New Dune 2 Clone Project (Dune 3: Return to Arrakis)

[minniat]

I'm working on Dune 2 clone for Amiga called Dune 3: Return to Arrakis. Here is a brief screenshot from the game. I will continue the work on the game in incoming weeks and give here information about progress. How do you like the screenshot? It gives you the basic layout of the game screen. Notice the battlefield at top-left of the screen, mini-map at top-right, big picture of Barracks at middle-right and panel with buttons at bottom-right (with Soldier and Infantry icons). The panel is similiar to Starcraft. The engine is at basic state: the only interactive element is that you can scroll the battlefield. However it has some very useful features like:

• screen regions - battlefield and panel with buttons are examples.
• shapes, icons and pictures - engine can load Dune 2 shapes and icons and display them + any pictures in IFF format.

The game is on Amiga and because of that I will rather not publish it here. Cheers.

[MrFlibble]

Looks very nice. Will the game field view remain the same, or are you going to enlarge it 9the bottom part of the screen has quite a large unused space on that screenie.

BTW, may I ask a question that is a bit off-topic? Seeing that you are quite familiar with the Amiga version of Dune II, can you tell if the Fremen and Sardaukar Troopers in that version have regular Trooper icons, or do they use the specific ones (you know, the ones that are in the game files of the PC version, but only the Fremen Troopers icons is used for the Atreides superweapon)? I also wanted to ask, can I get all unit sidebar icons from the Amiga version anywhere?

[Nyerguds]

The little mermaid 2: return to the sea?

Peter Pan 2: return to neverneverland?

Sorry, couldn't resist that. It just sounds like a lame Disney sequel title :P

[MrFlibble]

;)

Anyhoo, more screenshots and reports on development progress would be nice :)

[minniat]

Hi! :) After a period of time I returned to this Dune 2 clone project. Here's a SourceForge link to it:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/dune3

It's called now: "Return of the Guild".

Note, that the game will require Amiga equipped with AmigaOS3.x system and graphics card. The graphics however are taken from PC version of the game from original SHP files (Format80 and Format2 decompressing algorithms are used). So they are in 256 colors (Unlike original Dune 2 from Amiga which used 32 colors). I wrote part of the engine which is working. It's features are:

1. The game generates random terrain which can be smoothly scrolled within screen

2. The terrain is revealed in circular shape

3. The structures can be added to map and selected by mouse. Once selected the sidebar control panel appear with build options.

More informations soon :)

All these features can be seen on the screenshot:

Here's a first screenshot from the game

[Nyerguds]

Look nice! Does it use the original Seed system, or is it actually 100% random?

[minniat]

It uses original Dune 2 map generator, but if it comes to calculate random numbers it uses standard rand() function instead of that included in Dune 2. It can be changed since the random function of Dune 2 is known, I just wasn't able to link it into program (because it was compiled by other compiler than I use now - GCC).

Actually the reveal function and - in future - also the spice field generator function uses the ScanRegions() mechanism from map generator with lookup table included in original ICON.MAP file :)

[Nyerguds]

Eh? Isn't icon.map just related to the building and terrain graphics?

[minniat]

Shroud icons are just normal overlay icons thus they have their own entries in icon.map file (they are in 7th table of icon.map - for example all terrain icons are in 9th table).

[Nyerguds]

Ahh, right! I knew that, just didn't make the link with the shroud edges :)

[lord vernius of ix]

Are there Amiga emulators out there I could use to play this?

[MrFlibble]

Are there Amiga emulators out there I could use to play this?

You could try the LemonAmiga website.

Minniatian, as a specialist in the Amiga Dune II, could you tell what are the differences between the PC version and the Amiga version apart from the different  graphics and unit sidebar icons with background?

[Nyerguds]

Unless that sourceforge site has binaries, you'll also need an Amiga COMPILER though.

[minniat]

Are there Amiga emulators out there I could use to play this?

Yes, you can use for example WinUAE emulator. The game in this version uses "CyberGraphX" to control graphics card connected to Amiga. WinUAE can emulate it.

Minniatian, as a specialist in the Amiga Dune II, could you tell what are the differences between the PC version and the Amiga version apart from the different  graphics and unit sidebar icons with background?

Well, the Amiga version is quite cool (I've been playing it and it give much fun) but it's still worse than PC one because

1. The graphics is in 32 instead of 256 colors.

2. There is only one music soundtrack instead of several in PC version.

Some other differences:

1. The speed of the game differs between both versions.

2. The map generator creates random spice fields in PC version.

3. The TEAM.EMC scripts are not used at all in Amiga version. Don't know how it is in PC version.

And as for some technical stuff:

1. The SHP shape files are designed for planar bitmaps instead of chunky ones in PC version.

2. The WSA animations are also in planar format. However for example Format80 compression algorithm is same for both versions.

Unless that sourceforge site has binaries, you'll also need an Amiga COMPILER though.

Yeah, this is true as the game uses Amiga specific libraries.

Greets.

[MrFlibble]

3. The TEAM.EMC scripts are not used at all in Amiga version. Don't know how it is in PC version.

So there are no attack teams, and, hence, no "team bug" to be fixed at all?