WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.680 --> 00:00:10.160 I could not tell you where I got it nor really 2 00:00:10.400 --> 00:00:15.985 when. Possibly on a floppy disk from a friend around 1994, it 3 00:00:15.985 --> 00:00:21.505 might have been around 1995 at the grocery store on a CD sold 4 00:00:21.505 --> 00:00:26.065 with a magazine that I somehow convinced my mother to buy me. 5 00:00:26.510 --> 00:00:32.910 In any event, I would have been 10, maybe 11 years old. I do 6 00:00:32.910 --> 00:00:37.390 remember starting it up for the first time, being met almost 7 00:00:37.390 --> 00:00:42.670 jarringly with the image of a muscled man wearing a gray 8 00:00:42.165 --> 00:00:47.845 porcine visored helmet and green armor. His fatigues are torn. 9 00:00:47.845 --> 00:00:53.605 He's covered in claw marks. The huge blue and gold letters 10 00:00:53.605 --> 00:00:56.725 behind him look like a combination of super future 11 00:00:56.725 --> 00:01:01.100 technology and impossibly ancient artifact and they spell 12 00:01:01.100 --> 00:01:09.260 out a single word, doom. A menu pops up. New game. Definitely 13 00:01:09.260 --> 00:01:09.900 enter. 14 00:01:09.900 --> 00:01:15.655 Which episode? Knee deep in Dead, Shores of Hell or Inferno? 15 00:01:15.655 --> 00:01:19.175 My adolescent brain barely knows what to make of this. Best to 16 00:01:19.175 --> 00:01:23.415 start at the start, I guess. Knee deep in Dead sounds sick. 17 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:28.240 Enter. Choose skill level. I'm too young to die. Hey, not too 18 00:01:28.240 --> 00:01:30.080 rough. Hurt me plenty. 19 00:01:30.240 --> 00:01:37.200 Ultra violence and nightmare. Hurt me plenty? I guess. Enter. 20 00:01:39.040 --> 00:01:43.805 What happens next determines to some not insignificant degree 21 00:01:43.885 --> 00:01:45.565 the course of my life. 22 00:01:45.885 --> 00:01:48.845 People talk about experiences that change their brain 23 00:01:48.845 --> 00:01:53.005 chemistry. This was one of those. Beginning with the sound 24 00:01:53.005 --> 00:02:05.540 that you hear immediately upon requesting to be hurt plenty. To 25 00:02:05.540 --> 00:02:08.740 modern adolescent ears, I imagine this sounds anemic, but 26 00:02:08.740 --> 00:02:13.875 to me, in the mid nineties, it was cool as hell. Somewhat 27 00:02:13.875 --> 00:02:15.155 literally, I guess. 28 00:02:15.555 --> 00:02:18.675 Over the next single minute of gameplay, I'm appraised of a set 29 00:02:18.675 --> 00:02:21.955 of actualities I'd not previously even considered 30 00:02:21.955 --> 00:02:27.080 possibilities. All of them, Doom's now well known hallmarks. 31 00:02:27.160 --> 00:02:30.760 First person combat of which it was an early standout, a 32 00:02:30.760 --> 00:02:33.960 combination of mythic and technological story elements, 33 00:02:33.960 --> 00:02:36.920 you're a futuristic space marine fighting demons from hell on 34 00:02:36.920 --> 00:02:42.755 Mars, a fast pace, this game rips. And also, of course, 35 00:02:43.075 --> 00:02:47.395 tears. In the coming months afflicted with doom fever, I 36 00:02:47.395 --> 00:02:50.915 would learn also of the game's vibrant community of modders 37 00:02:50.995 --> 00:02:55.280 supported in no small part by its developer id Software's 38 00:02:55.280 --> 00:03:00.080 generosity or perhaps in another view ruthlessness. 39 00:03:00.560 --> 00:03:03.760 Id's permissive attitude is reflected in a number of their 40 00:03:03.760 --> 00:03:07.600 decisions. The first episode of Doom was released as shareware, 41 00:03:07.600 --> 00:03:11.575 software that's free but often limited or incomplete. The rest 42 00:03:11.575 --> 00:03:15.735 of the game's episodes could be purchased only direct from id 43 00:03:15.815 --> 00:03:20.055 who enabled, encouraged, and celebrated modifications of 44 00:03:20.055 --> 00:03:23.610 their game as long as they weren't sold. They decided to 45 00:03:23.610 --> 00:03:27.530 open source the game's engine making it available under a non 46 00:03:27.530 --> 00:03:31.690 commercial license. And they did so basically at the height of 47 00:03:31.690 --> 00:03:33.370 their game's popularity. 48 00:03:33.770 --> 00:03:37.295 And so an inventive game that could render fan made 49 00:03:37.295 --> 00:03:41.055 contributions led to a flourishing community of artists 50 00:03:41.055 --> 00:03:45.615 and technologists which has persisted for thirty years. 51 00:03:46.255 --> 00:03:50.095 People are still actively porting and modifying Doom, 52 00:03:50.300 --> 00:03:54.060 updating it to run as efficiently as ever on modern 53 00:03:54.060 --> 00:03:58.780 systems, and making those ports do all kinds of crazy things. 54 00:03:59.020 --> 00:04:01.740 The most recent, like, kind of mod thing I can 55 00:04:01.740 --> 00:04:07.755 think of is I wrote a simulation of something called the icing 56 00:04:07.755 --> 00:04:13.035 model, which is a model of ferromagnetism. It's kind of a 57 00:04:13.275 --> 00:04:16.395 canonical thing that you learn in an undergrad statistical 58 00:04:16.395 --> 00:04:17.275 mechanics class. 59 00:04:17.275 --> 00:04:19.915 And like the meme of dinosaurs turning from 60 00:04:19.915 --> 00:04:26.390 fossils to petroleum to plastic models of dinosaurs, Doom is 61 00:04:26.390 --> 00:04:31.030 used to produce whole new games in which a trace of the true 62 00:04:31.030 --> 00:04:32.870 self persists. 63 00:04:32.870 --> 00:04:36.165 Over decades of development has literally gotten 64 00:04:36.165 --> 00:04:39.285 to the point where you can ship a Theseus the entire game and 65 00:04:39.285 --> 00:04:44.325 create entirely brand new games that if you think about it, of 66 00:04:44.325 --> 00:04:46.965 technically share code with Doom, but it's transformed so 67 00:04:46.965 --> 00:04:51.690 much over over the decades that you wouldn't recognize it if you 68 00:04:51.690 --> 00:04:54.010 weren't looking for it. And so it's nuts that we've gotten to 69 00:04:54.010 --> 00:04:54.490 this point. 70 00:04:54.490 --> 00:04:57.130 Many of you will probably also know that folks 71 00:04:57.130 --> 00:05:00.250 out here aren't just porting Doom to run clever mods on 72 00:05:00.250 --> 00:05:04.625 modern systems, they're porting it to run on everything. 73 00:05:05.025 --> 00:05:08.705 Pregnancy tests, ATMs, soda machines, spreadsheets, vehicle 74 00:05:08.705 --> 00:05:11.425 dashboard displays, PDFs, graphing calculators, air 75 00:05:11.425 --> 00:05:15.740 fryers, alarm clocks, DNS records, e coli, MS Paint, the 76 00:05:15.740 --> 00:05:19.660 Kindle earbuds, a vet grown human brain, and even somehow 77 00:05:19.660 --> 00:05:24.940 Doom itself have all been hacked apart and made to run Doom. 78 00:05:24.940 --> 00:05:28.140 That's what Doom is. They gave us some they gave 79 00:05:28.140 --> 00:05:31.615 us the tools and people used the tools and then it became funny 80 00:05:31.615 --> 00:05:34.415 to use the tools in a way like that they weren't intended to be 81 00:05:34.415 --> 00:05:36.655 used. But also that was the whole intention the entire time 82 00:05:36.655 --> 00:05:39.935 like, again, like if you go back to even the the par system, like 83 00:05:39.935 --> 00:05:42.830 why does Doom have par? That doesn't make any sense. 84 00:05:42.910 --> 00:05:45.550 It's become a part of the software's promise, 85 00:05:45.710 --> 00:05:49.310 its purpose, that it become integrated into all sorts of 86 00:05:49.310 --> 00:05:53.870 wildly bespoke systems, that it be used in ways that make you 87 00:05:53.870 --> 00:05:58.615 ask, Doom? Like the video game. 88 00:05:58.615 --> 00:06:00.375 A lot of my own practice, know, I I kind of came 89 00:06:00.375 --> 00:06:02.935 from experimental music, you know, synthesizers, generative 90 00:06:02.935 --> 00:06:07.415 music, different spatial things. And I've been doing a lot of 91 00:06:07.415 --> 00:06:09.895 work kind of connecting that to game engines, you know. It's the 92 00:06:09.895 --> 00:06:12.455 same way you might patch a modular synthesizer. Here's a, 93 00:06:12.560 --> 00:06:15.440 you know, a generator manifesting something. I've been 94 00:06:15.440 --> 00:06:19.040 really interested in game engines, game simulations. 95 00:06:19.040 --> 00:06:21.280 It's kind of like a almost like a cybernetic system 96 00:06:21.280 --> 00:06:24.160 conceptualized as a patchable environment, you know, rather 97 00:06:24.160 --> 00:06:28.715 than an LFO into a sound, you know. Maybe you know, 98 00:06:28.715 --> 00:06:32.075 projectile, maybe player depth, maybe the speed of a three d 99 00:06:32.075 --> 00:06:34.315 object could be could be mapped into something. 