Doom (occasionally typeset as
DOOM) is a landmark 1993
first-person shooterFirst-person shooter is a video game genre which centers the gameplay around gun- and projectile weapon-based combat through the first person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits...
computer game by
id Softwareid Software is an American video game development company from Mesquite, Texas. The company was founded in 1991 by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack...
. It was initially released for MS-DOS. It is widely recognized for popularizing the first person shooter genre, pioneering immersive
3D graphics3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
, networked multiplayer gaming, and support for custom expansions (
WADDoom WADs are package files for the computer game Doom or its sequel Doom II, that contain sprites, levels, and game data. WAD stands for Where's All the Data?...
s). Its graphic and interactive
violenceViolence is the expression of physical or verbal force against self or other, compelling action against one's will on pain of being hurt. Variant uses of the term refer to the destruction of non-living objects . Worldwide, violence is used as a tool of manipulation and also is an area of concern...
has also made
Doom the subject of much
controversySimilar to other forms of media, video games have been the subject of argument between leading professionals and restriction and prohibition. Often these bouts of criticism come from use of debated topics such as video game graphic violence, virtual sex, violent and gory scenes, partial or full...
.
With a third of the game (9 levels) distributed as
sharewareThe term shareware, popularized by Bob Wallace, refers to proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis and is often limited by any combination of functionality, availability or convenience. Shareware is often offered as a download from an Internet website or as a...
,
Doom was played by an estimated 10 million people within two years of its release, popularizing the mode of gameplay and spawning a gaming subculture; as a sign of its effect on the industry, games from the mid-1990s boom of first-person shooters are often known simply as "
Doom clones". According to
GameSpyGameSpy, also known as GameSpy Industries, is a division of IGN Entertainment, which operates a network of game websites and provides online video game-related services and software. GameSpy dates back to the 1996 release of an internet Quake server search program named QSpy. The current company...
,
Doom was voted by industry insiders to be the greatest game of all time in 2004.
The
Doom franchise was continued with
Doom's follow-up
Doom II: Hell on Earth (1994) and numerous
expansion packAn expansion pack, expansion set, or supplement is an addition to an existing role-playing game, tabletop game or video game. These add-ons usually add new game areas, weapons, objects, and/or an extended storyline to a complete and already released game...
s, including
The Ultimate DoomDoom is one of the most widely ported video games in the first-person shooter genre: starting with the original MS-DOS version , it has been released officially for 7 computer operating systems and 9 different video game consoles...
(1995),
Master Levels for Doom II (1995), and
Final DoomFinal Doom is a first-person shooter video game that uses the game engine, items and characters from Doom II. It consists of two 32-level megawads , The Plutonia Experiment by the Casali brothers, and TNT: Evilution by TeamTNT. Final Doom was released in 1996 and distributed as an official id...
(1996). Originally released for
PCIBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...
/
DOSMS-DOS is an operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems and was the main operating system for personal computers during the 1980s. It was preceded by M-DOS , designed and copyrighted by Microsoft in 1979...
, these games have later been
portedIn computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
to many other platforms, including nine different game consoles,
RockboxRockbox is a free software replacement for the firmware held on various forms of digital audio players . Rockbox offers an alternative to the host device's operating system firmware which provides a plug-in architecture for adding various enhancements and functionality to DAPs which are not...
firmware, and even
PDAA personal digital assistant is a handheld computer, also known as a palmtop computer. Newer PDAs commonly have color screens and audio capabilities, enabling them to be used as mobile phones , web browsers, or portable media players. Many PDAs can access the Internet, intranets or extranets...
s and the Flash Player virtual machine. The series lost mainstream appeal as the technology of the
Doom game engineid Tech 1, formerly known as the Doom engine is the game engine that powers the id Software games Doom and Doom II. It is also used by HeXen, Heretic, Strife and HacX, and other games produced by licensees. It was created by John Carmack, with auxiliary functions written by Mike Abrash, John...
was surpassed in the mid-1990s, although fans have continued making
WADsWADS is a radio station broadcasting a Adult Standards/MOR format. Licensed to Ansonia, Connecticut, USA, it serves the Bridgeport area. The station is currently owned by Radio Amor....
,
speedrunA speedrun is a play-through, or recording thereof, of a video game performed with the intent of completing it as quickly as possible, optionally under certain prerequisites, mainly for the purposes of entertainment and competition...
s, and modifications to the
source codeIn computer science, source code is any collection of statements or declarations written in some human-readable computer programming language...
released in 1997. The franchise again received popular attention in 2004 with the release of
Doom 3Doom 3 is a science fiction horror video game developed by id Software and published by Activision. An example of the first-person shooter genre, Doom 3 was first released for Microsoft Windows on August 3, 2004. The game was later adapted for Linux, as well as being ported by Aspyr Media for Mac...
, a retelling of the original game using new technology, and an associated 2005
Doom motion pictureDoom is a 2005 science fiction horror film, loosely based on the popular Doom series of video games created by id Software. It was directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak and was released in the United States on October 21, 2005 and in the United Kingdom on December 2, 2005.On February 7, 2006, the Unrated...
.
On May 7, 2008, following speculation by
John CarmackJohn D. Carmack II is an American game programmer, and the co-founder of id Software. Carmack was the lead programmer of the id computer games Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, and the sequels to Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein.Though Carmack is best known for his innovations in 3D...
at QuakeCon on August 3, 2007,
Doom 4Doom 4 is the upcoming installment of the Doom series by id Software. The game is neither a sequel to Doom 3 nor a new beginning of the franchise...
was announced as in production. The game is neither a sequel to
Doom 3 nor a new beginning of the franchise and it will use the company's new id Tech 5 engine. Since April 10, 2009, no more information about the new game was given.
On June 26, 2009, John Carmack released
Doom ResurrectionDoom Resurrection is a first-person shooter survival horror game developed by Escalation Studios for the iPhone OS and published by id Software. It was released on 26 June 2009. John Carmack led the development team...
, a new game developed by Escalation Studios for the
iPhone OSThe iPhone OS, known as OS X iPhone in its early history, is the operating system developed by Apple Inc. for the iPhone and iPod touch. Like Mac OS X, from which it was derived, it uses the Darwin foundation. iPhone OS has four abstraction layers: the Core OS layer, the Core Services layer, the...
and published by id Software. The setting for
Doom Resurrection takes place parallel to
Doom 3, and it uses the characters and art of from the previously developed game.
Plot
Doom has a
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction. It differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically-established or scientifically-postulated laws of nature...
/horror theme and simple plot. A background story is given in the game's manual; the rest of the story is advanced with short messages displayed between each section of the game (called
episodes), the action as the
player characterA player character or playable character is a character in a video game or role playing game who is controlled or controllable by a player, and is typically a protagonist of the story told in the course of the game. A player character is a persona of the player who controls it. Player characters...
progresses through the levels, and some visual cues.
The player takes the role of a nameless
space marineSpace marines are fictional soldiers that operate in outer space. Space marines are common in military science fiction-themed action movies and action games. Historical marines fulfill amphibious roles: ship defense, landing parties, and general high-mobility deployments...
, "one of Earth's toughest, hardened in combat and trained for action", who has been punitively posted to
MarsMars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after Mars, the Roman god of war. It is also referred to as the "Red Planet" because of its reddish appearance, due to iron oxide prevalent on its surface....
after assaulting his commanding officer, who ordered his unit to fire upon civilians. The Martian marine base acts as security for the
Union Aerospace CorporationThe Union Aerospace Corporation is a fictional conglomerate focused on military-industrial research in id Software's science fiction video game series Doom. The corporation is depicted to be involved in advanced weapons development, biological research, space exploration and teleportation...
