/vr/ - Retro Games

>>8259338
What was the game

>somehow we made the first side-scrolling game on PC
>massive success
>boss eventually hears we stole his computers to make loads of money on the side
>I knew it was coming, now we truly are fucked
>turns out boss is a crook, asks us to keep doing what we're doing while giving him a cut for "handling sales"
>rest of the company hears about this, they go on strike for favoritism or something
>boss is forced to fire our asses

>now I'm jobless and stuck with those retards
>tell them we might as well keep making videogames, it's easy money after all
>form a company, call it "Id" because I read Freud as a teen

>make 6 chapters of my game, people love it, still selling like hotcakes
>meanwhile blonde nerd found a way to make 3D games, immediately develops a shitty tank simulator
>fuck, are we really adding violence to games for kids?

>tell the guys we should focus on making family friendly products, that's how we started after all
>"Fuck you Tom, we're going to make a game about nazis where you kills dogs and shit!"
>holy fuck, these retards want to put blood, animal cruelty and banned imagery in kiddie entertainment
>I swear at some point a couple of kids will shoot up a school and they're going to blame us for this shit
>Romero isn't happy with my insubordination, steals my job as a designer
>whatever

>let them make their robot-Hitler game with nazi anthem music
>once it's released, tell the team it's time to get back on track
>maybe we should make a sci-fi adventure or som-
>"SHUT YOUR MOUTH WE'RE MAKING A GORE SIMULATOR ABOUT DEMONS AND SHIT"
>Jesus Christ

>swastikas weren't enough, satanic panic just ended and they want a game with pentagrams and gory imagery
>alright, it's up to me to salvage this trainwreck

>>8259342
Mr Nuts

>maybe I can come up with a setting to justify this travesty of a concept
>write a detailed document with plot, characters and everything
>special focus on narrative to give an actual purpose to the extreme amounts of violence they want in the game
>give them the document
>"Fuck you and your gay plot Tom, all we want is mindless carnage with deadly weapons, nobody likes you anyways"

>alright, that's enough
>tell everybody to eat my ass, I'm leaving
>guy that published the nazi game instantly offers me a job, apparently he started making games as well
>"your friends told us to make a sequel to Wolfenstein, please lead us master"
>fucking hell
>alright, at least I can work without those other retards for once
>spend more than a year leading a team and building my passion project, I can finally use my actual ideas now
>game is almost complete

>boss receives a call
>it's fucking Romero
>"Yeah we're happy and all with your work but we thought about it"
>oh no
>"we realized we don't want your game to steal our spotlight, with the imminent Doom release and all... consider Wolfenstein 2 cancelled"
>"Also we're self-publishing it because our new artist talked shit about you, so you guys won't take the usual cut"
>"Ps: tell Tom to suck my dick"

>fucking
>ROMERO

>dumbest guy I ever met literally found a way to fuck me over from another company
>alright, fuck him
>overhaul Wolfensten 2 with new textures and shit, call it "Rise of the Triad"
>help make Duke Nukem 2
>and Duke Nukem 3D
>work on the Prey engine

>get called on the phone one day
>"if it isn't Tom Hall, my good friend!"
>it's Mr Dickhead himself, Romero
>"listen I spontaneously decided to left the company we founded... how about we make a new one? Think about it, it will be just like the old days!"
>is this asshole serious

>OP kills self
>much rejoicing and celebrating

>Romero tells me his new revolutionary game idea
>it's the absolute worst pile of shit I've ever heard in my life
>"Come on, I won't be able to make it without your help!"
>good lord he's right
>I have to do everything in my power to help him make a miserable asshole of himself in front of the whole world
>quit my job, co-found new company with shithead
>make sure I can work on a different branch located as far away as possible from Romero

>produce cyberpunk game
>cool, let's do it again
>ask director if I can work as voice actor this time
>I take it he was agreeable

>meanwhile, Romero spends a fortune on a marketing campaign telling people he's going to make them his bitch
>the absolute fucktard
>finally releases his game
>it's an absolute travesty
>I fucking bet it will be remembered for years as the worst videogame ever made

>a month later, we release our cyberpunk game
>considered the best PC game ever made for decades

>spend the rest of my life working on shitty mobile games

Tom Hall had a hard life.