100 00:06:34.555 --> 00:06:37.035 In this episode of Never Post, we're gonna talk 101 00:06:37.035 --> 00:06:41.820 about why the hell this all happened. How did this game come 102 00:06:41.820 --> 00:06:47.820 to be used this way over any other for this long? It turns 103 00:06:47.820 --> 00:06:50.620 out the answer is in part circumstance, but also 104 00:06:50.620 --> 00:06:55.395 significantly because the people who made Doom wanted this to 105 00:06:55.395 --> 00:06:59.395 happen to some degree. And then the Internet kind of did the 106 00:06:59.395 --> 00:07:02.995 rest. In the first half of this episode, we're gonna talk about 107 00:07:02.995 --> 00:07:07.075 the five years id software took to arrive at Doom, and then 108 00:07:07.075 --> 00:07:09.635 about how Doom works as a piece of technology. 109 00:07:10.160 --> 00:07:12.880 In the second half of this episode, we're gonna talk about 110 00:07:12.880 --> 00:07:16.880 why that piece of technology can run on almost any system, and 111 00:07:16.880 --> 00:07:20.000 then we're gonna hear from some artists who use Doom to make 112 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:23.280 things. They're gonna tell us why you might muck around in a 113 00:07:23.280 --> 00:07:26.935 game about Mars and demons to make, you know, like a string 114 00:07:26.935 --> 00:07:31.495 quartet or jokes about a dead British prime minister overdoing 115 00:07:31.495 --> 00:07:36.615 those things literally anywhere else. I hope by the end to have 116 00:07:36.615 --> 00:07:40.460 shown how we can use Doom to think broadly about using 117 00:07:40.460 --> 00:07:44.300 technology to make things, especially older technology, 118 00:07:44.620 --> 00:07:50.380 which in some ways requires more of us, but in other ways less. I 119 00:07:50.380 --> 00:07:55.115 think Doom as it exists now can help us see what it takes to be 120 00:07:55.115 --> 00:08:00.235 creative at a time when most technology seems to want us more 121 00:08:00.235 --> 00:08:18.240 than anything to be consumptive. Doom was far from id Software's 122 00:08:18.240 --> 00:08:19.200 first game. 123 00:08:19.280 --> 00:08:22.240 The original founders, John Romero, John Carmack, and Tom 124 00:08:22.240 --> 00:08:26.325 Hall, eventually joined by Adrian Carmack, no relation, met 125 00:08:26.325 --> 00:08:30.885 as coworkers several years prior to Doom's release. They called 126 00:08:30.885 --> 00:08:34.725 themselves IFD for ideas from the deep, and they were 127 00:08:34.725 --> 00:08:39.400 employees of Louisiana based SoftDisc. Softdisk put out 128 00:08:39.400 --> 00:08:43.880 regular Megazets, a snail mailed publication of personal PC 129 00:08:43.880 --> 00:08:48.040 software in floppy disk format. One of the group's early 130 00:08:48.040 --> 00:08:51.560 contributions was nineteen eighty eight's side scroller 131 00:08:51.560 --> 00:08:56.715 Dangerous Dave. John Romero very explicitly admits that dangerous 132 00:08:56.715 --> 00:08:59.755 Dave was a rip off of Mario. 133 00:09:03.115 --> 00:09:07.595 Except the first dangerous Dave title didn't actually scroll but 134 00:09:07.595 --> 00:09:11.490 paged. When the player reached the screen's edge, the whole 135 00:09:11.490 --> 00:09:16.530 frame would redraw to show the next area. Carmack later devised 136 00:09:16.530 --> 00:09:20.130 a technique where only the edge of the screen is redrawn, 137 00:09:20.370 --> 00:09:23.170 allowing the background to scroll smoothly with the 138 00:09:23.170 --> 00:09:27.255 player's movement. This was something that at the time only 139 00:09:27.255 --> 00:09:32.375 consoles could do, but Carmack built a workaround for the PC. 140 00:09:32.855 --> 00:09:38.440 The team used his technique to fully recreate the first portion 141 00:09:38.520 --> 00:09:43.560 of Super Mario Brothers three on PC with dangerous Dave in 142 00:09:43.560 --> 00:09:44.760 Mario's place. 143 00:09:44.920 --> 00:09:48.280 In his book, masters of doom, David Kushner writes, by the 144 00:09:48.280 --> 00:09:52.435 time they finished, the game was virtually identical to the best 145 00:09:52.435 --> 00:09:59.635 selling hit in the world. They then sent it to Nintendo. They 146 00:09:59.635 --> 00:10:03.715 included a letter explaining their interest in licensing the 147 00:10:03.715 --> 00:10:08.970 rights to Super Mario for the PC. Nintendo wrote back in short 148 00:10:08.970 --> 00:10:12.810 order telling them, this is nice work, but no thank you. We have 149 00:10:12.810 --> 00:10:14.810 no interest in the PC market. 150 00:10:15.130 --> 00:10:19.050 The never released game was titled dangerous Dave in 151 00:10:19.475 --> 00:10:25.795 copyright infringement. The technological achievement was 152 00:10:25.795 --> 00:10:29.795 undeniable though. Their manager at SoftDisc said Carmack should 153 00:10:29.795 --> 00:10:34.640 patent this development, and he refused on principle, saying, 154 00:10:34.640 --> 00:10:38.320 apparently, if you ever ask me to patent anything again, I'll 155 00:10:38.320 --> 00:10:42.800 quit. Kushner explains that, quote, patents were jeopardizing 156 00:10:42.800 --> 00:10:46.775 the very thing that was central to John Carmack's life, writing 157 00:10:46.775 --> 00:10:51.095 code to solve problems. If the world became a place in which he 158 00:10:51.095 --> 00:10:54.695 couldn't solve a problem without infringing on someone's patent, 159 00:10:54.855 --> 00:10:57.815 he would be very unhappy to live there, end quote. 160 00:10:58.710 --> 00:11:01.590 While they were developing dangerous Dave for soft disc, 161 00:11:01.590 --> 00:11:05.190 the team also picked up a somewhat shady side gig with 162 00:11:05.190 --> 00:11:09.750 Apogee software. They would simultaneously develop the 163 00:11:09.750 --> 00:11:14.925 similarly Mario inspired side scroller, Commander Keen, about 164 00:11:14.925 --> 00:11:19.965 an eight year old defending Earth from aliens. In his book 165 00:11:19.965 --> 00:11:23.485 Doom Guy, John Romero writes that Keen is the first game for 166 00:11:23.485 --> 00:11:28.560 which he and Carmack had the idea to write a game engine. 167 00:11:28.800 --> 00:11:31.680 Something Romero takes credit for naming if not 168 00:11:31.680 --> 00:11:35.360 conceptualizing altogether. Though he does admit that's the 169 00:11:35.360 --> 00:11:37.520 kind of thing that might be impossible to prove. 170 00:11:40.655 --> 00:11:44.015 Very briefly, if you're unfamiliar, a game engine is a 171 00:11:44.015 --> 00:11:48.495 base layer of reusable code to manage assets and to make game 172 00:11:48.495 --> 00:11:52.880 development more consistent. So they develop the Keen engine and 173 00:11:52.880 --> 00:11:58.080 then the Keen games which Apogee releases as shareware. Apogee 174 00:11:58.080 --> 00:12:02.800 would upload early episodes to a BBS or an FTP and then they 175 00:12:02.800 --> 00:12:07.545 would sell the complete games direct via mail. The IFD team 176 00:12:07.545 --> 00:12:11.465 eventually has a falling out with Apogee in part because they 177 00:12:11.465 --> 00:12:15.865 may have used their Keen engine to make other games without 178 00:12:15.865 --> 00:12:20.350 paying a licensing fee. And Romero seems to suggest it's not 179 00:12:20.350 --> 00:12:24.430 so big a deal that Apogee may have used their code, it's more 180 00:12:24.430 --> 00:12:27.070 so that they just weren't cool about it. 181 00:12:27.310 --> 00:12:30.670 He describes himself and Carmack as, quote, programming 182 00:12:30.670 --> 00:12:35.585 evangelists. We had no problem with anyone using our work, he 183 00:12:35.585 --> 00:12:39.265 writes, but in the spirit of shareware, if a company is using 184 00:12:39.265 --> 00:12:43.585 our engine to make money, they should share the wealth. After 185 00:12:43.585 --> 00:12:46.960 the first royalty check for Keene hits, they quit SoftDesk 186 00:12:46.960 --> 00:12:51.760 and formed their own company, id Software. At first, standing for 187 00:12:51.840 --> 00:12:56.240 in demand, but later retconned to sort of maybe be a reference 188 00:12:56.240 --> 00:12:59.520 to Sigmund Freud, but mostly it seems like they just thought it 189 00:12:59.520 --> 00:13:03.205 sounded cool. The final commander keen game is released 190 00:13:03.205 --> 00:13:08.805 in 1991, and then they begin work on Wolfenstein three d. 191 00:13:12.930 --> 00:13:17.570 Wolfenstein three d is a major turning point for id in both, 192 00:13:17.810 --> 00:13:21.890 business and technical senses. It has its own mini history that 193 00:13:21.890 --> 00:13:24.290 we're gonna look at really briefly in a second, but first, 194 00:13:24.290 --> 00:13:27.570 I think it's worth considering what we've seen up until this 195 00:13:27.570 --> 00:13:32.465 point. Looking at the early days of id, Carmack and Romero settle 196 00:13:32.465 --> 00:13:36.225 into two distinct roles. Carmack makes a significant 197 00:13:36.225 --> 00:13:40.865 technological development and then Romero uses it to create 198 00:13:40.865 --> 00:13:45.540 what's essentially an homage. He takes and in a lot of ways 199 00:13:45.540 --> 00:13:50.420 improves upon preexisting often very popular games. 