DOOM Post-Mortem (John Romero & Tom Hall at GDC 2011)

Legendary game-developers John Romero and Tom Hall perform a post-mortem on DOOM (1993) at GDC 2011. They talk about the development of this classic FPS and you get to see a lot of pre-alpha and beta footage from the game.
This is the whole post-mortem in one video, so sit back and get out the popcorn!
Original source: www.gdcvault.com/play/1014627/...
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Twitter: / tehburningfish
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[@lewisveasey1674]

To win the game you must kill me, John Romero.

[@spatulasnout]

.oremoR nhoJ ,em llik tsum uoy emag eht niw oT

[@anonamatron]

+Lewis Veasey No, you're Lewis Veasey

[@KentuckyFriedJohansson]

Nope, definately you.

[@anonamatron]

KF-Johansson Says the person that definitely doesn't know how to spell definitely. This is the type of person that can't look beyond the surface of a statement and figure out the meaning. It's really not very hard here.

[@anonamatron]

KF-Johansson You're a pretty literal person, aren't you? You need to learn inference.

[@RMJ1984]

Over the last few days, after the 20th year anniversary of Doom from IGN playthrough 1hour and 30min with John Romero, then watching a few other videos and now this. I think ive listenede to almost 5 hours of John Romero. Its actually be amazing all the awesome stuff he has to say, and he very relaxed and still good at keeping people's attention, or at least my attention. Seems like a really smart and awesome guy.

[@FeelingShred]

he should have a weekly podcast or something like that, 30 minutes, don't need to be 3 hours

[@cg28270]

This was great. For anyone who is interested the book "The Masters of Doom" is great. John Carmack and John Romero were genius.

[@casedistorted]

Would be amazing to see what the two John’s could accomplish together again. Really seems like they had a big falling out because I’ve never seen them together again

[@joeshmoedoeshoe]

@@casedistorted John Carmack was perfectionist programmer, gamer and artist. John Romero was perfectionist artist, gamer and programmer. In that order. Bigger the project, harder for them to coexist I think. When you have budget and deadlines, technical perfection must be priority, while the artistic perfection importance diminish. I have the luck to exchange few messages with John Romero, extremly cool guy, totally down to Earth. I've asked about him and Carmack doing something together, and he wasn't much excited. And John Carmack never "opened the book" about such collaboration, so I think he wouldn't be excited either.

[@KFlorent13]

Yup reading the Masters of Doom right now. I am here because I am sad Tom Hall got fired.

[@gfanikf]

@@KFlorent13 honestly part of the reason I’m watching this is because I always wondered if Tom Hall had any relationship with the former ID guys or if it was all just too bad or painful for him...not that Tom Hall has had a horrible life after he left (that stroke notwithstanding).

[@MrBenMcLean]

They should give Commander Keen back to Tom Hall! Make more Keen games!!

[@SeekerLancer]

It's interesting when they talk about Tom wanting more features and the others wanting to optimize the game for speedy, arcadey play since Tom decided to go and make Rise of the Triad which is loaded with random, sometimes nonsensical, features.

[@artificialexistence2965]

+Christopher Blair Goes to show that sometimes you need second opinions and other peoples input. :P RoTT seems decent enough though. Never played it myself.

[@SeekerLancer]

Artificial Existence RoTT isn't a bad game but it's a bit much. Some of the levels are massive and confusing and there's just so much stuff going on. It's a really interesting and over-the-top game but I think it's for the best Doom kept it simple. Tom Hall has a fantastic imagination and he wanted to work on more whimsical projects like Keen while ID shifted more towards darker stuff and the technology itself. Carmack was never a big fan of story in video games and Romero was all about metal and action.

[@456ironmaiden]

+Artificial Existence Rott was a decent shooter but it was just decent. I've never played the reboot but I've heard it wasn't good. The reboot of shadow warrior is really good and so is the original game. One whole unit blood is also a good game.

[@Xegethra]

I think sometimes about what doom would have been like. What if Tom went back to Doom and changed it into what he thought it should have been? These days it is easier to create your own games essentially with the engine, so I wonder what it would be like if some of the elements he wanted made it in. Some of his ideas sound cool, others not so but I like to think about it.

