We’ve spoken with ex-Westwood developer Bob Koon, who is working on a new Amiga version of Dune II.
Bob Koon was part of the original Westwood team that created the groundbreaking real-time strategy game Dune II, which is considered the first «modern» game in the genre. His main task was converting the game to the Amiga.
While the Amiga version was met with a very positive reception and is still fondly remembered today, Koon never felt completely satisfied with how it turned out. So now he’s set out to recreate it from scratch, and make the definitive version of Dune II in the process. We got in touch to ask him about the project.
How did you initially get involved in the initial Dune II project?
I was hired at Westwood specifically as an Amiga developer. I started at the very end of Kyrandia (I did the credits sequence). Dune II for DOS was in full production by then so once Kyrandia was done I was immediately put on Dune II.
How was the Amiga prioritized at Westwood?
DOS was always the lead platform at Westwood. By the time I started there, EOB II was already released and Kyrandia was (essentially) done. I believe Dune II was the last Amiga game that Westwood released.
What was it like working on the Dune II project? Any special experiences you remember well?
It was difficult for me because I had no game development experience and there was no onboarding/mentoring provided at Westwood (and rightly so). Because of this, I struggled quite a bit with what the expectations were and what the entire process of developing a game looked like. I ended up leaving Westwood before Dune II was completed, but I remember that many of the other developers were really great people!
How is working with the Amiga like?
I love working on the Amiga! The knowledge and tooling are much better now than back in the day. We can also use other platforms for development (I use Mac) and so I can develop on the Mac using really mature tooling and can test occasionally on an actual Amiga. The Amiga has some great (and unique) hardware and so its capabilities make development really fun!
You are now working on a new version of Dune II for the Amiga, what made you start with that?
I’ve always regretted leaving Westwood before Dune II was finished. I knew that there was a strong modding community around the game (and many other Westwood games) and so there was open source projects where they’ve ported the game to modern hardware. I wanted to get back into Amiga development and so thought I could solve two issues with one project: I reacquaint myself with Amiga development, and I create a version of Dune II that the fans should have gotten originally.
What are some of the improvements you are making to enhance the playing experience? Playing Dune 2 today can be a bit cumbersome.
Oh, for sure! Probably the most requested feature is the addition of multi-unit selection. Other quality-of-life additions will take advantage of faster CPUs and I will try to add full-screen PAL support (though I can’t promise this yet because I don’t know if a stock A500 can be fast enough to drive all of that).
If you ever played the game from floppy, you know how terrible the disk swapping was. Fixing that is top of the list (even though most won’t play the new version from disk). Next is to provide the full DOS gameplay; the Amiga version had crippled gameplay due to platform constraints. The full DOS intro sequence is already converted; the original had a cut-down version. I plan to have the full audio experience as well with full sound effects all new chip-tune covers of the original music. I will add a new «bug-fixed» campaign mode, which makes Dune II a much harder game.
How many disks do you think you will end up with in the end?
The original version shipped on 5 disks. The goal of the AGA version is to also ship on 5 but it will have the full intro sequence and audio. The target for the OCS version is 4 disks.
How is the remake progressing? Are there any updates you can share?
The remake is making steady progress. It currently sits at just under 22,000 lines of code, not counting the Mac side and all of the conversion and support tools (another 17,000 lines or so). I have the full intro sequence ported, several glue screens like the Main Menu and House Selection screens and much of the internals of the main game screen. I haven’t implemented selection and issuing commands yet but the AI units are doing what they’re supposed to be doing.
There’s still a lot of work to do but it is immediately recognizable as the game we all love. And the AGA graphics look fantastic!
Do you think you will ever feel that you are «finished»?
I do have the luxury of time to some degree with this project, so I can give each aspect of the game the care it needs. However, there is a line where you say «ok, it’s done» and release it. I don’t want the project to drag on (there are several other Amiga projects I want to do) but I won’t cut any corners. An example of that is being concerned about when disk prompts will appear. Virtually all players of the new version will play it off of hard drive or emulated and will never run it from floppy, but one of the guiding principles of the project is to create a new version as if it was released in 1993; very few had a hard drive back then so the floppy experience needs to be good.
We’d like to thank Bob Koon for answering our questions. If you like what he’s doing, please check his Patreon campaign.
Bob kindly shared some more screenshots from the development build of the game with us. Here they are:
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