200 00:13:50.900 --> 00:13:56.100 We also see, amongst the early id crew, early hostility towards 201 00:13:56.100 --> 00:14:00.075 gatekeeping and the desire to share not just as a business 202 00:14:00.075 --> 00:14:03.355 model, but as a kind of technological principle as well. 203 00:14:03.515 --> 00:14:07.355 Id gives away portions of their games. They also license their 204 00:14:07.355 --> 00:14:12.120 game engines, albeit with mixed results early on. We see an 205 00:14:12.120 --> 00:14:15.800 early fascination with Mars in Commander Keen and in Dangerous 206 00:14:15.800 --> 00:14:27.225 Dave, both gore and shotguns. Id's first first person shooter 207 00:14:27.225 --> 00:14:32.585 is a game called Hovertank one, released on 05/31/1991. 208 00:14:32.665 --> 00:14:36.985 For Hovertank, John Carmack wrote id's first three d 209 00:14:36.985 --> 00:14:42.170 rendering game engine in only two months. They'd refine their 210 00:14:42.170 --> 00:14:45.610 first person and three d rendering approach over the next 211 00:14:45.610 --> 00:14:50.490 six months in Catacombs three d, in which Carmack would implement 212 00:14:50.490 --> 00:14:53.850 texture mapping, a technique where the game engine maps the 213 00:14:53.850 --> 00:14:58.935 three d level model with two d images. In catacombs three d, id 214 00:14:58.935 --> 00:15:04.215 also introduces a hand, bottom center screen to represent the 215 00:15:04.215 --> 00:15:10.380 player character. Id's first significant FPS is Wolfenstein 216 00:15:10.380 --> 00:15:15.020 three d, an homage to nineteen eighty one's Nazi infiltration 217 00:15:15.020 --> 00:15:19.500 classic Castle Wolfenstein. They bought the IP rights for Castle 218 00:15:19.500 --> 00:15:24.460 Wolfenstein for $5,000 after Carmack had already started work 219 00:15:24.460 --> 00:15:25.925 on a revamped engine. 220 00:15:25.925 --> 00:15:29.445 And this engine had two notable additions, the ability to add 221 00:15:29.445 --> 00:15:35.845 secret areas and an emphasis on speed. Id wanted this game to be 222 00:15:36.325 --> 00:15:41.400 fast. They released the first episode of Wolfenstein three d 223 00:15:41.400 --> 00:15:47.960 as shareware in May 1992. It was a smash. They did nearly a 224 00:15:47.960 --> 00:15:51.480 quarter of $1,000,000 in sales on the commercial episodes in 225 00:15:51.480 --> 00:15:52.440 the first month. 226 00:15:53.365 --> 00:15:57.925 All in, the engine and shareware episodes took four months to 227 00:15:57.925 --> 00:16:02.085 develop and the remaining five commercial episodes took a month 228 00:16:02.085 --> 00:16:07.045 and a half. Not a terrible outcome for six months of work. 229 00:16:08.570 --> 00:16:11.450 By the fall, around the time an additional retail episode of 230 00:16:11.450 --> 00:16:15.130 Wolfenstein three d is about to launch, John Romero notices 231 00:16:15.130 --> 00:16:18.890 something. He writes, we soon found out that some rather 232 00:16:18.890 --> 00:16:22.185 enterprising hackers had figured out how to extract and 233 00:16:22.185 --> 00:16:26.905 decompress the levels from Wolfenstein three d and modify 234 00:16:26.905 --> 00:16:29.545 them. This was a big surprise to us. 235 00:16:29.545 --> 00:16:33.225 Not only was it a lot of work, but it required a high degree of 236 00:16:33.225 --> 00:16:37.390 technical expertise to hack the Wolfenstein three d executable 237 00:16:37.390 --> 00:16:41.870 and get the maps decompressed. Soon after, several map editors 238 00:16:41.870 --> 00:16:45.150 appeared on the Internet and people were busy making levels 239 00:16:45.150 --> 00:16:51.255 and expanding the base game. The era of modding our games had 240 00:16:51.255 --> 00:16:56.135 begun. Kushner writes that while Carmack and Romero did worry 241 00:16:56.135 --> 00:16:59.255 about the possibility someone may use their game engine to 242 00:16:59.255 --> 00:17:03.495 sell modifications, they tabled the issue. They were hard at 243 00:17:03.495 --> 00:17:07.200 work on the final episodes of Wolfenstein three d and in early 244 00:17:07.200 --> 00:17:11.280 development for the engine of their next title, a military 245 00:17:11.280 --> 00:17:14.320 themed demon slaying action game. 246 00:17:16.720 --> 00:17:21.075 Doom comes together as a culmination of everything id has 247 00:17:21.075 --> 00:17:25.715 learned up until this point. CarMax engine makes use of more 248 00:17:25.715 --> 00:17:28.595 advanced three d rendering techniques built upon what he 249 00:17:28.595 --> 00:17:32.460 learned with catacombs and hover tank one. He improves upon his 250 00:17:32.460 --> 00:17:36.620 texture mapping techniques. He focuses on the speed and feel of 251 00:17:36.620 --> 00:17:40.300 the game and provides the ability to hide things within 252 00:17:40.300 --> 00:17:45.895 maps. Romero builds a level editor called DoomEd that allows 253 00:17:45.895 --> 00:17:49.575 him to quickly design levels for CarMax engine as well as place 254 00:17:49.575 --> 00:17:52.215 enemies and things inside those levels. 255 00:17:52.455 --> 00:17:57.335 The whole team sought to make a visceral experience. Romero 256 00:17:57.335 --> 00:18:00.390 claims that levels were subject to thousands of playthroughs 257 00:18:00.390 --> 00:18:04.710 during design. With designer Tom Hall and artist Adrian Carmack, 258 00:18:04.710 --> 00:18:07.910 they all pulled together themes, objects, and ideas from all of 259 00:18:07.910 --> 00:18:12.485 their previous games, shotguns, ghosts, demons, gore, aliens, a 260 00:18:12.485 --> 00:18:15.845 first person perspective, and they develop a master design 261 00:18:15.845 --> 00:18:21.685 document called the Doom Bible. And then they decided early on 262 00:18:21.685 --> 00:18:26.620 that since people would modify this game, no question, why not 263 00:18:26.620 --> 00:18:31.980 just let them? Romero writes that amongst all of the 264 00:18:31.980 --> 00:18:37.260 features, Doom being an open game was the most important to 265 00:18:37.260 --> 00:18:37.500 them. 266 00:18:38.045 --> 00:18:43.165 It was, in a way, an homage to homages, itself built to 267 00:18:43.165 --> 00:18:47.325 encourage the creation of further derivative works. And of 268 00:18:47.325 --> 00:18:50.750 course, the first episode of Doom would be distributed as 269 00:18:50.750 --> 00:19:00.910 shareware. Hell came to Earth via FTP on 12/10/1993. So many 270 00:19:00.910 --> 00:19:04.750 people were waiting to download the game that the sysadmins 271 00:19:04.805 --> 00:19:08.965 needed to reconfigure the server. Id had to demand that 272 00:19:08.965 --> 00:19:13.685 fans log off in order to reliably upload the installer. 273 00:19:14.005 --> 00:19:17.250 Thousands of people downloaded it. In the following weeks, id 274 00:19:17.250 --> 00:19:23.330 would make $50,000 a day in direct sales. Game press reviews 275 00:19:23.330 --> 00:19:27.250 were glowing. Compute Magazine called it a quote graphic 276 00:19:27.250 --> 00:19:31.250 extravaganza that's completely free of the kinds of redeeming 277 00:19:31.250 --> 00:19:35.705 societal values found in sim health. Computer Gaming World 278 00:19:35.705 --> 00:19:39.545 wrote that quote, Doom represents a huge technical 279 00:19:39.545 --> 00:19:43.705 improvement over id's earlier titles, giving the gamers what 280 00:19:43.705 --> 00:19:47.145 they asked for and the industry a new benchmark. 281 00:19:48.020 --> 00:19:53.780 In PC Gamer, what makes Doom so special? Simplicity, realism, 282 00:19:53.860 --> 00:19:59.780 and profound carnage. Doom unseated Myst as the number one 283 00:19:59.780 --> 00:20:05.675 worldwide game on Usenet, Posts on alt.games.doom, the freshly 284 00:20:05.675 --> 00:20:09.515 minted news group for Doom players, read things like Doom 285 00:20:09.515 --> 00:20:13.115 is thoroughly excellent. I've tried Doom at a local computer 286 00:20:13.115 --> 00:20:17.860 store, and I find myself nearly addicted. Oh, wow. 287 00:20:17.860 --> 00:20:22.900 Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Ad infinitum. Ad nauseam? 288 00:20:22.900 --> 00:20:26.660 What a great freaking game. I cannot wait to play deathmatch. 289 00:20:26.660 --> 00:20:31.695 TM question mark? Players were having all kinds of new 290 00:20:31.695 --> 00:20:35.215 experiences. Sawing through a demon torso with a chainsaw, 291 00:20:35.215 --> 00:20:35.775 yes. 292 00:20:35.775 --> 00:20:39.935 But also a number of things that would go on to become major 293 00:20:39.935 --> 00:20:44.450 pillars of gaming. Doom was one of the first early broadly 294 00:20:44.450 --> 00:20:49.410 popular games to support both co op and versus multiplayer at 295 00:20:49.410 --> 00:20:53.890 first via a LAN and then via dial up. As such, many people 296 00:20:53.890 --> 00:20:58.835 draw a line directly from Doom to esports today. Doom also 297 00:20:58.835 --> 00:21:02.515 included a par time for each level suggesting that players 298 00:21:02.515 --> 00:21:06.035 could race the clock to finish each area as quickly as 299 00:21:06.035 --> 00:21:10.675 possible, an early precursor to speedruns. Doom also allows 300 00:21:10.675 --> 00:21:14.250 players to record keystrokes and share their playthroughs. 