One of the reasons Frank Herbert's Dune is still, over 50 years after its conception,
so relevant and influential in Science-Fiction and beyond
is that its environmental literacy reverberates louder than ever.
Through its ecologically coherent depiction of the arid and hostile desert planet Arrakis -
colloquially referred to as 'Dune'.
A barely habitable world that draws the attention of the powerful for only one reason:
it is the only planet that hosts the most precious resource in the galaxy.
Which makes Dune economically and strategically so invaluable
that the ruling feudal houses of this intergalactic space society have been warring over its dominance for millennia.
It feels like an almost on-the-nose allegory for global superpowers
who wage calculated, profit-seeking wars over the control of mineral oil across the earth.
And the increasing ecological effects on our planet's climate
inflicted by the corporate exploitation and mass-expenditure of fossil fuels on a global scale.
Frank Herbert's Dune foreshadowed the long-term consequences of this reality
long before it became as clear and present as it is today.
Besides several movie adaptations, one of them directed by David Lynch in 1984...
[Reverend Mother] Put your hand.... in the box!
a surprisingly faithful miniseries by SyFy Channel, released in 2000...
[Fremen shouting] Muad'dib! Muad'dib! Muad'dib! Muad'dib!
And an upcoming new movie adaptation by Denis Villeneuve,
who directed Sicario, Arrival and Blade Runner 2049...
there have also been a handful of surprisingly good video game adaptations.
The most famous one arguably is Westwood Studio's Dune II,
the nominal sequel to the game we're focusing on in this video.
Dune II was an incredibly compact and engaging strategy game
that went on to become the historic progenitor of the modern real time strategy genre.
Even though it was not the first strategy game to play out in real time,
Dune II brought a revolutionary game design blueprint to the table
that, up until today can be found in the DNA of every major real time strategy title to succeed it,
such as Command & Conquer, Warcraft and Starcraft.
And yes, evolutionarily, there probably wouldn't be a League of Legends today if it weren't for Westwood's Dune II.
It created an archetype.
But in the shadow of this highly influential forefather of strategy game history,
slumbers an almost forgotten adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune,
that's far more faithful to the source material
and that's often critically overlooked in its wake.
Dune - to avoid ambiguity often called Dune 1 -
was developed independently from Westwood's famous sequel, by the French developer Cryo Interactive.
It came out in 1992 for the Amiga 500 and MS-DOS,
and for SEGA Mega CD in 1993
and I think it's in many ways the far more ... fascinating game.
To me, Dune is one of the most uniquely unconventional video games
and at the same time one of the most fascinating novel adaptations I've ever come across.
Which is also why it's always been one of my favorite... Forgotten Gems!
Roughly 9,000 years in the future,
mankind will long have chartered and colonized planets and stars all across the universe.
In order to travel the endless depths of space,
they rely upon the enormous mental capabilities of a race of genetically engineered seer-thinkers:
the guild-navigators, who possess the ability to predict the streams of time and space.
This near onmiscient perception of the universe
is what makes instantaneous intergalactic space travel possible.
And the substance that enables their superhumanly prescient mental capabilities... is the spice-mélange;
the mind-expanding superdrug that only occurs on the desolate and hostile desert planet Arrakis.
Which makes it the single most valuable resource in the known universe.
And has rendered Arrakis, in turn, into the most viciously fought, schemed and feuded over planet in the galaxy for millennia.
In Cryo Interactive's Dune, we take on the role of Paul Atreides,
son and future heir of one of the most influential feudal houses in the galaxy.
The Atreides family was recently tasked by the intergalactic emperor to take political charge of Arrakis,
to survey, organize and regulate the harvest, production and distribution of the spice.
This story has been adapted into video games multiple times,
and Cryo's take on it is, in my personal opinion, not just the most interesting interactive take on Dune,
it's equally one of the most ambitious and adaptations I've ever played
and at the same time, probably exactly for that reason, one of the most fascinating genre blends I've ever played.
When video games are based on a novel, developers usually begin the project
with a pretty clear idea of the precise genre they're aiming for.
And, in order to ensure streamlined production and coherent design,
it's common to take a lot of artistic liberty with the translation of the source material
in order to mold the narrative into the desired type of gameplay.
Gameplay comes first, the adaptation has to bow to that.
[loud gunfire]
The perfect example for this is right around the corner:
Westwood's sequel Dune II employs Frank Herbert's scenario as a very very loose narrative backdrop
for their ultra-sleek real time strategy experience.
If something plays well, then the source material has to bend to the demands of the intended game design.
And... there's nothing inherently wrong with that approach.
We can see that with Dune II: it's a phenomenal video game.
But this common approach in game development makes it all the more interesting if a game is approached in the opposite fashion.
