Development of Doom
The development of "Doom", a first-person shooter video game by id Software, began in November 1992 and continued until the game was released in December 1993. Seven people worked on "Doom", which is considered one of the most significant and influential titles in video game history. The initial development team was programmers John Carmack and John Romero, artists Adrian Carmack and Kevin Cloud, and designer Tom Hall; late in development Hall was replaced by Sandy Petersen and programmer Dave Taylor was added to the team. The music and sound effects were created by Bobby Prince.
Doom (1993 video game)
Early in development, rifts in the team began to appear. At the end of November Hall delivered a design document, which he named the "Doom Bible", that described the plot, backstory, and design goals for the project. His design was a science fiction horror concept wherein scientists on the Moon open a portal that aliens emerge from. Over a series of levels the player discovers that the aliens are demons while hell steadily infects the level design over the course of the game. John Carmack not only disliked the idea but dismissed the idea of having a story at all: "Story in a game is like story in a porn movie; it's expected to be there, but it's not that important." Rather than a deep story, he wanted to focus on the technological innovations of the game, dropping the levels and episodes of "Wolfenstein" in favor of a fast, continuous world. Tom disliked the idea, but the rest of the team sided with Carmack. Hall spent the next few weeks reworking the "Doom Bible" to work with Carmack's technological ideas. Hall was forced to rework it again in December, however, after the team decided that they were unable to create a single, seamless world with the hardware limitations of the time, which contradicted much of the document.