301 00:21:14.330 --> 00:21:18.330 A predecessor in some views to let's plays and modern game 302 00:21:18.330 --> 00:21:25.015 streaming. And finally, within two weeks of release, id had 303 00:21:25.015 --> 00:21:30.455 also published details about how their game design or WAD for 304 00:21:30.455 --> 00:21:35.415 where's all the data files were structured. The first complete 305 00:21:35.415 --> 00:21:40.260 fan made level editor, Doom Editing Utilities or DEU, is 306 00:21:40.260 --> 00:21:47.060 released on 01/26/1994, only forty seven days after Doom 307 00:21:47.060 --> 00:21:50.980 itself. You can even go to a Usenet archive and pull up 308 00:21:50.980 --> 00:21:54.980 threads of people talking about building editors and what to use 309 00:21:54.980 --> 00:22:02.015 them for. A Hunt on 01/12/1994 writes, I think the Doom engine 310 00:22:02.015 --> 00:22:05.535 could be used very effectively for things other than the maze 311 00:22:05.535 --> 00:22:07.455 shoot them ups, which I love. 312 00:22:07.535 --> 00:22:11.810 How about football first person? The Doom engine limitations 313 00:22:11.810 --> 00:22:15.490 should not be a problem, vertical views, etcetera. The 314 00:22:15.490 --> 00:22:19.650 mountains could be a stadium. Replace the multitude of 315 00:22:19.650 --> 00:22:24.465 monsters with more views of teammates. Hockey too. 316 00:22:24.465 --> 00:22:28.465 The rollerblade feel of the movements on a fast machine 317 00:22:28.465 --> 00:22:34.225 already show the graphics speed wouldn't be a problem. Just you 318 00:22:34.225 --> 00:22:42.280 wait a hunt. Just you wait. Then in only the amount of time it 319 00:22:42.280 --> 00:22:46.760 takes to get to Mars using the Hohmann maneuver, Doom two Hell 320 00:22:46.760 --> 00:22:51.080 on Earth is released. Doom two is retail only and it hits the 321 00:22:51.080 --> 00:22:53.895 shelves 10/10/1994. 322 00:22:54.055 --> 00:22:57.015 It was developed in much the same manner and with many of the 323 00:22:57.015 --> 00:23:01.015 same tools as the first Doom, but it's bigger with more guns 324 00:23:01.095 --> 00:23:04.935 and more demons. And I can tell you exactly where I got this 325 00:23:04.935 --> 00:23:08.660 one. Babbage's in the Natick Mall with a paper gift 326 00:23:08.660 --> 00:23:13.300 certificate I got for my birthday. In early nineteen 327 00:23:13.300 --> 00:23:17.620 ninety five, the source code for both Doom games is released 328 00:23:17.620 --> 00:23:21.695 under a noncommercial Doom license. These were Linux 329 00:23:21.695 --> 00:23:24.895 versions of the code given the use of proprietary audio 330 00:23:24.895 --> 00:23:27.215 software in the MS DOS versions. 331 00:23:27.535 --> 00:23:33.295 On 10/03/1999, the licenses for each are converted to full new 332 00:23:33.295 --> 00:23:37.670 general public licenses, which requires all work made using the 333 00:23:37.670 --> 00:23:42.470 code to be released under the same license. It's at this 334 00:23:42.470 --> 00:23:46.630 point, all of the technical pieces are in the world, 335 00:23:47.350 --> 00:23:52.685 available by design for anyone to use, and it was required that 336 00:23:52.685 --> 00:24:02.365 if you did so, you also share your work. Hundreds, maybe 337 00:24:02.365 --> 00:24:06.640 thousands of pieces of software using Doom's code have followed 338 00:24:06.640 --> 00:24:11.280 since. Mods, user made levels, total conversions, where it 339 00:24:11.280 --> 00:24:14.480 sorta seems like you're playing a whole different game, source 340 00:24:14.480 --> 00:24:18.560 ports, and more. It's a branching rhizome of projects 341 00:24:18.560 --> 00:24:23.895 that assure that no matter what your system, it can run Doom, 342 00:24:23.975 --> 00:24:27.175 often with more features and greater fidelity than the 343 00:24:27.175 --> 00:24:27.895 original. 344 00:24:28.135 --> 00:24:32.295 A vibrant community of hackers, modders, and artists are doing 345 00:24:32.295 --> 00:24:37.710 exactly what id designed their game to do, run well and be 346 00:24:37.710 --> 00:24:44.830 shared. We're gonna take a quick break. You're gonna listen to 347 00:24:44.830 --> 00:24:47.790 some ads unless you're on the member feed. And when we return, 348 00:24:47.790 --> 00:24:51.305 we're gonna talk to two game designers, a nuclear physicist, 349 00:24:51.305 --> 00:24:56.985 and a composer about what people are making with Doom and why 350 00:24:57.145 --> 00:25:12.030 exactly they're making it with Doom. Doom is small. 351 00:25:12.110 --> 00:25:15.310 Like, the actual size of the game. It's tiny. I'm looking at 352 00:25:15.310 --> 00:25:18.910 the files for both Doom and Doom two right now, and they're 11 353 00:25:18.910 --> 00:25:23.425 megs and 16 megs respectively. That's smaller than some photos 354 00:25:23.425 --> 00:25:27.185 I've taken with my phone. So before you even get started 355 00:25:27.185 --> 00:25:32.100 making things with it, Doom itself is very portable, and 356 00:25:32.100 --> 00:25:35.380 boy, howdy, has it been ported. 357 00:25:35.540 --> 00:25:38.180 Back whenever Doom source code was released, 358 00:25:38.180 --> 00:25:40.420 like, we're talking the nineties. Right? A lot of people 359 00:25:40.420 --> 00:25:42.420 were just like, oh my gosh. This is the coolest thing ever. 360 00:25:42.420 --> 00:25:43.780 Let's, like, update the game. 361 00:25:43.780 --> 00:25:46.455 That's Zazer with an x, Acheron. 362 00:25:46.455 --> 00:25:48.775 I currently work at Nightdive Studios as a game 363 00:25:48.775 --> 00:25:51.815 developer, but I've basically been plugged into the Doom 364 00:25:51.815 --> 00:25:55.895 community for twenty plus years, which is crazy, doing 365 00:25:55.895 --> 00:26:00.610 programming, level design, art, music, all sorts of Doom mod 366 00:26:00.610 --> 00:26:01.090 stuff. 367 00:26:01.090 --> 00:26:03.490 Zayzer is thanked by name at the end of John 368 00:26:03.490 --> 00:26:06.450 Romero's book. And though I know it will slightly embarrass him, 369 00:26:06.450 --> 00:26:09.810 I am going to mention that the Doom Wiki describes him as, 370 00:26:09.810 --> 00:26:14.635 quote, the Doom community's truest polymath. He really has 371 00:26:14.635 --> 00:26:18.155 done a bit of everything. So I wanted to ask him to help me 372 00:26:18.155 --> 00:26:23.515 understand the finer details of why Doom will run on a Sony 373 00:26:23.515 --> 00:26:27.530 PocketStation memory card. The explanation begins with one of 374 00:26:27.530 --> 00:26:29.450 Doom's early source ports. 375 00:26:29.610 --> 00:26:33.290 Meaning, someone takes the engine source code and modifies 376 00:26:33.290 --> 00:26:38.010 it to run on a different type of system. Crucially, this isn't 377 00:26:38.010 --> 00:26:41.945 necessarily the game itself, but the software that runs the game. 378 00:26:42.105 --> 00:26:45.465 So a source port can run Doom, but it can also run 379 00:26:45.465 --> 00:26:47.145 modifications of Doom. 380 00:26:47.225 --> 00:26:50.025 And one of the earlier ports that ended up 381 00:26:50.025 --> 00:26:52.425 sticking around for a long, long, long, long, long time was 382 00:26:52.425 --> 00:26:56.020 called ZDoom, And it was just done by someone named Marissa 383 00:26:56.020 --> 00:26:58.660 Hite. She just was like, hey. I wanna make a Doom source port 384 00:26:58.660 --> 00:27:04.180 and did it for years. And the thing that drew people to it was 385 00:27:04.180 --> 00:27:07.620 it started adding a ton and ton a ton of modding features. Like, 386 00:27:07.895 --> 00:27:11.895 the earlier Doom source ports, a lot of them started focusing on, 387 00:27:11.895 --> 00:27:13.335 like, visual fidelity. 388 00:27:13.735 --> 00:27:16.215 So, like, earlier versions of Edge, which also had a lot of 389 00:27:16.215 --> 00:27:21.095 modding features, JDom, Doomsday, and ZDoom, they all 390 00:27:21.095 --> 00:27:23.600 had things like, hey. You could play it at high resolution, and, 391 00:27:23.600 --> 00:27:25.840 oh, we're adding a couple little features like jumping and 392 00:27:25.840 --> 00:27:29.280 things, and there's glowy lights and dynamic stuff. There are 393 00:27:29.280 --> 00:27:30.720 some early OpenGL ports. 394 00:27:30.720 --> 00:27:34.320 This continues until today, literally. Since 395 00:27:34.320 --> 00:27:37.680 the mid nineties, there have been legions of people, Zazer 396 00:27:37.680 --> 00:27:43.285 included, who exert Olympus Mons amounts of effort to ensure that 397 00:27:43.285 --> 00:27:49.045 Doom runs and runs well. It would be a project all its own 398 00:27:49.045 --> 00:27:52.965 to recount the history and lineage of every Doom source 399 00:27:52.965 --> 00:27:57.420 port. There have been many. They are constantly being improved 400 00:27:57.420 --> 00:27:58.460 and extended. 