(UAC), a multi-planetary conglomerate, which is performing secret experiments with
teleportationTeleportation is supposed to be the transfer of matter from one point to another, more or less instantaneously, either by paranormal means or through technological means. Teleportation has been widely utilized in works of science fiction...
by creating gateways between the two moons of Mars,
PhobosPhobos is the larger and closer of two small moons of Mars, the other being Deimos. It is named after the Greek god Phobos , a son of Ares...
and
DeimosDeimos , is the smaller and outer of Mars’ two moons . It is named after Deimos, a figure representing dread in Greek Mythology. Its systematic designation is '.-Discovery:...
. The manual makes it clear that Phobos is considered by space marines to be the dullest assignment imaginable: "with no action for fifty million miles, your day consisted of suckin' dust and watchin' restricted flicks in the rec room." This all changes when the UAC experiments go horribly awry. Computer systems on Phobos malfunction, Deimos disappears entirely, and "something fragging evil" starts pouring out of the gateway, killing or possessing all UAC personnel. Responding to a frantic distress call from the overrun scientists, the Martian marine unit is quickly sent to Phobos to investigate, where the player character is left to guard the hangar with only a pistol while the rest of the group proceeds inside. Over the course of the next few hours, the marine hears assorted garbled radio messages, gunfire, and screams, followed by silence: "Seems your buddies are dead".
As the last man standing, the player character's mission is to fight through the entire onslaught of demonic enemies by himself in order to keep them from attacking Earth. In order for the game to be completed, the marine must fight through Phobos, Deimos, and then Hell, each presented as an episode containing nine distinct levels.
Knee-Deep in the Dead, the first episode and the only one in the
sharewareThe term shareware, popularized by Bob Wallace, refers to proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis and is often limited by any combination of functionality, availability or convenience. Shareware is often offered as a download from an Internet website or as a...
version, is set in the high-tech military bases, power plants, computer centers and geological anomalies on Phobos. It ends with the player character fighting a pair of Barons of Hell and afterward entering the teleporter leading to Deimos, ending with him getting overwhelmed by monsters, if not killed. In the second episode, the
Shores of Hell, the character journeys through the installations on Deimos, areas of which are interwoven with beastly architecture, warped and distorted by the hellish invasion. After defeating the titanic Cyberdemon lord, he discovers the truth about the vanished moon: it is floating above Hell itself. After climbing down to the surface, the third episode, called
Inferno, begins. After the huge Spiderdemon that masterminded the invasion is destroyed in the final mission, a hidden doorway back to Earth opens for the hero, who has "proven too tough for Hell to contain". In the game's final cutscene, the camera pans over a verdant field complete with flowers and bunny rabbits, only to reveal a burning city and a bunny's head impaled on a stake: the demons have invaded Earth, obviously paving the way for
Doom IIDoom II: Hell on Earth is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software. It was originally released on IBM PC compatibles on October 10, 1994. It is the sequel to Doom, which was released a year earlier. In 1995, Doom II won the Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction...
.
The Ultimate Doom, the retail store version of the game, adds a fourth episode,
Thy Flesh Consumed, occurring after the three original episodes of
Doom and before
Doom IIDoom II: Hell on Earth is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software. It was originally released on IBM PC compatibles on October 10, 1994. It is the sequel to Doom, which was released a year earlier. In 1995, Doom II won the Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction...
. This episode was developed by independent master level designers with id's approval, and was designed for expert Doom players seeking a major challenge. It is considerably more difficult than the original three episodes. The episode's plot is deliberately absurd, and takes place immediately after
Doom and just before
Doom II. The bunny seen impaled on the stake was the marine's pet "Daisy", and the player must take revenge for its death.
Gameplay
Being a
first-person shooterFirst-person shooter is a video game genre which centers the gameplay around gun- and projectile weapon-based combat through the first person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits...
,
Doom is experienced through the eyes of
the main characterThe Doomguy is the protagonist of the Doom series of video games created by id Software. In all the games, he is a space marine working for the United States Space Marine Corps, who never speaks and is never referred to by name.In the Doom novels, the main character is referred to as Flynn "Fly"...
. This character is not named throughout the game. The game's designer,
John RomeroAlfonso John Romero is a game designer, programmer, and developer in the video game industry. He is best known as a co-founder of id Software and was a designer for many of their personal computer games including Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake...
, has pointed out that this is so the player feels more involved in the game: "There was never a name for the DOOM marine because it's supposed to be YOU."
The objective of each level is simply to locate the exit room that leads to the next area, usually marked with an
exit signAn exit sign is a device in a public facility that displays where the emergency exit is.Most exit signs around the world are in pictogram form, with or without text supplement. There has been a shift towards the adoption of such exit signs in the recent decade...
or a special kind of door, while surviving all hazards on the way. Among the obstacles are demonic monsters, pits of
toxic or radioactive slimeToxic waste is waste material that can cause death or injury to living creatures. It can be spread quite easily and contaminate lakes and rivers...
, ceilings that lower and
crushDeath by crushing or pressing is a method of execution that has a long history during which the techniques used varied greatly from place to place. This form of execution is no longer sanctioned by any governing body....
the player character, and locked doors for which a keycard, skull-shaped key device, or remote switch needs to be located. The levels are sometimes labyrinthine and feature plenty of hidden secret areas that hold
power-upIn computer and video games, power-ups are objects that instantly benefit or add extra abilities to the game character. This is contrast to an item, which may or may not have a benefit and can be used at a time chosen by the player...
s as a reward for players who explore. To ease navigation through the levels, a full screen
automapIn video games, an automap is a navigational aid used mainly for virtual worlds that are expansive or maze-like. An automap is typically an abstract top-down view of nearby areas of the game world, automatically updated as the player character gains knowledge of the environment...
is available.
Doom is notable for the
weaponA weapon is a tool used to apply force for the purpose of hunting, attack, self-defense, or defense in combat.Weapons can be as simple as a club, or as complex as an intercontinental ballistic missile, and include those that damage individual or group morale.-Prehistoric weapons:Very simple weapon...
s arsenal available to the marine, which became prototypical for first-person shooters. The player character starts armed only with a pistol, and
brass-knuckledBrass knuckles, also sometimes called knuckles, knucks, brass knucks, or knuckle dusters, are weapons used in hand-to-hand combat. Brass knuckles are pieces of metal, usually steel despite their name, shaped to fit around the knuckles...
fistA fist is a hand that has the fingers curled into the palm and the thumb retracted. This is typically used in unarmed combat, such as fist-fighting. This type of hand formation is often used to become "Battle Ready". See also Punch . The clenched fist hand gesture is a sign of defiance in some...
s in case the
ammunitionAmmunition, often informally referred to as ammo, is a generic term derived from the French language la munition which embraced all material used for war , but which in time came to refer specifically to gunpowder and artillery. The collective term for all types of ammunition is munitions...
runs out, but larger weapons can be picked up: these are a
chainsawA chainsaw is a portable mechanical, motorized saw. It is used in logging activities such as felling, limbing, and bucking, by tree surgeons to fell trees and remove branches and foliage, to fell snags and assist in cutting firebreaks in wildland fire suppression, and to harvest firewood...
, a
shotgunA shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot, or a solid projectile called a slug...
, a
chaingunThe Minigun is a 7.62 mm, multi-barrel machine gun with a high rate of fire , employing Gatling-style rotating barrels with an external power source...