And that is, as such, Cryo Interactive's Dune.
The entire structure of the game feels like the developers approached it by first asking:
"How can we come as close to the essence of Dune as possible?
"And THEN how do we turn that into a compelling video game experience?"
Now, for the record, this doesn't mean that Cryo's Dune doesn't take artistic liberties at all.
But instead of ploughing through the entire setting with a bulldozer to force it into an aspired design pattern,
the only changes in the story it really invokes are details in the order and execution of a handful of key-events
where the game's mechanical possibilities in narrative delivery reach their limits
of what's possible to get across without breaking the gameplay flow too much.
But yeah - speaking of its mechanics... enough bla bla: how does Dune play?
If I had to describe it with as few words as possible, I'd call Dune a 'story-driven global strategy game'.
It's not unusual for strategy games to... y'know... have a story.
The RTS genre that would sprout from Dune II's seed,
with franchises like Command & Conquer and Warcraft were renowned for their little story snippets
that propelled their single player campaigns with - for the time - stunning render sequences.
But if we're honest, the story in these games is like story in porn. It's pure make-up - staffage.
The missions themselves work just fine on their own.
This is very different in Dune.
Most commonly this game is described as an adventure game with strategy elements -
or a strategy game with adventure elements.
However you like it.
The important point is that both parts are vital cogs in the machinery.
In the first half hour of the game, you - in the role of Paul Atreides -
pretty much exclusively walk through your family's newly occupied palace on Arrakis and talk with people.
You walk through hand-drawn, partially animated backgrounds in a Myst-like fashion,
and click hotspots (or alternatively cardinal direction arrows) to move from screen to screen.
Objects of interest - which are mostly persons - you interact with just by clicking them
or via a handy context menu that lists all available options on the screen you're on.
Which prevents getting stuck because of this age-old adventure game sin of "pixel hunting".
Yeah, that won't happen in this game.
Now, the story does pan out a little bit differently than in the novel.
[Harah] I stayed here to mourn for my husband Jamis.
[Harah] He died during a fight with a young man.
Where Paul is rather unimportant to the events unfolding on Arrakis for almost half of the book
and only starts actively partaking in direct military action against the Harkonnen usurpers
until a very late point in the story, several years after his father's coup assassination...
In the game, Paul gets directly involved in the affairs on Dune from the get-go;
instructed and entrusted directly by his father - still alive -
who... talks to him like a VERY NORMAL father.
[Duke Leto] I am the duke Leto Atreides. Your father.
Yeah, Dune's exposition is sometimes comically ham-handed...
but... I don't know, it always puts a smile on my face to be honest.
There's just something incredibly innocent and charming about it...
[Jessica] I'm your mother, Jessica.
Paul's first task on Arrakis is to get in contact with the local Fremen tribes,
gain their trust and convince them to join the Atreides as allies in the campaign against the Harkonnens.
But, before you leave the palace, since you're still super-green, you get some help:
Gurney Halleck, the Atreides' military advisor and Paul's personal fighting trainer accompanies you.
And that's another central mechanic: throughout the game, you can have people join your party.
[Harah] Yes, Paul Atreides, I'm going with you and I don't care what the people will say.
Just like in an RPG.
They help you in certain story situations and support you with unique abilities.
For instance, your mother, Jessica helps you seek out hidden rooms
[Jessica] Wait! I can feel something.
[Jessica] I think there's a hidden door on the left.
[Jessica, whispers] Yes! Let's have a look!
while Fremen Chief Stilgar increases your influence among unrecruited tribes
and boosts loyalty and morale among your troops.
So... not just a plain point and click adventure -
add a contextual party-system to the genre-blend.
Now with your advisor in tow, you leave the palace and board your Ornithopter;
a lightweight hybrid between plane and helicopter and your primary means of transportation on Dune.
You then either directly choose your flight destination on a planet-map,
- which highlights locations you've already discovered -
or alternatively, you can just fly your orni in one of 8 cardinal directions.
Pretty much across the entire planet.
For instance if you just keep flying west...
and keep flying...
and flying...
until either one of your party-members spots a location nearby -
[Gurney] It looks like a sietch there on the left.
or... if you just keep flying, you'll literally surround the entire globe until you re-appear from the east...
eventually.
So - add open-world mechanics to the genre-blend!
One of the things that absolutely blew my mind when I played the game for the first time is the seamless day-night cycle.
In and of itself already something quite noteworthy for the time,
but since the game plays out in realtime, meaning time constantly passes (almost) no matter what you do,
you can actually witness the sun set and rise from your cockpit while you're flying through the desert - seamlessly.
I still find this incredibly impressive up to this day.
