Due to the high expectations surrounding the adaptation of Dune (Cryo) for the Amiga AGA, we decided to interview Cyril Houzé (Barjack), the graphic artist of the project, who kindly answered our questions and gave us permission to reveal some exclusives, such as who the coder is, animation tests, or new screens.
1- Hi Barjack, thank you for accepting the interview. Please introduce yourself.
1: Hi, Barjack, 48 years old. I live in a charming little village in France, high in the Alpes Maritime mountains near Nice. I practice my job as an independent graphic designer there, in absolute calm, among deer and wild boars.
2- Tell us a bit about how you got started in the world of personal computers and what you’re currently working on.
2: I am above all a demomaker graphic designer on Amstrad CPC. My second favorite machine is the Amiga. Like many, my parents couldn’t offer me an Amiga that was too expensive when it came out. I only «lately» got my first Amiga 600 in 1993, then subsequently an Amiga 1260 in tower until 2000, before moving on to the PC.
My favorite machine is the Amstrad CPC, but the Amiga is not far behind.
3- What productions were you involved with in the Amstrad demoscene? And as an additional question, are you familiar with the Batman Group?
3: I started on the Amstrad demo scene in 1991 and I was in several groups (Kill or Die, Futurs’, Praline). I must have participated in around thirty productions, not counting fanzines and many other things.
Of course, what demomaker doesn’t know Batman Group 🙂 Rhino has made a strong mark on the Amstrad scene with Batman Forever which in my opinion still remains the best demo on the machine.
4- When did your relationship with design on the AMIGA begin, and how did the idea to adapt and rework Dune from Cryo for the AGA chipset come about?
4: I always had in the back of my mind the idea of one day making a game on the Amiga. With the arrival of AI, I saw the possibility of being able to produce a large number of images to make an adventure game with only graphics.
I first did many tests on Amstrad, but the machine’s limited number of colors still made it too much work for me to obtain acceptable results.
That’s when I switched to Amiga. The idea of choosing Dune came naturally to me, a cult game, never made on the Amiga AGA, a major literary work of Science Fiction.
The recent release of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune certainly also influenced me.
5- Regarding AI, approximately what percentage is involved in graphic design?
5: AI is a controversial subject, but we must be aware that we are talking about an ambitious project where there are only 3 of us and I am alone on the graphics, without AI: no game. The game is free, we don’t steal anyone’s work. If the naysayers can find us a team of 50 people working for free on an Amiga project, we’d be happy to do without AI.
This parenthesis closed, we must not believe that the graphics of our game come out by pressing a button. There is still a LOT of work, retouching, composition, hand or pixel drawing.
6- As a graphic artist and the one who came up with the idea for the adaptation, you’re handling the graphical aspect, but you needed a coder and a musician. Can you share any updates on that?
6: I placed an ad at the very beginning of the project looking for a coder. 2 coders offered, but after talking about the project we were unable to come to an agreement. I wanted a coder who codes in assembly.
Finally, I turned to Amstrad CPC and it is Richard Gatineau (TotO) who is now in charge of the code. In the space of a few months we have already released a demo for the end of the year. Richard is incredible.
Concerning the Musician, we are keeping his information for the release of the demo. Just know that we couldn’t find a better musician for this project.
7- Can you comment on the audio aspects or any peculiarities it will have?
7: No because it will be included later, we want to keep surprises. 😉
8- Since February 2024, when you announced this adaptation on amigafrance.com, some time has passed. How far has the work progressed?
8: We worked on an adventure game engine called «Zensunni Engine», related to the name given to the people behind the Fremen.
Currently the entire part of the Carthag palace where the adventure begins is functional. A demo is planned for the end of the year, we are ironing out certain details so that it is perfectly presentable.
9- Can you give us more details about the engine? Is it custom-made? What are its features?
9: The engine is similar to that created by Cryo while providing it with more richness. Time passes just like the original with the difference that the characters evolve in a more realistic way, as for example in the palace where at night the characters sleep in their rooms, or occupy rooms during the day according to their occupations. The dialogues between Paul and the characters have an influence on their attitudes or the relationships he can maintain with certain people, even changing their destiny (as for example in Mass Effect). Technically, we created a display system which allows the characters to be displayed on several planes and depths, in the settings taking into account their context and without clipping… Many other functions are integrated into the engine, but I keep a few surprises for the release of the demo 😉
10- Beyond graphics, we assume the characters must have their own AI. The question is, are you coding this internally for the game’s storyline, or are you using available AI tools from the web?
10: As for the game mechanics we don’t use AI, we design them ourselves according to the specific needs of our environment.
11- In what programming language is the project being developed?
11: The game is programmed in Blitz + assembler.
12- You started the design with 512 colors. Do you have any plans to increase that to HAM8?
12: We had in fact started tests in 512 colors with split zones.
After testing we estimated that it would be even more fantastic in 30,000 colors on average.
13- In that case, could there be performance issues on a basic configuration?
13: No in any case, the AGA manages HAM8 mode without problem. The problems mainly come from the way we use it, especially for animations, but we manage.
