Dune II

[Andre Leao]

I´m surprised no one talked about this version before. Anyway, the complete game and bug free (but not worm free) is now available. Here goes the full review and link at the end of the review:





https://planetasinclair.blogspot.com/20 ... rakis.html

[Alessandro]

I played the demo ages ago, then yesterday had a first go at this "complete" version. I think you have been quite generous André - a brave attempt for sure, but more a proof of concept than a "proper" game in my opinion. Action is rather sluggish for a real-time strategy game, graphics are sometimes bland, sometimes an eyesore (especially for the color choices), and gameplay wise it feels like a scaled-down version of the DOS original, mainly due to the smallness of the playing area which limits your actions and makes combat difficult since you often cannot see the enemy unless it's too late. Sampled speech is really good however. That said, the result is impressive considering the limitations of the humble Spectrum.

I read a comment on Youtube stating that the game won't run on a real Spectrum with DivMMC (and ESXDOS). I haven't tried it yet, can someone confirm?

[Andre Leao]

eheh, I told I was a bit biased about this game. I love it...

[Art]

It looks very good. Of course, it's a Spectrum version, so we can't expect very much, but I like it. Is it possible to make a TAP version, or is it too complicated regarding loading its parts?

[4thRock]

I second [mention]Alessandro[/mention]'s opinion about poor gameplay and poor graphics.
For example, there's no easy way to drag the play area around, you need to click around the edges. And the play area is too zoomed in, a smaller scale would have been better for the Spectrum.
The units are hard to make out, making things worse. It would have been better if they used solid colours and not dither patterns.

I'm a fan of the original PC version, but I didn't enjoy playing this one.
Still I congratulate the authors, their work deserves praise!

[Ralf]

Some years ago I got it, I believe it was released at some compo.
I played it a little bit then but at some moment it crashed for me and I couldn't load next level.

So the current version is checked for bugs and completable?

If so, then I could play it a little bit more. It certainly lacks a lot when compared to PC version but
hey, it runs on Zx Spectrum

Really impressive, even if some things could be done better.

[Alone Coder]

It looks very good. Of course, it's a Spectrum version, so we can't expect very much, but I like it. Is it possible to make a TAP version, or is it too complicated regarding loading its parts?

The sources are lost, according to the author. They are kept on a failed HDD (the controller doesn't work at all). It anyone knows how to read data directly from the disks, you can contact him through me.
That's strange why the game was ignored (no feedback, no reports, no videos) through all the years since 2014 when it was released and 2019 when the fixed release was added to Your Game 5 archive...