Rupract Interview
An interview with Shane ‘rupract’ Alfreds, Relic’s resident audio guru, from December 1999. Interview conducted by Pax.
1. Name, rank, favorite cereal?
Shane Alfreds, aka rupract, aka SpankMaster3000, also many time winner of the “Golden Tent” award which is a greatly sought after achievement here at Relic. Rank… maybe slightly odoriferous, but rank is an overstatement don’t ya think? I do use my deodorant and shower at least once a week. My favorite cereal would have to be Cap’n Crunch with Crunch Berries, I just love the way the milk turns pink and it all sticks in my teeth so I can enjoy it for the whole morning.
2. What precisely does your job entail at Relic? Feel free to be as graphic as necessary.
Entrails? Who said anything about entrails? Oh, you mean what do I do here at Relic. Lets see, I sit in front of this computer being irradiated for more hours than can be healthy. I’ve listened to the voice-overs from Homeworld so many times that I can recite most lines from the game. I often catch myself whistling Agnes Dei or the Yes song. I get to create and implement what I think is the coolest game audio technology in the industry and I get to work with an incredibly talented group of people.
3. How would you describe the working environment at Relic?
A sweatshop, hehe. Literally at one time it was, when we first moved into our new office. We moved in at the beginning of the summer and there was no air conditioning. It also happened to be an unusually hot summer (for Vancouver) and the air conditioning didn’t get installed until the fall. Several times a day I would go to the shower and soak my head and t-shirt to get the evaporation effect going with my fan. One bonus, we did get to see Rob walking around without his shirt a lot.
Working at Relic has been the most enjoyable job I’ve had. It’s a pretty relaxed environment. We get to work on cool games. Everyone is very talented. It’s a small company so everyone has a lot of responsibility and you’re not just another cog in the big wheel.
4. What are you currently working on? If it’s top secret, after providing the answer you may attempt to kill me in a scene similar to that episode of Star Trek where Kirk had to fight the Gorn captain - I will play the role of Kirk while you will take on the enviable position of the physically superior man sized lizard. I get to have wild sex with any alien babes we may encounter though.
Actually, this question reminds me of a discussion on #homeworld the other day. The gist of it was a rupract and Pax forming a WWF tag team to take on all those wussy WWF wrestlers… Relic could get the rights to make the video game… Alex could be our promoter… Pike could get some breast implants and be our ring chick… Ahhh, forget about it…
5. Have you or have you not ever dressed as a woman? If so, please provide details and/or pics.
Yes, see the picture that I included. My latest fetish/fantasy is to dress up as Xena: Warrior Princess. Only a few people know of this fetish, but now I guess I’m coming out of the closet. Maybe this means I can wear my Xena costume to work… Maybe I can get Quinn to dress up as Gabriel and we can act out those intimate scenes that always get cut from the show…
6. Let’s suppose that there’s a bloody free for all at Relic — who wins?
Well, I’d be kinda worried about Quinn cause he used to play rugby, he’s a big guy and I think he would take a lot of pummeling before going down. Ron is a giant, but if you think of him like a tree and swing a big axe (or a nice sidekick) to the knee he’ll go down. Arthur “Bruce Lee” Shimizu would be a worthy opponent. Erin Daly has his special bite attack to watch out for. Alex would probably just go psycho with his “Kung Fu dance of death” and tire himself out. Plaz has some funky wrestling moves up his sleeve. In the end though, I think I’d be the last one standing.
7. How did you get into the computer games industry? Was it through a wacky series of misadventures involving yourself and a lovable alien Muppet?
My therapist told me that was all just a terrible dream…
Actually, I went to school at BCIT, which is just a stones throw from Electronic Arts Canada. My first experience with EAC came while I was attending BCIT; some guys from EA came over to the SAC (Student Activity Center) and were looking for some people to be characters in a tennis game. A bunch of us jumped at the chance and quickly finished our game of Super Sprint. We headed over to EA, posed for digital pictures in a room called “The Strange But Alluring Room”, and gave them our name and addresses where they could send us our free copies of the game.
My next experience with EA came when a buddy of mine from BCIT got a job there. About a year after he started working there he told me they were looking for someone else. So after several interviews I eventually got a job there working in the Tools & Libraries department writing audio libraries and tools for the Playstation. After working there for nearly a year I was working with Alex Garden and Darren Stone implementing sound on Triple Play for the Playstation. During many late nights and after numerous nerf gun battles we did manage to ship the game.
I left EA in the summer of ‘97 to head up the audio on this crazy new project called “Homeworld”. I took my wife down to Relic to check out the POC build, after we left she said “Are you sure you want to leave EA for this?”. I am a bit of a gambler but I saw the potential of Homeworld and Relic and I knew my ship had come in (pun intended).
8. What would you consider your crowning achievement at this point in time?
Professionally, it would definitely be Homeworld. Personally there are a lot of things that I’m very proud of: being married to my wife Monica for 5 1/2 years, our baby that’ll be born in early January, receiving my black belt, crewing on my Dad’s sailboat (the “Cheekee Monkee”) when we won the Swiftsure (an overnight long distance race in Victoria, BC) in May ‘99, and making it past my 30th birthday and still being healthy.
9. Violence in games - what’s your take, you sadistic sonofabitch?
Hmm, I guess it depends on your definition of violence. Is spanking violent? I say no! Do you mean ripping open someone’s chest cavity and yanking out their still beating heart and feeding it to them? Well I guess it depends on the context. Seriously, I think having a rating system for games is good. I think creating ultra-violent video games just for the sake of having violence is bad. I think using violence in video games as an excuse for kids being violent is wrong. I think that parents should be more involved with what there kids are doing and what games they are playing.
10. What’s the deal with the ferrets?
I know that you’re hoping this is some strange fetish, Pax, but its not. Ferrets are just so damn cute and cuddly, they are great pets. Did you know that a group of ferrets is called a “business”? Our first ferret is Dritz who we got in September ‘93. Zoe came along in March ‘94 and they became great friends. We rescued Sprite from an SPCA shelter in August ‘98. She was a real sweetie, but she never really got along with the others. She was pretty old when we got her and became ill. We had to put her down in January ‘99 because she was too far gone. We picked up Spooky in February ‘99; we had always wanted a Silver since we had always had Sables up to that point. Unfortunately, Spooky was carrying a virus that made Dritz and Zoe very sick for several months. We decided that Spooky was just too much for the other two so we decided to get a playmate for her. We found Kodiak in October ‘99; he was about 5 months old at that time and had been at the pet store for most of that time. He has turned out to be a great playmate for Spooky and he is gentle with Dritz and Zoe.