14- The project is being designed mainly for an AGA-020-4MB RAM configuration. Do you have plans for users with more RAM, 040-060-Pistorm-Vampire-RTG, to benefit from additional improvements?
14: This is the minimum configuration, although the display remains fast, it will be even faster with a 060. Otherwise regarding the resolution, the game is designed to have the best possible rendering on a cathode ray screen without interlace, either high resolution in 640×256 HAM8.
The calculation is simple 640×256=163840 pixels on the screen.
The HAM8 can display 262144 colors, truecolors would not provide more colors.
On average we observe between 20000 and 50000 colors on our screens (several identical color pixels are repeated depending on the surface)
15- Let’s talk a bit about gameplay. The adventure “point-and-click” part… Are you referring to something similar to a LucasArts classic?
15: No at all 🙂 We are obviously very close to the Cryo original. No object and puzzles like a classic point’n’click, it unfolds more like a «Mass Effect» with questions and answers which influence the story of certain characters, even if the main plot of the the story remains fixed. There are sub-quests and the story of the characters who accompany us is much more developed than in that of Cryo.
16- In Spain, few RPG, strategy, or management games were translated, and for those of us who weren’t very familiar with these genres, it was complicated. However, the original Dune by Cryo was easier and also addictive to play. Will you maintain this gameplay simplicity in your AGA adaptation?
16: One of Cryo strong points still today is the simplicity with which it links the different types of game. We wanted to keep this positive point while making the game richer. To be clearer, there will be an RPG part and other additional things that will enrich the game, but it will not be unnecessarily complicated so as not to lose the player.
17- From Frank Herbert’s original novel, which is extensive and complex, many adaptations have been made, such as Cryo’s first game and its sequels, the different films, series, and even comics, where characters, storylines, etc. are eliminated or summarized. Are you drawing from a bit of everything, or are you focusing solely on Cryo’s game?
17: I read 22 books about the Dune universe, watched all the films and series, did extensive research on the official encyclopedia for the universe.
All the characters present in the game come from the universe, as no space limit is imposed on us, we were able to include many more things than in the cryo game, new places, characters and the game mechanics are more rich.
We follow the Cryo scenario to enrich it with the original work to return as close as possible to the work of Frank Herbert.
18- Various game genres, tons of graphics, high-quality sound… It seems like a massive project. Will the current team be able to complete it, or do you think at some point, additional help might be needed?
18: I have been working on the graphics for many months now and I would have no problem completing the project, I have already completed a large part of the work. It’s a lot of work but I’m lucky to be able to devote a lot of my time to it. Concerning the programming TotO does an admirable and quality job, he should not have any problem in bringing the project to fruition, however we would not be against integrating an additional coder into the project, TotO being less available.
To finish the music and sounds should not pose any problems, we will communicate later on the question 😉
19- Although there’s still a long way to go before this enormous project is finished, what are the plans to release it to the public once completed?
19: The game will be downloadable for free upon release and installable directly on a hard drive. We cannot estimate the size exactly, but it is not excluded that it will exceed 1GB.
On the other hand a box version will be sold to please without profit in our pocket in limited series on a bootable pcmcia card.
20– Do you need access to the source code of Dune (Cryo)? And for the boxed version, will there be any copyright issues?
20: No, we have no access to the sources and we don’t need it as the game’s structure is different. The game is completely free, the copyright and the fact of having no commercial or legal constraints is the main reason.
21- Besides Cryo’s Dune, what’s your favorite Amiga and Amstrad game?
21: There are many and for different reasons. On Amstrad I really like Defender of the Crown, Gryzor, Renegade.
On Amiga I’m a fan of Dan Malone, so I would mention Speedball 2, otherwise Ruff’n’Tumble, Lionheart, Pirates…
Nothing very original 🙂
22- How do you see the current Amiga scene and its future?
22: I really liked the Amiga and I still do, it’s a heartfelt machine and I know it very well… But I hate Commodore and its commercial policy. I had an Amiga as my only machine for a long time, until 2000 before switching to a PC.
I also got tired of the community, I blame it for not knowing how to honor it enough to absolutely want to get closer to the vintage PC, to envy Doom, I think there was better to do with it its own qualities.
I am neither closed nor sectarian (I worked for Coffin OS), but when I see the Vampire which at the hardware level is interesting but nothing has been done at the soft level for already exploiting the 060 or the fastram, some consequential games that benefit from the hard drive, I wonder what it is for 🙁 There is also a relationship to money and the price of the current market which bothers me for old equipment… All this means that I no longer consider myself an amigaist, even if we are working with good heart on this Dune AGA 😉
About the future, I have no idea, but I hope and I would love to see even better productions, but I’m afraid that the Amiga will kill us… We are not eternal.
23- Lastly, thank you again for the interview. If you’d like to add anything else, feel free.
23: Thank you for your interest in the project, I hope you will enjoy our game as much as we enjoy making it.
Project website: praline-cpc.fr/barjack/dune
Discussion forum: amigafrance.com
