Doom (1993 video game)
Doom (typeset as DOOM in official documents and stylized as DooM in other media) is a 1993 first-person shooter (FPS) video game by id Software. It is considered one of the most significant and influential titles in video game history, for having helped to pioneer the now-ubiquitous first-person shooter. The original game was divided into three nine-level episodes and was distributed via shareware and mail order. The Ultimate Doom, an updated release of the original game featuring a fourth episode, was released in 1995 and sold at retail.
Development of Doom
Hall was upset with the reception to his designs and how little impact he was having as the lead designer; Romero has since claimed that Hall was also still uninterested in the "Doom" concept at all. Hall was also upset with how much he was having to fight with John Carmack in order to get what he saw as obvious gameplay improvements, such as flying enemies. He began to spend less time working in the office, and in response John Carmack proposed that he be fired from id. Romero initially resisted, as it would mean that Hall would not receive any proceeds from the game, but in July he and the other founders of id fired Hall, who went to work for Apogee. Hall was replaced in September, ten weeks before the game was released, by game designer Sandy Petersen, despite misgivings over his relative high age of 37 compared to the other early-20s employees and his religious background. The team also added a third programmer, Dave Taylor. Petersen and Romero designed the rest of the levels for "Doom", with different aims: the team felt that Petersen's designs were more technically interesting and varied, while Romero's were more aesthetically interesting. Romero's level design process was to build a level or part of a level, starting at the beginning, then play through it and iterate on the design, so that by the time he was satisfied with the flow and playability of the level he had played it "a thousand times". The first level of the game, made by Romero, was the last one created, intended to show off the new elements of the game engine. The ending screen of each level, like in "Wolfenstein 3D", displays a "par time" for the level, as set by Romero.