Lands of Lore - Guardians of Destiny [Cutscenes & Speaking Stones] Q&A

After working on B.O.W. Battle Data - Tyrant, I wanted to try out some more videos now that I was more experienced with video production. While on break, I had some more B.O.W. Battle Data videos that I wanted to bring to life; but to dust off my now dormant skills, I first made a full fledged compilation for the Westwood Studios classic, Lands of Lore - Guardians of Destiny. During the video's creation, I've been asked multiple questions regarding little video's creation, some technical, some personal, so I thought I'd share my questions and answers on this Blogger post.

 So what is Lands of Lore - Guardians of Destiny [Cutscenes & Speaking Stones]? 

Lands of Lore - Guardians of Destiny [Cutscenes & Speaking Stones] is a compilation of the game’s FMVs and descriptions of those scenes, including the multiple endings that made this game quite replayable.

The Lands of Lore series by Westwood Studios, as well as some of their other hits.

 What are Speaking Stones? 

Speaking Stones are recording devices used to capture unaltered footage from the Lands of Lore world. The player can find these devices throughout the game and they’re used to help explain the backstory to many of the things that happened that leads up to Guardians of Destiny.

What was your motivation behind making a compilation? 

I first bought Lands of Lore - Guardians of Destiny many years ago after seeing the preview trailer that was featured in Westwood Studios’ Command and Conquer - Red Alert. It was the visuals in the game what won me over. The gameplay, however, was quite difficult (especially at the Dracoid Cemetery) and I ended up stuffing it in a closet for the past decade. Then I came across this detailed playthrough on the game by a YouTuber named Siaynoq8 and it helped me beat Guardians of Destiny. His commentary on the game’s mythology was quite fascinating and it inspired me to make a video with the cutscenes.

One of the more action packed cutscenes in Lands of Lore - Guardians of Destiny

What makes your video different compared to the dozens of other cutscene videos out there? 

This video contains all of the significant cutscenes that make up Lands of Lore - Guardians of Destiny. A lot of the videos on YouTube contain most of the multiple endings or a handful of scenes that deemed essential or interesting to the story, mine contains all of that in one single video. I excluded the variants of several scenes in the game and cutscenes of Luther dying that aren’t in the Bad Endings, but nevertheless have the definitive collection in a otherwise nearly-forgotten game. 

Were there any difficulties you ran into while making Lands of Lore - Guardians of Destiny [Cutscenes & Speaking Stones]? 

Making sure my little add-ons weren’t out of place, that and the extensive research to make sure the descriptions were accurate. The game was made in 1997 and even at 720p, I wanted my logo and the Description text to look like it was a part of the game itself. So I found a way to pixelate the logo and the description text just enough so it would be legible and match the graphics of the game. 

Is there any way for us to play Lands of Lore – Guardians of Destiny with computers today? 

There are some online retailers like GOG and Origin that sell digital copies of Guardians of Destiny. That would be the best way if you have Windows 7 and up, that and you can bundle all three games for real low cheap! Windows XP and below you can still play it through the original discs or through DOSBox. I think Guardians of Destiny is available for PC only, so Mac users will have to be a little crafty if they want to play it on their computer.

You can check out Lands of Lore - Guardians of Destiny [Cutscenes & Speaking Stones] and other great videos from the Lunar Indie Studios official YouTube channel.

Lunar Indie Studios is a creative smorgasbord that focuses on art, literature and video. 

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