, a
rocket launcherA shoulder-launched missile weapon is a weapon that fires a projectile at a target, yet is small enough to be carried by a single person, and fired while held on one's shoulder. "Missile" is used here in the original broad sense: today the word has a strong connotation with the concept of a guided...
, a
plasma riflePlasma rifles are theoretical weapons often used in science fiction. They are, in effect, a type of raygun. Plasma weapons use a small nuclear reactor or fuel cell or other type of advanced energy storage device to power an electromagnetic accelerator that fires a stream, pulse or toroid of plasma...
, and finally the immensely powerful BFG 9000. There is a wide array of power-ups, such as a
backpackA bookbag is, in its simplest form, a cloth sack carried on one's back and secured with two straps that go over the shoulders, but there can be exceptions...
that increases the player character's ammunition-carrying capacity,
armorArmour or armor is protective covering used to prevent damage from being inflicted to an individual or a vehicle through use of direct contact weapons or projectiles, usually during combat...
,
first aid kitA first aid kit is a collection of supplies and equipment for use in giving first aid. First aid kits may be made up of different contents depending on who has assembled the kit and for what purpose...
s to restore health, the berserk pack (a dark first aid box that puts the character into berserk mode, allowing them to deal out rocket launcher-level damage with their fists and potentially splattering former humans and imps, as well as setting the user's health to 100% if it was lower), and supernatural blue orbs (named
soul spheres in the manuals) that boost the player character's health percentage by 100%, up to a maximum of 200%.
The enemy monsters in
Doom make up the central gameplay element. The player character faces them in large numbers, on the higher of the game's five
difficulty levelIn general usage, difficulty level refers to the relative difficulty of completing a task or objective.In computer and video games, the term specifically delineates the ease or difficulty with which an average user may complete a game or a part of a game. Arcade games as well as many early console...
s often encountering a dozen or more in the same room. There are 10 types of monsters (
Doom IIDoom II: Hell on Earth is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software. It was originally released on IBM PC compatibles on October 10, 1994. It is the sequel to Doom, which was released a year earlier. In 1995, Doom II won the Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction...
doubles this figure), including possessed humans as well as specifically
hellish monstersIn religion, folklore, and mythology a demon is a supernatural being that is generally described as a malevolent spirit. In Christian terms demons are generally understood as fallen angels, formerly of God. A demon is frequently depicted as a force that may be conjured and insecurely controlled...
of varying strength, including the weak but ubiquitous
impAn imp is a mythological being similar to a fairy or demon, frequently described in folklore and superstition. The word may perhaps derive from the term ympe, used to denote a young grafted tree....
s, the floating
cacodemonA cacodemon is an evil spirit or a demon. The opposite of a cacodemon is an agathodaemon or eudaemon, a good spirit or angel...
s, and the
bossesA boss is an enemy-based challenge which is found in video games. A fight with a boss character is commonly referred to as a boss battle...
which survive multiple strikes even from the player character's strongest weapons. The monsters have very simple behavior, consisting of either walking toward their opponent, or attacking by throwing fireballs, biting, and scratching. They may also sometimes fight each other after hurting one another accidentally.
Many versions of
Doom (and its sequels) include secret levels which are accessed by the player discovering alternate exits, often hidden behind secret doors or in areas which are difficult to reach. In some versions of
Doom II both of these secret levels incorporate level design and characters from
Dooms precursor, Wolfenstein 3DWolfenstein 3D is a video game that is generally regarded as having popularized the first person shooter genre on the PC. It was created by id Software and published by Apogee Software. Released on May 5, 1992 for MS-DOS, the game was inspired by the 1980s Muse Software computer games Castle...
,
which was also developed by id.
Aside from the single player game mode, Doom
features two multiplayer modes playable over a network: "cooperativeCooperative gameplay primarily refers to a feature in video games that allows players to work together as teammates with the absence of player-controlled competitors. Cooperative gameplay is usually built around the single player mode of a game, modified to allow additional players...
", in which two to four players team up, and "deathmatchDeathmatch is a widely-used gameplay mode integrated into many shooter and real-time strategy computer games. The goal of a deathmatch game is to kill as many other players as possible until a certain condition or limit is reached, commonly being a frag limit or time limit...
", in which two to four players play against each other.
Development
The development of Doom
started in 1992, when John D. Carmack developed a new 3D game engineA game engine is a software system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and desktop operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X...
, the Doom engineid Tech 1, formerly known as the Doom engine is the game engine that powers the id Software games Doom and Doom II. It is also used by HeXen, Heretic, Strife and HacX, and other games produced by licensees. It was created by John Carmack, with auxiliary functions written by Mike Abrash, John...
, while the rest of the id Software team finished the Wolfenstein 3DWolfenstein 3D is a video game that is generally regarded as having popularized the first person shooter genre on the PC. It was created by id Software and published by Apogee Software. Released on May 5, 1992 for MS-DOS, the game was inspired by the 1980s Muse Software computer games Castle...
prequelA prequel is a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting.The widely recognized term was a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- and sequel .-History:Though the word "Prequel" is of...
, Spear of DestinySpear of Destiny, often also called Spear, Wolfenstein: Spear of Destiny or just SoD, is a 1992 first-person shooter computer game developed by id Software and published by FormGen Corporation, and is the prequel to id Software's Wolfenstein 3D...
. When the game designGame design is the process of designing the content and rules of a game. The term is also used to describe both the game design embodied in an actual game as well as documentation that describes such a design.- Interaction with other design disciplines :...
phase began in late 1992, the main thematic influences were the science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction. It differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically-established or scientifically-postulated laws of nature...
action filmAction movies are a film genre wherein the story is largely told through physical action as opposed to dialogue. The action typically involves individual efforts on the part of the hero. While action has long been an element of films, the "Action film" as a genre of its own began to develop in the...
AliensAliens is a 1986 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron and starring Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, and Bill Paxton. A sequel to the 1979 film Alien, Aliens is set fifty-seven years after the first film and is regarded by many film critics as a...
and the horror filmHorror films are movies that strive to elicit the emotions of fear, horror and terror from viewers. Their plots frequently involve themes of death, the supernatural or mental illness...
Evil Dead IIEvil Dead II is a American cult comedy horror film. Standing as a sequel to 1981's The Evil Dead, the film was directed by Sam Raimi, written by Raimi and Scott Spiegel, produced by Rob Tapert and starred Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams...
. The title of the game was picked by Carmack:
Designer Tom HallTom A. Hall is a game designer born in Wisconsin. He attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison and there received a B.S. in Computer Science. In 1987 he worked at Softdisk Inc., where he was both a programmer and the editor of Softdisk, a software bundle delivered monthly...
wrote an elaborate design documentA software design document is a written description of a software product, that a software designer writes in order to give a software development team an overall guidance of the architecture of the software project. An SDD usually accompanies an architecture diagram with pointers to detailed...
called the Doom Bible, according to which the game would feature a detailed storyline, multiple player characters, and a number of interactive features. However, many of his ideas were discarded during development in favor of simpler design primarily advocated by Carmack, resulting in Hall in the end being forced to resign due to not contributing effectively in the direction the rest of the team was going. Most of the
level designLevel design or game mapping is the creation of levels—locales, stages, or missions—for a video game...
that ended up in the final game is that of
John RomeroAlfonso John Romero is a game designer, programmer, and developer in the video game industry. He is best known as a co-founder of id Software and was a designer for many of their personal computer games including Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake...
and
Sandy PetersenCarl Sanford Joslyn Petersen is a game designer.Petersen was born in St. Louis, Missouri and attended University of California, Berkeley, majoring in zoology....
