Dune was first designed by Jack Kittredge, Bill Eberle, and Peter Olotka in 1979 under an Avalon Hill license. In 1984 Peter had Avalon Hill produce a new box cover featuring Sting to capitalize on David Lynch’s flawed but interesting movie. Also in 1984, Jack, Peter, and Bill designed two Dune expansion sets - The Duel and Spice Harvest. In 1993, Jeux Descartes republished it in a giant box with re-skinned components. Finally in 2012, Twilight Imperium, Rex was published by Fantasy Flight using the “simultaneous dial based battle system” which Peter, Bill, and Jack created for an unpublished game called Tribute which predated Dune by a few years.

Revolutionary Components

Below are the player shields for each faction. This design was inspired by the Cosmic Encounter aliens, and at the time was something of a revolution in game design. Each faction has a set of advantages that map directly to the original Dune book. But just like in Cosmic, they all have weaknesses.

HOW-TO-PLAY VIDEOs

Ben Harsh of “Harsh Rules” fame created excellent how-to videos of the original Dune games. We hope he creates updated ones for the new Gale Force Nine games.

dune ON BOARDGAMEGEEK

Even though it’s been out of production for nearly 40 years, Dune has thousands of comments, ratings, and fan created components.

Tribute - Before dune (and borderlands)

Tribute is the unpublished predecessor of both Borderlands and Dune. You may recognize the wheel, which became an iconic part of Dune, but not the crown. Get the whole story here, as told by Jack Kittredge, Bill Eberle, and Peter Olotka.