[@OpenMawProductions]

Doom would have been far less acessible to general gamers. It was designed to be a semi open world where you moved back and forth from levels to open up new passages and continue. You had multiple playable characters (the gyst of that can be seen in ROTT) There was a project in the works called "Doom : Evil Unleashed" which aimed to recreate the first chunk of the Doom bible in Doom. Including the rail cars, the final boss battle, the playable characters, and reworked all the unfinished prototype maps to represent what Hall intended.

[@roolaing]

Before you judge Tom for being an awkward nerd (aren't we all?), go skip to 37:00 and hear what he wanted. In any company, you need people who push back. Tom did a lot of work on Doom. Wrote Commander Keen, and has a very healing understanding concerning creative happiness. ROTT and Anachronox are both awesome. How many people can say they were key members of Id, Apogee, 3d Realms and ion storm? Man deserves some respect. Thank God for nerds.

[@MrGencyExit64]

As someone who has worked on old raycasting graphics engines the discussion of recursion while traversing sectors made me laugh. BSP trees are such an elegant solution that we take for granted, and it is hard to imagine that Carmack could have overlooked this had it not been for some very primitive non-orthogonal wall angles in an early map. This game would be a very different experience if everything had to be at right-angles ;)

[@Xeranxies]

I had some fucking awesome times with Doom growing up, it's one of the reasons why I started to mod it just for fun.

[@keithlarsen7557]

Right in my hood. Driven by and seen the sign for ID software. 30/70 tempted to go up in there and be all like WOW to a bunch of guys working.

[@PinchySkree]

45:10 that map design image, so strong.

[@linushyper300]

I find myself coming back to this video over and over again over the time. I can listen to John and Tim talk forever.

[@rockBRUNO6]

Man i love DOOM , this video is like a masterpiece for me

[@Yellowswift3]

Thanks for the upload. :)

[@MusicByproduct]

I was delighted by the little Beavis & Butthead -esque moment at 30:05 :D (No seriously, really interesting talk overall, thanks!)

[@MichaelW1980randoms]

Seeing Mods and Maps released to this day, I think, they were a tiny bit early for a post mortem on DOOM.

[@wreagfe]

Why am I watching this for the nth time?

[@dtewffg43]

for the same reason i do

[@SirRandom]

Because it reminds us of a time when the magic was real

[@i-heart-google7132]

omg Tom Hall is such an awkward speaker...

[@alanmay6401]

Doom kicks ass. Still my favorite game to this day. Unfortunately, the comments section here clearly demonstrates that people are dicks.

[@losalfajoresok]

this is awesome, thx!!

[@ClassicPCGaming]

And now this was 7 years ago...almost time for a 25 year post mortem

[@iLikeTheUDK]

45:34 *BANG* (cue dark synth bass drones)... This was probably a happy accident that it synched with the start of the footage, but it's awesome.

[@HailAnts]

The story I always read was that iD was originally going to make it an _Aliens_ game but then Fox wouldn’t give them the license for it, so they changed it to Hell demons. Strange that the opposite was true..

[@calabiyou]

Wow, Prey is one of my favorite games.

[@metsfano44]

I like the music they had with it in '93. Also the sky looked very eerie.

[@Thunder11110]

more people need to see this video

[@casedistorted]

So cute seeing Tom and Romero talk and bicker. Probably were good friends and teammates back in the hay day of ID Software before Carmack kind of took over Also shoutout to Bucky and the University of Wisconsin. I grew up in Madison, WI since 1990 and still live here in 2020 so I was around when these guys were here releasing Wolfenstein 3d and Doom. I was way too young to be playing those games but I did and I loved them.

[@CrysisFear]

This video makes me want to play Doom right now.

[@Yapostadodat]

Without these guys we would just be playing prettier side scrollers in 2016. Doom FAQ was also revolutionary in transitioning internet information from bulletin board system techies to average pc users on their first dial up modems. Great post, thanks.

[@AlexOjideagu2]

if these guys didn't exist other people would have done it. Did you know two people invented the telephone completely independentantly?

[@Yapostadodat]

I'm sorry but that's like saying "If Michelangelo didn't paint the Sistine Chapel somebody else would have." I don't want to live in that world.

[@AlexOjideagu2]

+Yapostadodat Have you seen what was already in arcades when Doom was made? Look up XYBOTS from 1987, a third person shooter. Ridge Racer, Virtua Racing, Virtua Fighter all from 1992-1993. We would have had tons of 3D games even if ID never existed. You make out like ID invented the wheel, they didn't.