. The graphics, by
Adrian CarmackAdrian Carmack is one of the four founders of id Software, along with Tom Hall, John Romero, and John D. Carmack . He had worked there as an artist. He was a major stock owner of id Software until he left the company....
,
Kevin CloudKevin Cloud is a computer games graphic designer. He was hired in 1992 by id Software to work as an assistant artist to the then lead artist, Adrian Carmack. Prior to that, he was employed by Softdisk, where several other id founders worked...
and
Gregor PunchatzGregor Punchatz is an artist hired by id Software to create sculptures for the Arch-Vile, Mancubus, Revenant and Spider Mastermind monsters for the Doom video game series...
, were created in various ways: although much was drawn or painted, several of the monsters were built from sculptures in
clayClay is a naturally occurring material composed primarily of fine-grained minerals, which show plasticity through a variable range of water content, and which can be hardened when dried and/or fired...
or
latexLatex refers generically to a stable dispersion of polymer microparticles in an aqueous medium. Latexes may be natural or synthetic. Latex as found in nature is a milky sap-like fluid within many plants that coagulates on exposure to air. It is a complex emulsion in which proteins, alkaloids,...
, and some of the weapons are toy guns from Toys "R" Us. A
heavy metalHeavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in England and the United States...
-
ambientAmbient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
soundtrack was supplied by Bobby Prince.
Engine technology
Doom
s primary distinguishing feature at the time of its release was its realistic 3D graphics3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
, then unparalleled by other real-timeIn computer science, real-time computing , or "reactive computing", is the study of hardware and software systems that are subject to a "real-time constraint"—i.e., operational deadlines from event to system response. By contrast, a non-real-time system is one for which there is no deadline, even...
-rendered games running on consumer-level hardware. The advance from id Software's previous game Wolfenstein 3DWolfenstein 3D is a video game that is generally regarded as having popularized the first person shooter genre on the PC. It was created by id Software and published by Apogee Software. Released on May 5, 1992 for MS-DOS, the game was inspired by the 1980s Muse Software computer games Castle...
was enabled by several new features in the Doom
engine:
- Height differences – all rooms in
Wolfenstein 3D
have the same height;
Non-perpendicularIn geometry, two lines or planes , are considered perpendicular to each other if they form congruent adjacent angles . The term may be used as a noun or adjective. Thus, referring to Figure 1, the line AB is the perpendicular to CD through the point B...
walls – all walls in Wolfenstein 3D
run along a rectangular grid;
Swaying of the weapon, giving the impression of fluidity while walking or running – in Wolfenstein 3D
the arms stay fixed in front in the screen, no matter what the character does;
Full texture mappingTexture mapping is a method for adding detail, surface texture, or colour to a computer-generated graphic or 3D model. Its application to 3D graphics was pioneered by Dr Edwin Catmull in his Ph.D. thesis of 1974.-Texture mapping:...
of all surfaces – in Wolfenstein 3D
, floors and ceilings are not texture-mapped;
Varying light levels – all areas in Wolfenstein 3D
are fully lit at the same brightness. While contributing to the game's visual authenticity by allowing effects such as highlights and shadows, this perhaps most importantly added to the game's atmosphere and gameplay; the use of darkness as a means of frightening or confusing the player was an unseen element in games released prior to Doom
.
In contrast to the static levels of Wolfenstein 3D
, those in Doom are highly interactive: Platforms can lower and rise, floors can rise sequentially to form staircases, and bridges can rise and descend. The lifelike feeling of the environment was enhanced further by the stereo sound system, which made it possible to roughly tell the direction and distance of a sound's origin. The player is kept on guard by the grunts and growls of monsters, and receives occasional clues to finding secret areas in the form of sounds of hidden doors opening remotely. Monsters can also become aware of the player's presence by hearing distant gunshots.
Carmack had to make use of several tricks for these features to run smoothly on home computers of 1993. Most significantly, Doom
levels are not truly three-dimensional; they are internally represented on a planeIn mathematics, a plane is a flat surface. Planes can arise as subspaces of some higher dimensional space, as with the walls of a room, or they may enjoy an independent existence in their own right, as in the setting of Euclidean geometry....
, with height differences added separately (a similar trick is still used by many games to create huge outdoor environments). This gives the appearance of a two point perspective projection, and leads to several limitations: It is, for example, not possible for a Doom
level to have one room over another. This two-dimensional representation does, however, have the benefit that rendering can be done very quickly, using a binary space partitioningBinary space partitioning is a method for recursively subdividing a space into convex sets by hyperplanes. This subdivision gives rise to a representation of the scene by means of a tree data structure known as a BSP tree....
method. Another benefit was the clarity of the automap, because it could be displayed with 2D vectors without the risk of overlapping.
Another important feature of the Doom
engine is a modular approach that allows the game content to be replaced by loading custom WAD filesDoom WADs are package files for the computer game Doom or its sequel Doom II, that contain sprites, levels, and game data. WAD stands for Where's All the Data?...
. Wolfenstein 3D
was not designed to be expandable, but fans had nevertheless figured out how to create their own levels for it, and Doom
was designed to take the phenomenon further. The ability to create custom scenarios contributed significantly to the game's popularity (see the section on WADs below).
Initial popularity
The development of Doom
was surrounded by much anticipation. The large number of posts in Internet newsgroupA usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users in different locations. The term may be confusing to some, because it is usually a discussion group. Newsgroups are technically distinct from, but functionally similar to, discussion forums on...
s about Doom led to the SPISPOPD joke, to which a nod was given in the game in the form of a cheat code. In addition to news, rumors and
screenshotA screenshot, screen capture, or screen dump is an image taken by the computer to record the visible items displayed on the monitor or another visual output device...
s, unauthorized leaked alpha versions also circulated online. (Many years later these alpha versions were sanctioned by id Software because of historical interest; they reveal how the game progressed from its early design stages.) The first public version of Doom
was uploaded to Software Creations BBS and an FTPFile Transfer Protocol is a standard network protocol used to exchange and manipulate files over a TCP/IP based network, such as the Internet. FTP is built on a client-server architecture and utilizes separate control and data connections between the client and server applications...
server at the University of Wisconsin–MadisonThe University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
on December 10, 1993.
Doom
was released as sharewareThe term shareware, popularized by Bob Wallace, refers to proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis and is often limited by any combination of functionality, availability or convenience. Shareware is often offered as a download from an Internet website or as a...
, with people encouraged to distribute it further. They did so: in 1995, Doom
was estimated to have been installed on more than 10 million computers. Although most users did not purchase the registered version, over one million copies have been sold, and the popularity helped the sales of later games in the Doom
series that were not released as shareware. In 1995, The Ultimate Doom
(version 1.9, including episode IV) was released, making this the first time that Doom
was sold commercially in stores.
In a press release dated January 1, 1993, id Software had written that they expected Doom
to be "the number one cause of decreased productivity in businesses around the world". This prediction came true at least in part: Doom
became a major problem at workplaces, both occupying the time of employees and clogging computer networkA computer network is a group of interconnected computers. Networks may be classified according to a wide variety of characteristics. This article provides a general overview of some types and categories and also presents the basic components of a network....
s with traffic caused by deathmatches. Intel, Lotus Development and Carnegie Mellon UniversityCarnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Since its inception, Carnegie Mellon has grown into a world-renowned institution, with numerous programs that are frequently ranked among the best in the world...
are among many organizations reported to form policies specifically disallowing Doom
-playing during work hours. At the MicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation is a multinational computer technology corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices...
campus, Doom
was by one account equal to a "religious phenomenon".