401 00:27:58.700 --> 00:28:03.260 And in fact, the newest major source port called u z Doom was 402 00:28:03.260 --> 00:28:09.715 updated eleven hours ago at time of writing. So running Doom, 403 00:28:09.955 --> 00:28:13.155 very easy, which is to say nothing of the fact that 404 00:28:13.315 --> 00:28:16.515 Doom is incredibly easy to make content 405 00:28:16.515 --> 00:28:20.210 for. Like, you can have zero experience doing anything in 406 00:28:20.530 --> 00:28:24.450 resembling game design, and you can install Ultimate Doom 407 00:28:24.450 --> 00:28:28.850 Builder and make a Doom map and test it and do that within ten 408 00:28:28.850 --> 00:28:31.970 or fifteen minutes. I literally tell people, hey. If you wanna 409 00:28:31.970 --> 00:28:36.515 get into game design and you're brand new to it, install a Doom 410 00:28:36.515 --> 00:28:37.955 editor. Like, that's that sounds weird. 411 00:28:37.955 --> 00:28:40.195 Right? Like, wait. I wanna make a game. I wanna make my own 412 00:28:40.195 --> 00:28:42.675 game. Why would I want to make a mod for something else? 413 00:28:42.675 --> 00:28:45.555 Right? Well, the reason why is because if you want to make a 414 00:28:45.555 --> 00:28:49.520 game, what you actually need to do is, like, 20 different 415 00:28:49.520 --> 00:28:52.320 things. Like, oh, you gotta pick an engine, and you maybe have to 416 00:28:52.320 --> 00:28:54.000 be a programmer, and you gotta figure out what things to 417 00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:55.920 install if you're using Unity. And then you have to figure out, 418 00:28:55.920 --> 00:28:57.760 oh, am I a level designer now? Am I an artist? 419 00:28:57.760 --> 00:29:00.515 What am I doing for? Okay. If you wanna make a doom app, 420 00:29:00.515 --> 00:29:02.755 here's what you do. Draw some lines in an editor and play 421 00:29:02.755 --> 00:29:05.235 around, and then hit the test button. It works. 422 00:29:06.595 --> 00:29:09.475 I don't know if you've ever opened Unity or 423 00:29:09.475 --> 00:29:13.075 Unreal Engine. I've spent a fair amount of time in each just as a 424 00:29:13.075 --> 00:29:17.150 hobbyist. And for beginner, the experience is not unlike looking 425 00:29:17.150 --> 00:29:21.470 into the cockpit of an airplane through a kaleidoscope. It's 426 00:29:21.470 --> 00:29:24.270 tough to even get started and getting to a point where you can 427 00:29:24.270 --> 00:29:29.230 play around represents a kind of opportunity cost. There's an 428 00:29:29.230 --> 00:29:33.345 inherent risk assumed until you're well versed in the 429 00:29:33.345 --> 00:29:34.065 software. 430 00:29:34.385 --> 00:29:38.785 And Zazer's conjecture is, this is not the case with Doom. You 431 00:29:38.785 --> 00:29:43.200 wanna try something out? Go to hell. I took his advice, and I 432 00:29:43.200 --> 00:29:47.120 thought, okay. Let's say I wanna make a version of this episode 433 00:29:47.120 --> 00:29:50.960 that's playable as a level of doom. 434 00:29:51.440 --> 00:29:55.925 How long would it take to get on my way? Not faffing about with 435 00:29:55.925 --> 00:30:00.645 files or menus, but actually making and testing something. So 436 00:30:00.645 --> 00:30:03.765 I downloaded u z doom and a level editor, and I timed 437 00:30:03.765 --> 00:30:10.180 myself. It took six minutes before I was pushing Doomguy 438 00:30:10.180 --> 00:30:13.700 around inside a map that I designed. I mean, it was a very 439 00:30:13.700 --> 00:30:15.860 simple map, but I I made it. 440 00:30:18.100 --> 00:30:21.935 Doom, the set of tools for building games, exhibits the 441 00:30:21.935 --> 00:30:26.895 same kind of speed and responsiveness as Doom the game. 442 00:30:27.295 --> 00:30:33.840 Its lack of fussiness verges on almost magical in 2026. The 443 00:30:33.840 --> 00:30:38.080 first time I sat down to make something in Doom felt so 444 00:30:38.080 --> 00:30:43.760 similar to the first time I sat down to play Doom. A few menu 445 00:30:43.760 --> 00:30:49.015 clicks and suddenly, oh my god. Is this for real? 446 00:30:49.815 --> 00:30:52.855 My brain chemistry forever altered. 447 00:30:52.855 --> 00:30:55.015 Again, I do think this is tied to early computing 448 00:30:55.015 --> 00:30:58.135 and early internet culture. Like, are these are very, like, 449 00:30:58.375 --> 00:31:01.980 specific times and places with very specific culture. 450 00:31:02.060 --> 00:31:04.380 This is Bijan Steven. You may remember him 451 00:31:04.380 --> 00:31:07.660 from the first episode of Never Post. He's a video game writer 452 00:31:07.660 --> 00:31:11.020 at Compulsion Games and a music critic for the nation. 453 00:31:11.020 --> 00:31:13.820 And a player on Fun City Ventures, the best 454 00:31:13.820 --> 00:31:16.060 tabletop role playing game podcast that you've never heard 455 00:31:16.060 --> 00:31:16.220 of. 456 00:31:18.435 --> 00:31:23.235 Cesar told us how. Bijan is gonna tell us why. 457 00:31:23.635 --> 00:31:27.395 What about Doom inspires all this experimentation and 458 00:31:27.395 --> 00:31:32.270 extension? All the technological factors stipulated why this game 459 00:31:32.270 --> 00:31:33.470 in particular. 460 00:31:34.270 --> 00:31:36.990 Doom became part of the culture because it was 461 00:31:36.990 --> 00:31:39.390 something that everyone was playing, and it was something 462 00:31:39.390 --> 00:31:42.830 that everyone had access to, and it was something that you could 463 00:31:42.830 --> 00:31:46.670 mess with, like, very easily. So it became this natural fit. And 464 00:31:46.670 --> 00:31:49.445 then those those, you know, those forums and videos and 465 00:31:49.445 --> 00:31:53.365 whatever, all of that stuff, like, filtered in like, filtered 466 00:31:53.365 --> 00:31:56.965 down to the next generation online. And it's like the the 467 00:31:56.965 --> 00:32:00.645 designers are daring you to break it. They're daring you to 468 00:32:00.645 --> 00:32:02.325 do stuff with it that they didn't expect. 469 00:32:02.760 --> 00:32:05.320 Why else would they open source the engine? Why else would they 470 00:32:05.320 --> 00:32:08.840 ship it with demos? They gave us the tools and they they gave us, 471 00:32:08.840 --> 00:32:12.520 like, the tool the paints and the brushes and the easel and 472 00:32:12.520 --> 00:32:15.465 the canvas, and they expected us to get get to work. That's what 473 00:32:15.465 --> 00:32:19.705 it was. But video games are interesting because again, they 474 00:32:19.705 --> 00:32:21.545 are prescribed experiences. 475 00:32:21.545 --> 00:32:24.425 They they are there is a beginning, middle, and an end 476 00:32:25.145 --> 00:32:27.945 that has been set down and thought about by the designers. 477 00:32:27.945 --> 00:32:33.150 Right? But the thing that Doom sort of posited in a very early 478 00:32:33.150 --> 00:32:36.270 stage in this development of games was, like, what if that 479 00:32:36.270 --> 00:32:40.110 wasn't the end? What if what if we our vision for this wasn't 480 00:32:40.110 --> 00:32:43.150 actually what this game is? And if the further we get from its 481 00:32:43.150 --> 00:32:44.430 origins, the funnier it gets. 482 00:32:44.430 --> 00:32:47.865 Like, what do you like, why are you still doing this? But I 483 00:32:47.865 --> 00:32:51.545 think I mean, it's it's it's not because it's like the designers 484 00:32:51.545 --> 00:32:53.945 and developers sort of intended for you to fuck with it, but, 485 00:32:53.945 --> 00:32:56.425 like, did they mean did did they really think that you were gonna 486 00:32:56.425 --> 00:32:59.465 do this with it? I don't know. It's it's I I think it's really 487 00:32:59.465 --> 00:33:01.510 hard to say. This is like it's like you're you're asking 488 00:33:01.510 --> 00:33:03.830 questions about the human spirit, and I don't know how to 489 00:33:03.830 --> 00:33:04.550 answer them. 490 00:33:05.670 --> 00:33:09.670 Bijan posits, I think, a kind of doom, a 491 00:33:09.670 --> 00:33:13.190 metagame, which doesn't involve military bases on Mars, 492 00:33:13.190 --> 00:33:18.095 cacademons, chainsaws as much as it involves an IDE, GitHub, and 493 00:33:18.095 --> 00:33:24.095 Discord. Urdoom has one goal, the creation of more doom, and 494 00:33:24.095 --> 00:33:27.695 there's no win condition because there is always more doom to be 495 00:33:27.695 --> 00:33:32.430 made. It would again be a project all its own to list even 496 00:33:32.430 --> 00:33:37.710 1% of the incredible mods and conversions of Doom, but we will 497 00:33:37.710 --> 00:33:44.815 at least fulfill some of a hunt's wishes. Z football is a 498 00:33:44.815 --> 00:33:50.495 2,004 mod build as, quote, the first complete soccer themed 499 00:33:50.495 --> 00:33:56.415 total conversion for z doom. Doom hockey is, exactly what it 500 00:33:56.415 --> 00:33:58.255 sounds like and multiplayer. 