[@AlexOjideagu2]

+Yapostadodat Have you seen what was already in arcades when Doom was made? Look up XYBOTS from 1987, a third person shooter. There was also Space Gun from 1990 (although it was on rails). ID did not invent the wheel. We would not have been just playing side scrollers.

[@Yapostadodat]

+ojideagu I just checked out some gameplay of XYBOTS and it's 3rd person using the same effect SNES Contra used for it's 3d effect levels. I did not know about that game and I'm sure there are others before Doom, but I will not back down on the unique quality and skill that went into this game and the perfect time it was released with the dawn of the net.

[@agameoftheories3588]

E1M7 is my favorite map!

[@GameIntrosFinales]

I'm glad to have witnessed the release of Doom, Quake, Duke, Unreal, Half-Life etc. back in the day. Those were great times as a teenager. Perhaps teenagers today experience the same with other games like COD or Battlefield. But these old games laid the technological and design foundations for all following shooters, it was so exciting. Big graphic leaps in a short time, boosted by the introduction of 3D cards like 3DFX Voodoo or Riva TNT. I think since Crysis from 2007 the graphics have not evolved enormously in the last fifteen years, compared to the leaps from Wolfenstein to Quake, or from Unreal 2 to Far Cry, or from Far Cry to Crysis. The effort to create assets is much higher today, programming is becoming more and more complex, there have to be more and more features to be implemented, more and more competition, higher production costs, but on the other hand: you have easy to use engines like Unreal or Unity. Anyway: thanks for the memories!

[@Killerbrew]

8:37 lol @ Carmacs world vision

[@AustinDallasPictures]

I actually like the black sky and the mountains, very ominous and alienating.

[@billphil8333]

I think the lockers should've been added and everything

[@liamvg]

Where are those clay models today? ...

[@npc_blob1609]

Wooh! I love this. Is it weird that I play/map for Doom and I'm 13? I love Tom's wince-inducing joke in the opening seconds of the video, but they're still geniuses and this is still gold.

[@roylandmcsausage7460]

it's fine mate I'm 15 and I create maps for doom and quake and I also play doom and quake

[@Xegethra]

I was 5 when Doom originally came out, love it then, still love it now.

[@olzhas1one755]

Kapanyo shite! im 13 too and i play and map for doom too!

[@jobelthirty1294]

I'm 17, loved doom since I was eight. Mapping is something I wanna get into, and I play a shitton of Doom.

[@majamystic256]

i first played doom when i was 11 back in 2007 (the game Doom was 14 years old at that time)... im 22 and i still play doom (and doom is 25 years old now)

[@danielszulc9574]

Where are Carmack's I hoped to see entire team :P

[@Kizoky.]

Was hoping to see some Doom II Beta screenshots..

[@Kizoky.]

Romero released some early-beta D2 levels, so D2 beta may had some interesting stuff we hadn't seen before. Also, there are many more beta stuff we still haven't seen yet, but Romero has it.

[@tiny3755]

Wait..they did another talk right after this? NEED.

[@mattgoo]

man...tom.

[@YourPlanetHere]

Doom lovers - Highly recommend J-Doom, it's a mod tool/program that allows you full 360 aiming like Quake and other cool tools. I'd completed Doom, Doom 2, Ultimate Doom and Master Levels so many times that I wanted a fresh take on it and J-Doom was perfect for that.

[@Bark777]

Just play Brutal Doom or Project Brutality.

[@jobelthirty1294]

Brutality mods are overrated. Play what you want, and don't listen to anyone.

[@windowlicker1]

cool video.

[@BARULICK]

Oh, so this is how the game development was looking like in an ancient time!

[@danielgallant9794]

You have a short perception of time.

[@nathanblades3395]

BARULICK no it used to be all text no graphics :-)

[@tschak909]

I loved editing levels. Started with DEU, then DoomCad, and later LITERALLY bought a copy of NeXTSTEP to run DoomEd (which was a fantastic editor, complete even with rudimentary preview, which was amazing).

[@johnhammer8668]

50:10 I don't get what the bug is exactly. Can someone describe in detail what this bug is or point to a link if its been discussed already .Thanks

[@HarryJeffery]

As I understand it: To track time, they setup a hardware timer that'd call some counter logic many times per second. The counter logic would add one to a counter, and then each frame they could determine how much time had passed by checking how much that counter had increased. However, they weren't setting the counter to 0 at the start, so it would contain some random value. The bug was that if the initial value was close to the maximum possible value of the counter, quite soon it would wrap back around to 0 and break the time tracking logic, so the game would get stuck thinking no time had passed, locking the game. To fix this, they just ensured the counter started at 0.

