#159

[@JJBACS]

Great interview. The Bleemcast MGS bug story was enlightening.

[@john2001plus]

1:14:31 I am grateful that Randy keeps bringing up my name in these interviews. My role was minor since I worked on many projects. I don't specifically remember editing levels, but it was so long ago that I don't recall. I know that we were trying to reduce the size of the game to fit on a cartridge. I believe that I was involved in massaging the data, which is something I did on multiple games, especially Dirt Trax FX.

[@randallinden]

Hey John! It's been forever since we've worked together -- I'm glad to see that you're still around! Please do stay in touch!

[@john2001plus]

​@@randallinden I retired after working for a major military contractor.

[@FalcoGirgis]

I grew up looking up to Randy and am now a 35 year-old computer engineer who still looks up to Randy. lol.

[@lancebaylis3169]

The PS, Jag and Saturn versions made some edits to the levels -- but I've always respected that the Super Nintendo version replicated the PC version as closely as possible. In some ways, astonishingly, it's actually the most accurate of the console ports. I think there's like 22 out of 27 levels included, with minimal alterations from the PC version in terms of design, and *all* of the enemies, power-ups, Bobby Prince's original music score, etc. It's a monumental achievement, and one that not even the more technically advanced systems managed. Randy and the team definitely should be proud of what they accomplished.

[@KIWITALKZ]

FUN FACT: As Randy has done a lot of interviews, I tried to approach doing this interview as an intricate puzzle to solve so we werent treading the same ground. Thanks to the community for all your questions! Some of them I was able to weave into the interview. TIMESTAMPS 00:00 - Intro 00:40 - Being In The Industry For Over 40 Years 01:57 - Randy’s Thoughts On Zelda: Breath Of The Wild & Super Mario Odyssey 06:03 - Randy’s Standout Moment In Zelda: Breath Of The Wild 07:25 - Honing In On The Programming Aspect of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild & Super Mario Odyssey 09:50 - Zelda Inspired Randy To Improve On His Programming Skills/Writing A Program 11:34 - Why The Rocket Launcher Is More Powerful In DOOM SNES/Reverse Engineering 15:25 - Why Monster Infighting Isn’t In DOOM SNES 18:08 - Why Monsters Don’t Respawn In Nightmare Mode/Monster Speed In Nightmare/SNES Violent Games 21:59 - Guessing The AI For The Monsters/Tight Deadline For DOOM SNES 25:14 - Being In The Zone Creatively/Crunch For DOOM SNES/Managing Time Effectively 34:16 - How Randy Balances Quality Vs Quantity In Programming 36:50 - Story Of Metal Gear Solid Bug On Dreamcast 42:45 - Randy’s Terrible Diet While Working 44:26 - How To Get In The Zone 45:30 - List Of Programming Priorities/Priority On DOOM SNES 49:11 - How The Quake GBA Prototype Came About 51:21 - The Hardest & Most Misunderstood Thing About Programming 56:50 - Game Development Roles These Days Are More Specialized/AAA Development 1:01:00 - Cost Of Games 1:05:18 - Gaming Has More Value For Money Than Film/Game Studios Lay Offs 1:08:35 - Its Harder For Game Studios To Be Successful Today Than It Was In The Past 1:11:05 - Incremental Hardware Increases 1:12:06 - Sandy Peterson Never Worked On DOOM SNES 1:14:31 - E2M2 In DOOM SNES/John Coffey Level Edits That Got Rejected By ID Software/Metallic Grates 1:17:45 - Where To Follow Randy Linden/Jurassic Park

[@ronalds9478]

I still remember me, my brother, and a friend of ours playing this all the time as our first taste of Doom. The fact that it was low res and missing things didn't even register to us as this was the mid 90s and none of us had a PC, and even if we knew someone who did, it was too slow to run PC Doom. It was great considering the hardware and did it well enough that we started to play the 32X version at a kiosk in the area and basically took that over for hours, then, got a PS1 when it first came out and got Ultimate Doom on it. Our friend got a PS1 a few months later and we did co-op by linking the consoles together with the link cable. PC Doom is the best, but when this was current, things were very different than they are now for most people and the PC didn't become mainstream until the late 90s with the cheaper $999 e-machnies and others like that. Randy did some voodoo magic to get his port as good as it was on the SNES!

[@PigDan]

Love this interview here, Randy seems like a cool guy.. I've definitely listened to interviews with him before (I think it was The Retro Hour Podcast)! Good one I'd love to hear him return to talk about more of the other projects in-depth, especially Game Boy Advance content because it's a particular favorite system of mine!

[@Fuuntag]

Always a treat to see Randy go on about anything, especially his buckwild accomplishments. ❤

[@DigitalMoonlight]

To address the question as to why there's price parity with physical, that's down to retailers flexing what muscle they have left while they have it. If you want any shelf space let alone prominent shelf space you need to play ball with them. They don't have the stranglehold that they used to but they still have a few levers to pull as they fade from importance.

[@Oni64]

Hell Yeah 🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@Sentarry]

41:00 omg just 1 polygon!?!

[@WiLLiW_oficial]

this guy is a real snes god

[@towel9245]

Him saying that one of a programmer's most important skills is discipline had apt timing, with me playing a game instead of working at the same time 😅. I'll get back to it.

[@Dimon12321]

Yeah, this happens to all of us =(

[@starwindamada5313]

Guys. Guess what's coming out in 2025

[@PauLtus_B]

How damn expensive are movie tickets where you live?

[@KIWITALKZ]

really expensive $20- 30 minimum now. Drinks and popcorn is another $20

[@PauLtus_B]

@@KIWITALKZ In that case I agree with you. I never buy snacks in the cinema anyway, but even with all that I think the most expensive ticket for a single movie would be (the equivalent of) 15 dollars for an IMAX screening, and that would've included reusable 3D glasses. I went to a week long film festival last month and that was about 100 dollars.

[@KIWITALKZ]

@@PauLtus_B wow that is cheap! Video Games here cost about $90 for Nintendo games everything else is relatively cheap, you can get 3rd party games for $20-60 usually

[@PauLtus_B]

@@KIWITALKZ Silly me didn't consider that you're talking about NZD, not USD. So make that most expensive movie ticket 25, and the film festival 180 (which is still cheap in my opinion). In that case it really depends. I do think there's value in seeing a movie on the big screen, and that's what you're mostly paying for with a movie ticket. It's hard to measure how much value a game is. With movies it tends to be pretty straightforwards as they're all pretty much the same length but with games there's ones that are 5 hours and there are some that are 150. It might seem obvious that 150 hour one has more value but besides a game being worth your money it doesn't mean it's worth your time. While I don't mind long games I have no patience for games where I have to wait for it to get good (same can be said for movies but they just don't get that long). There's a lot of games, RPG's especially, where I just can't be bothered to start because the game I actually want to play is locked behind hours of other stuff.