Id Software is arguably one of the most influential gaming companies ever. Its contribution simply cannot be overestimated: thanks to the studio, PC gaming gained popularity in the 1990s, and first-person shooters became what we know them today. From a rather extensive library of titles, the Doom dilogy stands out especially – uncomplicated at first glance, but popular even after almost three decades. In honor of id Software’s anniversary (and the studio turned 30 on February 1), let’s remember how the original Doom was created and what impact it had on the gaming industry.
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A small indie studio that turned the world
1/1 Doom Development Team
On February 1, 1991, four young programmers – John Carmack, John Romero, Tom Hall, and Adrian Carmack (not John’s relative) – registered a new company. Its name became id Software: originally an abbreviation for Ideas from the Deep (“Ideas from the depths”), later – from In Demand (“In demand”). In the end, the guys (as they called themselves) settled on the concept of “Id”, or “It”, from psychoanalysis, which means instincts.
Before the most famous shooter of all time, id managed to create several significant titles. Commander Keen, for example, was the first to showcase fast side-scrolling on a PC (which until 1990 was considered impossible outside of consoles). Hovertank 3D became one of the first first-person shooters in the modern sense, and Wolfenstein 3D not only cemented the technology’s successraycasting and surface texturing, but also definitively defined the genre conventions of shooters for years to come.
The studio’s real breakthrough came in 1993: on December 10, the first episode of Doom was released, distributed free of charge and available online. From that moment on, the world of video games changed forever, dividing into the era before and after Doom.
The birth of a legend
1/4 Commander Keen 4: Secret of the Oracle
After finishing work on Wolfenstein 3D in 1992, the id quartet started thinking about their next project. Tom Hall’s proposed sequel to his beloved brainchild, Commander Keen, about Billy Blaze, an eight-year-old genius and space traveler, did not resonate. The success of Wolfenstein has demonstrated that players expect fast-paced gameplay and violence, not a boy’s fun and loving adventures in space.
It all started, as usual, with technology: John Carmack created the Doom Engine, which was head and shoulders above the engine used in Wolfenstein 3D. The ability to stretch textures onto the ceiling and floor was added to the texturing of the walls, the walls were no longer located exclusively at right angles, and the levels themselves could easily have different heights. And the rooms became much more complicated and no longer looked like labyrinths with bare walls. As if that were not enough, Doom supported an online game with the possibility of both co-opting and battles against each other. It was largely thanks to Doom that players learned what Deathmatch was – a term Romero coined, inspired by fighting games such as Street Fighter II and Fatal Fury.
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Watch
Video showing early prototypes of Doom. The first versions contain Hall’s developments like starting a game of poker between the Space Marines. The versions themselves can now be found without problems in the public domain.
In early 1993, id Software issued a press release announcing Doom. The guys did not skimp on loud terms: the text, composed by Romero, declared technological excellence and immediately put Doom in the place of “the best game in history.” The story finally faded into the background: in the document, the players were promised that they would drown in the corpses of demons up to their knees – and that was generally the end of it. Hall, who held the position of the leading game designer, was frankly unhappy with the state of affairs.
Early prototypes were created with an eye on Hall’s documentation and previous studio games: now you can find a pre-alpha version of Doom on the net, which still has a life counter and the ability to get points, like in Wolfenstein 3D, as well as the first level on the lunar base, which planned by the game designer. You can also see an earlier, more overloaded interface with an inventory system and other things that did not make it into the final release.
Prioritization
1/1 One of the sketches of the future map, drawn by John Romero
Romero laid down the last straw that broke Hall’s ridge. After the announcement, he said that Doom did not need a design document at all, and called for a more brutal and faster gameplay, focusing on the feel of the game, and not on Hall’s scenario. The team supported the approach, immediately declaring the rejection of realism in favor of increased dynamics. In addition, Romero and both Carmacks openly rejected realistic level design: the premises of the military base reminded them of Wolfenstein 3D and did not reveal the potential of the new engine, so Romero began to create his own levels – more abstract, but much more graphically interesting.
Hall spent less and less time developing Doom, disillusioned with the constant rejection of his ideas and arguments with Romero, which led to his departure from the company in June 1993. A little later, he was replaced by Sandy Petersen, a game designer who managed to work on Sid Meier’s Pirates! and Civilization. At first, id Software had doubts about whether to take Petersen to the team: the fact is that the developer is a zealous Mormon, and the programmers who create violent demon-killing games were not sure whether a religious person could normally join the team.
“I have no problem with demons in the game. These are just drawn little people. Moreover, this bad guys“, – said with a smile in a conversation with Romero Petersen and began to offer his own, no less cruel ideas of reprisals against monsters. The newcomer joined the team as a level designer, helping Romero create locations for Doom episodes. The whole team was confident that while Romero was good at creating levels that were impressive graphics, Petersen was able to produce much more technically and structurally advanced work.
A tangible hell
1/3 The creature on the cover of Manual of the Planes on Dungeons and Dragons – all of id Software’s employees participated in a lengthy campaign led by John Carmack
The lion’s share of Doom’s charm lay in its unique design, mixing occultism and cybernetics. If for Wolfenstein 3D Adrian Carmack manually painted the sprites of all the monsters, then for a more detailed novelty, a different approach was required. Two designers came to the rescue – Don Ivan Panchatz and his son Greg. The first is responsible for the iconic cover, in which the marine is firing at the approaching hordes of monsters, and the second has created models of all the main opponents.
