Play Red Alert On Your Raspberry Pi
YOU’LL NEED THIS
RASPBERRY PI 3 With a clean install of the latest version of Raspbian Stretch.
COMMAND AND CONQUER: RED ALERT Plus the OpenRA game engine. HITLER’S TIME TRAVEL EXEMPTION ACT, as decreed by the website TV Tropes ( www.tvtropes.org), states that all fictional attempts by time travelers to murder the Great Dictator will either fail or otherwise be disastrous. This is, in fact, the exact premise upon which Westwood Studio’s 1996 classic game CommandandConquer:RedAlert [ Image A] is based. In the alternate history of Red Alert, Einstein decided to turn his genius to creating a time machine, rather than an atom bomb. He travels back to 1924, and kills Hitler with no more than a handshake. With no opposing Germans, the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin begins to roll across Europe, while the Allies desperately try to halt their advance. The game is non-judgemental, and lets you play as either faction.
Twenty years on, this excellent RTS (real-time strategy) game is now eminently playable due to the fan-made free and open-source OpenRA engine, enabling you to play RedAlert and other Westwood classics directly on your Raspberry Pi. Although you can technically play these games using emulators such as DosBox and Exagear, we feel that taking the OpenRA option makes for a much smoother gaming experience.
In order to proceed, all you need is a Raspberry Pi 3 with a clean install of the latest version of Raspbian Stretch. Make sure you run sudo apt-get update then sudo apt-get upgrade before downloading the OpenRA files.
1 THE SPICE MUST FLOW… The C&C franchise kicked off with the original Command&C onquer (sometimes called Tiberian Dawn), which was released in 1995. This, in turn, was based on Westwood’s desire for a more realistic RTS game after the release of the archetypal DuneII:BattleforArrakis in 1992. OpenRA supports playing these C&C titles, as well as Dune2000, a partial remake of DuneII.
>> Both the original C&C and RedAlert games have also been released as freeware by Electronic Arts. Follow the steps in the boxout opposite to get OpenRA running. On first launch, the engine asks you to “Choose your Battlefield” [ Image B]. From there, you can select your chosen game. OpenRA can download the game files for each title for you. However, if you do have the original CDs, consider using these instead, because the downloaded files don’t contain any sound or video sequences.
>> If you decide to use a CD, you need an external DVD drive connected to a powered USB hub to read it from the Raspberry Pi. Alternatively, copy the ISO file to a USB
stick, and connect it to the Pi. Open Terminal, and create a mount point, such as sudo mdkir -p /mnt/disk . Next, use cd to switch to the directory with the ISO file, and mount the ISO file itself using the mount command, for instance: cd / home/pi/Desktop sudo mount CD2_SOVIET_DISC.ISO /mnt/disk/ -t iso9660 -o loop
>> OpenRA detects that the files are mounted, and copies the game data next time you launch. 2 MULTIPLAYER MODE Once you’ve managed to indulge your nostalgia by fighting the enemy AI, you may wish to share the experience with other players. The good news is that OpenRA is available for all major platforms, so you should be able to play against your friends, no matter what OS they are running. After you’ve compiled the code, open Terminal, and use cd OpenRA to switch to the game folder, then sudo cp /usr/ lib/openra/ launch-dedicated.
sh /usr/ lib/openra/my-dedicated.sh . You can then edit your game server settings by running sudo nano usr/ lib/openra/ my-dedicated.sh . Amend Game.Mod=ra to Game.Mod=cnc or Game.Mod=d2k to play the original C&C and Dune2000 [ Image C] respectively. Set a password for your server by amending Server.
Password=PASSWORD . For more information, see https://github. com/OpenRA/OpenRA/wiki/Dedicated.
>> If your friends are connecting via the Internet, you need to set up port forwarding on your router. Specific steps for this vary from router to router. However, you can find some tips for getting started at http://portforward.com, which covers all major models. By default, the server uses TCP Port 1234. 3 FOG OF WAR The official position of the OpenRA project is that the engine can run on Raspbian, but games cannot be played on the Raspberry Pi itself (see https://github. com/OpenRA/OpenRA/ wiki/OpenRA- on-RaspberryPi). Although this doesn’t seem to be true in practice, the developers do warn that you may see the heat indicator at the top-right of your Pi’s screen. Although this didn’t happen during our (brief) tests, if you see the indicator, you must switch off your Pi immediately to avoid permanent damage. This warning doesn’t affect using the Pi as a dedicated OpenRA server.
Once the OpenRA engine has been compiled, and you’ve followed the steps in the “Boost Your War Machine” box (opposite) to improved your emulated gaming experience, you’ll hopefully agree with our view that it’s far better to play classic games in a custom engine than through a clunky emulator. This said, OpenRA doesn’t claim to be an exact recreation of the original games, so you may find that play doesn’t quite reflect what you remember when looking back through rose-tinted spectacles.
Specifically, OpenRA has introduced certain special visual effects, such as leaving trails behind aircraft, as well as altering the interface. Modders will also be pleased to hear that the engine has dispensed with one almighty INI file in favor of a series of modular YAML files. This allows for much finer control of the game, such as changing the sounds for individual units and weapons.
If your hunger for real-time strategy games has been whetted, and you want to see what OpenRA comes up with next, either visit www.openra.net, or join the conversation at irc://chat.freenode.net/openra.