But most of the time, you'll be flying from hotspot to hotspot
starting in close proximity to your base of operations.
You begin your journey by seeking out the closest Fremen-villages; so-called sietches:
underground cave-systems hiding from the planet's relentless sun-radiation
where you begin your negotiations with the first clan-chiefs.
You'll quickly find that a prophetic reputation precedes you;
which is what ultimately enables you to enlist and rally groups of Fremen for your cause.
This is also where the strategy part starts gently and slowly easing you in.
Which is something that I have to praise the game for.
For a strategy game of its time, it is incredibly well and organically tutorialized.
The game uses its mixture of narrative adventure and strategy game to ease you into its gameplay
without you ever having the feeling of sitting through an actual tutorial.
It has a very natural progression that pulls you along and more and more shifts your occupation
from visual-novel protagonist towards field-commander without it ever feeling shoehorned.
Up to this day, Dune feels incredibly accessible and intuitive to pick up.
But back to the desert.
Once a Fremen group joins your ranks, you have the option to assign them to one of three occupations:
Spice-Harvest, Military and Ecology.
In the beginning, you'll strongly focus on spice-harvest
sending the fremen out into the desert to collect and deliver spice - the game's currency - to your central reservoir.
Each troop gains experience over time and becomes increasingly efficient in their occupation
so that the harvest will yield more and more over time.
But you also have the - quite important - option of furnishing your troops with useful equipment,
like spice harvester vehicles and ornithopters, which drastically increases their efficiency and productivity.
All of this - especially in the beginning -
you have to do by flying to your troops, on location, and delegate your orders 'in person'.
Until a later point in the game - when Paul achieves telepathic abilities from his exposure to the spice -
you have no means of communicating with your troops over the distance
so tasks that would be done with a few simple clicks in most strategy games quickly become logistic endeavors.
But, there's more to the story than peaceful spice-harvest, right?
There's still the evil Harkonnens competing with you for domination of the planet.
So while you're gradually discovering the vast array of sietches and tribes across Dune
and seek out the support of the legendary Fremen-chieftain Stilgar,
who joins your party in the hopes of unifying the scattered clans under one banner...
your adversaries eventually make a move on you,
capture some of your troops without warning, throwing you the glove.
[Feyd-Rautha] These Fremen of yours, they're just a bunch of punks!
[Feyd-Rautha] You intend to frighten the great Harkonnens with them?!
[Feyd-Rautha] You haven't a chance - you will soon die!
The challenge is on!
So you start occupational retraining measures for your troops
and specialize new recruits increasingly in military.
Just like the harvesters, your combat-troops begin as inexperienced rookies
who will drop like flies if you send them straight into battle.
So the best thing to do is to train them.
You even have the option of leaving Gurney, your personal trainer, with them on location
so he can coach them to become *fierce and deadly*!
[Gurney] Good! I'm going to try to teach these Fremen the handling of arms.
And you'll also be on the lookout for ever-improving weaponry to equip them with.
[Fremen Chief] Oh my God!... Atomics...!?
So yeah, individual units that each have their independent inventory and experience pool -
add a Master of Magic like RPG lite element to the genre blend!
The most enjoyable part about Dune, to me, is that,
even though there are so many different mechanics in place,
they all work surprisingly well together in tandem.
You will be equally busy keeping your troops organized and focused -
[chuckles] they even become a little bit pissy when you abandon them for too long...
[Fremen Chief] It's been days since we've heard from you...
managing your military and economic campaign,
exploring and conquering new territory,
while at the same time making sure that the Emperor's recurring spice taxes are met every other day;
because if you don't satisfy the big chief, he's gonna send his kill-squad for you!
At the same time, you'll actively partake in the plot unfolding almost in visual-novel style,
with twists and turns around every corner.
I don't wanna spoil too much, but you can say that even though minor events from the novel are sometimes restructured and altered,
I'm still quite impressed how Cryo managed to pretty much include every important cornerstone of the novel's story
and let it unfold in this extremely unconventional video game corset.
I believe the main reason is that the developers *really* cared about the philosophical foundation of Herbert's novel.
For instance - even though it's probably the least pronounced and fleshed-out aspect of the strategy-gameplay,
there is still a third arc of occupation you can specialize your troops in.
And that's a testament to how seriously the developers have taken the novel's ecological message.
While the main goal of the Atreides' campaign is to reclaim the domination over Arrakis by force;
the Fremen tribes themselves have been saving up the planet's precious and sparse resources for generations
in their ultimate goal to transform the inhospitable desert back into lush green, fertile lands.
Collecting crops and amassing gigantic water of life pools by trapping atmospheric moisture in wind-traps;
all of this for the prophesied goal of terraforming Dune.