In late 1995, Doom
was estimated to be installed on more computers worldwide than Microsoft's new operating system Windows 95Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...
, despite million-dollar advertising campaigns for the latter. The game's popularity prompted Bill GatesWilliam Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, philanthropist, and chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen.He is ranked consistently one of the world's wealthiest people...
to briefly consider buying id Software, and led Microsoft to develop a Windows 95 port of Doom
to promote the operating system as a gaming platform. One such presentation to promote Windows 95 had Bill Gates digitally superimposed into the game. The Microsoft 1995 release Excel 95 included a Doom-esque
secret level as an Easter eggA virtual Easter egg is an intentional hidden message, in-joke or feature in an object such as a movie, book, CD, DVD, computer program, web page or video game. The term was coined – according to Warren Robinett – by Atari after they were pointed to the secret message left by Robinett...
containing portraits of the programmers among other things. It is speculated that Microsoft engineers took advantage of their experience working on the Doom Windows 95 port to place the code in the spreadsheet program.
Doom
was also widely praised in the gaming press. In 1994, it was awarded Game of the YearGame of the Year is a distinction awarded by various magazines and websites to a deserving PC or console video game. Many publications will award a single "Game of the Year" to a single title that they feel represents the pinnacle of gaming achievement that year, as well as smaller awards...
by both PC GamerPC Gamer is a magazine founded in Britain in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future Publishing. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games magazines in their respective countries...
and Computer Gaming WorldComputer Gaming World was founded in 1981 by Russell Sipe as a bimonthly publication. Early issues were typically 40-50 pages in length, written in a newsletter style, including submissions by game designers such as Joel Billings , Dan Bunten , and Chris Crawford...
. It also received the Award for Technical Excellence from PC MagazinePC Magazine is an online computer magazine that was published monthly in the United States both in print and online until January 2009. In November 2008 it was announced that the of the magazine would be discontinued, but there would still be an online version. The magazine is published by Ziff...
, and the Best Action Adventure Game award by the Academy of Interactive Arts & SciencesThe Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences , founded in 1996, is a non-profit organization that promotes computer and video game entertainment with the annual D.I.C.E. Summit event, where its Interactive Achievement Awards ceremony has been held annually since 1998...
.
In addition to the thrilling nature of the single-player game, the deathmatchDeathmatch is a widely-used gameplay mode integrated into many shooter and real-time strategy computer games. The goal of a deathmatch game is to kill as many other players as possible until a certain condition or limit is reached, commonly being a frag limit or time limit...
mode was an important factor in the game's popularity. Doom
was not the first first-person shooter with a deathmatch mode—MIDI MazeMIDI Maze was an early first person shooter video game for the Atari ST developed by Xanth Software F/X, published by Hybrid Arts, and released around 1987. It owes a significant debt to what may be the first of its genre, Maze War...
on the Atari STThe Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was commercially available from 1985 to the early 1990s. It was released by Atari Corporation in 1985...
had one in 1987, using the MIDI ports built into the ST to network up to four machines together. However, Doom
was the first game to allow deathmatching over ethernetEthernet is a family of frame-based computer networking technologies for local area networks . The name comes from the physical concept of the ether...
, and the combination of violence and gore with fighting friends made deathmatching in Doom
particularly attractive. Two-player multiplayer was also possible over a phone line by using a modemModem is a device that modulates an analog carrier signal to encode digital information, and also demodulates such a carrier signal to decode the transmitted information. The goal is to produce a signal that can be transmitted easily and decoded to reproduce the original digital data...
, or by linking two PCs with a null-modem cable. Due to its widespread distribution, Doom
hence became the game that introduced deathmatching to a large audience (and was also the first game to use the term "deathmatch").
WADs
The ability to create custom levels and otherwise modify the game, in the form of custom WAD files, turned out to be a particularly popular aspect of Doom
. Gaining the first large modMod or modification is a term generally applied to PC games, especially first-person shooters, RPGs and real-time strategy games. Mods are made by the general public or a developer, and can be entirely new games in themselves, but mods are not standalone software and require the user to have the...
-making community, Doom
affected the culture surrounding first-person shooters, and also the industry. Several to-be professional game designerA game designer is a person who designs gameplay, conceiving and designing the rules and structures of a game. It is essentially the game equivalent to a screenwriter. The term applies to the designer of any game, whether a video game or tabletop games such as board games or card games...
s started their careers making Doom WADs as a hobby, among them
Tim WillitsTim Willits is the lead designer and co-owner of video game developer id Software. He joined id Software in 1995 after impressing the owners and development team with DOOM levels he forged in his spare time and distributed free over the Internet...
, who later became the lead designer at id Software.
The first
level editorA level editor is a software application used to design levels, maps or campaigns for a video game...
s appeared in early 1994, and additional tools have been created that allow most aspects of the game to be edited. Although the majority of WADs contain one or several custom levels mostly in the style of the original game, others implement new monsters and other resources, and heavily alter the gameplay; several popular movies, television series, other video games and other brands from popular culture have been turned into Doom
WADs by fans (without authorization), including AliensAliens is a 1986 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron and starring Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, and Bill Paxton. A sequel to the 1979 film Alien, Aliens is set fifty-seven years after the first film and is regarded by many film critics as a...
, Star WarsStar Wars is an epic space opera franchise initially conceived by George Lucas. The first film in the franchise was originally released on May 25, 1977, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, spawning two immediate sequels, released at three-year intervals...
, The X-FilesThe X-Files is an American cult science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. It first aired in September 1993 and ended in May 2002...
, The SimpsonsThe Simpsons is an American animated television sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its eponymous family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie...
, South ParkSouth Park is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become infamous for its crude, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
, Sailor Moonis the title of a Japanese media franchise created by Naoko Takeuchi. Fred Patten credits Takeuchi with popularizing the concept of a sentai of magical girls, and Paul Gravett credits the series with "revitalizing" the magical girl genre itself.The story of the various metaseries revolves around...
, Dragon Ball Zis a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama. It was originally serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1984 through 1995, and later the 519 individual chapters were published into 42 tankōbon volumes by Shueisha...
, Red FactionRed Faction is a first-person shooter video game that was released in 2001 for the PlayStation 2, Microsoft Windows, and Macintosh by THQ and Volition. A version for the Nokia N-Gage was developed by Monkeystone Games. The game was also re-developed as a top-down shooter for the mobile phone.Red...
, Pokémonis a media franchise published by the video game company Nintendo and created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996. Originally released as a pair of interlinkable Game Boy role-playing video games, Pokémon has since become the second most successful and lucrative video game-based media franchise in the world,...
and BatmanThe Batman, originally referred to as the Bat-Man, is a fictional character, a comic book superhero co-created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger , appearing in publications by DC Comics...
. Some works, like the Theme Doom Patch
, combined enemies from several films, such as AliensAliens is a 1986 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron and starring Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, and Bill Paxton. A sequel to the 1979 film Alien, Aliens is set fifty-seven years after the first film and is regarded by many film critics as a...
, PredatorPredator is a 1987 science fiction, action and horror film directed by John McTiernan, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Jesse Ventura, and Kevin Peter Hall. The story follows an elite team on a mission to rescue hostages from a guerrilla group in Central America. Unknowingly, the...
and The TerminatorThe Terminator is a 1984 science fiction action film directed and co-written by James Cameron and distributed by the independent film studio Orion Pictures. It features Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator, Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor and Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese. The film was followed by...
