Dune II - The Maker , my clone of Dune II, demo available for download

stefanhendriks · December 14, 2002

;D

YEAH , finally. W00t. Phew, well, it took some time to finish some things off. I haven't had any time to write a decent readme so i suggest you just experiment a lot. Check out every button, don't worry it won't break your computer at all.

Current version has 1 mission, you play as Ordos against.... the enemy ( wont tell you which house).

Hotkeys:

F12 - Screenshot

ESC - When in-game, go to options

A/Z - Scroll through icons on sidebar

B - Build the last built item (visible as icon in sidebar) or place structure

U - Update

R - Repair

Arrow-Keys - Scroll through map

For more info, read the information given at my website:

http://members.chello.nl/r.hendriks3/index.html

Let me know what ya think of it. Do note this is my very first version i show to you guys, it needs a lot of optimizations. It has bugs, but its playable. I don't know if its doable with the AI because i never played the mission till the end. THere is NO win/lose trigger built in btw.

Oh.. and there is a secret key to reveal the map... :D

Anyhow, have fun, and plz let me know what ya think of it.

Apollyon · December 14, 2002

it crashed =(

nice game though - I like the music =D

it crashed when I upgraded the Conyard.

stefanhendriks · December 14, 2002

Odd thing is, it seems to crash randomly. I played for 1hr now without any crashes. Some other times i had a crash, then i loaded the game and i could play on for a long time again.

Apollyon · December 14, 2002

thats a shame, I hope you can fix it.

Its still good though.

TonyD · December 14, 2002

not bad, not bad at all. Looks very promising :D

Apollyon · December 14, 2002

a few more comments:

1.the health bar is sometimes overlayed by units themselves, they should always be put to top IMO

2. is the starport functional as it didnt seem it.

3. the deviate gas seems to be permanent, will you keep it like that?

4. The missile tanks seem a little too powerful as 1 destroyed my CY in about 3 hits (missiles, not shots).

stefanhendriks · December 16, 2002

Thanks! :)

Deviated units should not be taken over forever, so i have to fix that.

health bars, should be fixed aswell.

and no, the starports don't work (yet). I will get to them asap.

Nice you tried my demo Tony, did it run fast on your computer? It needs a lot of optimization.. oh btw, do you like my shimmer effect? :)

TonyD · December 16, 2002

Stefen:

I got about 20 fps in 1024x768 mode, so I switched down to 640x480 and it ran well at about 50 fps. :D

I didn't get to see the shimmer unfortunately, the bad guys never seemed to build sonic tanks and I'm unsure how to use custom maps. :-

Apollyon · December 16, 2002

it ran great on my computer even at 1600x1200.

And in my games the AI did build sonic tanks, tho not many, especially not in comparioson to their hordes of siege tanks. ::)

Gobalopper · December 16, 2002

Did anyone else have units that just appeared out of no where and started attacking? :)

Apollyon · December 16, 2002

YES! All the time! little groups of troopers... I assumed they were enemy reinfocements and that they had been dropped by carryall and that the reinforcement carryall hadnt been programmed yet.

stefanhendriks · December 16, 2002

20fps, hmm, thats to low i think. Though the game runs as fast (due its time based) i find it rather slow for FPS, it plays choppy then.

The carryalls will deliver units only when the unit could not find a path directly. Since i use a crappy unoptimized path finder it sometimes can't find a path. OR sometimes a unit is stuck between other units and thus will fail to find a path. In that case, a free carryall will be called to pick it up and drop it at its goal.

There are some bugs here and there where you could have your units just going to attack something suddendly; but i haven't been able to find any fix for it yet.

@Tony; custom maps? There is only ONE map you can play. So if you run the editor, you just need to click on LOAD SCENARIO to see the map you where playing. Just create a new map (NEW SCENARIO) and be sure player #1 (click on the player #1 to change it to Player #2, #3, etc (they are AI)) has something as that is always the human player.

You can save your own made map, and then simply click on PLAY to play it. Just see how i did it and you will probably know how to make maps in no-time.

Will · December 17, 2002

20fps, hmm, thats to low i think. Though the game runs as fast (due its time based) i find it rather slow for FPS, it plays choppy then.
The carryalls will deliver units only when the unit could not find a path directly. Since i use a crappy unoptimized path finder it sometimes can't find a path. OR sometimes a unit is stuck between other units and thus will fail to find a path. In that case, a free carryall will be called to pick it up and drop it at its goal.

Hmmm...did you set a max radius on that? I'm getting SWARMED with Siege Tanks and Launchers that get dropped right inside my base o_O

Also players might be able to abuse that...surround your tanks with Soldiers...then send ultra fast invincible Carryall to other side of map by clicking there.

Also, the new version is a bit choppy...but at least it doesn't run like a lightning bolt on speed like Dune Legacy...It looks pretty good but dude, it's TOO DANG FAST...

stefanhendriks · December 17, 2002

there aint a max radius yet, but i surely will try to set a max of carryall calls or something. Maybe i will add a button so you must explicitly call a carryall so you cannot swarm a base like that (would be a cool tactic though :)).