Greg Panchatz became famous as a creator of practical special effects: he managed to work on such films as “A Nightmare on Elm Street 2” and “Robocop”. Adrian Carmack and Kevin Cloud began working on clay models that could be photographed in different positions and angles to create fluid game animations, but the process was slower than desired. In addition, their models were gray and later required serious revision. The cover artist, looking at the torment of the designers, invited them to seek help from his son, who literally made a living by modeling grotesque creatures.
Greg was shocked by the experience of unexpected colleagues and immediately agreed. He later recalled: “Doom was exactly what I always imagined games: you can walk in three dimensions and fight monsters. Seeing something like this live was amazing. ” His first job was the final boss of Doom, the Mastermind spider. A huge monster, like a brain with eyes and mandibles, moved on mechanical legs resembling spiders. The central idea of Panchatza’s design was the principle, succinctly described by the phrase “scary, but excessive”. Together with a small team of practitioners, he began work on the sketches created by Carmack and Cloud – in addition to Mastermind, Panchatz is responsible for Mancub, Archville and Revenant.
1/5 Cyberdemon
“This is what I call ‘some gum and duct tape.’ We collected the spider-like creature piece by piece from everything we found: we bought something in hardware stores or in stores with hobby goods, somewhere we used water pipes. The body was first made in the form of a sculpture, and then a plaster mold was assembled on its basis. The fittings were bent over it, filled with foam latex and baked – and this is how we got the final result ”.
The scan took place in a completely different way compared to what can be seen today. The model was placed in the required position and filmed using a rotating stand. And a special program made it possible to “snatch” the desired angles. After that, the images were digitized: the resolution and color were reduced to the standard 256 bits for that time, and in the final processing was carried out with the help of graphic editors – they cleaned out flaws.
I brought my toys with me
1/4 The process of creating Pinky based on the T-Rex toy
For the textures of the locations, everything was used. Adrian Carmack recalled that for one of the levels, he used a texture created from a photograph of his snake skin boots. Another texture uses a photo of a broken knee, and many futuristic computers in the game are based on the Gravis Ultrasound Classic sound card.
There were other borrowings from real life: one of the fountains in Pennsylvania, for example, migrated into the game with almost no edits – except that it is not water that gushes out of it, but blood. In other cases, the changes were much more significant: for example, scanned gargoyles from a book became the basis of … switches.
In some cases, purchased toys were used – part of the blaster, for example, turned into the basis for a mechanical door. In addition, it is known that at least one monster was created on the basis of photographs of the toy: the rubber T-Rex from “Jurassic Park” became the prototype of Pinky. The Lost Soul (a flying flaming skull) was also created based on photographs of a skull – presumably a toy one.
Rich arsenal
1/4 Creatoy roargun
But more often than not, toys were used to create weapons in Doom. The developers were actively buying futuristic guns, not disdaining, however, more traditional items. The punching animation, for example, was recorded by Kevin Cloud: his hands with brass knuckles got into the frame. The shotgun and pistol are based on toy models purchased from Toys R Us. The six-barreled gun and plasmagan also migrated from there, although not so much of the original models remained in them.
The most interesting case with the BFG9000: for her, the designers used the “grandfather” of the Nerf Gun called the Creatoy RoarGun. The choice fell due to the futuristic and “Gigerian” design of the blaster – however, in the game the original weapon is completely unrecognizable. The photographed side of the toy was mirrored along the vertical axis, making the BFG a truly “bloody big” gun. But the chainsaw in Doom is real. Before leaving, Tom Hall managed to borrow her for the needs of the studio from his girlfriend.
In Doom, unlike previous games like Wolfenstein 3D or Catacomb 3-D, weapons really felt. As Romero recalls, previous experience was beneficial to id, and a close acquaintance with various types of weapons allowed us to create believable barrels in the game.
John Romero:
“We had little experience working on Wolfenstein 3D, but with Doom it was completely different. We spent a year with these guns. There were more of them and they were different. Energy weapons, rocket launcher – we had to spend a lot more time on balance, the selection of the rate of fire relative to the player’s speed and much more. “
Immortal life
1/2 First edition of Doom
The full version of Doom was released in 1993. Romero recalls with a laugh that shortly before the release, there was a small advertisement in Computer Gaming World magazine for the future release.
John Romero:
“At the very end, they had a section with new releases. There they wrote a couple of short paragraphs about the new product and attached a screenshot. Doom was there too. It was simply written about her: “You are a Space Marine and you are fighting aliens at the base.” And that’s all! “
And if the press did not immediately understand what happened, then gamers realized much faster. Doom almost overnight became one of the most downloaded games and did not give up its positions, let alone months – more than a year. In 1994, Doom articles appeared in every video game magazine: PC Gamer, for example, stated bluntly that “Doom has redefined expectations for PC gaming forever.” For a long time after the release of Doom, first-person shooters were called nothing other than Doom-like games and each of them was invariably compared to the “king” of the genre.
But what can I say: even today, after almost three decades, Doom has one of the most lively community of gamers who continue to go through original campaigns, create many mods (some of them, by the way, can be found here) and hacked on the net. Doom is not the only one, but definitely the biggest victory for id Software, which confirms the fact that new parts, released without the participation of the original developers, continue to be in demand. The formula itself simply cannot become outdated – and will continue to delight gamers for many years to come.