.
Some add-on files were also made which changed the sounds made by the various characters and weapons. Notable ones were samples from Beavis and Butthead
and the famous faked orgasm scene from When Harry Met Sally...When Harry Met Sally... is a 1989 romantic comedy film written by Nora Ephron and directed by Rob Reiner. It stars Billy Crystal as Harry and Meg Ryan as Sally. The story follows the title characters from the time they meet just before sharing a cross-country drive, through twelve years or so of...
.
Around 1994 and 1995, WADs were primarily distributed online over bulletin board systemA Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer system running software that allows users to connect and log in to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, a user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging...
s or sold in collections on compact discA Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store sound recordings exclusively, but later it also allowed the preservation of other types of data. Audio CDs have been commercially available since October 1982...
s in computer shops, sometimes bundled with editing guide books. FTPFile Transfer Protocol is a standard network protocol used to exchange and manipulate files over a TCP/IP based network, such as the Internet. FTP is built on a client-server architecture and utilizes separate control and data connections between the client and server applications...
servers became the primary method in later years. A few WADs have been released commercially, including the Master Levels for Doom II
, which was released in 1995 along with Maximum Doom
, a CD containing 1,830 WADs that had been downloaded from the Internet. Several thousands of WADs have been created in total: the idgames
FTP archive contains over 13,000 files, and this does not represent the complete output of Doom fans.
Third party programs were also written to handle the loading of various WADs, since the game is a
DOSDOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is a shorthand term for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions Windows 95, 98, and ME.Related systems...
game and all commands had to be entered on the command line to run. A typical launcher would allow the player to select which files to load from a menu, making it much easier to start.
Clones and related products
The popularity of Doom
led to the development of a sequel, Doom II: Hell on Earth
(1994), as well as expansion packs and alternate versions based on the same game engine, including The Ultimate Doom
(1995), Final DoomFinal Doom is a first-person shooter video game that uses the game engine, items and characters from Doom II. It consists of two 32-level megawads , The Plutonia Experiment by the Casali brothers, and TNT: Evilution by TeamTNT. Final Doom was released in 1996 and distributed as an official id...
(1996), and Doom 64Doom 64 is a video game for the Nintendo 64 released by Midway Games in 1997. It is part of the Doom first-person shooter video game series.-Plot:...
(1997). Doom
became a "killer app"A killer application , in the jargon of computer programmers and video gamers, has been used to refer to any computer program that is so necessary or desirable that it proves the core value of some larger technology, such as computer hardware like a gaming console, operating system or other software...
that all capable consoles and operating systemAn operating system is an interface between hardware and user which is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the resources of the computer that acts as a host for computing applications run on the machine. As a host, one of the purposes of an operating...
s were expected to have, and versions of Doom have subsequently been released for the following systems:
DOSDOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is a shorthand term for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions Windows 95, 98, and ME.Related systems...
,
Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces...
,
AmigaThe Amiga was a family of personal computers originally developed by Amiga Corporation. Development on the Amiga began in 1982 with Jay Miner as the principal hardware designer. Commodore International bought Amiga Corporation and introduced the machine to the market in 1985...
,
QNXQNX is a commercial Unix-like real-time operating system, aimed primarily at the embedded systems market. On September 12, 2007, the source of the QNX kernel was released for non-commercial use.-Description:...
,
IrixIRIX is a computer operating system developed by Silicon Graphics, Inc. to run natively on their 32- and 64-bit MIPS architecture workstations and servers. It is based on UNIX System V with BSD extensions. IRIX is the origin of the XFS file system....
,
NEXTSTEPNeXTSTEP was the object-oriented, multitasking operating system developed by NeXT Computer to run on its range of proprietary workstation computers, such as the NeXTcube, and later, other computer architectures.Nextstep 1.0 was released on September 18, 1989, after several previews starting in 1986...
,
LinuxLinux is a generic term referring to Unix-like computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Their development is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed,...
, Apple Macintosh,
Super NESThe Super Nintendo Entertainment System or Super NES is a 16-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe, Australasia , and South America between 1990 and 1993. In Japan and Southeast Asia, the system is called the , or SFC for short...
,
Sega 32XThe Sega 32X , codenamed Project Mars, is an add-on for the Sega Mega Drive video game console by Sega.In Japan, it was distributed under the name Sega Super 32X. In North America, its name was the Sega Genesis 32X...
, Sony
PlayStationThe PlayStation is a 32-bit fifth generation video game console released by Sony Computer Entertainment in December ....
,
Game Boy AdvanceThe Game Boy Advance is a 32-bit handheld video game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo. It is the successor to the Game Boy Color...
,
RISC OSRISC OS is a computer operating system which was originally developed by Acorn Computers Ltd in Cambridge, England for their ARM based computers. It was first released in 1988 as RISC OS 2.00, having been derived from Acorn's Arthur operating system, with the addition of cooperative multitasking...
,
Atari JaguarThe Atari Jaguar was a video game console, released by Atari Corporation in . It was designed to surpass the Mega Drive/Genesis and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in processing power. It was in competition with 3DO and later consoles that made up the Fifth generation of video game...
,
Sega SaturnThe is a 32-bit video game console that was first released on November 22 1994 in Japan, May 11 1995 in North America, and July 8 1995 in Europe...
,
Nintendo 64The , often abbreviated as N64, is Nintendo's third home video game console for the international market. Named for its 64-bit CPU, it was released on June 23, 1996 in Japan, September 29, 1996 in North America, March 1, 1997 in Europe and Australia, September 1, 1997 in France and December 10,...
,
Tapwave ZodiacThe Zodiac is a mobile entertainment console released in October 2003 by Tapwave.The product was designed to be a "high performance mobile entertainment system” centered on games, music, pictures, and video for 18 to 34 year old gamers and technology enthusiasts...
,
3DOThe 3DO Interactive Multiplayer is a video game console originally produced by Panasonic in . Further renditions of the hardware were released in by Sanyo and Goldstar. The consoles were manufactured according to specifications created by The 3DO Company, and were originally designed by Dave...
,
XboxThe Xbox is a video game console produced by Microsoft. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market, and competed with Sony's PlayStation 2, Sega's Dreamcast, and Nintendo's GameCube...
as a feature of Doom 3: Limited Edition, and
Xbox 360The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft, and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles....
on
Xbox Live ArcadeXbox Live Arcade is a term used to refer to a type of video game available primarily in a section of the Xbox Live Marketplace, Microsoft's digital distribution network for Xbox 360...
. The total number of copies of Doom
games sold is unknown, but may be well over 4 million; Doom II
alone has earned over $100 million in total sales.
The game engine was licensed to several other companies as well, who released their own games based on it, including HereticHeretic is a fantasy first-person shooter video game created by Raven Software, published by id Software, and distributed by GT Interactive in 1994....
, HexenHexen: Beyond Heretic, released as simply Hexen for some ports, is a first-person shooter video game developed by Raven Software, published by id Software, and distributed by GT Interactive beginning on March 16, 1996. It is the sequel to 1994's Heretic, and the second game in the Serpent Riders...
, Strife
and HacX
. There is also a Doom
-based game released by a breakfast cerealA breakfast cereal is a packaged breakfast food. It is eaten cold, usually mixed with milk or water, but sometimes eaten dry. Some cereals, such as oatmeal, may be served hot as porridge. Some companies promote their products for the health benefits from eating oat-based and high-fiber cereals....
maker as a product tie-in called Chex QuestChex Quest is a total conversion of the video game Doom . This game, notable for being the first video game ever to be included in cereal boxes as a prize, was found in boxes of Chex cereal in 1996...