The CarryAll was a tad slow first, so i just turned the speed up. I think the previous speed (of the very first demo) was better. Ornithopters should be really fast, but the CarryAll shouldnt.

Btw, i am working on an INI parser right now. I want the game be able to load Dune II scenario's and also be able to be customized completely without coding a single line. Its pretty complicated atm; practicly my RULES.INI will contain everything needed to draw as GFX, but also determine if something leaves tracks on the sand, and so forth.

This also means if there is a bug in the game (like an invalid price) or you think you can balance it better, its way easier since you can just edit the RULES.INI file for this.

I am also thinking about a MOD directory. So you just create a sub-dir in the game; then you simply edit MOD.INI in the main dir of the game and you have something like:

[MyMod]

Dir=Mymod

Name=The Ultimate Dune II Mod

INI=mymod

This could be of later use when i want to create a full story lined copy of Dune II and my own implementation. But thats for way later. First i should get the primitive stuff working without any glitches and bugs.

Will · December 17, 2002

there aint a max radius yet, but i surely will try to set a max of carryall calls or something. Maybe i will add a button so you must explicitly call a carryall so you cannot swarm a base like that (would be a cool tactic though :)).
The CarryAll was a tad slow first, so i just turned the speed up. I think the previous speed (of the very first demo) was better. Ornithopters should be really fast, but the CarryAll shouldnt.
Btw, i am working on an INI parser right now. I want the game be able to load Dune II scenario's and also be able to be customized completely without coding a single line. Its pretty complicated atm; practicly my RULES.INI will contain everything needed to draw as GFX, but also determine if something leaves tracks on the sand, and so forth.
This also means if there is a bug in the game (like an invalid price) or you think you can balance it better, its way easier since you can just edit the RULES.INI file for this.
I am also thinking about a MOD directory. So you just create a sub-dir in the game; then you simply edit MOD.INI in the main dir of the game and you have something like:
[MyMod]
Dir=Mymod
Name=The Ultimate Dune II Mod
INI=mymod
This could be of later use when i want to create a full story lined copy of Dune II and my own implementation. But thats for way later. First i should get the primitive stuff working without any glitches and bugs.

Oh wow, that *would* be very cool!

Falknhayn · January 28, 2003

Hello Stefan,

Good work on your game, looks great. Must've taken ages :)

I'm just curious about what you coded it in. Is it visual c++ with directx? I'm interested because i am coding my own dune2 clone at the moment.

Can't wait to see your source code ;)

neonext · January 28, 2003

wow, what's that bring the tally to? four clones?

vidiware · January 28, 2003

Its C++ with Allegro...

I dont know if hes using another thing than Visual C++... but he is using the Allegro graphics library.

And a bug report:

I think the gamespeed is too slow...

Especially the movespeed of the units

stefanhendriks · January 28, 2003

i feel the game speed is fast enough. You must realize we are dealing with 16x16 pixeled tiles so it LOOKS slow, but actually is not.

I use Visual Studio 6.0, standard edition (which costs a lot, so don't even try to get the professional via the legal way :)).

The game is written in C++ using Allegro (a game library, using DirectX on windows btw).

vidiware · January 28, 2003

I got Visual Studio .NET AE for only 1000,- NOK thats a bit over 100$ maybe 120 or so... But you only have rights to own Academic Edition if you are some sort of Student...

Can you atleast have a GameSpeed changer key or slide bar like in original dune2?

Cyborg · January 28, 2003

I got licenced visual studio 6.0 professional edition.

My brother bought it so I don't got any idea of the price(it rocks to use though and I am making a few games in it currently(I am a self learned guy so my code tend to be a tad slow and crappy ;D)).

vidiware · January 29, 2003

I bet he hasn't paid much for it...

Cuz piracy is alwasy the solution for too high priced things

XTF · January 29, 2003

i feel the game speed is fast enough. You must realize we are dealing with 16x16 pixeled tiles so it LOOKS slow, but actually is not.
I use Visual Studio 6.0, standard edition (which costs a lot, so don't even try to get the professional via the legal way :)).
The game is written in C++ using Allegro (a game library, using DirectX on windows btw).

I got the Pro edition (university campus license), so if you want your code compiled with optimizations, feel free to ask.

Cyborg · January 29, 2003

I bet he hasn't paid much for it...
Cuz piracy is alwasy the solution for too high priced things

He got it when he payed his university bill last year.

vidiware · January 29, 2003

I bet he hasn't paid much for it...
Cuz piracy is alwasy the solution for too high priced things
He got it when he payed his university bill last year.

Well... In norway university is public and free... :P

do ya mean the "High School" bill? I know it sounds funny american... but it what its called in norway...

But that is damn much money so im sure he paid for it!

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