Going to piggyback on this comment just to throw out a general recommendation for Masters of Doom by David Kushner. It's a fantastic in-depth look at the creation of Id, the history of its two lead developers (Carmack and Romero), and how much of a massive impact their games had on the industry.
Masters of Doom is an amazing book, and I've been yearning for it to get a good Hollywood treatment for years.
The thing that concerns me here is that James Franco is practically the age of John Carmack now.. 40something. He's way too old to star in a series about the early days of id in the 80s/early 90s when all those guys were in their 20s.
A quick trip to IMDB and I don't see him listed as a producer on anything that he isn't starring in.
Also.. I'd much rather see this as a proper movie, or a mini-series at most..
Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812972155/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_BisuCbWTTJ6X5
I don’t read much physical paper books but I read this over the course of 2 days.
If you have any interest in these guys or Doom or computer games from that era I highly recommend this book.
That engine (Quake 1, Quake 2, Quake 3) was mostly written by John Carmack. A huge amount of games were based on that engine, or used pieces of that engine (Half-Life, Hexen, early CoD games etc).
If you want a really good perspective of the id Software guys while making these games check out "Masters of Doom" which is an excellent book chronicling the development of those id Software games.
Note: Carmack was really really good at coming up with creative solutions to hardware limitations without sacrificing what they wanted the gameplay to be like.
Honestly, I really can't stress this enough, reading Masters of Doom encapsulates the birth of id up to Daikatana (covering The Ultimate Doom and DOOM II into QUAKE 1) can describe it way better than I can.
The general gist is: Romero was a jock, Carmack was a nerd, Romero wanted to go big, Carmack wanted to go realistic, Carmack is a coding WIZARD, Romero is a slacker, Carmack is kinda an autist, Romero is kinda a douchebag (up till Daikatana kicked him in the balls).
It's a pretty good read, and heck, I don't like reading purely text books and I read it when I was very young.
Masters of Doom. Fantastic book. I grew up around the time it was all happening, but never knew what was going on, just that these amazing games were being released by this tiny company. The two Johns and Chris Roberts (who created Wing Commander) made me want to be a game designer. Or rather, I had wanted to be one from the age of 4, but they showed me that it was possible for one person to come up with something amazing. I've read this book about once a year for the nostalgia.
I also recommend reading Jordan Mechner's journals on the making of Prince of Persia. The guy kept tons of records of everything about making the game. It's pretty amazing to read. His journals are available on Amazon as well.
> I'm a really big fan of reading about troubled development cycles.
Enjoy. A very good read that you should like.
Highly recommend the book “Masters of Doom” for the awesome story of John and John and ID Software. If you lived Shareware, Commander Keen, Doom, et. al, you will really enjoy this book. the book
They only place you are going to find that information is from the developers themselves. Look at source-code if available, interviews, or even books. Once again, you cannot throw a dart on the board and start there. The system's they designed were designed to solve a problem and how they went about solving that problem comes down to their own personal experience or education in that field. The system would start small, but grow exponentially through time, there usually isn't one brain behind it but a collection of them today. I recommend you read the book Masters of DOOM and look through the plethora of interviews from John Carmack as an example of a problem being solved.
If you really like Doom, I would recommend reading Masters of Doom. It's a great read if you like behind-the-scenes drama, or if you like reading about prodigies that just happen to like playing video games, coding, gory dnd, pizza and diet coke.
Not entirely related, but Masters of Doom was an amazing read. As someone who grew up playing Doom, this is an awesome behind the scenes look as to how it was created and offers insight on other games & graphics too.
Mr. Baird, I believe you and I are on the same page. There has to be the situation and an awareness on the part of policymakers for an industry to grow. For instance, my hometown Shreveport, Louisiana invented the modern video game industry, but there was no sense that this was a real industry and once they had the money they were gone. Here is a great book about that: https://www.amazon.com/Masters-Doom-Created-Transformed-Culture/dp/0812972155
In a case like that I just wonder if Shreveport ever had a chance, because it is anything but cool and I don't know how you could hold on to a bunch of young rich guys who could live anywhere.
Perhaps it was the same thing with Microsoft which was born in Albuquerque and moved to Seattle as soon as it was a money making business, but I don't think Seattle was that cool. For young guys with a lot of money cool does matter.
Lincoln, Des Moines, and Columbia, Missouri can compete on good schools, cost of living, and general quality of life to people in their thirties, but not to people in their twenties. They really want to live somewhere cool in a way old guys often forget - unless they sell real estate or sports cars.
I enjoyed your answers.
I can't tell it better than this book does: https://www.amazon.com/Masters-Doom-Created-Transformed-Culture/dp/0812972155
Basically Romero wanted to build an FPS based on solid design principles rather than seat-of-your-pants wild west coding (Carmack's specialty). It went years past the release date, way over budget, wild promises about how it would revolutionize everything, and flopped horribly. It was the Duke Nukem forever of the 90s.
