Old footage of the id Software office circa 1993

[ZealPath]

Stumbled upon this last night and thought some other Doom/id Software fans might enjoy it. Basically this is footage a visitor recorded of the id Software office in 1993, sometime before the release of Doom. Worth noting that while he did not record this at the time (obviously, if you watch the video) it was actually uploaded by John Romero (yeah I had to do that, sorry) himself in April 2009.

Early in the video, about 2 minutes in, there are several minutes with Bobby Prince, whom many no doubt know was id's music guy for a lot of its early titles. He demos one of the tracks he created for Keen Dreams, which actually didn't make it into that game and was instead used in Keen 4. This track actually has an OCReMix to it's name (gogo Mazedude!), so you may want to take a listen before you watch that part!

Personally I found the part with Bobby Prince highly entertaining, seeing him describe why he made the song the way he did was just priceless. I would have loved to see him talk a little about how he put together the Doom tracks which sample metal music from the time, but alas, all we get after that is some talk about Pickle Wars. Can't help but think that somewhere in that mess of CDs that you see at one point are albums from groups like Metallica, Slayer, and Pantera who would have elements of their songs used in the Doom 1&2 soundtrack.

A great deal of the later part of the video takes place in John Romero's office with him demoing Doom (single player and deathmatch) for some astounded observers. If you're a hardcore Doom fan, you'll probably really enjoy this part, if you aren't, it'll probably be totally lost on you. Picking out the little inconsistencies from the prerelease version John Romero is playing versus the final product was fun, and the "wow that's amazing" reactions from the people watching really helps put just how long ago this was into context.

If you ever wondered what the id Software offices looked like back in the days of Doom development, well this is one hell of a time capsule. Only other thing I wish we got to see was maybe John Carmack's office but it seems he was not there that night.

[Sole Signal]

Interesting, I hadn't seen this before. I had always thought that Keen track sounded out of place in whatever game it was used in. Makes more sense in the context that he described. Cool video, thanks for sharing.

[Souliarc]

That was a great vid. Blast from the blast... So cool to watch and understand where things come from. Their reactions just put a smile on my face. Like seeing the gun go invisible when you get invisibility lol. The segment with Bobby Prince was inspiring with video game music being in its infancy. Being able to hear a composer explain why they did what they did, regardless of the time period, is an excellent source of putting things in perspective.

Very excellent, feel good video. Thanks.

[luhny]

People often tend to say "ah, the good old days" - but in this case it's the truth. Heh, good old days indeed.