Making the Game - Part 6

This is more like it! The Component Manager Meeting Agenda for April 26, 1996 has information from what each portion of the Wing Commander V/Prophecy development team is doing. One thing that should catch the eye of Wing Commander fans is that the team is developing an overall story arc and 'universe fiction' -- and that it's being shared with Erin Roberts, who is currently developing Privateer 2: The Darkening in England. There's also an interesting reference to planning for "Maniac [Missions]" with Mark [Day] - I wonder if any material on that project survives?

Wing Commander V Component Manager Meeting Agenda Download (4.3 MB) Date: April 26, 1996 Project: Wing Commander Prophecy Donated By: Billy Cain Pages: 6

Making the Game - Part 5

Today we present the first Wing Commander V Component Manager Meeting Agenda document. I know I promised that these would be exciting... but not yet! We'll see Maniac Missions references and outlines and discussions about who should write the story in the next few days... but today is just the agenda for the first meeting (April 19, 1996), since no previous minutes or long range calendar had yet been determined. Does everybody have stuff to do?

Wing Commander V Component Manager Meeting Agenda Download (279 kb) Date: April 19, 1996 Project: Wing Commander Prophecy Donated By: Billy Cain Pages: 1

Making the Game - Part 3

This is a very simple update for introducing a complex subseries. This coversheet represents the Wing V Component Manager Meeting Archive - a series of weekly status updates on all individual parts of the game. Each one includes meeting minutes, talking points, notes, plans for the next week... and since this was the 1990s, a Dilbert cartoon. They're an invaluable tool for learning exactly how the game was developed - and we'll be looking at each one soon.

Wing V Component Manager Meeting Archive Download (489 kb) Date: Unknown Project: Wing Commander Prophecy Donated By: Billy Cain Pages: 1

Making the Game - Part 1

We are proud to present a new daily feature which represents a major part of our mission -- the preservation and study of Wing Commander's history. Thanks to several very generous material donations we have been able to put together an impressive archive of documents relating to the development of Wing Commander Prophecy.

Just over twelve years ago the development team first met to put together a plan for what was then called Wing Commander V. It was a project full of firsts -- the first Wing Commander game designed for the ground up for the PC and the Playstation simultaneously, the first one to include multiplayer and the first one without Chris Roberts at the helm.

We would like to thank Prophecy Lead Billy Cain, Designer Captain Johnny Guentzel and Joe Garrity's Origin Museum for all the help and material provided for this project. We'll be running through all the dated documents in order and then providing a series of interesting undated ones. We will end by looking through Billy Cain's project bible for the game! Lets get started!

Today's document is the earliest yet identified -- so early, in fact, that it dates to just days after Wing Commander IV hit store shelves. This is the first of two rough plot pitches for the game... this one by Chris Douglas, whose artwork defined the style of Wing Commander III and IV. Mr. Douglas didn't go on to continue work on Prophecy... but his story is certainly very interesting.

Obviously the first thing you will notice is how different (and interesting) this pitch is -- military governor Blair, the return of Prince Thrakhath, Lt. Connor White and the TCS Eagle. I think that a close study, however, reveals some similarities -- and gives you a good idea of what basic elements potential script: the new character, the two alien races, the requirement that Blair be included in the story.

Wing Commander 5 Game Design Document Download (2.5 mb) Date: Feb. 15th, 1996 Project: Wing Commander Prophecy Donated By: John Guentzel Pages: 15