We Play Doom With John Romero
IGN2 HN recommenders · recommended in 2 months, 2016–2018
interview · general · evergreen · 2016–2018 on HN
IGN plays through the first episode of the original Doom with its creator John Romero providing commentary. Romero shares stories, design secrets and behind-the-scenes details about the levels, including E1M1.
HN commenters point to it as a fantastic developer commentary on how Doom's first episode was made.
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3 comments from Hacker News
Yeah, John Romero explains that the famous e1m1 was the last level he designed for the original Doom, in this fantastic developer commentary he did for the game's first episode with IGN, for the game's 20th anniversary: ▶ this video 'the classic horseshoe design' - show inaccessible teasers of later areas of the stage near the beginning to drive the player forward
The idea of a re-releasing a classic game with running commentary is interesting, but I can't imagine that there's much of an appeal for commentary during the gameplay. Conversely, I did enjoy watching "We Play Doom With John Romero" ▶ this video
All of the Daikatana and Ion Storm jokes aside, what Romero was able to achieve from a level-design perspective in 1993 with Doom, given that such an engine had never existed before, was pretty mind-boggling. I wish I had a chance to take game design classes with him now that he's a professor at my alma-mater (UC Santa Cruz), especially after seeing his walkthrough of Knee-Deep In The Dead on YouTube recently[0]. [0]: ▶ this video