[@TheUnTrustable0]

Cool

[@TheDarkstar64]

Level 10 of Doom 2 was designed by Tom Hall originally? I never knew that, that's one of my favorite maps!

[@nanicoar]

Cool story bro. :)

[@8G00SE8]

$11,000 is about $23,400 adjusted for inflation, pretty expensive NeXT computer.

[@CaudaMiller]

tom didnt like dooms path so he left and made ROTT... well thats a laugh

[@fuzzy8889]

rott is pretty good

[@DaraG-sn2nj]

He also made Anachronox while George Romero made Daikatana.

[@CaudaMiller]

@@fuzzy8889 wolfendoom clone XD

[@harrytaller9403]

good sense of accomplishment 8:05

[@georgesiv2082]

interresting, some of these alphas never leaked

[@wreagfe]

+Georges IV In a company of 4 that seems pretty reasonable (even considering testers in later stages).

[@georgesiv2082]

+wreagfe the one shown at 21:55, the shareware version I have used the screenshot of this alpha

[@YourPlanetHere]

I never really played MP/Deathmatch so playing J-Doom is more about replayability. I'll check that out though

[@BdR76]

Very interesting stories here, thanks for uploading. :) However at 26:12 he says they ported Wolfenstein to SNES in about 3 weeks in march 1993. I get that iD was a stellar development team at that point, but still 3 weeks seems a little incredible and exaggerated. I mean compared to Apple or DOS the video hardware of the SNES is completely different (sprites and mode7 chip), different CPU, a different (proprietary?) SNES development kit etc. Also the SNES game shipped almost a year later (source: MobyGames), so I suspect they left something out of that anekdote for dramatic effect.

[@Daehawk]

+BdR76 Hehe I actually rented Wolf on SNES and hated it. I knew I was going to hate FPS....how wrong I was. The next year I got a PC and it came with the shareware copy of DOOM. FPS and RPG are still my top genres .

[@spergferguson2602]

+BdR76 Actually, if you read the book "Masters of Doom", it explains in detail how these guys could come up with new games for SoftDisk from scratch in about a month or 2. That was just Tom Hall, Romero and Carmack. At this point, they also had adrian on the team. I could realistically see 4 of these brilliant programmers working non-stop on little sleep to get a project pushed out, since that was literally what they did for a living at SoftDisk.

[@Atom42]

6:16 Dungeon Masters

[@sagesmith1076]

Wait doom was origanly open world had multi charters with stats and had treasures and a bunch of other stuff I wonder what it would be like if that was what was released

[@greebj]

Probably rubbish and unmemorable. Doom hit the sweet spot of being fundamentally simple yet never boring.

[@cd2220]

Daikatana

[@JacketBarnes]

Get Zandronum if you don't have it.

[@gt500lette]

Isnt Spear of Destiny just the expansion to Wolfenstein 3D?

[@coyran]

It was a standalone prequel I think. I believe it ends with BJ taking on Satan, I can't recall exactly as its been a while.

[@planetX15]

coyran Angel Of Death.

[@Solaar_Punk]

Yes, it was like Doom 2 to Doom1. More monsters but same kind of code etc

[@mauricioal.]

or chocolate doom, for the clser to clasic experience

[@Mr-Mania]

they're using the 3do soundtrack tf

[@ermin6327]

seems like tom was trouble to work with, leaving studios left and right to "get his creative juices out". when you work with a team you have to make compromises.

[@ZatohRondohoon3227]

What? Post Mortem? As In 'Killing' The Game?

[@davidsirmons]

+Zatoh Rondohoon Post Mortem refers to determining what happened at the end of a given thing's life, or in the case of games, its development cycle. :)

[@ZatohRondohoon3227]

davidsirmons Thanks! :)

[@davidsirmons]

11k for a damn computer. Good lord that's unbelievable.

[@KillPixel]

19:46 I lol'd

[@feddyvonwigglestein3481]

How is this a post-mortem? I wasn't aware Doom ever died. Recent developments, including 2 new levels made by Romero in 2016 and Sigil coming out this February further reinforce how alive it really is.

[@eggsbox]

in the context of GDCs, a post-mortem is an analysis of a game's development, which is why q&a begins after the upload of the game to the UW servers.

