A visit to id Software

Ever wondered what it was like at the office of id Software (Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake) back in the days? Ever wished you could go back in time and see what the guys were up to? Well, you can! In this video uploaded to Vimeo by John Romero himself, we get an exclusive behind-the-scenes peak at their office in Mesquite, Dallas, Texas, one day in November 1993. At the time, id Software were busy finishing up Doom, which shipped just a month later.

Romero writes:

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.

You can also watch this video on YouTube, here.

We Play Doom With John Romero

Here's some more John Romero goodness. In this one hour and thirty minutes long video, Ryan McCaffrey from IGN sits down with Romero for a co-op playthrough of Doom's original episode, "Knee-Deep in the Dead". Romero shares some interesting stories and secrets about its levels, and we get to learn some fun trivia about the game (for example, how to properly announce "gib"). This is a great video both for fans of the game, and for people interested in level design.

If you enjoy watching this video, make sure you also check out John Romero plays the first episode of Doom.

Doom post-mortem with John Romero and Tom Hall

Here's an hour long post-mortem video on Doom, which I find very interesting. This post-mortem was presented by creators John Romero and Tom Hall at GDC 2011 - the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, California.

You can also watch a slightly more interactive version of this video if you head over to the GDC Vault website. It won't let me embed the video, and I'm having some issues with their video player, so I prefer YouTube.

John Romero on Matt Chat

Matt Barton, host of the excellent Matt Chat show, did a lengthy interview with John Romero about five years ago. In this interview, Romero talks about how he got started programming games, the early days of id Software, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, and the troubled production of Daikatana.



And if you can't get enough, there's also a two-hour long UNEDITED version of the same interview. This version is audio only, and the YouTube video found below is accompanied by slides. You can download the original MP3 of this interview at the Armchair Arcade website.

John Romero plays the first episode of Doom

Let's kick off this blog with something that was uploaded on YouTube just recently!

John Romero (creator of Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake) sits down with BioShock level designer Jean-Paul LeBreton to play through the entire first episode of Doom, all while commenting on the level design.



UPDATE FEB 27:

And here's a bonus part, freshly uploaded less than a day ago, in which Romero checks out JP LeBreton's Doom remake of his BioShock level "Arcadia".