The original Avalon Hill Dune boardgame is a well regarded and influential game still held up as a paragon of elegant game design to this day. It’s based on the novel, not the movie, and is long out of print in english, though you can buy a copy of the game in french for around $50. It turns out there’s a free network, hotseat, and pbem capable version of the game available for win32 from this site. If you’ve balked at paying upwards of $70 for your own copy or if you just want to play, this will fit the bill. If you’re interested in further details on the game itself check out the boardgamegeek.com link above, or this site, which has some history, a variety of downloads, and links to other Dune sites, including where to order the french version.

I’m fortunate enough to have scored a copy of the game in english years ago off of ebay for less than $20 due to a fluke – basically ebay’s systems went down for a day and I won the auction by default because no one could bid during the critical last few hours of the auction. I felt bad for the guy auctioning it off but elated that he abided by the terms of the auction. I’ve never had a chance to play it though. If anyone cares to challenge me in the computer version, throw down the gauntlet and we’ll see who deserves to control the spice.