DuneCity

A Dune II RTS engine fork with the Tornie Mod integrated — a 16-phase Micropolis-style city simulation, 8th house (HOUSE_REBELS) faction, custom campaign bundle, custom units, and a per-house color tint system.

Status: Active development. Latest release v1.0.426 on main / tornie-beta. Tornie Mod loads via mods/Tornie/data/ and ships its own PAK (Tornie.PAK, 260+ entries).

# Clone
git clone https://github.com/moonbear-dev/dunecity.git
cd dunecity

# Configure + build (Linux)
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build -j$(nproc)

# Run
./build/bin/dunecity

The Tornie Mod is enabled by default at mods/Tornie/. To switch mods (vanilla / dunecity / Tornie), use the in-game Mods menu.

Trunk-based development on main:

• main = trunk, always deployable
• tornie-beta = pre-release branch for Tornie Mod builds (parallel CI pipeline)
• Single source of truth (rebase, no long-lived branches)

# Make a change + test
git checkout main
# ... edit, cmake --build build, etc ...

# Commit with a descriptive message
git add -A
git commit -m "fix(color): Custom_IBM.PAL dark grey for HOUSE_REBELS"

# Bump version + tag
sed -i 's/DuneCity VERSION 1.0.426/DuneCity VERSION 1.0.427/' CMakeLists.txt
sed -i 's/"version": "1.0.426"/"version": "1.0.427"/' vcpkg.json
sed -i 's/#define VERSION "1.0.426"/#define VERSION "1.0.427"/' include/config.h
bash scripts/bump-version.sh --check   # verify all 3 files agree

# Push
git push origin main --force
git tag -a v1.0.427 -m "v1.0.427 - ..."
git push origin v1.0.427 --force
git push origin tornie-beta --force    # mirror to Tornie beta branch

The CI workflow (.github/workflows/build.yml) builds Windows ZIPs on every push to main or tornie-beta and uploads to https://dunelegacy.com/.

DuneCity is a fork of Dune Legacy (C++17/SDL2) with the Micropolis city-building simulation ported into the same game loop. The Tornie Mod is layered on top with custom campaigns, units, palettes, and a 8th faction (HOUSE_REBELS).

Game::updateGameState()  [runs every tick at ~62.5 Hz]
  ├── cmdManager.executeCommands()
  ├── house[i]->update()              // AI city-building
  ├── processObjects()                // WindTrap registers power sources
  ├── citySimulation_->advancePhase() // one of 16 city phases per tick
  └── economic victory check

dunecity/
├── src/                           # Dune Legacy + Tornie mod engine code
│   ├── FileClasses/
│   │   └── GFXManager.cpp         # Per-house remap, Custom_IBM.PAL, palette write
│   ├── Menu/
│   │   ├── CustomGamePlayers.cpp  # Color swap dropdown (Original/Teal/Custom 7)
│   │   └── SinglePlayerSkirmishMenu.cpp  # 8-house carousel
│   ├── players/
│   │   └── SpectatorPlayer.cpp    # 9th house type
│   ├── structures/
│   │   ├── ConstructionYard.cpp   # 8th house build logic
│   │   └── AdvancedWindTrap.cpp   # Custom super power plant
│   └── Game.cpp                   # Per-house color swap init, 8th house loading
├── include/
│   ├── globals.h                  # getHouseSDLColor(house) - REBELS reads Custom_IBM
│   ├── DataTypes.h                # NUM_HOUSES=8, PALCOLOR_REBELS=192
│   └── Tile.h                     # lastAccess[NUM_HOUSES=8] (was NUM_TEAMS=7)
├── data/
│   ├── Custom_IBM.PAL             # REBELS dark grey ramp at indices 192-199
│   ├── RREBELS.voc                # House-name voice for 8th faction
│   ├── REGION*.INI + scen*.ini    # 8 Tornie campaigns + 2 vanilla (mirrored in PAK)
│   ├── HeraldRebels.png           # 8th house herald (dark grey)
│   ├── EliteSiegeTank.png         # Custom unit (8-dir paletted)
│   ├── FlameTank.png              # Custom unit (8-dir paletted)
│   ├── Tornie_AdvancedWindtrap_gfx.png      # 2-frame animated in-world sprite
│   └── Tornie_AdvancedWindtrap_gfx_editor.png  # 48x48 static editor icon
├── mods/Tornie/                   # Active mod (mirrors data/ + custom config)
│   ├── data/                      # 38 files mirrored from data/
│   └── campaign/                  # REGION*.INI + scen*.ini per house
└── scripts/
    └── make-tornie-pak.py         # Builds data/Tornie.PAK (260 entries)

The engine reads from runtime palette[] (set at GFX init from Custom_IBM.PAL for indices 192-199). For each non-HARKONNEN house, sprites are remapped at render time via mapSurfaceColorRange(src, PALCOLOR_HARKONNEN, houseToPaletteIndex[house]):

