2009.057 (February 26, 2009)

Shaggy's Riffer Madness

For those unfamiliar with the concept of RiffTrax, these are downloadable, comedic commentary tracks that you play in-sync with your favorite movies. Forums member Shaggy decided to have a go at it with the Privateer 2 footage from our Holovids section. Check it out here and let him know what you think!

I've been a longtime fan of RiffTrax and they have a cuts feature on their website. This allows you to upload a video, or use one they already have, and put in previously recorded quotes from Mike, Kevin, and Bill. So I uploaded the final scene from Privateer 2, from the CIC's Holovids section, and riffed the hell out of it. If you're interested you can catch Kronos The Final Riffdown and let me know what you think.

Making the Game: Install

One element of game design that we usually forget about is the install process. For the player, games just magically appear after processing something for a few minutes (or less, today). That process is actually incredibly complicated - as this flowchart-heavy document explains (actually, I do remember very fondly the Wing Commander III and IV installations... with the spinning carrier, the test sounds and the explicit judging of your computer setup).

These updates are thanks to John "Captain Johnny" Guentzel, who provided several CD image archives of material used by the Wing Commander Prophecy development team!