501 00:33:58.255 --> 00:34:02.470 Hellshots is a game where in place of a gun, Doomguy holds a 502 00:34:02.470 --> 00:34:06.950 putter or a wedge or an iron. That's right. It's Doom Golf. 503 00:34:07.030 --> 00:34:11.110 Doom the gallery experience trades the plasma rifle for a 504 00:34:11.110 --> 00:34:15.445 red wine glass and the armor power ups for cheese. And yes, 505 00:34:15.445 --> 00:34:17.125 you do exit through the gift shop. 506 00:34:17.125 --> 00:34:21.845 Doctor Robotnik's ring racers is, get ready, a Sonic themed 507 00:34:21.845 --> 00:34:27.830 tournament tuned Mario Kart style racing game built on Doom 508 00:34:27.830 --> 00:34:32.070 Legacy. Its website reads, quote, Ring Racers is not a 509 00:34:32.070 --> 00:34:35.990 pickup and play experience. If you aren't already a racing 510 00:34:35.990 --> 00:34:42.265 fanatic, the learning curve will be quite steep, end quote. And 511 00:34:42.265 --> 00:34:46.665 perhaps the most famous is a surreal survival horror maze 512 00:34:46.665 --> 00:34:51.305 discovery game called my house dot wad, which Bijan describes 513 00:34:51.305 --> 00:34:51.625 as 514 00:34:51.945 --> 00:34:56.180 One of the best Doom things I've ever seen. It's 515 00:34:56.180 --> 00:34:59.940 unbelievable. Somebody tried to do House of Leaves with Doom. 516 00:34:59.940 --> 00:35:02.660 What? Like and then they succeeded. 517 00:35:02.660 --> 00:35:06.740 That's the crazier part. It it it is genuinely unnerving. It is 518 00:35:06.740 --> 00:35:10.165 so strange. Because again, Doom, the way Doom looks is very 519 00:35:10.165 --> 00:35:13.045 specific. And the way that the person making my house dot wad 520 00:35:13.045 --> 00:35:16.485 understood they they understood how Doom looked and how Doom 521 00:35:16.485 --> 00:35:19.605 felt and they made it feel eerie if you've ever played Doom, 522 00:35:19.605 --> 00:35:22.325 which I think again, it feels like a love letter to a 523 00:35:22.325 --> 00:35:22.725 community. 524 00:35:22.725 --> 00:35:26.480 It feels like very specific to a very time and place and specific 525 00:35:26.480 --> 00:35:30.160 to a certain group of people who like are very aware of this 526 00:35:30.160 --> 00:35:32.400 thing that they're doing and this thing that they're playing. 527 00:35:32.560 --> 00:35:36.000 The way Doom looks is very specific, but so 528 00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:41.075 is the way Doom runs. Doom does not require a GPU. It runs 529 00:35:41.075 --> 00:35:44.995 entirely on the processor. Meaning, unlike many modern 530 00:35:44.995 --> 00:35:49.235 games, it doesn't need specialized hardware. The code 531 00:35:49.235 --> 00:35:52.300 is also, as discussed, very well optimized. 532 00:35:52.380 --> 00:35:56.780 It's also written in c, which while sort of old fashioned, is 533 00:35:56.780 --> 00:36:01.420 straightforward for most systems to compile or interpret. So, 534 00:36:01.420 --> 00:36:04.455 basically, what this all means is that when you ask a computer, 535 00:36:04.455 --> 00:36:09.015 whatever computer, to run Doom, you're only giving it one job, 536 00:36:09.495 --> 00:36:13.335 run Doom. And it doesn't really take much of a computer to do 537 00:36:13.335 --> 00:36:16.295 that. Embedded software, 538 00:36:17.250 --> 00:36:19.010 you're gonna you're gonna program and see. 539 00:36:19.010 --> 00:36:21.890 Like, that's that is the root foundation that almost every 540 00:36:21.890 --> 00:36:26.530 device ever that isn't a desktop PC is gonna use. So that by 541 00:36:26.530 --> 00:36:29.170 itself is already a massive chunk that allows you to take 542 00:36:29.170 --> 00:36:33.175 Doom and compile it for your thing of choice. And and the 543 00:36:33.175 --> 00:36:37.415 fact that it's, you know, was designed to run on what a three 544 00:36:37.415 --> 00:36:41.175 eighty six well, four eighty six if you had infinite money back 545 00:36:41.175 --> 00:36:45.020 in the early nineties means that you could run it on a potato 546 00:36:45.020 --> 00:36:47.420 because your your modern embedded device probably is 547 00:36:47.420 --> 00:36:49.340 gonna be a little bit more powerful than what they had back 548 00:36:49.340 --> 00:36:50.940 then. So, yeah, you're gonna be fine. 549 00:36:51.260 --> 00:36:53.820 The the history of doom is also is also the 550 00:36:53.820 --> 00:36:57.535 history of technology because it is everywhere we go. Somebody's 551 00:36:57.535 --> 00:37:00.415 putting Doom on it no matter what, like, whatever we make. It 552 00:37:00.415 --> 00:37:02.575 also, I think, has sort of become like a minimal like, the 553 00:37:02.575 --> 00:37:06.655 the minimum viable computer can run Doom, which is how it was 554 00:37:06.655 --> 00:37:09.055 designed. And I think that's sort of like it's almost like 555 00:37:09.055 --> 00:37:10.015 proving that it's a computer. 556 00:37:10.640 --> 00:37:14.480 Doom has more or less grown up in the myriad ways 557 00:37:14.480 --> 00:37:19.200 it has alongside computing as a commercial enterprise and 558 00:37:19.200 --> 00:37:23.200 computers as consumer products and the Internet as social 559 00:37:23.200 --> 00:37:26.535 infrastructure and communities of people using all of those 560 00:37:26.535 --> 00:37:34.935 things to make media and art and jokes. So why Doom? It was 561 00:37:34.935 --> 00:37:38.560 popular. It was available. It was made to be shared. 562 00:37:38.560 --> 00:37:43.200 Homage is in its guts, which are also maybe splattered on a 563 00:37:43.200 --> 00:37:47.760 nearby wall. Its usage as raw material was not only 564 00:37:47.760 --> 00:37:52.285 encouraged, but supported by its authors and the community of 565 00:37:52.285 --> 00:37:55.965 people who grew around their work. Going back to the Usenet, 566 00:37:55.965 --> 00:37:59.565 there are countless discussions like with many games at the time 567 00:37:59.565 --> 00:38:05.325 asking, does Doom run on this system or this system or this 568 00:38:05.325 --> 00:38:08.660 configuration? And people working to discover that the 569 00:38:08.660 --> 00:38:14.260 answer, unlike with many games at the time, was often yes, if 570 00:38:14.260 --> 00:38:18.660 with a little bit of tinkering. It's very easy to imagine then 571 00:38:18.660 --> 00:38:24.205 how someone might eventually stand in front of a GE vivid s 572 00:38:24.205 --> 00:38:31.405 five ultrasound scanning machine and think, I bet I can get that 573 00:38:31.405 --> 00:38:32.525 to play doom. 574 00:38:33.085 --> 00:38:35.645 As an aside, though, that is maybe not something that you 575 00:38:35.645 --> 00:38:41.120 should voice aloud while standing in front of a GE vivid 576 00:38:41.120 --> 00:38:46.240 s five ultrasound scanning machine. In the last and final 577 00:38:46.240 --> 00:38:49.360 act of this episode, we're gonna talk to two people who make 578 00:38:49.360 --> 00:38:53.925 things professionally and occasionally do so with Doom. 579 00:38:55.765 --> 00:38:59.925 Throughout all of this, I've not stopped wondering, don't the 580 00:38:59.925 --> 00:39:06.630 guns and gore and demons make it harder to use Doom, why not 581 00:39:06.630 --> 00:39:10.470 start from scratch or with something that has less 582 00:39:11.030 --> 00:39:17.190 significance or meaning? Why choose to engage with Doom's 583 00:39:17.270 --> 00:39:17.830 baggage? 584 00:39:41.200 --> 00:39:45.555 There's a WAD where if I remember correctly, the big 585 00:39:45.555 --> 00:39:52.275 bad is Margaret Thatcher. Yeah. Makes me think of that clip. I 586 00:39:52.275 --> 00:39:54.355 don't know. Have have you seen that clip of this this old 587 00:39:54.355 --> 00:39:57.110 British woman at Thatcher's funeral? 588 00:39:57.110 --> 00:40:00.710 Not a bit of good. Not a bit. I put a stick 589 00:40:00.710 --> 00:40:03.270 through her heart and garlic around her neck to make sure she 590 00:40:03.270 --> 00:40:04.310 never come back. 591 00:40:07.270 --> 00:40:10.630 Hello. My name is John Matter. I'm a nuclear 592 00:40:10.630 --> 00:40:12.665 physicist turned software developer. 593 00:40:12.745 --> 00:40:15.785 I know John from Weird Music Internet and from 594 00:40:15.785 --> 00:40:18.905 their string of public experimentations with Doom. 595 00:40:18.905 --> 00:40:22.825 I think the most recent thing I did was playing 596 00:40:22.825 --> 00:40:26.730 Doom on a monom grid, which isn't really Doom modding 597 00:40:26.730 --> 00:40:31.530 itself, but it is part of this like, can it play Doom thing. So 598 00:40:31.530 --> 00:40:37.130 I wrote a max patch that takes video, massages it so that it 599 00:40:37.130 --> 00:40:42.465 displays on a grid. This, you know, matrix of LEDs with 600 00:40:42.465 --> 00:40:43.665 variable brightness. 601 00:40:44.225 --> 00:40:46.225 I wanted to chat with a couple people who use 602 00:40:46.225 --> 00:40:50.545 Doom not just as a game or a development environment, but as 603 00:40:50.545 --> 00:40:55.120 a kind of medium for weirder ideas. Ones that might involve 604 00:40:55.120 --> 00:41:00.480 say, Maggie, no such thing as society thatcher. John likens 605 00:41:00.480 --> 00:41:04.320 Doom to a performance practice or a genre almost. 