, and the United States Marine CorpsThe United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States armed forces responsible for providing force projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to rapidly deliver combined-arms task forces. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
released Marine DoomMarine Doom is a 1996 modification of the first-person shooter Doom IIfor US Marines, which was later made available for download to the public....
, designed to "teach teamwork, coordination and decision-making".
Dozens of new first-person shooter titles appeared following Doom
's release, and they were often referred to as "Doom
clones" rather than "first-person shooters". Some of these were certainly "clones" — hastily assembled and quickly forgotten — others explored new grounds of the genre and were highly acclaimed. Many of the games closely imitated features in Doom
such as the selection of weapons and cheat codes. Doom
's principal rivals were Apogee3D Realms is a publisher and video game developer based in Garland, Texas established in 1987. It is best known for popularizing the shareware distribution model and as the creator of franchises on the PC such as Duke Nukem, and also the publisher of other franchises such as Commander Keen and...
's Rise of the TriadRise of the Triad: Dark War is a first-person shooter video game that was first released on February 17 1995 and developed by Apogee Software...
and Looking Glass StudiosLooking Glass Studios was a computer game development company during the 1990s.The company originally formed as Looking Glass Technologies, when Blue Sky Productions and Lerner Research merged....
' System ShockSystem Shock is an action role-playing game developed by Looking Glass Technologies and published by Origin Systems. Released in 1994, the game is set aboard the fictional Citadel Station in a cyberpunk vision of 2072...
(which, unlike Doom
, featured true 3D gameplay). The popularity of Star WarsStar Wars is an epic space opera franchise initially conceived by George Lucas. The first film in the franchise was originally released on May 25, 1977, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, spawning two immediate sequels, released at three-year intervals...
-themed WADs is rumored to have been the factor that prompted LucasArtsLucasArts Entertainment Company LLC is an American video game developer and publisher. The company was famous for its innovative line of graphic adventure games, the critical and commercial success of which peaked in the mid 1990s...
to create their first-person shooter Dark Forces
.
When, three years later, 3D Realms3D Realms is a publisher and video game developer based in Garland, Texas established in 1987. It is best known for popularizing the shareware distribution model and as the creator of franchises on the PC such as Duke Nukem, and also the publisher of other franchises such as Commander Keen and...
released Duke Nukem 3DDuke Nukem 3D is a first-person shooter computer game developed by 3D Realms and published by Apogee Software. It was released on January 29, 1996 for the PC. It is a sequel to the platform games Duke Nukem and Duke Nukem II published by Apogee...
, a tongue-in-cheek science fiction shooter based on Ken SilvermanKen Silverman is a game programmer, best known for writing the Build engine used in Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, Blood, and more than a dozen other games in the mid- to late-1990s...
's technologically similar Build
engineThe Build engine is a first-person shooter engine created by Ken Silverman for 3D Realms. Like the Doom engine, the Build engine represents its world on a two-dimensional grid using closed 2D shapes called sectors, and uses simple flat objects called sprites to populate the world geometry with...
, id Software had nearly finished QuakeQuake is a first-person shooter video game that was released by id Software on June 22, 1996. It was the first game in the popular Quake series of video games....
, its next-generation game, which mirrored Doom
s success for the remainder of the 1990s and significantly reduced interest in its predecessor. The franchise remained in that state until 2000, when Doom 3Doom 3 is a science fiction horror video game developed by id Software and published by Activision. An example of the first-person shooter genre, Doom 3 was first released for Microsoft Windows on August 3, 2004. The game was later adapted for Linux, as well as being ported by Aspyr Media for Mac...
was announced. A retelling of the original Doom
using entirely new graphics technology, Doom 3
was hypeHype may refer to:*Hype , 1981 album by Robert Calvert*Hype , American comedy television series*Hype!, documentary about the popularity of grunge rock in the early to mid 1990*Hype: The Time Quest, a 1999 PC RPG by Playmobil...
d to provide as large a leap in realism and interactivity as the original Doom
, and helped renew interest in the Doom franchise when it was released.
Doom has appeared in several forms in addition to games, including a comic book, four novels by
Dafydd Ab HughDafydd ab Hugh is a U.S. science fiction author. In the 1980s he served in the United States Navy training to be a Radar Intercept Officer, hoping to be selected to become an astronaut....
and
Brad LinaweaverBradford Swain Linaweaver is a Nebula Award finalist for the novella version, and Prometheus Award winner for the novel version of Moon of Ice. His other novels include Sliders and The Land Beyond Summer. Collaborative novels are four best-selling Doom novels with Dafydd ab Hugh, three Battlestar...
(loosely based on events and locations in the games), a
board gameDoom: The Boardgame is an adventure board game for two to four players designed by Kevin Wilson and published by Fantasy Flight Games in 2004...
and even a
live-action filmDoom is a 2005 science fiction horror film, loosely based on the popular Doom series of video games created by id Software. It was directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak and was released in the United States on October 21, 2005 and in the United Kingdom on December 2, 2005.On February 7, 2006, the Unrated...
starring
Karl UrbanKarl-Heinz Urban is an actor from New Zealand.He is best known for playing Éomer in the second and third installments of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and Dr Leonard McCoy in the 2009 film Star Trek...
and The Rock released in 2005. The game's development and impact on popular culture is also the subject of the book Masters of Doom
by David KushnerDavid Kushner is a writer who has contributed to publications including Wired, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, IEEE Spectrum and Salon. From 1994 to 1996 he worked as a senior producer and writer on the SonicNet website. The first edition of his non-fiction book, Masters of Doom, was published...
.
Controversy
Doom was and remains notorious for its high levels of
violenceViolence is the expression of physical or verbal force against self or other, compelling action against one's will on pain of being hurt. Variant uses of the term refer to the destruction of non-living objects . Worldwide, violence is used as a tool of manipulation and also is an area of concern...
,
goreGraphic violence is the depiction of especially vivid, brutal and realistic acts of violencein visual media such as literature, film, television music, and video games...
, and
satanicSatanism comprises a number of related beliefs and social phenomena. They share the feature of symbolism, veneration or admiration of Satan . Satan first appeared in the Hebrew Bible and was an Angel who challenged the religious faith of humans. In the Book of Job he is called "the Satan" and...
imagery, which have generated much controversy from a broad range of groups.
Yahoo! GamesYahoo! Games is the section of the Yahoo! website in which Yahoo! users can play games either with other users or by themselves. The games on the website are typically Java applets or quick Flash games, but there are others which require a download. Many of the games that require a download...
has it listed as one of the top ten controversial games of all time. It has been criticized numerous times by religious organizations for its diabolic undertones and was dubbed a "mass murder simulator" by critic and Killology Research Group founder
David GrossmanLieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman is an author who has specialized in the study of the psychology of killing, which has been termed 'killology'.Col. Grossman retired from the military as Professor of Military Science at Arkansas State University...
. Doom prompted fears that the then-emerging
virtual realityVirtual reality is a technology which allows a user to interact with a computer-simulated environment, whether that environment is a simulation of the real world or an imaginary world...
technology could be used to simulate extremely realistic killing, and in 1994 led to unsuccessful attempts by
WashingtonWashington is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Washington was carved out of the western part of Washington Territory which had been ceded by Britain in 1846 by the Oregon Treaty as settlement of the Oregon Boundary Dispute. It was admitted to the Union as the...
state senatorA state senator is a member of a state's Senate, the upper house in the bicameral legislature of 49 U.S. states, or a legislator in Nebraska's one house State Legislature.There are typically fewer state senators than there are members of a state's lower house...
