![]() ![]() I'm also not sure it's just me, or if games in general have lost a sort of magic they used to have. I think I'd like to get back to those deeper dives but with more money than time (versus more time than money that I used to have), so many excellent games available, and all kinds of other distractions, I'm not really sure how or where to begin. It's like the difference between reading a novel and really understanding a novel at a deep level. On a game I particularly enjoy, I might spend some more time on it by gathering the achievements, but achievements really pale in comparison (in terms of both difficulty and reward) to what I remember of doing this myself in my youth. There aren't any surprises: readily available game reviews tell me basically exactly what to expect. Even in the case where I don't have the next game chosen and already in my line-up, it's easy to buy a game online and have it downloaded and playable within an hour. I don't really do this with games anymore. (I can't really recall what my goals were for the game, but I remember it being particularly difficult to achieve them.) This post reminded me of this, because Wing Commander (the original) was one of those games I played over and over again. (I also spent a lot of time thinking about whether a thing was possible, and if it wasn't, why not.) This also allowed me to spend a lot of time on games that weren't very good and find some good within them. It might be getting to a particular location that appeared to be 'off limits.' It was basically 'achievements' before there were achievement systems, but they were generally a lot harder and all the rewards for doing it where self-generated and internal. I'd "beat" the game, but I'd also have this sort of mental model of challenges or 'perfect' gameplay that I'd try to achieve. For a very short time, I lived about a mile away from a video game rental store and I'd sometimes be able to convince an adult I was responsible enough to return the game and spend my own money renting a game over a weekend.Īs a result of this, I'd spend many, many hours on the same game. Occasionally a cool friend would lend me a copy of something. ![]() Once the technical aspects have been worked out, the only limit that remains is creativity.When I was a kid, buying a new game was nearly impossible If I was lucky, I'd get one for a birthday present or a Christmas gift. The whole thing is built around a scripting system, so even before I open source it (which I plan to do), it should be possible to make very complex addons. In concert with rebuilding WC1/2, I've been working on a mission editor, not only to view/debug existing missions, but to create new ones and new campaigns, including new cutscenes/dialogue and so on. I've tried Kilrathi Saga, but that doesn't do it for me either. I've tried modifying the original machine code in various ways, but without the source code I've given up on achieving what I want with the original engine. It's not the only motivating factor, but the main one is honestly the lack of speed limiting in DOS WC1/2. My immediate goal (which may well still take a couple more years) is to fully re-implement Wing Commander 1 & 2, favouring making subtle improvements here and there over perfect accuracy. Confederation is essentially a custom cross-platform engine which reads original data files from the Wing Commander (and Privateer) series - based on some of my own ("clean room") reverse engineering, but also of course the work of various members of the community over the years. ![]()
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