Sunday, December 10th 2023
DOOM Turns 30, John Romero Releases SIGIL II
The game that jump-started FPS as a popular game genre, DOOM, is now 30 years old! Released in 1993 by id Software, DOOM's shareware first mission is the most widely distributed PC game in history, and its paid full version continues to sell to this day, on Steam; with Bethesda having designed a modern game executable. DOOM is also one of the most popular game franchises, with close to a dozen titles across platforms. With Bethesda's acquisition of Zenimax, the franchise got a fresh breath of live through the 2010s, first DOOM (2016), and then the smash hit DOOM Eternal.
The original team that designed DOOM, ace designers John Romero and Tom Hall; and artist Adrian Carmack, congratulated gamers for making DOOM the indispensable piece of video gaming history that it is. DOOM is among the games that turned the PC into a serious gaming platform, as games on PCs were seen mostly as a novelty software for what was predominantly a machine for work. To celebrate the 30th Anniversary of DOOM, John Romero announced the release of SIGIL II, the unofficial sixth episode of the original DOOM. Due to commercial restrictions, the WAD (where's all the data?) files for SIGIL and SIGIL II are free, but you can support Romero's work by buying its unique soundtrack that's been developed by Buckethead and THOR; collectible boxes, and other merchandise.
The original team that designed DOOM, ace designers John Romero and Tom Hall; and artist Adrian Carmack, congratulated gamers for making DOOM the indispensable piece of video gaming history that it is. DOOM is among the games that turned the PC into a serious gaming platform, as games on PCs were seen mostly as a novelty software for what was predominantly a machine for work. To celebrate the 30th Anniversary of DOOM, John Romero announced the release of SIGIL II, the unofficial sixth episode of the original DOOM. Due to commercial restrictions, the WAD (where's all the data?) files for SIGIL and SIGIL II are free, but you can support Romero's work by buying its unique soundtrack that's been developed by Buckethead and THOR; collectible boxes, and other merchandise.
28 Comments on DOOM Turns 30, John Romero Releases SIGIL II
Edit: Descent is the first title I know of that also took the maps to 3D. Lots of hours sunk into that one, too.
I worked in tech support and we played the first iteration of the game, installing and running the multiplayer off a server, which brought the company network down one day (200 employees). We had no clue that the game was pinging each network port in the company, looking for the clients running the game. Luckily, IT figured out how to run the game without a server and we were saved (we blamed the network outage on testing one of our crappy games).
Once we figured out how to do multiplayer without a server, every lunch break a group of us would play Doom, Descent, Quake, Duke Nukem, Raven studio stuff. Those were great days which led to building out an 8 player gaming room in a spare bedroom with all the PC components no longer needed by the developers and QA at work. That was the start of the LAN party and it was a lot of fun, all due to DOOM.