Having met John Romero at a GDC ~5 years ago, and had dinner with him where I asked about "Why was Daikatana such as failure?" he is one incredibly cool dude. If you haven't read Masters of Doom I can almost guarantee you'll love it. It is well written and engaging.
Every industry has their "pop stars". Personally, I wouldn't get hung up it / them, except to pay attention to what they are saying and why.
If anyone is interested read Masters of Doom
A really good book about the start of John Carmack, Romero, and Adrian Carmack.
I recall the way Adrian was able to design a lot of the demons in doom was because his other job...was photographing things in hospitals. Farm accidents, car accidents, gunshot wounds...the lot. So he had a lot of crazy to back up with.
Slažem se da možda ne postoji jedna knjiga. Zato treba pročitati par stotina ili možda tisuća pa će te se nešto i primiti.
Kad bih morao izabrati stotinu knjiga onda bi bilo gore svakakvih, a ako treba izabrati jednu jedinu knjigu onda bih sve sveo na knjigu koju nisam znao ispustiti iz ruke: Masters of Doom.
Uhhh, let me just help you out here. That is a much better look into the different faces of id and especially at the duality between the personalities of Carmack and Romero respectively. Plus the audio book version is a very good listen.
Haha, yes, you're right. have you read Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture? Softdisk was the publisher (not developer) at the time.
The story of id Software, John Romero, and John Carmac is pretty interesting, plus Kushner really knows how to keep you flipping those pages. This is a great read for anyone thinking of starting a business -- especially a software company.
If you enjoyed this you should read Masters of Doom, or listen to Wil Wheaton's very good reading of it (that's what I did).
It's a very interesting and entertaining book.
You still get a free audiobook when signing up to Audible, right?
for doom, you can look at the code - https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM
some commentary on the code:
carmack is a very smart guy. i am sure there's some writing of his out there that talks more about this, but i can't find it right now.
edit: ah, i think i was remembering https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/169296/Indepth_Functional_programming_in_C.php but it's c++ and probably post-doom.
edit2: also, https://www.amazon.com/Masters-Doom-Created-Transformed-Culture/dp/0812972155
I can help you out a little bit if you're okay with reading instead of watching. Masters of Doom tells the story of how DOOM and Quake were inspired by a D&D campaign run by John Cormack. Dungeons & Dreamers includes the story of how D&D inspired Richard Garriott to create Ultima. It might also have the stories about DOOM and Quake, but I'm not sure.
To learn specific skills, or to just read about game dev history? For the latter, I really enjoyed Masters of Doom, the story behind the founding of Id. It's ~20 years old but has a lot of relevant lessons for what works/doesn't work in game dev and team building. And it's a quick read. Blood, Sweat, and Pixels is another good one for insights into the ups/downs of game dev.
if you like this kinda thing, look into masters of doom
If you are curious about the guy, strongly recommend this book: https://www.amazon.de/-/en/David-Kushner/dp/0812972155
Commander Keen was one of ID Software's first popular games before Doom. If your interested, Master's of Doom is a pretty good read about the history of those games.
This got long sorry folks! This kind of stuff reminds me why I'm doing what I'm doing and keeps me going. I have no doubt that if I continue to work hard I'll be able to achieve any goal, and it's evidenced by consuming content like below. All of these are regular people who worked hard at a dream. They did it and we can too.
​
https://www.amazon.com/Masters-Doom-Created-Transformed-Culture/dp/0812972155/
Highly recommend this book about the creators/creation of DOOM. It was inspiring for me to learn how heroes of mine approached problems and that I was already taking a similar approach
https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Sweat-Pixels-Triumphant-Turbulent/dp/0062651234/
This has some good stories about game development, like how Stardew Valley was created by a single person, and it took a few years of grinding and depression and being supported by family members before it blew up
This documentary was life changing for me, I watch it every now and then. It covers indie game development and follows the makers of Super Meat Boy, Fez, and a few others. It shows the many downs before things turn out and proves that you can achieve your dreams if you keep working at them, and that programming can be the keys to do anything you want.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDXqmKK7jeA
I stumbled across this series where Josh Fluke follows Patrick Thompson from start to finish of a programming bootcamp. It was very inspiring to see a regular guy go through the program and I ended up going through the same bootcamp. I was able to go to school fulltime while working nights and weekends to keep the bills paid. I don't recommend the school now (see any of my other posts or reach out, don't go there) but its really cool to see how it worked out for Patrick and all of the people I met there. Adding web development to my self taught game dev skills/drive make me feel like I can do fucking anything now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC7lLm6QAb8
Devon has posted some really cool projects. Node much code but it's explained well and it's like damn I didn't realize you could do that, I should try building x
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4xKdmAXFh4ACyhpiQ_3qBw
Respect the tech lead
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L-WgKMFuhE&list=PLFt_AvWsXl0cq5Umv3pMC9SPnKjfp9eGW
I love stuff like this that shows what the goal is and explains how it works and why it's cool with psuedocode before launching into a tutorial
Fascinating. If you like this kind of story, the book about the making of Doom is a great read. https://www.amazon.com/Masters-Doom-Created-Transformed-Culture/dp/0812972155
A fun entertainment read is Masters of Doom about the early days of Id pushing the limits on PC gaming.