And... while, in the original novel, this dream is only a spark of hope for a possible future of the planet -
in this game, you can actually start the terraforming process of the planet.
You specialize your troops in ecology and assign them to build wind-traps and grow plants across the planet's barren surface.
[Fremen Chief] Great! That's a job that will definitely motivate my men.
And the coolest part about it is that it has actual ecological consequences.
Since the unique desert-ecosystem of Arrakis is the reason for the very existence of the precious spice-mélange on the planet
transforming the arid landscapes into lush and fertile pastures eradicates the conditions for the growth of spice.
It's quite allegorical:
the thing that is needed to make life feasible for the planet's population
is the very thing that eradicates the most precious resource
of the aggressively territorial feudal space empire.
The suffering of the poor as a necessity for the maintenance of the imperialist sovereignty's status quo...
Hmmm...
And you can even use this ecologic interplay of the forces of nature to your strategic advantage:
terraform the regions near the borders of Harkonnen sectors
and the shrubbery will grow over, render their lands barren of spice,
which will make them eventually abandon their outposts for lack of profit.
You can, theoretically take over the entire planet like this without any bloodshed.
Ecological Warfare - Green Edition™
But no matter if you work your way towards the capital by force or forest...
eventually it culminates in the showdown siege of Arrakeen.
It's a long way to go.
Now, if Dune were a pure strategy game without any adventure or RPG-lite elements to engage in during its story-campaign,
it would be disappointingly short and lacking complexity.
There aren't that many unit-types to begin with, and there's really not *that much* to do,
so that you'd have the entirety of Arrakis conquered in 2-3 hours - tops!
And it would, admittedly, not even be a very interesting strategy game.
There are lots of examples of far more intricate and extensive strategy game systems,
even... or rather especially at the time.
Like the incredibly feature-creep-ish Master of Magic, that came out two years later
- which I've covered in my podcast by the way, Blast from the Past, a while ago!
Link is in the description for those who are interested!
Dune is the perfect example of a game that's more than just the sum of its parts.
The strategy part alone is rather basic,
the adventure game part could never hold up on its own against contemporary Monkey Islands and King's Quests,
the story it tells is at times, really hammy and feels cardboardishly stilted.
None of these elements would hold the water on their own -
it really comes down to the unique blend of all those elements tied together surprisingly seamlessly,
that makes Dune so engaging, fascinating and still utterly enjoyable.
And to me, one of the most surprising things about this game's weird design mixture is...
that it still has an almost uncanny suction.
When I recorded the footage for this video and replayed Dune after many many years,
I expected to play through it in, like, 3-4 sessions.
But the gameplay quickly created an almost quicksand-like pull.
You always, organically, know what you have to do next,
you naturally grow familiar with the systems, the characters, the terrain and its intricacies
that you're never short of something to do - without it ever feeling overwhelming.
It just hits this perfect sweet spot.
Quite comparable to a good match of civilization, I kept finding myself "just doing that one thing"
until I realize that full 8 hours had passed and I had suddenly beat the entire game in one fell swoop.
Dune's gameplay is extremely compulsive - but in a good way!
It doesn't skinner-box you or pull you along with a sensory overload
of contextually irrelevant rewards, trophies or achievements.
And the fact that, 27 years after its release, its completely unique blend of story-focused strategy game mechanics
still manage to instantly engage and compell a person like *me*,
someone who is constantly plagued by advanced video game ennui...
[Will Sasso Arnie-impression] IT'S A MIRACLE!
And it makes me sad that this formula has really never been turned into more video games after this.
The closest comparison that comes to mind is Giants: Citizen Kabuto,
(which I've covered in a previous episode of Forgotten Gems)
when it blends its frantic, fast-paced action-shooter gameplay with real-time strategy elements.
But yeah, it's a shooter... That's as close as it gets.
Add to this gigantic pile the sad reality that this, sometimes overly hammy video game interpretation of Dune
is, to me personally, up until today, still the most interesting adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel,
and it won't come as a surprise that I chose to highlight it in this video-essay.
And why I hope that with this video, I could make Cryo Interactive's Dune a little less.... of a Forgotten Gem.
Thank you so much for watching; I hope you enjoyed this little excursion into video game oblivion.
If you'd like to play Cryo Interactive's Dune these days
I would personally recommend aiming for the MS-DOS CD version,
since it is the most feature-rich and polished rendition of the game;
I provided a short instruction in a google-doc on how to get it running - you can find the link in the description!
This channel is funded by the generous support of my Patrons.
If you'd like to help out as well, follow the link in the description or
click the card in the top right to hop over to my Patreon.
http://patreon.com/RagnarRoxShow
Until next time... ta ta!
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