting me know

mano78• 2 months ago

I didn't remember you can actually build a structure without putting it on concrete slabs.

Anyways, It's a marvellous work of love.

tuzemec• 2 months ago

I think it was possible, but it degraded much more quickly, requiring more frequent repairs.

neals2• 2 months ago

It starts with half health, if I remember correctly

b3lvedere• 2 months ago

Yup. Building turrets as fast as possible to the enemy base while harvesting a lot of spice and continuously repairing the turrets you build around was an awesome way to win fast.

neals2• 2 months ago

what is a demake?

skywal_l• 2 months ago

A remake, in video games, is usually a rewrite on a more powerful platform. You get better resolution, better music and event better gameplay.

A demake is a rewrite on a less powerful platform.

lynndotpy• 2 months ago

For someone unfamiliar, it's also worth noting this term is used pretty loosely. (I'm guilty of this too!) E.g. Before Rivals of Aether, the same dev made a Smash clone in the GameBoy artstyle and controlset. It's understood as a 'demake' but it's a PC game and is designed for platforms way more powerful than an N64.

bytecauldron• 2 months ago

You take an existing game/IP and recreate it with lower fidelity, usually due to the platform of choice. It's common to take a 3D game and then work within the limitations of removing one dimension. Since PICO is severely limited, that's the novelty and challenge to rebuild an existing game inside it. Super fun.

busfahrer• 2 months ago

To add some context, this was made for the PICO-8 fantasy console, which (by design) is very limited, so it's immensely impressive to see something like this working on it. Honestly, even just the 3D logo from the intro is impressive, and the rest of the game even moreso.

https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php

philistine4• 2 months ago

And you can attack by simply clicking on an enemy unit. It manages to have better controls than the original!

larodi4• 2 months ago

Incredible feat to ... fit this all in such a small display. Immediately wanted to play it on a very old CRT.

dasKrokodil• 2 months ago

This is very cool! And very impressive that it was made to work on PICO-8.

A small nitpick: I'm pretty sure the sand worms wouldn't eat foot soldiers in the original, only vehicles.

lofaszvanitt• 2 months ago

Quite good.

Liquidream2• 2 months ago

Thx @tosh for the posting this (My Itch followers suddenly jumped, so I figured something was up - nice surprise! )

Glad everyone seemed to enjoy my "small" passion project, and that it gave people a chance to reminisce about this classic game of our youth (or mine, at least! )

Thx again & take care, all

UnDUNE II

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