606 00:41:04.535 --> 00:41:07.895 I think it kind of fits into a similar, I don't 607 00:41:07.895 --> 00:41:12.375 know, heritage as like jazz or folk. You know, it's this kind 608 00:41:12.375 --> 00:41:17.940 of shared context where people can play with existing tools or 609 00:41:17.940 --> 00:41:22.100 idioms or memes, whatever. There's just this shared 610 00:41:22.100 --> 00:41:25.860 material that you can borrow from and build on and just do 611 00:41:25.860 --> 00:41:26.740 something with. 612 00:41:27.060 --> 00:41:30.100 Doom, in this view, isn't so much a game or a 613 00:41:30.100 --> 00:41:35.105 program as it is charts, chord changes, or as Bijan said, 614 00:41:35.105 --> 00:41:38.945 paints and brushes. The software doesn't represent the end of 615 00:41:38.945 --> 00:41:43.585 some creative endeavor, but its beginning. Id has said, here's 616 00:41:43.585 --> 00:41:47.610 the first thing we made with these tools. You use these 617 00:41:47.610 --> 00:41:49.770 ideas. Use these materials. 618 00:41:49.850 --> 00:41:55.210 You make the next thing. And that is just not how things are 619 00:41:55.210 --> 00:41:59.770 usually done, especially not today and especially not in 620 00:41:59.770 --> 00:42:00.970 media and technology. 621 00:42:01.375 --> 00:42:03.455 Doom is interesting to me because it's kind of the 622 00:42:03.455 --> 00:42:08.255 opposite of an NFT. Like an NFT is a thing that encloses 623 00:42:08.255 --> 00:42:11.135 artistic expression. It commodifies it. It takes this 624 00:42:11.135 --> 00:42:14.895 thing that anybody could duplicate and play around with 625 00:42:14.895 --> 00:42:18.260 and it just says, nope. Here it's this finite resource that 626 00:42:18.260 --> 00:42:20.820 has to be exchanged for money. 627 00:42:21.300 --> 00:42:27.860 But Doom kind of resists that because it plays on, you know, 628 00:42:27.940 --> 00:42:31.140 so many pieces of hardware. Maybe some of the appeal of Doom 629 00:42:31.140 --> 00:42:36.875 is that it's just focused on being this weird charming little 630 00:42:36.875 --> 00:42:42.315 shooter as opposed to something that can expand and, you know, 631 00:42:42.315 --> 00:42:45.515 get more and more bloated as we think of new ways to monetize 632 00:42:45.515 --> 00:42:48.760 it. Like, maybe that's the appeal is that it's just a game 633 00:42:48.760 --> 00:42:52.920 where you can do stupid stuff and have that be the end result. 634 00:42:53.160 --> 00:42:56.920 I think that is also John subtly roasting me for 635 00:42:56.920 --> 00:42:59.960 asking questions about the human spirit. But the point here is 636 00:42:59.960 --> 00:43:05.065 that it's meaningful that this unenclosable territory exists. 637 00:43:05.705 --> 00:43:10.585 Doom, unlike many of our beloved things, remains isolated from 638 00:43:10.665 --> 00:43:14.460 private equity, from corporate control, from software as a 639 00:43:14.460 --> 00:43:18.380 service, and planned obsolescence. It is subject to 640 00:43:18.380 --> 00:43:23.500 the whims and drama of the open source community, which, you 641 00:43:23.500 --> 00:43:27.740 know, is not nothing, but I will take that drama over 642 00:43:27.740 --> 00:43:29.905 shareholders any day. 643 00:43:29.905 --> 00:43:32.865 Yeah. Nobody's doing microtransactions in doom. 644 00:43:33.185 --> 00:43:37.505 And if they are, I'd plead look inward. What is yours? I I 645 00:43:37.585 --> 00:43:41.265 you're concerned for the the the safety of your eternal soul. 646 00:43:46.520 --> 00:43:49.240 What all of this adds up to, I think, is that 647 00:43:49.240 --> 00:43:55.000 your various art and technology hooligans feel safe making 648 00:43:55.000 --> 00:44:01.425 things for and in and with doom. There is good reason to believe 649 00:44:01.425 --> 00:44:06.225 that the software will persist, be easy to get up and running, 650 00:44:06.385 --> 00:44:10.990 support all kinds of weird ideas, and the opportunity cost 651 00:44:10.990 --> 00:44:15.070 of experimentation will remain extremely low. 652 00:44:15.070 --> 00:44:17.790 I've been teaching myself to to make Doom 653 00:44:17.790 --> 00:44:20.910 mods, rather than making new content or new levels, but 654 00:44:20.910 --> 00:44:24.775 actually to modify the the audio functionality to send out MIDI 655 00:44:24.775 --> 00:44:28.295 hooks to to a synthesizer, to MaximSP. And the idea then 656 00:44:28.295 --> 00:44:32.375 recasting Doom as a kind of instrument or kinetic sound 657 00:44:32.375 --> 00:44:36.615 sculpture environment. Yeah. That's Matthew Gant. I'm a 658 00:44:36.615 --> 00:44:40.670 composer, dirtbag game scholar. 659 00:44:41.070 --> 00:44:45.470 Let me try this again. I'm failing miserably. I'm a 660 00:44:45.470 --> 00:44:50.965 composer, artist, faux game scholar, enthusiastic cave 661 00:44:50.965 --> 00:44:54.085 person, doing a lot of work with experimental music, game 662 00:44:54.085 --> 00:44:55.685 engines, and virtual reality. 663 00:44:55.685 --> 00:44:57.845 I'm a big fan of Matthew's work. I have been for 664 00:44:57.845 --> 00:45:00.885 a long time. And over the last number of years, he's 665 00:45:00.885 --> 00:45:04.645 incorporated more and more video game technology into his 666 00:45:04.645 --> 00:45:09.660 composition process. Unity, Unreal Engine, Doom. I was 667 00:45:09.660 --> 00:45:14.540 curious to ask Matthew what he found meaningful about Doom in 668 00:45:14.540 --> 00:45:18.620 particular, and specifically, how much it matters for him that 669 00:45:18.620 --> 00:45:20.620 Doom is Doom. 670 00:45:21.055 --> 00:45:25.695 Like, does it matter that this is a game about demons and hell 671 00:45:25.695 --> 00:45:30.735 and guns and a marine and sick MIDI guitar riffs? It turns out 672 00:45:30.735 --> 00:45:33.375 that the answer is, yeah, kinda. 673 00:45:33.375 --> 00:45:35.720 All of these things take on this associative 674 00:45:35.720 --> 00:45:38.280 baggage. Now I don't wanna call it a whole Duchampian ready made 675 00:45:38.280 --> 00:45:42.280 thing, but it's just nested layers of association. So the 676 00:45:42.360 --> 00:45:46.040 fact that it is both very awesome and very iconic, but 677 00:45:46.040 --> 00:45:49.155 also very derivative simultaneously, It it it feels 678 00:45:49.155 --> 00:45:51.715 really interesting to me. You know, I guess this happens with 679 00:45:51.715 --> 00:45:55.395 really any media or a medium of anything, you know, in the 680 00:45:55.395 --> 00:45:57.795 world, you know, has both like a functional quality. You know, 681 00:45:57.795 --> 00:45:58.355 what can it do? 682 00:45:58.355 --> 00:46:00.595 What are the affordances? And and, you know, an associative 683 00:46:00.595 --> 00:46:03.315 quality. You know, what does it signify, you know, culturally, 684 00:46:03.315 --> 00:46:06.500 aesthetically, conceptually? And, you know, and Doom is kind 685 00:46:06.500 --> 00:46:08.980 of like right there, you know, a great example, you know, very 686 00:46:08.980 --> 00:46:11.620 very very aura heavy in both. Right? 687 00:46:11.620 --> 00:46:14.820 You know, it's not you know, it wasn't the original FPS, you 688 00:46:14.820 --> 00:46:18.075 know, but, you know, somehow it is just more iconic than, you 689 00:46:18.075 --> 00:46:20.875 know, something like Wolfenstein or Duke Nukem. You know, may 690 00:46:20.955 --> 00:46:23.915 maybe just because it did reach a larger audience, maybe because 691 00:46:23.915 --> 00:46:25.835 it was just a little more polished, what have you. 692 00:46:25.835 --> 00:46:28.475 The way it looks, the way it sounds, how playing 693 00:46:28.475 --> 00:46:33.530 it feels, It is undeniably an old game, open parenthesis, 694 00:46:33.530 --> 00:46:36.490 complimentary, close parenthesis. And this fact 695 00:46:36.490 --> 00:46:40.330 becomes inseparable from the fundamental offering of whatever 696 00:46:40.330 --> 00:46:45.385 you make using Doom. The work itself will always be in 697 00:46:45.385 --> 00:46:50.745 conversation with everything everyone knows and thinks and 698 00:46:50.745 --> 00:46:55.465 feels about doom. Matthew likened this to something his 699 00:46:55.465 --> 00:46:59.680 composition professor, composer Morten Subotnick, said about the 700 00:46:59.680 --> 00:47:01.840 structure of writing music. 701 00:47:01.840 --> 00:47:03.440 I remember he was telling me. He was like, 702 00:47:04.240 --> 00:47:06.640 composition is like well, I think the comparison is like 703 00:47:06.640 --> 00:47:09.920 telling a joke, essentially. And essentially, if the punch line 704 00:47:09.920 --> 00:47:12.480 is or if the setup is so obvious that you already know the punch 705 00:47:12.480 --> 00:47:15.255 line, you know, it doesn't work because, you know, who cares? 706 00:47:15.495 --> 00:47:19.975 And if the setup is sort of so non sequitur that, you know, you 707 00:47:19.975 --> 00:47:22.215 hear the punch line and there's no connection, you can't drive 708 00:47:22.215 --> 00:47:25.335 meaning from it, you know, just as bad. So the key thing is 709 00:47:25.335 --> 00:47:28.360 establishing some sort of legibility and then subverting 710 00:47:28.360 --> 00:47:29.480 the legibility. 711 00:47:29.800 --> 00:47:33.720 Doom is exceedingly legible, which makes 712 00:47:33.720 --> 00:47:38.040 subverting it easy. It's also a game about demons, which makes 713 00:47:38.040 --> 00:47:43.175 subverting it fun. Doom Golf? Incredible. Doom Modular 714 00:47:43.175 --> 00:47:44.055 Synthesizer? 