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A visit to Id Software circa 1993

G-Fex

Member
http://vimeo.com/4022128

In 1993, Dan Linton, owner of a hugely successful BBS called Software Creations, visited Texas and made his way to id Software. This is the footage he recorded one night in November 1993.
Shown are several of id's employees at the time: Jay Wilbur, Shawn Green, John Romero, Dave Taylor, Sandy Petersen and Adrian Carmack. Bobby Prince was visiting to finish the music and create the sound effects.
This video has 21 minutes of me playing DOOM before the sound effects were put in as well as some early deathmatching with Shawn Green.

So this has playing of new games that just came out (Aladdin, Bram Stoker's dracula), Bobby Prince is an awesome composer, and DOOM was a alpha/beta with it's sound effects using SNES Wolfenstein 3D before Bobby Prince works on the sound (it's why he's visiting).

Super early Doom level layouts with really early stuff. This kind of FPS was mindblowing, it had amazing lighting effects, infighting between monsters, and height differentials (I.E. faux 2nd story floors)Stairs and elevators) and amazing architecture. You gotta remember at this time Wolfenstein 3D was around so these type of features were mind blowing.

Doom footage starts around 9:36 in the video.

This is really a awesome sight to see in those offices back then.
 
This is the Wild West of game development. These guys simply made the game they wanted to play and of course it ended up becoming a phenomenon.
 
Damn, didn't know anyone had this kind of footage just sitting in their house and not been uploaded to somewhere on the internet already.

This is back when 320x240 looked amazing and my brother was tweaking autoexec.bat and config.sys files to free up enough system memory to play Syndicate, SimCity 2000 and Wing Commander II.
 

wenis

Registered for GAF on September 11, 2001.
That's awesome! holy crap I'll need to send this to a few people.


I have been fortunate enough in my career to work with Dave Taylor a few times. Cool dude, funny seeing him in the past now.
 

Zodzilla

Member
This is amazing.

The Bobby Prince "you've got to eat your vegetables" footage is super sweet. It's amazing to see people right before the cusp of greatness.
 

Aesius

Member
Man, I get super nostalgic for early 90s computer and gaming-related stuff like this. There's just something really cool about knowing that a single person or a very small team could make an entire game by themselves that goes on to sell millions of copies.

Obviously it still happens today with indies games, but back then it was the norm, not the exception.
 
This is amazing.

The Bobby Prince "you've got to eat your vegetables" footage is super sweet. It's amazing to see people right before the cusp of greatness.

It's amazing to see him visualize his own music with such tenacity. You can really se his thought process for some of his tracks.

Also the "Now that's 3D" comment when they start playing Doom. Hehe. It's also funny hearing the Wolf3D SNES sound effects in this build. You can tell by their reactions that they all knew they had something huge on their hands with Doom.

Also amusing seeing how many of them bring their kids into the office.
 

malfcn

Member
I only got to noodle around with DOOM back in the day. But wow, it still looks good. The momentum and bobbing look so cool while running around.

And this was uploaded 5 years ago!?!
 

low-G

Member
I saw this video when it was new but it's still fantastic. To have worked in that office... Well, I read Masters of Doom, so it probably wasn't as fun as it seems from the outside. How about... to be a ghost in id's offices.
 
that commander keen track is my jam. commander keen and the secret of the oracle.
i love the fm synth fart sound the worms make and the way their face scrunches up.
 

inm8num2

Member
I think I've seen this before, but still very awesome.

The people in those offices had such a huge effect on gaming.
 

Not Spaceghost

Spaceghost
Holy shit, that's almost surreal.

The part where the dude is explaining the keen song, about eating your vegetables so absolutely the most charming thing ever.

And the run through of the unfinished copy of doom was amazing, he was just so excited to show off his game, you could see them really getting into things the way he would add in his own sfx lmao.

Man that was great.
 

Minions

Member
I love when you see things posted from the past. So cool seeing behind the scenes. Id must have been a cool place to work in the old days.
 

jblank83

Member
I loved seeing this but was a little disappointed. Typical software development office. The hilariously bad early 90s Texas haircuts were a bonus, though. Nice to see that classic faux-wood furniture, too.

To be honest, I'd love to have one of those old computers. The Pentium years were golden.
 

Atomski

Member
While playing the early Doom footage.. did I hear him say "I got a backpack I can carry twice as much stuff" ?

The idea of a Doom game where you can only pick up so much kinda blows my mind.
 

Exr

Member
Huge grin on my face watching the enthusiasm at getting monsters to attack monsters. Thanks for sharing.
 

G-Fex

Member
While playing the early Doom footage.. did I hear him say "I got a backpack I can carry twice as much stuff" ?

The idea of a Doom game where you can only pick up so much kinda blows my mind.

Yeah double ammo capacity is gained with backpacks. Though not sure if that was the early idea.


I really really really need to pick up Masters of Doom
 
Damn, didn't know anyone had this kind of footage just sitting in their house and not been uploaded to somewhere on the internet already.

This is back when 320x240 looked amazing and my brother was tweaking autoexec.bat and config.sys files to free up enough system memory to play Syndicate, SimCity 2000 and Wing Commander II.

Ahh the good old days of DOS4GW and HIMEM

Any Carmack in this vid? (sorry still at work).
 

Vibranium

Banned
This is awesome, I love how low-key and chill everyone was. None of Valve's secrecy or "turn off your cameras while in the office".

I must read Masters of Doom.
 

jblank83

Member
love videos like this. it was windows 3 at the time right?

This was a time when people still ran pure DOS with DOS applications like Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect. You see this in the video when Bobby Prince loads up a title from Redwood Games.

There was Windows 3.1 at the time, yes. It wasn't like the computing world is now, though. In fact, almost all games were DOS only all the way up to Windows 95.
 
Yeah double ammo capacity is gained with backpacks. Though not sure if that was the early idea.


I really really really need to pick up Masters of Doom

Early prototypes of Doom had collectable treasures, a points system and extra lives. Pretty much all features that were seen in Wold3D previously. The point system and collectables were removed to make the game feel less arcade like, and the extra lives were pretty much redundant at this point anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if they had more planned for the backpack too.

The original design document for Doom that was written by Tom Hall was a lot more complex than what they ended up with, and some of those ideas were reused in Rise of the Triad, which was the first game that Tom Hall made after leaving ID.


This was at a time when people still ran pure DOS with DOS applications like Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect. You see this in the video when Bobby Prince loads up a title from Redwood Games.

There was Windows 3.1 at the time, yes. It wasn't like the computing world is now, though. In fact, almost all games were DOS only all the way up to Windows 95.


Heh, yup. What's interesting is that Gabe Newell actually ported Doom to Windows 3.11 himself while he was working at Microsoft. But it was never released though, as it conflicted with the launch of Windows 95. But Gabe Newell's port was actually used as the base for Doom95. which allowed the game to run natively on windows. This was part of Microsofts game plan to drag over game developers to Windows 95.

Bonus Bill Gates in Doom video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN0K58EfJSg
 

jblank83

Member
Gabe Newell actually ported Doom to Windows 3.1 himself while he was working at Microsoft. But it was never released though, as it conflicted with the launch of Windows 95. But Gabe Newell's port was actually used as the base for Doom95

Very cool. Did not know this =)
 
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