Doom was inspired by Tom Cruise’s The Color of Money?

John Romero and Tom Hall reminisce about the 1993 FPS

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I love reading about the development history of games especially some of the medium’s classics. Doom is one such classic, the seminal first-person shooter turned 20 years old in 2013. Creators John Romero and Tom Hall have revealed some more behind-the-scenes stories about the game’s development, including the amazing fact that the title was inspired by a line in the Tom Cruise/Paul Newman film The Color of Money.

Romero revealed that the advent of Intel’s 386 processor was the thing that allowed Doom to be as truly fast as the team at id Software wanted it to be. Tom Hall talks about how the the title came into place, but also how a lot of the story beats and ideas he had ended up being cut from the game. Tom also mentions how Doom was going to be a landmark game, driven by technology.

id sounded like a crazy place to work because it seems like all the team knew they had this amazing thing on their hands that would be a true game changer. Hall name checks Minecraft as the next game that did a lot with very little; makes me wonder if we will see another game made by a small team that will have an effect on the industry like those two. 

How we made the video game Doom [The Guardian]

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Alasdair Duncan
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