Phil Talmadge to introduce compulsory licensing of VR use.
The game again sparked controversy throughout a period of school shootings in the United States when it was found that
Eric Harris and Dylan KleboldEric David Harris and Dylan Bennet Klebold were the high school seniors who committed the Columbine High School massacre. They killed 13 people and injured 21 others. Three people were also injured as they escaped the attack...
, who committed the
Columbine High School massacreThe Columbine High School massacre occurred on Tuesday, April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine, an unincorporated area in Jefferson County, Colorado, United States, near Denver and Littleton...
in 1999, were avid players of the game. While planning for the massacre, Harris said that the killing would be "like fucking Doom
" and that his shotgun was "straight out of the game". A rumor spread afterwards that Harris had designed Doom
levels that looked like the halls of the high school, populated with representations of Harris's classmates and teachers, and that Harris practiced for his role in the shootings by playing these levels over and over. Although Harris did design Doom
levels, they were not simulations of Columbine High SchoolColumbine High School or CHS is a secondary school in unincorporated Jefferson County, Colorado, United States.- History :Columbine High School opened in the fall of 1973. There was no senior class in its first year. The school's first graduating class was the class of 1975...
.
While Doom and other violent video games have been blamed for nation-wide school shootings, recent research featured by
Greater Good Science CenterThe Greater Good Science Center, located at the University of California, Berkeley is an interdisciplinary research center devoted to the scientific understanding of happy and compassionate individuals, strong social bonds, and altruistic behavior. By studying individuals and their relationships,...
shows that the two are not closely related.
Harvard medical schoolHarvard Medical School is one of the graduate schools of Harvard University. It is currently ranked first among American research medical schools by U.S. News and World Report....
researchers Cheryl Olson and Lawrence Kutner found that violent video games did not correlate to school shootings. The U.S. Secret Service and
Department of EducationThe United States Department of Education, also referred to as ED or the ED for Education Department, is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government...
analyzed 37 incidents of school violence and sought to develop a profile of school shooters, they discovered that the most common traits among shooters were that they were male and had histories of depression and attempted suicide. While many of the killers- like the vast majority of young males- did play video games, this study did not find a relationship between game play and school shootings. In fact, only one eighth of the shooters showed any special interest in violent video games, far less than the number of shooters who seemed attracted to books and movies with violent content.
Legacy
Doom
is widely regarded as one of the most important titles in gaming history. It was voted the "#1 game of all time" in a poll among over 100 game developers and journalists conducted by GameSpyGameSpy, also known as GameSpy Industries, is a division of IGN Entertainment, which operates a network of game websites and provides online video game-related services and software. GameSpy dates back to the 1996 release of an internet Quake server search program named QSpy. The current company...
in July 2001, and PC GamerPC Gamer is a magazine founded in Britain in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future Publishing. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games magazines in their respective countries...
proclaimed Doom
the most influential game of all time in its ten-year anniversary issue in April 2004, and named it the second best game of all time a year later (number one was Half-Life
).
Although the popularity of the Doom
games dropped with the release of Duke Nukem 3DDuke Nukem 3D is a first-person shooter computer game developed by 3D Realms and published by Apogee Software. It was released on January 29, 1996 for the PC. It is a sequel to the platform games Duke Nukem and Duke Nukem II published by Apogee...
(1996) and QuakeQuake is a first-person shooter video game that was released by id Software on June 22, 1996. It was the first game in the popular Quake series of video games....
(1996), the game had still retained a strong fan base that continues to this day by playing competitively and creating WADsDoom WADs are package files for the computer game Doom or its sequel Doom II, that contain sprites, levels, and game data. WAD stands for Where's All the Data?...
(the idgames
FTP archive receives a few to a dozen new WADs each week ), and Doom
-related news is still tracked at multiple websites such as DoomworldDoomworld is a news website dedicated to the computer game Doom, having been founded in 1998. It is hosted by AtomicGamer and is independently managed by a small staff of game fans with the help of many contributors...
. Interest in Doom
was renewed in 1997, when the source codeIn computer science, source code is any collection of statements or declarations written in some human-readable computer programming language...
for the Doom engine was released (it was also placed under the
GNU General Public LicenseThe GNU General Public License is a widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project....
in 1999). Fans then began
portingIn computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
the game to various operating systems, even to previously unsupported platforms such as the Dreamcast,
PlayStation PortableThe PlayStation Portable is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on May 11, 2004 at a Sony press conference before E3 2004...
,
Nintendo DSThe is a dual-screen handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was released in 2004 in Canada, the United States, and Japan. The console features a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP, with two LCD screens inside—with the bottom one being a touchscreen...
, TI calculators, the
iPodiPod is a brand of portable media players designed and marketed by Apple and launched on . The product line-up includes the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the video-capable iPod Nano, and the compact iPod Shuffle. The iPhone can function as an iPod but is generally...
, the
WiiThe is a home video game console released by Nintendo. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of both...
and most recently the T-Mobile G1. As for the PC, there has been additions of new features such as
OpenGLOpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL...
rendering and
scriptingA scripting language, script language or extension language is a programming language that allows control of one or more software applications. "Scripts" are distinct from the core code of the application, which is usually written in a different language, and are often created or at least modified...
, which allows WADs to alter the gameplay more radically. There are well over 50 different
Doom source portsA Doom source port is a source port of the Doom engine, the game engine used by the video game Doom. The term usually denotes a modification made by Doom fans, as opposed to any of the official Doom versions produced by id Software or affiliated companies.-Doom source release:The source code for...
, some of which remain under active development.
Devoted players have spent years creating speedruns for Doom
, competing for the quickest completion times and sharing knowledge about routes through the levels and how to exploit bugs in the Doom
engine for shortcuts. Achievements include the completion of both Doom
and Doom II
on the Ultra-Violence
difficulty setting in less than 30 minutes each. In addition, a few players have also managed to complete Doom II
in a single run on the Nightmare! difficulty setting, on which monsters are more aggressive, launch faster projectiles (or, in the case of the Pinky Demon, simply move faster), and respawn roughly 30 seconds after they have been killed (level designer John Romero characterized the idea of such a run as "[just having to be] impossible"). Movies of most of these runs are available from the
COMPET-N website.
Online co-op and deathmatch play still continues on servers listed through services such as Odamex
, Skulltag
ZDaemon
. and Doom Connector
.
External links
Official website
Ultimate Doom
at id Softwareid Software is an American video game development company from Mesquite, Texas. The company was founded in 1991 by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack...
Unofficial portal websites with Doom
-related news and content
- Doomworld – Doomworld
Doomworld is a news website dedicated to the computer game Doom, having been founded in 1998. It is hosted by AtomicGamer and is independently managed by a small staff of game fans with the help of many contributors...
- NewDoom
- Planet Doom on GameSpy
GameSpy, also known as GameSpy Industries, is a division of IGN Entertainment, which operates a network of game websites and provides online video game-related services and software. GameSpy dates back to the 1996 release of an internet Quake server search program named QSpy. The current company...
Information resources
- 1993: DOOM – John Romero
Alfonso John Romero is a game designer, programmer, and developer in the video game industry. He is best known as a co-founder of id Software and was a designer for many of their personal computer games including Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake...
's
Doom
page
Compet-n – the main Doom
speedrunning website
The Page of Doom
– articles about the history of the Doom games
Classic Doom - FAQs, info, maps, collection of useful resources