715 00:47:44.055 --> 00:47:51.895 Hell yeah, brother. Pulling these things out of Doom's 716 00:47:51.895 --> 00:47:56.880 source code is a punchline to the ultraviolet open source 717 00:47:56.880 --> 00:48:01.680 setup. The impact of that punchline is often augmented by 718 00:48:01.680 --> 00:48:05.920 Doom's limited nature. It's an old game and there's a lot it 719 00:48:05.920 --> 00:48:10.505 can't do. And this might make you think as a tool, it's 720 00:48:10.505 --> 00:48:11.465 restrictive. 721 00:48:11.865 --> 00:48:15.145 But Matthew explains how it's actually quite freeing. 722 00:48:15.145 --> 00:48:16.265 You know, thinking about this kind of like 723 00:48:16.265 --> 00:48:20.025 why doom? And and maybe this is a little bit left field, do you 724 00:48:20.025 --> 00:48:22.840 know that composer Mark Fell by any chance? Are you Mark Fell 725 00:48:22.840 --> 00:48:23.400 head? 726 00:48:23.400 --> 00:48:26.440 I am, in fact, a huge Fell head. I just recently 727 00:48:26.440 --> 00:48:30.280 reread Mark Fell's book, Structure and Synthesis. It's 728 00:48:30.280 --> 00:48:33.960 one of my favorite treatises on the creative process. Fell 729 00:48:33.960 --> 00:48:38.365 writes mostly about making music with computers, but much of 730 00:48:38.365 --> 00:48:42.605 what's in the book could just as well be about making things with 731 00:48:42.605 --> 00:48:43.085 doom. 732 00:48:43.085 --> 00:48:44.845 There's this great quote where he's talking 733 00:48:44.845 --> 00:48:47.165 about, you know, the way artists tend to deal with technology, 734 00:48:47.165 --> 00:48:50.125 and they think they say, you know, we we all want an open 735 00:48:50.125 --> 00:48:52.670 system. Everyone says they want an open system, But what they 736 00:48:52.670 --> 00:48:55.390 really want is they wanna use that open system to design a 737 00:48:55.390 --> 00:48:58.590 closed system that just has the affordances that they need and 738 00:48:58.590 --> 00:49:00.350 and play within that limited thing. 739 00:49:00.350 --> 00:49:00.510 You know, 740 00:49:00.510 --> 00:49:02.510 that it gives you a limitation to push against. 741 00:49:02.750 --> 00:49:06.350 Thel takes issue with some artists' insistence 742 00:49:06.525 --> 00:49:13.805 that technology not guide their creative process. But how else, 743 00:49:13.805 --> 00:49:19.990 he argues, could it be guided? The tools at hand structure a 744 00:49:19.990 --> 00:49:25.750 dialogue out of which is born the work. It's the technology 745 00:49:25.830 --> 00:49:31.590 which enables and constrains and informs the creation of 746 00:49:31.590 --> 00:49:37.405 artworks. And when those tools have no constraint, it becomes 747 00:49:37.405 --> 00:49:39.485 that much harder to make something. 748 00:49:39.965 --> 00:49:45.165 When one can make anything, it is often easier to just make 749 00:49:45.165 --> 00:49:49.725 nothing, especially as a lone artist with an individual 750 00:49:49.725 --> 00:49:55.690 practice. Doom is a bounded tool for the creation of games, 751 00:49:55.690 --> 00:50:00.890 media, music, technology, and even Doom itself. Doom is almost 752 00:50:00.890 --> 00:50:05.610 like Computation's Giant Steps, the jazz tune by John Coltrane. 753 00:50:05.885 --> 00:50:11.005 It's a time tested standard, an instructive ledger of moves, 754 00:50:11.645 --> 00:50:16.365 something to be referenced and recombined endlessly. And people 755 00:50:16.365 --> 00:50:20.990 have been using it to do just that for decades with no sign of 756 00:50:20.990 --> 00:50:24.670 slowing down, and it's all free. 757 00:50:24.910 --> 00:50:29.070 You can go, you can download u z doom and the level editor right 758 00:50:29.070 --> 00:50:34.590 now and make something that plugs directly into this massive 759 00:50:33.835 --> 00:50:40.075 and massively participatory history today. You will not have 760 00:50:40.075 --> 00:50:43.275 to spend a single dollar. You will not have to create an 761 00:50:43.275 --> 00:50:47.275 account. You will not have to log in or even give your email 762 00:50:47.275 --> 00:50:50.630 address. You will not have to disable AI features. 763 00:50:50.710 --> 00:50:55.430 The software will not show you ads. You will not need to fill 764 00:50:55.430 --> 00:51:01.670 out a survey about your experience. All you have to do 765 00:51:02.835 --> 00:51:24.610 is share what you make with others. Thank you so much to 766 00:51:24.610 --> 00:51:29.970 Zazer, Bijan, John, and Matthew. You can find links to all of 767 00:51:29.970 --> 00:51:31.810 their work in the show notes, and 768 00:51:31.810 --> 00:51:31.970 I 769 00:51:31.970 --> 00:51:35.305 highly highly highly recommend that you do. 770 00:51:35.305 --> 00:51:39.145 Thanks also to Nash Muhandis, Lane Nooney, and Dominic 771 00:51:39.145 --> 00:51:42.585 Torreson for their help with this episode. So I hinted at 772 00:51:42.585 --> 00:51:46.920 this a couple times, throughout this piece, but everyone we 773 00:51:46.920 --> 00:51:51.880 spoke to for this episode said at some point when I asked them 774 00:51:51.880 --> 00:51:54.520 a question, well, jeez, you could write a whole book just 775 00:51:54.520 --> 00:51:59.235 about that. And so I don't know. We might try. 776 00:51:59.955 --> 00:52:06.995 So I'm curious. Hey. Would you read a short book about how Doom 777 00:52:07.315 --> 00:52:12.995 became a piece of technology for experimentation in art and 778 00:52:12.995 --> 00:52:16.200 media? Because, I mean, I would like to write that book, but 779 00:52:16.200 --> 00:52:18.120 only if someone would read it. So I don't know. 780 00:52:18.520 --> 00:52:24.440 Let let me know. I also, in this episode, did not get to talk 781 00:52:24.440 --> 00:52:30.155 about Quake, which is arguably even more modifiable than Doom. 782 00:52:30.155 --> 00:52:34.395 So I think what we're gonna do is schedule some streams so we 783 00:52:34.395 --> 00:52:36.875 can see some of these modifications. You can watch me 784 00:52:36.875 --> 00:52:38.955 play them. I can tell you how to get them up and running, and 785 00:52:38.955 --> 00:52:41.940 we'll also talk a little bit more about Quake and how it, 786 00:52:42.100 --> 00:52:46.740 both fits into and extends and in some ways is an alternative, 787 00:52:46.980 --> 00:52:48.660 to some of the things that we talked about. 788 00:52:48.820 --> 00:52:53.785 So, if you aren't already, make sure that you are subscribed to 789 00:52:53.785 --> 00:52:57.545 the mailing list, because that is where, most likely we will, 790 00:52:57.785 --> 00:53:00.745 first announce, when those things will be once we get them 791 00:53:00.745 --> 00:53:04.665 scheduled. And hey, finally, perhaps most importantly, have 792 00:53:04.665 --> 00:53:09.440 you made something in Doom? Because if so, I would love to 793 00:53:09.440 --> 00:53:12.720 know about it. You can call us. You can leave us a voice memo. 794 00:53:12.720 --> 00:53:15.680 You can leave us a voice mail. You can send us an email. You 795 00:53:15.680 --> 00:53:18.240 can leave a comment on the website. Any of the ways that 796 00:53:18.240 --> 00:53:20.240 you can get a hold of us, they're all in the show notes. 797 00:53:20.320 --> 00:53:23.895 Tell me about the crazy things you've done in Doom. 798 00:53:23.895 --> 00:53:51.615 I want to hear about them, please. That is the show I have 799 00:53:51.615 --> 00:53:54.975 for you this week. We will be back here in the main feed on or 800 00:53:54.975 --> 00:54:01.375 around Thursday, June 4. Did you enjoy this episode about Doom? I 801 00:54:01.375 --> 00:54:04.030 enjoyed making it and I would love to make more heavily 802 00:54:04.030 --> 00:54:07.550 researched segments like this one to help me and the rest of 803 00:54:07.550 --> 00:54:13.150 the Never Post crew spend more time making more Never Post more 804 00:54:13.150 --> 00:54:16.190 for just four dollars a month. 805 00:54:16.190 --> 00:54:18.270 A wild deal for the stuff we're putting out, if I'm being 806 00:54:18.270 --> 00:54:22.705 completely honest. You can head over to neverpo.st and become a 807 00:54:22.705 --> 00:54:26.065 member today. Never Post's producers are Audrey Evans, 808 00:54:26.065 --> 00:54:28.865 Georgia Hampton, and the mysterious doctor first name, 809 00:54:28.865 --> 00:54:31.985 last name. Our senior producer is Hans Buto. Our executive 810 00:54:31.985 --> 00:54:33.585 producer is Jason Oberholtzer. 811 00:54:33.660 --> 00:54:40.940 The show's host, that's me, is Mike Rignetta. I got a tattoo of 812 00:54:40.940 --> 00:54:44.700 God. You can't see it, but it's everywhere. If I seem out of it, 813 00:54:44.700 --> 00:54:46.300 do the math. I was put on earth. 814 00:54:46.475 --> 00:54:50.635 And then you were making up your feet as you went along. New thin 815 00:54:50.635 --> 00:54:54.715 spoke clanks the spank bank. New emoticon makes a hollow scene. 816 00:54:55.515 --> 00:55:00.000 Excerpt of Money Bin by Michael Robbins. Never Post is a 817 00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:03.200 production of Charts and Leisure and it's distributed by 818 00:55:03.200 --> 00:55:04.080 Radiotopia.