Lost Atari 2600 Dune Prototype Discovered

Posted by simoniker on Friday October 3, 2003 @11:45PM from the no-sign-of-sting dept.

Thanks to AtariAge for its new story revealing a long-lost Atari 2600 prototype for a Dune game has been discovered, almost 20 years after it was scrapped. The game is "based on the 1984 movie of the same name [from Frank Herbert's books]" and "was to be an action/adventure style game similar to Atari's classic Adventure", but, according to an in-depth analysis at AtariProtos.com, "only preliminary coding had been started before Jack Tramiel shut down 2600 game development and fired most of the staff." Still, what other game you know depicts Baron Harkonnen as a smiley face?

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Early Prototype by Lshmael · 2003-10-04 01:37 · Score: 2, Insightful

This game is so unfinished, it's not even funny. The only enemy *not* to be represented by a smiley face is the "Baron's Guards", who appear in one screen. Add more unfinished graphics (i.e. Fremen also using wonderful smiley face, Princess Chani represented by a square - along with guns, ornithopters, and various other inanimate objects), a thoroughly ugly interface and screen, and you could have a good concept of any unfinished game, whether it be from 1984 or 2003.

Heck, if they did not explicitly tell you the game was based on Dune, I wouldn't have known.