• PALCOLOR_HARKONNEN = 144 (Harkonnen)
• PALCOLOR_ATREIDES = 160 (Atreides)
• PALCOLOR_ORDOS = 176 (Ordos)
• PALCOLOR_FREMEN = 192 (Fremen, shared with REBELS)
• PALCOLOR_SARDAUKAR = 208 (Sardaukar)
• PALCOLOR_MERCENARY = 224 (Mercenary)
• PALCOLOR_NEUTRAL = 128 (Neutral)

For HOUSE_REBELS, the surface palette at 192-199 is overwritten with customColorRamp[192..199] (the dark grey from Custom_IBM.PAL) so the engine reads the dark grey instead of vanilla Fremen orange.

The canonical app version lives in three source-controlled files, kept in sync by scripts/bump-version.sh:

scripts/bump-version.sh 1.0.427   # set version
scripts/bump-version.sh --check   # verify all files agree

Tag releases use vX.Y.Z (e.g. v1.0.426). CI verifies that source metadata already matches the tag before building.

• CMake 4.0+
• C++17 compiler (GCC 9+ on Linux, Clang on macOS, MSVC 2019+ on Windows)
• SDL2 + SDL2_mixer + SDL2_ttf + SDL2_gfx (vcpkg handles this)
• Original Dune II PAK files (ATRE.PAK, DUNE.PAK, HARK.PAK, MENTAT.PAK, MERC.PAK, ORDOS.PAK, SCENARIO.PAK, VOC.PAK, INTRO.PAK, FINALE.PAK, ENGLISH.PAK, SOUND.PAK, LEGACY.PAK, GFXHD.PAK, OPENSD2.PAK, INTROVOC.PAK) in data/

# Install deps (Ubuntu)
sudo apt install cmake g++ libsdl2-dev libsdl2-mixer-dev libsdl2-ttf-dev \
                libsdl2-gfx-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev

# Configure + build
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build -j$(nproc)

brew install cmake sdl2 sdl2_mixer sdl2_ttf sdl2_gfx
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build -j$(sysctl -n hw.ncpu)
open build/bin/dunecity.app

cmake -B build -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" -A x64
cmake --build build --config Release -j
build\bin\Release\dunecity.exe

# Linux
./build/bin/dunecity

# macOS
open build/bin/dunecity.app

# Windows
build\bin\Release\dunecity.exe

The first time you run, the game seeds mods at ~/.local/share/DuneCity/mods/ (Linux) or %APPDATA%\DuneCity\mods\ (Windows). The Tornie Mod will be detected from mods/Tornie/ in the install directory.

This project is developed by moonbear (autonomous agent) and reviewed by syntox (principal). The Tornie Mod is steered by Tornie (Tornie Panther) for visual / asset / gameplay balance, and Quix is blocked at the gateway.

Rules:

1. Trunk-based — work on main or short-lived branches
2. One authority per change — accept instructions from any of: Tornie (mods), syntox (release/git), or ggtothemax (ops/website)
3. Small changes — prefer small compileable changes over broad refactors
4. Versioned releases — every user-visible change bumps the version and tags a release
5. Coordinate on hot files — GFXManager.cpp, Game.cpp, CustomGamePlayers.cpp are the most-edited

• v1.0.426 — HOUSE_REBELS dark grey written to surface palette (fixes orange tint)
• v1.0.425 — Removed v1.0.413 structure remap (diagnostic, restored v1.0.305 lazy remap)
• v1.0.424 — Suppress "UI Graphic not loaded" log spam (log once per ID)
• v1.0.423 — Rollback to v1.0.305 vanilla remap (regression fix)
• v1.0.418 — Multi-color ghost fix on units (write source + dest slots to surface palette)
• v1.0.415 — Advanced windtrap editor icon = in-map preview, Elite Siege Tank path fix
• v1.0.414 — Reactivated 7 vanilla house color swap slots in CustomGamePlayers
• v1.0.413 — Per-house structure sprite remap restored
• v1.0.411 — Per-house remap-on-demand restored (units + buildings)
• v1.0.408 — Tearnie campaign rewrite (8 houses + 2 vanilla × 22 scenarios)
• v1.0.405 — Crash fix for GFX init recursion
• v1.0.400 — Custom_IBM.PAL no longer applied as default
• v1.0.394 — 4 new custom colors (Fushia/Apple Green/Dark Purple/Light Pink)
• v1.0.358 — scenr001-022 Mercenary→Rebels re-routing (root cause of Rebels construction)

• Dune Legacy by the Dune Legacy team — base engine
• Micropolis (SimCity open-source port) by the SimHacker team — city simulation reference
• Tornie (Tornie Panther) — mod author, art direction, asset uploads
• moonbear — autonomous AI agent, port and integration
• syntox — principal, release coordination
• Original Westwood Studios — Dune II (1992)