[@furqueue9590]

How many speeches can John Romero do about his time making Doom? It seems to be his main job

[@aimeelove8548]

john reminds me of the kid next door I had a crush on back in the day after his mom and dad got a divorce

[@nathanblades3395]

i was 21 doing retail data base programming when doom came out first multiplayer fps i ever played LoL

[@Goldeneye007Masters]

The sound was so quiet I couldn't watch it.

[@OmegaEnvych]

and change audio settings to PC Speaker. If you have actual PC-Speaker in your PC, that will be only better =). And get some old 15' CRT monitor for MAXIMUM nostalgia!

[@DaraG-sn2nj]

I wish they allowed Tom to add his story to Doom 1. ID removed the story because of Carmack stupid philosophy of "Story in video games is like story in porn movies."

[@Matte.u.k]

hmm

[@LeoValen9]

John talks: awesome. Tom talks: fast forward.

[@burrri]

you realise tom was the big guy when creating the game rite

[@LeoValen9]

+burrri Yes. He is also a very boring and awkward speaker who brings nothing to this presentation. Fast forward.

[@burrri]

+Leo_V oh well. they are like 45 now. give them some understanding lol

[@MrDerOutsider]

+Leo_V shut the fuck up i am related to him

[@Xegethra]

He is awkward as Hell but I don't think he is boring. He offers his perspective and with it you see more why things are the way they are. He is an awkward nerd so what? His input was still in the game to some extent and without it, the game would be different and so may not have been so well received, you don't really know. Credit where credit is due, give the guy a chance. I like Romero too, very good guy but it's not like he is mind blowingly cool in this video either. They are just talking.....

[@mrJoshSullivan]

Can Tom be quiet for like 2 seconds so John can speak?

[@SvenS2]

Nothing against Tom, but I kinda wish John did this solo.

[@MR_FIAT]

i prefer zandronum which has a active multiplayer base.

[@danoz25]

Tom Hall's attempts at humor are cringe-worthy

[@pandafresh]

he reminds me of like your high school English teacher, trying to be "hip" and "fun"

[@calabiyou]

Hey, he's just an aged hip kid. Think 20 something internet world savvy hipster (with or without nose rings, blue hair. Commenting on youtube celebrities, pop culture and anime) plus 15 years. That shit ages like unrefrigerated bread.

[@DerickVonD]

Tom Hall is a neo-feminist douchebag.

[@Mercuiro89]

***** +danoz25 That would explain his clumsiness... He almost died and even with the best care he may remain with sequelae for the rest of his life. The fact that he is alive is quite a luck. Do not joke with this kind of stuff this is serious business!

[@LittleRainGames]

Wooten and what the fuck are you?

[@Tata-Jooma]

I wish they would have gone without the powerpoint slideshow.

[@Tata-Jooma]

And possibly Tom Hall.

[@jim0_o]

Tata-Jooma I think he really brought the personal touch to the history lesson here.

[@ifeelawfulfalafel7915]

:S Ummm BLAH! no thanks I like the DOOM64 version best Idk I mean k it's nice doom started there but to me for me.. the 64 version had the best lighting ect had it all he sounds the visual. It really pulled you into this characters shoes and you felt like you were there. For me... anyway.. maybe not you but hey that's too bad. If you don't like it oh well that sucks for you.

[@akalyx]

tom sounds kinda insufferable, i don't blame carmack for firing him

[@Johnnysynth]

This is very historically cool but Tom Hall IS NOT as funny as he thinks.

[@Lofote]

Johnnysynth Neither is Romero.

[@drkinferno72]

+Lofote Daitkatana lol

[@joshmiller2979]

Game developers are generally not known for being socially-accepted comedians.

[@Lofote]

Josh Miller I know some cool ones :)

[@ytGamerNova]

fuck it, cod is still a doom clone

[@ikagura]

CoD is more like a Medal of Honor clone

[@TomLehockySVK]

Play Brutal Doom ;-)

[@fusiongamesstudios]

1 person is a zombieman

[@DerickVonD]

I have all the respect in the world for the original Doom creators, except for Tom Hall.

[@Mercuiro89]

DerickVonD why?

[@DerickVonD]

Because he likes Anita Sarkisian(However you spell her name).

[@thewretchedexcess3203]

+DerickVonD LMAO

[@jabonly009]

the best game