Dune II - Battle for Arrakis
| Dune II - Battle for the desert planet (German) | |||
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| Logo of Dune II (European Amiga version) | |||
| Studio |
 Westwood Studios
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| Publisher |
 Virgin Interactive
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| Erstveröffent- lichung |
1992 | ||
| platform | DOS , RISC OS , Amiga , Sega Mega Drive | ||
| genre | Real time strategy game | ||
| Subject | Dune , military science fiction | ||
| Game mode | Single player | ||
| control | Mouse , keyboard | ||
| system advantages preconditions |
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| medium | 4 floppy disks , 1 CD-ROM or cartridge | ||
| language | English, German, French, Spanish, Italian | ||
| Current version | v1.07 ( community patch ) | ||
| copy protection | Query for words in the operating instructions | ||
| Age rating |
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Dune II - Battle for Arrakis (original title: Dune II - The Building of A Dynasty ; English title in Europe: Dune II - Battle for Arrakis ) is a computer game that was developed by Westwood Studios in 1992 . The game implemented a gameplay that was largely unknown for both game consoles and PCs, and thus contributed significantly to the spread of the game genre known today as real-time strategy games.
Game principle and background
The history and concepts of the game based rather loosely on Frank Herbert's novel Dune , visually David Lynch's film adaptation and elements from the non- canonical considered Dune Encyclopedia (z. B. House Ordos).
The player has the opportunity to fight for control of the desert planet Arrakis on behalf of three different so-called high houses . You can choose from the houses of the noble Atreides and the wicked Harkonnen , both of which are also known from the novel, as well as the house of the devious trader clan Ordos, which is only mentioned in passing in the Dune encyclopedia by Willis E. McNelly from 1984 . Once the player has decided on a house, his task is to build a base in various missions of a campaign (campaign) with increasing levels of difficulty, to collect Spice (in the novels and films also called spice or melange ) and to raise an army. The game is won as soon as your house rules the entire planet.
Development history
Dune II - Battle for Arrakis was produced and distributed by Virgin Interactive in 1992 and developed by Westwood Studios .
According to Virgin Interactive Vice President Stephen Clarke-Willson, development of Dune II began in 1998 when the development of Cryo Interactive Entertainment's adventure game Dune was about to be discontinued and he was given the task of figuring out what to do with the Dune license be. After reading the book Dune , he decided that from a playful point of view the challenge was fighting for control of the spice (melange) , so a resource-focused strategy game was a suitable idea. At this point, employee Graeme Devine (who later developed The 7th Guest ) showed everyone in the Virgin office the real-time strategy game forerunner Duke Two from 1989. They then contacted Westwood Studios and suggested it, a resource-focused Dune strategy game and to use Herzog Zwei as a source of inspiration. Since it later turned out that Cryo could finish the game, Westwood's game was then released as Dune II .
Westwood Studios co-founder and Dune II producer Brett W. Sperry said the concept of Dune II began in 2008 when Virgin President Martin Alper approached him with the offer of a Dune license to develop a computer game with which Understanding that Cryos Dune would be canceled. Sperry said the inspiration for the Dune II game design came in part from Populous and the Eye of the Beholder . The most important impetus, however, was a discussion with Chuck Kroegel . The then vice president of Strategic Simulations claimed that the war game genre was on the decline. Sperry saw this as a personal challenge and tried to develop a modern war game with modern operating concepts. He also gave Herzog Zwei as inspiration, but the GUI of the Mac as a further important inspiration , which gave him the idea of designing a context-sensitive playing field that is primarily operated with the mouse. During development, it turned out that Cryo managed to get their game completed first, leading Virgin to release it as Dune and Westwood's game as Dune II , despite Sperry's protest at the decision. However, Westwood's Dune II is mentioned in the credits of Dune : "DUNE II - Coming Soon".
The Ordos House is mentioned in the Expanded Universe of the Dune Encyclopedia by Willis E. McNelly as the High House, but not that it is a family of merchants from an ice planet. Westwood Studios also changed the coat of arms of the Ordos (two crossbones with ivy tendrils on a yellow background) in Dune II to that of the House Wallach also listed in the Dune Encyclopedia . The ram's head coat of arms was also adopted from there for the Harkonnen, although it actually has a blue griffin as heraldic animal. The Atreides coat of arms was taken from this one to one.
After the original PC version, the game was released in 1993 and 1994 for the Amiga and Segas video game consoles Mega Drive . The game was sold under the title Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty on the American market and as Dune II: Battle for Arrakis or German Dune II: Battle for the desert planet in Europe and in the mega-drive version.
The last version of the game published by Westwood for the PC was 1.07, but it was not yet completely bug-free, which is why fans later made unofficial patches available.
successor
Dune II significantly influenced Westwood's subsequent in-house development Command & Conquer . For C&C, for example, the Dune II concept of a single resource around which the power struggle revolves was directly adopted.
Direct successors to Dune II are Westwoods Dune 2000 from 1998, a remake of the original game principle and based on a further development of the Command & Conquer technique, and Emperor: Battle for Dune from 2001, the first in series history Polygon graphics used. However, both games could not build on the success of Dune II . In 2001, Cryo Interactive Entertainment released the 3D action adventure Frank Herbert's Dune for PC and PlayStation 2 , which is based on the TV miniseries of the same name .
reception
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Importance for the computer game industry
The novel and complex gameplay helped Dune II to great commercial success and established its reputation for being the first real-time strategy game, although there were predecessor games (such as Herzog Zwei or Mega lo Mania ) that mapped many aspects of later real-time strategy games. Dune II was the first computer game to combine several different factions, base construction and raw material management and direct control of real-time events. In addition, Dune II was one of the first games with German voice output and intuitive direct mouse control of the units, inspired by the look and feel of the Mac .
Westwood's main competitor in the real-time strategy genre, Blizzard Entertainment , was animated by Dune II to develop Warcraft: Orcs & Humans , mainly because the team lacked a multiplayer mode. For the first technology prototype, Blizzard programmer Patrick Wyatt still used original graphics from Dune II and referred to the early development phases as clones as far as possible. Even Chris Taylor called Dune II with Command & Conquer as the relevant factors that led him to game publisher Electronic Arts to leave and in turn the real-time strategy Annihilation Total to develop.
The English genre name real-time strategy game is also traced back to Dune II . The game developer Brett W. Sperry shaped him for the marketing of the game.
Further perception
In 2011, Dune II was voted one of the 80 games the Smithsonian American Art Museum presented in its exhibition The Art of Video Games following a public vote . It stands for the artistic design of games for the Mega-Drive console.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dune: The Battle for Arrakis (1994) Genesis box cover art - MobyGames. In: mobygames.com. MobyGames, accessed March 12, 2017 .
- ↑ a b MrFlibble: Dune 2 v1.07 Fix ( English ) dune2k.com. March 29, 2009. Retrieved on September 26, 2019: " This patch is designed to fix some errors in Dune II v1.07, first and foremost the so-called team bug (an internal syntax error that prevented the AI from assembling attack teams of combat vehicles), as well as a couple of other issues. "
- ↑ Bruce Geryk: A History of Real-Time Strategy Games: Dune II ( English ) In: GameSpot . CBS . May 19, 2008. Archived from the original on June 28, 2011. Retrieved on January 4, 2011: " [...] a game that is largely credited with revolutionizing the strategy genre [...] "
- ↑ a b c Edge editorial team: Retrospective: The Making of… Dune II ( English ) In: Edge magazine . Future Publishing. December 9, 2008. Archived from the original on January 16, 2013. Retrieved on March 29, 2011: “ Herzog Zwei was a lot of fun, but I have to say the other inspiration for Dune II was the Mac software interface. The whole design / interface dynamics of mouse clicking and selecting desktop items got me thinking, 'Why not allow the same inside the game environment? Why not a context-sensitive playfield? To hell with all these hot keys, to hell with keyboard as the primary means of manipulating the game! "
- ↑ Stephen Clarke-Willson : The Origin of Realtime Strategy Games on the PC ( English ) In: The Rise and Fall of Virgin Interactive . Above the Garage Productions. August 18, 1998. Archived from the original on November 22, 2011. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved January 30, 2012.
- ↑ Dr. Willis E. McNelly: The Dune Encyclopedia, pp. 375, pp. 378, pp. 380-381, Paperback Edition, Berkley Books, New York, 1984.
- ^ Will Porter: Command & Conquer - Origins ( English ) Future, plc. February 28, 2008. Archived from the original on December 28, 2010. Retrieved on April 2, 2008: “ Dune has spice, which made perfect sense - and it was also used when we came to the idea of tiberium. It became the anchor of the C&C universe because people were arguing over a limited resource that represented wealth and power [...] "
- ↑ The hit that takes place in the desert: Dune II
- ↑ edition 5/93; Carsten Borgmeier: Dune2 . In: Amiga Joker . 97. May 1, 1993. Retrieved December 21, 2010.
- ↑ Issue 3/93 Marcus Höfer: Dune2: Wüstlinge . In: Current software market . March 1, 1993. Retrieved December 21, 2010.
- ↑ Marcus Höfer: Dune2 : Wüstlinge, Part 2 . In: Current software market . March 1, 1993. Retrieved December 21, 2010.
- ↑ a b c d Ninretro
- ↑ edition 03/93; Dune2: sand castles & sandworms . In: PC Games . Computec Media Group . March 1, 1993. Retrieved December 21, 2010.
- ↑ Dune II
- ↑ Dune II
- ^ Issue 3/93; Michael Hengst: Dune2: The desert trembles . Power play . March 1, 1993. Retrieved December 21, 2010.
- ↑ Dune 2
- ^ The Inside Story of the Making of Warcraft, Part 1
- ^ Tracy Fullerton, Chris Swain, Steven Hoffman: Game Design Workshop. P. 377, CMP Books, 2004, ISBN 1-57820-222-1 .
- ↑ Bruce Geryk: A History of Real-Time Strategy Games . GameSpot . May 19, 2008. Archived from the original on January 10, 2004. Retrieved March 31, 2008: “ It wasn't until some time after the game was in development that I decided to call it“ real-time strategy ”- it seems obvious now, but there was a lot of back and forth between calling it a “real-time war game”, “real-time war”, “wargame”, or “strategy game”. I was deeply concerned that words like “strategy” and “wargame” would keep many players from even trying this completely new game dynamic. Before 1992, wargames and strategy games were very much niche markets - with the exception of Sid Meier's work - so my fears were justified. But in the end, it was best to call it an "RTS" because that is exactly what it was. "
- ↑ Dave Kosak: Top ten real-time strategy games of all time - Point. Click. Kill. ( English ) GameSpy. February 1, 2004. Retrieved December 2, 2008: “ You can't really talk about the real-time strategy genre without giving a nod to Dune II, the title that kicked off the phenomena. "
- ↑ The Art of Video Games Voting Result ( English , pdf; 1.0 MB) Smithsonian Institution . May 5, 2011. Retrieved May 5, 2011.
- ↑ Kris Graft: Smithsonian Art Exhibit Recognizes Games From Pac-Man To Heavy Rain ( English ) In: Gamasutra . UBM plc. May 5, 2011. Retrieved March 8, 2012.