>>8259338

Tommy boy is that you?

>>8259363
You never be a real "programmer", you will always be a brogrammer in our hearts.

Have fun getting confused by quaternions algebra

q = cos(a/2) + i ( x * sin(a/2)) + j (y * sin(a/2)) + k ( z * sin(a/2))

>>8259338
Is this actually you Tom?
Do you realize how blessed you are it have worked on Deus Ex, what's considered to be one of the greatest games ever made?

To be colleagues with some of the greatest game designers to ever live?

>>8259363
>a month later, we release our cyberpunk game
>considered the best PC game ever made for decades

Don't try to deceive me, Tom, nobody even thinks about Anachronox these days and you didn't do shit on Deus Ex.

>>8259541
That was probably a reference to Deus Ex.
Tom voiced Walton Simons

I thought Tom wanted to continue working on Keen but id was embracing FPS games.

>>8259338
>putting your ketchup in the fridge

>>8259338
>>8259348
>>8259358
>>8259363
Reddit: the posts.
Rated M for Mature. Not available in all stores.

>>8260313
never knew that. Did he actually work on Deus Ex?

>>8259338
>>8259348
>>8259358
>>8259363
Seriously though, worked with regularly associated with Tom and he's a good guy. Romero is a cunt though, probably the worst person I've had the displeasure of working with.

>>8260501
>Romero is a cunt though, probably the worst person I've had the displeasure of working with.
Did you have the "privilege" to work with his credit thieving wife as well?

>>8260501
If that's true why are you wasting time posting here instead of getting yourself involved with those Tencent bux? They're signing all the legendary devs, Jap or Western.

>>8260501
holy LARP

>>8260528
Nah. I only worked with Romero during his time when he was trying to make an exclusive title for the original Xbox. Not sure if he was on drugs or bipolar or what, but his mood was constantly changing and he had a bad habit or breaking stuff in the office when he would (often) get angry. He made like seven or right people request a transfer due to how he behaved, that is when he actually showed up to work.

>>8260534
>legendary devs
I never was a big name in the field. I fucked up in the game industry, got fired and own a pizza franchise location now.

>>8259363
>spend the rest of my life working on shitty mobile games
This is something I don't get. Why is it such a common thing for the greatest game devs of the 90s to end up working on the worst mobile game shovelware garbage? Even people as high up as fucking Hironobu Sakaguchi. How do you go from creating one of the most profitable and important franchises in the history of video games to making basically flash games from the early 2000s?

>>8260587
Mobile games print money and require less resources to develop. For a businessman getting a higher ROI with less risk is obviously the better choice.

>>8260543
Wow, what a nightmare. A manchild if there ever was one.

>>8260607
Yeah. He had the gall to sell a keyboard he broke on ebay a while back. I watched him dump a full coffee carafe into an AC unit once, which at least was kinda funny to witness.

>>8260501
this

>>8260501
Romero would always stink up the office bathroom. I hope he got the dietary intervention he needed.

>>8259363
>>considered the best PC game ever made for decades
Your silly greentext story made me laugh, but it'll take a little more than a giggle to sell me on Anachronox. I've always had a bit of an interest in checking it out but I got other shit to do too. What makes it the best?

>>8260501
Is this "Romero" fellow in the room with us right now, anon?

>>8262010
>Anachronox
that was clearly about Deus Ex

>>8262127
Oh, is Dues Ex really that widely considered 'best ever'? I've replayed it recently and it's pretty bloody average.

>>8262127
anachronox was an interesting melancholic game and I knew it was the love child of his.

How much involvement did he have in deus ex?

also dopefish is lame

>>8262083
What's your name?

>>8260465
>Did he actually work on Deus Ex?
No. His team tried to steal the lipsyncing that the Deus Ex team invented though.

>>8260603
>Mobile games print money
Only the successful ones. Hall's and Romero's certainly haven't.

>>8262484
What's your name?

>spend the rest of my life working on shitty mobile games
>then the wifey dies

Did Tom life improved or worsened after the fact?

>>8260538
Yeah, any reasonably smart and observant person could tell you that Romero is a cringe game developer and person, this isn't news. But this board is filled with brainless western insects, so...

