John Romero’s enthusiasm is contagious: we agree that his main work, although he continues to devote himself to programming, is essentially to explain the ‘Doom‘. And it does it great. Romero is not only very aware of the essentials for the history of the piece he created with the rest of Software idbut he knows perfectly why, today, he is still the favorite video game of many fans. And he told us with hairs and signs in the Comic-with Malagawhere he came to explain what, in his opinion, the essential bases of the DNA of the FPS genre were.
The original ‘doom’ is considered today a technical feat for many reasons that Romero himself was in charge of getting ourselves meticulously, but from the first minute, he made it clear what in ID knew that he had to have the game to shine above his competitors and his venerable predecessors: an infernal speed. He tells us that “we needed to design new techniques to create light and dark in a 3D world. And how to do it with very high frame speeds, which was the biggest obstacle: try to do it very fast”
To get at that speed First they had to invent a new way of making 3D: “For a time ‘doom’ looked like what we had done in Wolfenstein 3D, because we mentally still there, doing things as they were done before us.” And how were things done before? “Wolfenstein’s walls were 90 degrees completely illuminated. But in ‘Doom’ there were stairs, dark corridors, immense open spaces, lots of monsters, and nobody had never seen anything like that before. We had no references. So we could only create, test, invent and try to improve it little by little.”
Everything points to amounts of demential work, and Romero confirms it: “And the speed was not everything. The sound, the multiplayer (‘doom’ was the first in high speed, and with different ways, cooperative and Deathmatch), allowing people to modify the game and change it. And, well, all these things happened in a single game. And on top of that we wanted to launch it for Christmas. “A real madness, but he does not doubt a second to remember that schedule and design it” was very fun. “
History matters
There is a very widespread topic, which is that ‘doom’ has no history, and indeed, the argument is of a minimum density, but That does not mean that he does not strive to convey an atmosphere and a narrative. “There was a general history,” Romero tells us, “for which we inspire ourselves in D&D. I always try to make games different from everything that players have experienced before: with ‘Wolfenstein 3D’, no one had faced Nazis like that. In the ‘Castle Wolfenstein’ ‘on which we rely, 11 years before, you had to camouflage yourself as Nazi. And if not, you were detained without the possibility of response. And we said: ‘Let’s put in this game a frontal confrontation with the Nazis’ “
And that philosophy translates into ‘doom’: “We could not have a science fiction game in which we only kill aliens, because that was what was expected. What could we do to be different? The idea of ’Doom’ emerged from the ‘Dungoons & Dragons’ campaign to which we had been playing for years and that ended because the demons multiplied they multiplied with everyone What existed.
And they adding elements to the mixture: “We were inspired by the movie ‘Aliens’ in the space marines and Fast action, that tension, suspense and terror of having so many things moving around youwanting to kill you. And then evil for black humor, shotgun, chainsaw and attitude. “Finally, it is time to ask for an impossible.
We ask Romero to make a total summary of ‘doom’, of his influence and impact. Why do we keep talking about the game decades later? “We can divide its influence into two branches: technical and cultural,” he says. “Technically, we boost the industry towards the 3D. When things have been successful for a long time, it is not easy to overcome them. And in the eighties, the lateral displacement games had been very popular and a lot of personalized hardware was created to manage this genre, such as the Super Nintendo or the friend.”
Thus, “Domestic computers and consoles wore incredible dedicated chips. A lot of work was invested in R&D to manufacture these things. And huge companies, multimillionaire companies, launched these things to the market. But we think: “We are going to go to 3D, people are tired.” But there were no graphics cards, so we had to try to make my best with what we had.
Technology at full speed
Another important technical aspect in ‘Doom’ is the integration of the multiplayer in the game: “Today the game that does not carry multiplayer is rare, but then the strange was incorporated. Our intention was not only to take it, but to integrate it into everything we had already created for the individual mode. We put that multiplayer mode during the last three months of the game development, when we thought” shit And we schedule it in a hurry.
And culturally, how did ‘doom’ mark the environment? Romero lists some details (“Heavy metal had never been heard in a commercial game”), but stays with two aspects that certainly changed everything definitively. On the one hand, ID launched instructions to freely modify the game, which generated a community around it: “We launched the game in 1993, and In 1997 we published all source codesyou could take the game and do everything you would like with him, without consulting us. Moreover, we get involved in the community and that helped it grow out of control. “
And that was from the same concept of the game: “We created it thinking that people could change the game at will, so that it was modifiable, and we published all the data explaining how to modify the levels and others. So, when creating the game, we automatically and immediately build a community in doing so open.” And then the game ceased to be id and became its genuine owners: the players.
The cultural impact does not end there: was the fact that ‘Doom’ was designed to function well in common computersinstead of forcing players to buy superordinate or specialized systems (and that is why it currently operates in virtually any system, however): “We did a really good 3D for the hardware that everyone had, which was very important, is that the computer you have? Well, it plays with that.”
And just when Romero became, as enthusiastic as in the rest of the interview, to talk about the revolution of the Sharewareand how the decision to give the game shook the industry making other studies in antique, they tell us that we must cut this interview that could have lasted hours and hours. He tells us that “it was a shared job. We said: ‘The best game in the world. Cogleo.’ ‘You can stay it, pass it to your friends.’ People had a hard time understanding that we were giving it to it. Meanwhile, all other companies did the following: ‘Look at the box, do you like screenshots? Buy the box’. And for us it was more like: ‘First play the game’.”
It is clear: The legend and The innovation of ‘Doom’ is unbeatableand that’s why we continue talking about him at this point. Long, long life to the best video game in history.
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings