Story of Programming 3DO DOOM (Dev Video)

[Jagosaurus]

Wow....

This was a very informative video. It is Rebecca Heineman discussing the port of 3DO DOOM. I had always heard rumors it was a rushed port done by one guy... well close, one woman. She dives into the whole bizarre story here and discusses it all. It's amazing this game ever hit store shelves.

https://youtu.be/rBbIil2HPSU

After this I'll be tuning in to more of her videos. She makes a reference that she had a heavy hand in Killing Time on 3D0 as well.

[Ziggy587]

You had me at DOOM.

[ElkinFencer10]

Wonder if she's related to dsheinem?

[Tanooki]

I forgot that one guy had worked on Doom for the 3DO. I had heard about it years ago and found it crazy but given how the game ended up turning out it probably isn't that big of a surprise in one way (issues) but also is because one man got it done and to market which says a lot. Bill put a hell of a lot of work into that and deserves all the credit given even so much later on in time with that breakdown in that video.

[marurun]

One woman. One awesome woman.

[Jagosaurus]

Huh? Who is Bill?



Art Data Interactive President was Randy Scott. Maybe someone at Interplay or Logicware? Been about a week since I watched the original video by Rebecca so I might be missing your connection there.

@Elkin, I like to imagine that's Dave's left arm you see playing Xbox

[Tanooki]

Bill decided to become a woman around a decade ago so that's why some people are calling him a her in this if you're confused. Back when the game was done, his name was Bill.

[Jagosaurus]

Well, that caught me off guard. What was her name before? Same last, just Bill?

Props to her now....him then I guess. Either way, not my business. This was a crazy situation from an awesome programmer. The overall legacy perhaps just got a tad more interesting with that new info (to me) though. I'm a DOOM nut & the 3DO always fascinated me. Cool to have the behind the scenes info.

[Anayo]

That was a fascinating video. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for posting it, Jagosaurus!

[nightrnr]

I just watched this last week. (have no idea where I ran across the link; so serendipitous).
Read the story notes about it a while back and was quite fascinated. It's actually quite a remarkable port and actually does a couple things very right, namely innovative play control and that awesome band-recorded soundtrack.

I actually played through the game on my 3DO and it is definitely playable, if rough around the edges (anyone who can tolerate Zero Tolerance will be fine). Of course, I play through a lot of Doom ports (Saturn, PS1, Jaguar, 32X, SNES, GBA, etc, and even tried the get a Doom source port going on an N-gage, with interesting results).
It would tickle me purple if someone could improve the code and do a complete port of Doom and/or Doom 2 for the 3DO with all levels and monsters. But I won't hold my breath.

My favorite homebrew source port on a console is PS2doom, which lacks music ( I just play my own or keep it creepy quiet) , but plays quite well. So 3DO Doom is quite unnecessary, but I still like the it exists.