Scott Miller and George Broussard were their friends, but they realised that Apogee was starting to hold them back. Plus Apogee’s ordering system was a disorganised mess, with orders written on scraps of paper rather than typed directly into a computer system.
Word from Shawn Green at Apogee was that too many staff there were slacking off and playing games when they should be taking orders, and some people were having trouble getting through to buy the game over the phone. They’d done great out of their relationship with Apogee, but some members of the team wanted id to pull away from the shareware giant and go solo. This time it could be called DOOM.įirst they had demons to exorcise internally. This time it could be about fighting demons in space. Briefly they considered a proposal from 20th Century Fox to do a licensed Aliens shooter, but they didn’t like the idea of giving up their creative independence, so they considered how they could follow up Wolfenstein 3D with something new.
Everyone but Tom Hall suddenly got excited about doing another shooter, which meant Carmack would have to optimise the hell out of his engine to restore that sense of speed. At least not until they saw it in action. It ran at half the speed of Wolfenstein 3D’s engine, but they were thinking about doing a 3D Keen game next – so that wouldn’t matter. And it had variable-height rooms, allowing for elevated platforms where projectile-throwing enemies could hang out, and most exciting of all it allowed for non-orthogonal walls – which meant that rooms could be odd-shaped, with walls jutting out at any arbitrary angle from each other, rather than the traditional rectangular boxed design that had defined first-person-perspective games up until then. It supported diminished lighting, which meant things far away could recede into the shadows, disappearing into the distance. This one had texture-mapped floors and ceilings – not just walls. By the time Wolfenstein 3D’s commercial prequel Spear of Destiny hit retail shelves, Carmack had already built a new engine. And at the centre of that drive was a push for ever-better technology. But all they wanted was to beat the last game – to outdo both themselves and everyone else. Commander Keen had given them their freedom, and Wolfenstein 3D’s mega-success had earned them the financial cushion to do anything. It seemed there was no stopping id Software.
(The remainder delves into what Epic MegaGames did in the aftermath of DOOM's release.) This is an excerpt from Shareware Heroes Chapter 11, DOOM, covering pages 203-212, which amounts to around half of the chapter.
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