Dune Revival: A Dune 1 remake with (or without) ScummVM)

[Monsieur OUXX]

The title says it all. Some guys and me have been working on ways to retrieve Dune's original files data to make a remake of it (that is, Dune running on modern machines with no copyright infringement).

Instead of running the original game in DosBox, we'd own the source code - that allows to create extensions to the game (additional campains, better graphics, etc.)

We might use ScummVM at some stage, or maybe not.

Anyaways, we now know how to extract and render pretty much all of the original data (graphics, sound, dialogs, palettes, etc.)

You can find more here : http://forum.dune2k.com/index.php?/topic/17217-rewriting-cryos-dune-1-it-seems-possible/page__view__findpost__p__358152
And here :  http://forums.scummvm.org/viewtopic.php?p=64171#64171

HELP WANTED
There are 2 things you can do to help us, if you're a Dune fanboy and computer geek :
1/ Tie together the tech-demo from the thread above with the sound effects dumper.
2/ Make the tech-demo more ScummVM friendly (see the thread from the ScummVM forums, above)

I'm all frisky because the project is reaching its critical mass.

[Monsieur OUXX]

Troll: I think that Dune is way better than The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Non-troll: I find this little thingie mouth-watering

[Gilbert]

BTW M0ds, wasn't Dune 1 an adventure game? So this thread seems to be right in its original location.

[Dualnames]

I think Dune is a masterpiece, perhaps better than h2g2. I don't really think they are to be compared though, pretty different.

[InCreator]

Well, I hope you don't write in bugs and annoyances that were on Dune 1, such as

* fremen giving old, useless hints
* sietch scouting radius way too low (I'd go for something node/direction-based instead of totally free movement around planet to avoid endless searches for sietches)
* at least 50% of games have bug when you're supposed to go into desert and spend time to recieve telepathic message, but it never occurs and game is dead-ended at this point
* at least 50% of games have bug where Leto is supposedly dead, but character still wanders around palace
* that odd zoom bug Cryo's engine had that while looking at character closeup, sometimes randomly scaled screen 16x or so for a half second. Not game-breaking, but very strange. KGB (another awesome and imo better game using same engine) had same thing
* there were some other bugs also I cannot remember correctly. Such as not falling in love with Chani thus never getting access to Kynes Leet

Anyway, it's a cool project. Waiting to play!

[Monsieur OUXX]

BTW M0ds, wasn't Dune 1 an adventure game? So this thread seems to be right in its original location.

Yes it was, and don't blame m0ds, I'm the one to blame, I picked the wrong forum in the first place (I realized afterwards that I could have posted directly in the "Adventure-related chat" forum)

=======================

Well, I hope you don't write in bugs and annoyances that were on Dune 1, such as

There were indeed many design weaknesses in the game. It's ok because it was saved by the amazing immersion it provided. Back then, the "RTS" genre was still very young, therefore people/reviewers didn't really know what to expect and were very forgivefull (I remember reading a review comparing Dune to... Civilization! Hahahaha).

At first we'll of course reproduce the game exactly as it was, but we'll offer huge modding options, so that anybody can edit the story and graphics.
Who knows, if AGS and its editor continues to be more and more opened, we might make it the official editor for the game.



EDIT :
I hate to break it to you, but it seems to me that most of the bugs you mentionned were features, not bugs.
Especially the "sudden, brief 16x close-up when you're talking to someone", which was obviously some sort of cool screensaver. Same thing for the "sietch scouting radius" : it was meant to force you discovering the siecthes by following Fremens' hints, instead of finding them by chance. Which brings us to the "useless Fremens' hints". Etc.

I suspect other so-called dead-ends (Chani's love, desert experience...) would be caused by you not unlocking some secondary events, necessary for the story to progress (Dune was mainly an adventure game) -- even though for those ones I can't be sure, of course.

The only real bug would be the "Leto wandering around even after his death", which I never ever encountered.

Anyway, that's not the purpose of this thread. We'll be sure to correct those bugs

[Monsieur OUXX]

EDIT : double-post

[Monsieur OUXX]

EDIT: triple post

[Snarky]

Don't triple-post. Or even double-post.

As for the zoom, it's not a bug or a screensaver, but a deliberate close-up to emphasize certain lines in the conversation.

I've played about four different copies of the game (on floppies and CD, the original version and the update with clips from the movie, voices and pre-rendered flight sequence), and I've never faced any of the other bugs, though I've heard about the Leto one. The main improvement I would want in a remake is a better UI.

A while back I finally managed to track down the rolling demo for the game that uses the old, non-Maclachlan design for Paul. If you're interested, Ouxx, I could send it to you.

[Monsieur OUXX]

the old, non-Maclachlan design for Paul.

I never heard of that!!!
Yes, please, send it to me. I'll PM you my address.

EDIT: You can't torture people like that! I've been refreshing my mailbox franticly for the last hour
        The only website that mentions this version is the "adventuregamers.com" forum, and the page is broken :'-(

EDIT2: I never thought that Internet's eternal memory would fail me some day...
          That thing seems to be SUPER rare : http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?p=143862&sid=4b722769c3dd8097ed1893fb38af94d2

[Snarky]

Chill, man. I have it on my main computer, but I'm on vacation right now and don't have access to it. I'll get it to you over the weekend, give me a buzz if you don't hear from me by Monday.

It's the same sequence that plays over the intro to the game (if you just wait without pressing any button); the only really notable difference is that Paul has a different look. Instead of Kyle's conservative 80s 'do, he has, like, three spikes in his hair, and he looks leaner and with sharper features. (If you look closely at the scene where he's kissing Chani in the desert, you can see by the hair that he actually doesn't look like Maclachlan.) There might be some other, more minor differences in the look of some of the other characters too, I'm not sure.

It does seem to be pretty obscure; I came across it once about ten years ago, lost it, and would look for it every few years without any luck, until I found it again a couple of years back.

[Monsieur OUXX]

Chill, man.

Chill? CHILL?

...
SEVERAL DAYS?!!??

[Snarky]

Here ya go:
http://www.mediafire.com/?675gb18r86ytkds

[Monsieur OUXX]

Here ya go:
http://www.mediafire.com/?675gb18r86ytkds

Thank you so much!!!
If anyone needs it in the future, I have it.

EDIT: His face looks gorgeous! Very graceful. I love those graphics. Also, the Cryo logo looks cool here.

[Monsieur OUXX]

We have now created a sourceforge project.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/dunerevival/

@Moderator: Is there any way that you move this thread to "Adventure-related talk and chat", as I created it in the wrong forum?