I don't know what his contraints are, but if he wants to work on games & game design skills without being able to access a computer, but can use art supplies, then you could get him some blank playing cards and some thin-point sharpie markers. I found those were pretty solid for just sketching up random cards on, and can easily be used to whip up card-game prototypes.
Card games aren't video games, but some of the skills are transferable I bet.
Archives for the links in comments:
I am Mnemosyne 2.1, Ask not what kek can do for you. Ask what you can do for kek. - John F. Kekidy ^^^^/r/botsrights ^^^^Contribute ^^^^message ^^^^me ^^^^suggestions ^^^^at ^^^^any ^^^^time ^^^^Opt ^^^^out ^^^^of ^^^^tracking ^^^^by ^^^^messaging ^^^^me ^^^^"Opt ^^^^Out" ^^^^at ^^^^any ^^^^time
For a long time, Carmack didn't even own a mattress. He slept on the floor and spent most of his time coding. They were raking in money from game sales.
https://www.amazon.com/Masters-Doom-Created-Transformed-Culture/dp/0812972155
Dead Island: Game of the Year Edition
For your birthday, well, complicated as I don't know which video games you like more. But I will give you some suggestions:
My SteamId. Huge thanks for the giveaway man!
I hope these are what you're looking for.
If I find any additional stuff, I'll edit the post - also if anyone else finds stuff similar to what I linked, feel free to drop info, i'd love to read more of this stuff!
Obligatory Subreddit Plug
/r/TheMakingOfGames - A subreddit featuring a lot of behind the scenes stuff.
Books
Masters of Doom is a book that follows the lives of John Carmack and John Romero, the creation of what became iD Software, and some of the most memorable games of our generation. (Daikatana's failure, Doom, The super mario clone that eventually became Commander Keen, Quake, etc.)
Jacked is a book that follows the creation of what became a memorable game studio (Rockstar Games) and one of the most memorable franchises of our lifetimes. (Grand Theft Auto)
Stay Awhile and Listen is a book that tells the story of the company known as Blizzard and the difficulty of creating Warcraft as well as the fight to create Diablo.
Hourences is a book written by someone who's worked freelance / contract for quite some time now. The basic questions this book will attempt to answer are: Why would one want to work in the games industry? Or why not? And, if the decision has already been made, then: What would one look for or expect? How can one pick a good mod (modification) team or a development studio that will fit one’s personality and meet one’s expectations?
Minecraft: The Story of Notch A story about Notch before, during, and after the rise of Minecraft - talks about his family, his life, etc.
Rise of the Dungeon Master the story of Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, one of the most influential games ever made. Like the game itself, the narrative casts the reader into the adventure from a first person point of view, taking on the roles of the different characters in the story.
Documentaries / Movies
Double Fine Adventure - A game following the conception and delivery of what would become "Broken Age"
Indie Game: The Movie - Follows the trials and tribulations of indie developers trying to "make it big" and/or "continue to succeed".
Minecraft: The Story of Mojang - Follows how Minecraft was formed, Notch, and the impact the game has made on generations.
Amneisa Fortnight 2012 A documentary that follows various groups doing a "game jam" that eventually became published games.
Amneisa Fornight 2014 Same as the 2012, just a documentary following the game jam.
GDC Post Mortems A good variety of games, the ups and downs, from indie to AAA.
> Si te la pasas boludeando con jueguitos no vas a tener nunca poder adquisitivo.
Eso le decian a John Romero sus padres, cuando conocio a John Carmack.
> I know many good programmers who are self-taught, but no great ones.
Uh,
> Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote a full BASIC language interpreter in assembly language for a computer they didn't even have access to and which had only 4000 bytes of memory. They wrote it on a PDP-10 at Harvard that was running an Intel 8080 emulator. Bill Gates once said that he remembered every technical detail and variable name of those early programs, although surely that would not be true today.
These guys were the exception, not the rule.
Comp. Sci. provides a solid foundation to understand programming better.
I love seeing stuff like this.
If anyone is interested in this kind of thing, I highly recommend reading Masters of Doom.
You should read Masters of Doom
I'm not saying it's a bad game, just that it's designed on purpose for a famliy audience like League of Legends. Even Halo managed to be family-friendly without going all little-kid cartoon. Diablo 3 is the Commander Keen of our day. Where is John Romero when we need him?