Arrakis

Arrakis is a real-time strategy game created by Dutch programmer Stefan Hendriks. The game is set in Frank Herbert's Dune universe and borrows many elements from Westwood Studios' Dune II and Command & Conquer. Taking command of the forces of one of the three Great Houses, the player must conquer the planet Arrakis, which is the only source of the precious spice melange in the known universe.

Arrakis features three single-player campaigns spanning over a total of 30 missions (ten per House), and also allows to play skirmish scenarios against AI opponents. While no multiplayer mode is available, there is a built-in random map generator for the skirmish mode, and an editor for the creation of custom user maps is included in the game package.

The gameplay in Arrakis is modelled after the Command & Conquer series of games, with point-and-click unit commands, rubber-band group unit selection and the vertical sidebar interface for building and unit construction. The number of available units and structures is limited, and all Houses share the same technology tree, but this is compensated for by specific modifiers to unit cost, armour, speed and firepower. Thus, while the Atreides are the "average" House, the Harkonnens have more powerful yet more expensive and slow units, and the Ordos rely on fast, cheap but weak forces.

The game uses custom graphics that more or less resembles Command & Conquer and Dune 2000, whereas sound effects are all borrowed from Dune II. There is no music but the game engine supports playback of custom WAV files.