Doom Legend John Romero — The Path to Prolific Innovation and Making 130+ Games | Tim Ferriss Show

John Romero recounts his hardscrabble childhood in Tucson with an alcoholic, abusive biological father, then his discovery of computers at a college lab at age 11 in 1979 where he taught himself to code from a BASIC book. He explains how he landed a programming job at a Cold War Aggressor Squadron on day two of his sophomore year, and how he and three others founded id Software in 1991, shipping 13 games that year by relying on a decade of experience, tight scoping, and a no-prototypes philosophy. The conversation digs deep into the technical and design breakthroughs behind smooth high-speed 3D rendering, Wolfenstein 3D, and DOOM, including the famous press release issued before a single line of DOOM was written. Romero also discusses living with hyperthymesia, the late addition of multiplayer to DOOM, and his burnout-driven departure from id Software after shipping Quake in 1996.

• As a six-year-old, Romero's father drove him and his four-year-old brother into the desert and left them there; John recognized where they were and followed the truck back until his mother made his father retrieve them.
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• On the second day of school in 1983, Romero's programming teacher drove him to the Aggressor Squadron on base, where Captain Spencer opened a bank-vault door and hired him on the spot to program their Cromemco mini computer.
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• Romero explains that when id started doing 3D in 1991 they used solid-color walls but could move through the maze perfectly smoothly and turn in any direction at high speed, which nobody had seen before.
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• John Carmack figured out how to do pixel-smooth horizontal scrolling on a PC, something undiscovered for nine years since the PC's introduction, making PC games look like a Nintendo and effectively giving birth to id Software.
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• After a two-week vacation, id put out a press release in January 1993 declaring DOOM would be the best game anyone had ever played on a PC, before they had even started writing the game.
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• In early October, Romero realized while reviewing the press release that DOOM had no multiplayer; Carmack solved it in hours with a peer-to-peer networking model, bolting it on so it felt like it had always been there.
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• After shipping Quake in 1996, Carmack and others no longer wanted to work with Romero, so they asked for his resignation; he had already planned to leave to start a design-focused company (Ion Storm) with Tom Hall.
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• In the 1970s computers were essentially nonexistent in homes; Romero estimates only thousands of people in the US had one, and they had likely built it themselves.
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• id Software made 13 games in 1991, producing two games at a time with a game typically taking two months.
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• id's first 3D game, Hovertank One, was made in two months just to get their feet wet in 3D.
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• Wolfenstein 3D was inspired by the 1981 game Castle Wolfenstein, described as effectively the first stealth game.
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• Romero counted Wolfenstein 3D as his 87th game, Spear of Destiny as number 88, ShadowCaster as 89, and DOOM as roughly number 90.
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• Romero has hyperthymesia, a memory disorder giving superior autobiographical recall that can also be induced (for example by a blow to the head).
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• To stay in sync, id worked two games in shifting eight-hour blocks (e.g., 10:00 to 6:00 on one game, then 6:00 to 2:00 on the next), working all waking hours throughout 1991.
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• The DOOM cheat code reference 'Smashing Pumpkins Into Small Piles Of Putrid Debris' came from a crude fan-made game spawned by Usenet hype before DOOM's release.
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• When id shipped DOOM the company had only six developers plus three others handling business and support; it was 13 people when Quake launched.
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• The name DOOM came from Carmack watching The Color of Money, where Tom Cruise's character calls the cue stick in his case 'doom.'
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