[HN Gopher] John Romero on his book "Doom Guy" and developing ga... ___________________________________________________________________ John Romero on his book "Doom Guy" and developing games at a small scale Author : riidom Score : 35 points Date : 2023-09-25 19:50 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (howtomarketagame.com) (TXT) w3m dump (howtomarketagame.com) | bitwize wrote: | I was just thinking about Romero. I was watching the "Wha | Happun?" episode about the System Shock remake, and I realized... | back in the day we made fun of Romero for his mismanagement of | the Daikatana kerfuffle: schedule slip after schedule slip, | changing engines twice, the staff quitting and needing to almost | be completely replaced, it's no wonder the game turned out crap. | But so many of today's games have most or all of these problems. | System Shock (2023) changed engines, had massive staff churn, and | considerable schedule slips (taking seven years to Daikatana's | four), especially when COVID-19 hit. But by paring back the | ambition and focusing on delivering an experience faithful to the | original, they got it out the door despite doubts from the fan | base and it was a hit. So today, some games do turn out good | despite mouldering in development hell for the better part of a | decade. Of course you still get your fair share of buggy messes | (which may be rehabilitated with a post-release patch) and | complete misses like Mighty No. 9. | | So it seems like maybe we've hit a complexity threshold beyond | which it stretches human feasibility to turn out a good to great | AAA game within a reasonable time frame. And maybe Romero was | just one of the first people to "go big" with Daikatana, and he | hit that threshold before everyone else. His ambition (and ego) | exceeded his actual reach, but... few if any had attempted such a | large scale project before, aspiring to reinvent the FPS and add | RPG and story elements to it. Granted, Half-Life made everybody | else look like chumps when it came to embedding story into an FPS | -- but Daikatana was announced long before Half-Life congealed. | | The man deserves full credit for learning from his most famous | boondoggle, and focusing on smaller games rather than epic genre- | busters that he doesn't quite have the ability to manage the | development of. | gabereiser wrote: | I still prefer smaller games or games by smaller dev teams. Don't | get me wrong, AAA titles are fun but it's like going to the | movies, it's predictable - it's consistent - and it's mindless. | | My biggest gripe is that these smaller, "starter" games usually | don't get much play. Everyone wants to immerse in a loading | screen space sim but can't stand well-painted pixel sprites? | Crazy. | | There's still hope. Hit games are hits not because of just their | art but because of their play. Fez, for example, had pretty | mediocre art. What it did have is an awesome 2.5D world. Doom, at | the time, had great art. It hasn't aged well. However, the level | design, textures, and concepts, and play are still fantastic. | | My only advice is if you want to make games, start making games. | Who cares what your avatar looks like. Make it fun. @ works just | fine. | | Also, Commander Keen art splashes were top notch. The only thing | missing was pro dithering. | Minor49er wrote: | If you haven't played it yet, you would probably love Prodeus. | It's basically a modernization of the Doom/Quake formula, but | with satisfying pseudo-retro graphics and really thoughtful | level design. It's also made by two people (I think three | technically, but the site lists two) who have worked on AAA | titles like Doom 2016, the new Wolfenstein, and Bioshock: | Infinite | | Prodeus also has a shotgun that can snipe enemies at far | distances with a long range incendiary mode | | https://www.prodeusgame.com/ | brezelgoring wrote: | >Fez, for example, had pretty mediocre art. | | Are you in the camp that says the creator was an insufferable | man that did a lot of damage to the credibility and likeability | of indie developers for years to come? | | I remember reading about that a while ago and it wasn't until | the last 5 or so years that indies got back into magazine | covers and such. | tiptup300 wrote: | Hard disagree, the only people who know of him probably | respect indie game developers. | dcchuck wrote: | Looking forward to reading this, thanks for putting it on my | radar. | | I really enjoyed Masters of Doom - which has been discussed here | plenty on HN - https://hn.algolia.com/?q=masters+of+doom | orliesaurus wrote: | I personally felt Masters of Doom being better than this one, | this had too much "life" drama in it IMHO | LarsDu88 wrote: | "13 games that we made in 1991 alone" Wow. And these games | weren't just shovelware. | | I grew up playing Commander Keen games, and to this day have not | finished a single one. | zeroonetwothree wrote: | I remember playing it as a kid and I couldn't even beat a | single level | gumballindie wrote: | > Indie teams do not spend enough time making smaller (and less | profitable) games first before transitioning to multi-year | projects. | | This worked well for romero and carmack. A game a month was it? | That's how you refine your skills. | rpdillon wrote: | Indeed...Doom was Romero's 90th game! | | https://gamerant.com/john-romero-doom-90th-game-made/ | spywaregorilla wrote: | Seems... deeply misleading to draw an equivalence to today. | The market is vastly more competitive. | squeaky-clean wrote: | All the more reason to spend time making small games | without a goal of profiting from them in order to refine | your skills. When things get more competitive, you need to | practice more, not less. | gumballindie wrote: | But back then it was much smaller. Suppose some will always | find an excuse as to why things may fail today vs | yesterday, while others will find a way regardless. | orliesaurus wrote: | Kinda a diff topic but if anyone else read "Doom Guy" - what did | you think of it? | | I know it's not what this interview (blog) is about but I feel | like compared to Masters of Doom this one had a little too much | "narrative" and "drama" and felt like it was an answer to certain | things discussed in Masters of Doom which he wanted to set the | record straight. | | Another weirdness - i.e. early into the book John Romero says | that he has a super-power like ability to remember everything | perfectly...which to me sounds like some big ego bullcrap? | Because there are a lot of things that he conveniently did not | discuss in the book but which fans know happened! So what kind of | super-power ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-09-25 23:00 UTC)