How the game "Doom" was created: 17 interesting facts about the cult first-person shooter (16 photos)

Of course, Doom is the iconic first-person shooter that essentially elevated the FPS genre. Oh, how many hours were spent completing this game, crushing all the hellish demons along the way. But, of course, it was worth it, because playing this game we received unforgettable satisfaction.





Therefore, today I would like to tell you about how the cult game "Doom" (1993) was created, or rather, tell you some interesting facts about this nostalgic game.

1. The history of the creation of the game "Doom" dates back to 1992, when the company "ID Software" just released its mega-successful game "Wolfenstein 3D", which won the hearts of many gamers.



It was thanks to this success that ID software decided to stop making platformers like Commander Keen and focus on 3D shooters. At the same time, they were already working on a prequel to "Wolfenstein 3D" called "Spear of destiny".

Although, of course, it is worth noting that even before Wolfenstein 3D, the company already had two simple first-person shooters - Hovertank 3D and Catacomb 3D. True, of course, it is worth noting that at that time there was no talk of any three-dimensionality. All of these games used 2D sprites, and this pseudo-three-dimensionality was created by zooming in and out of objects. The games themselves were essentially viewed from above. This is such an interesting illusion.





Catacomb 3D

Programmers and game designers John Carmack, John Romero, Tom Hall, as well as artists Adrian Carmack and Kevin Cloud took on the development of the future hit.

Tom Hall, by the way, even released his “Doom Bible,” which described various developments and a draft version of the plot. True, this bible was not useful to the creators. As a result, after some time Tom Hall left the project altogether.



John Carmack, Kevin Cloud, Adrian Carmack, John Romero, Tom Hall and Jay Wilbur

John Carmack believed that a detailed plot for this game was needed here in the same way as a plot in films for adults. Therefore, he immediately decided that only a few lines would be given to the plot here, and the main emphasis would be on the action.

2. The creators of the game were fans of horror films, in particular the Evil Dead and Aliens. They even planned to ask 20th century FOX for permission to use characters from this film.

But in the end, John Carmack decided that using famous movie characters would greatly limit their creative freedom, so it was decided to make a game in the spirit of similar films, where the player will have to fight zombies and various demons with the help of futuristic weapons. But they already invented demons themselves, without depending on anyone.



3. It was originally planned that the project would be called “They Green and Pissed”, but then John Carmack remembered the film “The Color of Money”, where he heard the word “Doom”. He liked this word so much that it was decided to give the game this name.

4. To create textures for the game, objects from real life were used, which were run through a scanner. What the creators didn’t digitize. Even John Romero's snakeskin boots and artist Kevin Cloud's broken knee were included in the scanner (to create bloody textures).

But creating monsters was more difficult. First, they had to be drawn on paper, after which the artists sculpted clay miniatures from different angles. Well, then these same miniatures were photographed and transferred to a computer, where they were subjected to further processing.



But with some characters we had to tinker more. For example, when creating a model of a spider brain, latex and metal parts were used.



5. When the development team started creating the game, it turned out that the game was terribly slow on the computer they were using. This was a big problem.

Then Carmack sat down to write his own engine for the game with a system of binary partitioning of space. Thanks to this technology, only those surfaces that the player himself saw were drawn in each frame. Also, the engine provided a medium detail mode to speed up the game, advanced lighting, and even the presence of weight and momentum for the characters.



Also, thanks to the new engine, it was possible to create a multi-level effect. That is, the enemies could be standing somewhere above, but in fact they were located on the same plane as us. Therefore, even if we do not shoot at them, but lower than where they are located, we will still hit them.

Although, of course, it is worth noting that Carmack began creating his new engine for a completely different game, but in the end it was first tested on “Doom”. Well, after switching to the new engine, everything went like clockwork and the game no longer slowed down.

6. The first alpha version of the game that came out was not what we are used to seeing. Initially there was no character icon, and the weapon sprites were different.



Only a little later it was decided to introduce a character avatar (Doomguy), which would display damage, as in the case of the game "Wolfenstein 3D". But besides this, the protagonist’s face also performed another important function. Thanks to this face, we could know where they were shooting at us from, since it turned in exactly that direction.

7. By the way, a little about weapons. The creators thought about the weapon for a long time and came up with nothing better than using slightly modified children's toys from Toys R Us. But the chainsaw was created based on a real chainsaw that belonged to John Romero's girlfriend.



By the way, the plasma gun and the famous BFG were created based on the same children's toy. They just filmed it from different angles.

8. Initially, John Carmack wanted to make one big seamless world, but when the developers thought about how much memory it would all require, the idea was quickly abandoned. Therefore, it was decided to divide the game into levels.

9. According to the original idea, it was planned that the game would take place on a certain military base, but when this option was introduced into the first version of the game, the developers found it too boring and monotonous.



Alpha version of the game Doom

10. According to the plot, which was originally written by Tom Hall, the game should have featured as many as 4 heroes who were at a research station on the Moon. And it was at that moment that alien monsters burst into the station. But as I already said at the very beginning, this idea was rejected, and the plot was changed and reduced, as was the number of characters. And the Moon was replaced with Mars.



Another early version of Doom

As a result, realizing his uselessness and uselessness, as well as being offended by his colleagues, Tom Hall decided to leave the project. He was simply tired of all his developments being constantly rejected and changed at his own discretion.

11. Many people wondered what chainsaws were doing at a research station on Mars. And in the end, gamers still received an answer to this question, although only in the third part of the game.

In the game "Doom 3" from the PDA of one of the employees you can find out that instead of a shipment of jackhammers, a shipment of chainsaws was delivered to the base by mistake.

12. After the success of the Doom game, Bill Gates wanted to acquire ID software, but in the end the deal never materialized. True, an agreement was signed between ID Software and Microsoft to port the game Doom to Windows 95. It was after this that the Windows 95 system began to be presented not only as a work system, but also as a gaming one.



Bill Gates

By the way, the game was ported by Microsoft programmer Gabe Newell, who would later create the cult game Half-Life. It was after working on the porting that Newell decided to leave Microsoft and create his own company, Valve.

13. It was in the game "Doom" that the term "Frag" (number of killed) first appeared. And a little later it migrated to other games. And most gamers began to use this term everywhere thanks to the game "Counter strike".



14. Surprisingly, before the release of “Doom,” there was no such genre as “First-Person Shooter” (FPS), so before this term appeared, all subsequent games of the same type were called “Doom clones.”

15. Naturally, after the success of the game "Doom", the developers immediately thought about creating a sequel, and a year later the company "ID software" began publishing other doom-like games, such as "Heretic" and "Hexen" (although these are all games in the same series).

16. In the game "Doom 2", by the way, you can find a small Easter egg with the head of John Romero, which other developers shoved in secret from him. This location, however, could only be found using a cheat code for passing through the walls.



But John Romero himself found out about this and corrected the Easter egg, adding with the help of a sound the phrase ““To win, you must kill me, John Romero!”, turned backwards and adding demonic effects.

17. A few years ago, one of the creators of the game, Tom Hall, on his social networks confirmed the long-standing theory of gamers that the main character of the game "Doom" is a direct descendant of William Blaskowitz (the main character of the game "Wolfenstein 3D").



Did you like playing Doom?