>>8259348
>I swear at some point a couple of kids will shoot up a school and they're going to blame us for this shit

>>8259338
>be Sandy Peterson
>design the shittiest levels in doom
>whole process takes you like two days
>make mad cash money

more like

>>be Sandy Chadersen
>>design the most based Doom maps
>>design based Lovecraft board games
>>leave ID because they were making the cringey dungpile known as Quake 2
>>move on to design more high IQ patrician games like Age of Empires

>>8264461
Yeah fair enough

>>8259342
Commander Keen

>>8264409
You don't get a free pass to spew headcanon LARP fiction just because Romero is a cunt.

i compared Romero and Hall's work post-2000 on wikipedia because it gets fuzzy for me and holy shit romero has been grinding. So many game devs just ride on past fame if they get a really big hit but he's been actually working on released projects every year since the 80s. Romero seems like a guy that really likes a certain "lifestyle" so maybe he's just trying not to be broke.

>>8260562
What did (You) do?

>>8264461
What did Petersen actually contribute to AoE? He's credited for "design"; did he just grind out the maps?

>>8265592
Almost all of that post-2000 stuff up until 2017 is just "additional level design", probably minor at best.

>>8265551
no way that's a mario clone

>>8265705
It's a "Mario clone" in the same sense that every FPS in the 90's was a "Doom clone."

Also, you are now aware of the Mario 3 fortress blocks in Commander Keen 1.

>>8265621
I was hired to be a general developmental assistant, which was basically a very fancy title that involved me doing all the shit that others refused or did not have time to do. Also had to keep food and drinks stocked, made sure people were not slacking in the bathroom, handle the phone and any guests. Playtesting too, which is a fucking nightmare. Playing the same section of a game hundreds of times in a single day, making sure it would not break is hellish, especially after already doing twelve hours of work already Pay was absolute ass, and looking back I can see why I was always drunk or fucked up on whatever drugs were readily available when I was not at work. Shit was black company-tier in the US.

>>8259342
Battletoads retard

>>8265705
Here's Commander Keen 0 if you don't believe >>8266852

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YWD6Y9FUuw

>>8264461
cringe

>>8265590
You don't get a free pass to be a retarded faggot either, yet here you are.

>>8265690
he designed/balanced units and what not + did some of the campaigns

>>8260562
>>8266914
I've heard a lot of similar story. It feels like unless you could quickly climb the corporate ladder, exiting the video game industry and finding another job ASAP seems like the best choice for most people.

>>8266914
>i delivered some pizzzas once while drunk and was so stoned i thought i worked there

>>8259342
Dookie Dookie Picnic

>>8259338
I saw Tom Hall at a grocery store in Los Angeles yesterday. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything.
He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?”
I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying.
The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.
When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.

>>8268787
Damn. I had no idea Tom Hall and George Floyd were related

>>8259363
Thanks for this. I had a good time.

>>8259363
>Tom Hall had a hard life.
nobody gives a fucking shit.

>>8271101
Get back to work, John.

>>8262497

>>8271615
>I found Warren. I said “Hey, I want to show you something that I think is kinda cool…” And… I think he freaked out. [laughs] He was like “What the hell, can we put this in the game? This is really cool!”
>So, we did ship with it, but I had to make a lot of tweaks to it for performance, and unfortunately the visual quality degraded. But, my original test level was gorgeous. Still, I think it was the very first real-time lip syncing. I don’t remember seeing anybody else doing it.
>I probably should have patented it. But I don’t believe in software patents, because I think they’re kinda evil…
>I also got into a huge argument with one of the Art Directors in Dallas who wanted to use it for Anacronox. They were supposed to ship before us. I said “Well, I don’t mind sharing, but I want Deus Ex to be the first game to ship with it”. He said “No, you have to give it to us!” He was basically yelling at us in the hallway. I said “No I don’t”, and Warren backed me up on that. Turns out, we ended up shipping first, so it didn’t matter anyway. In fact, I think they ended up implementing their own version of it separately, because we wouldn’t give it to them. It may have been selfish, but I wanted us to ship with it first, so we could showcase it.
Ion Storm Dallas, total fuckups as always