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The creator of many iconic games talks about his new book.
John Romero is a well-known game designer, co-founder of id Software, and co-creator of Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake. He recently published DOOM Guy: Life in First Person – an autobiography where he recounts his career and difficult childhood – and shared his thoughts on game development, the importance of Dungeons & Dragons, and working in Unreal Engine 5.
In an interview with Screen Rant, Romero said he had wanted to write this book to document what was happening at the time when his most famous games were made before some of that history was forgotten. "Over the years, the waters can get muddied, so I really wanted to put down everything that I remembered. If I forget someday, it's all in the book."
Over the years, new details about id Software and the relationships between the developers have surfaced, and it's not clear who's telling the truth. For example, last year, Sandy Petersen, the level designer of the first two Doom games, called Doom II "a quickie cash grab". Romero disagreed, saying it "followed a long pattern of id development" and was the main focus of the team.
In his book, Romero states his truth to show the work from the inside and perhaps fight the perception of other people based on rumors.
"This book [Doom Guy] is about, "Here's what it was like every day." Just to present how well we worked together, how great it was to work together, and how in sync we were. It was not about butting heads all the time at all. It was amazing, and I think the book really shows people what it was really like. Because if it's not written by any one of us on the team, then it's up to interpretation. A lot has been written from various sources, but this is straight from the source."
Romero also discussed how significant Dungeons & Dragons is for game developers because many games are based on it or its aspects: combat mechanics, strong narrative, or conflict between good and evil. Having this basis makes creators communicate with each other better.
"D&D forces us to really understand what games are at the foundational level. Passing through D&D is kind of an essential path for game developers, especially game designers, because it gives you a solid grounding. You have a language that you can use to talk to other developers and other designers, and you all understand what you're talking about. That is a base to work off, instead of, "Do you understand what hit points are?" It's really helpful to have as a base."
But D&D is not the only source of inspiration for Romero. Theme parks like Disneyland also show how level design works. You have to stick to the same theme and make visitors feel immersed. Everything should be consistent and fit well. "There are so many lessons in every part of Disneyland, and there are so many secrets. Especially Disneyland, because when you're talking about the other Disney properties, they do not have the level of history or layers that Disneyland in Anaheim has."
Romero's games usually have a lot of secrets hiding here and there. He said it's because this makes players want to discover more, experience the same level differently, and just have fun.
"If you got to the end of a level, and it didn't say that there were any secrets or that you found anything special, you would think that what you saw was it. That was the end of the exploration of that space. But when you get to the end and it says, "Zero out of five secrets." You're like, "Wow, I didn't actually explore anything. There are secrets in there?" It makes you wonder and play again."
Doom and Quake will always stay in our hearts, but it doesn't mean Romero's development journey has ended. His studio, Romero Games, is working on a first-person shooter powered by Unreal Engine 5. When asked about his experience with the engine, Romero said it's "amazing" and praised its technologies, which are "changing the rules of development."
"With Unreal, you can put billions of polygons in a scene. It is crazy. We just love discovering all of these new things about the dynamic Lumen system, which changes what you can do in a game because you don't need to have baked scenes or baked lighting. You can actually have dynamic lighting, and it's so great. It's fast, but you still have to learn a lot about the engine and how it works to effectively take advantage of the speed of the engine. But out of the box, it makes everything look good instantly. It has the ability for you to do whatever you want, which is just very professional and very fast."
Predictably, the talk about AI in development couldn't be avoided. Romero called AI "absolutely the next thing", both in hardware and games. He is looking forward to the day when he can just chat with a companion and an NPC in-game. "We can get through the story together, and maybe they say something really interesting that makes me wonder if there's something I could find in this level. There's a lot of really cool use of AI."
While it is amazing, he believes people will be controlling the rapidly improving powers of AI, and not the other way around.
There is more in this great interview, so check it out here. If you'd like to learn more about FPS development, check out this upcoming documentary where Romero together with John Carmack, Cliff Bleszinski, and other well-known creators will talk about their games and inspirations.
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