wraggster
January 30th, 2013, 22:50
There are few games that will ever have as much impact on the games industry as Doom. Two decades after release it remains a touchstone for the genre, and has influenced a whole generation of designers; the shooter that defined a thousand shooters.For all that impact and import though, Doom is nothing like it was initially intended to be. Tom Hall's original design document suggests a wholly different game than the one eventually released - a game that may have left behind a far greater legacy had it ever been achieved.http://images.eurogamer.net/2013/articles//a/1/5/5/2/0/5/7/2.png/EG11/resize/300x-1/quality/91Doom's original design called for four players on a quest to rescue their friend
"Doom takes up to four players through a futuristic world," explains Hall's summary. "They may cooperate or compete to push back the invading hordes... [and] the environment is one big world, just like real life."Continuing, the design document sketches an outline of a game that's closer to Left 4 Dead than the actual Doom - a co-op romp through a realistic military base filled with undead and devoid of lava traps or acid pits. There was even a proper story too; one set to span six episodes and with a far deeper narrative than Id had ever tried before - or arguably since."You are a soldier in the UAAF (United Aerospace Armed Forces) assigned to the military research base on the darkside of the giant moon Tei Tenga," reads a draft press release - and already there are significant differences. In the finished game the UAAF is changed to the UAC and, while the name Tei Tenga still appears on computer readouts, Doom is actually set on Mars' moons."You and four friends are having a game of cards in the hangar bay," Hall writes, describing the opening cut-scene Doom never had. "Meanwhile, the research team are doing experiments at the anomalies found on the moon. There is a flash of horrible light and two gates open at equidistant points on the moon's surface... Every awake [sic] is quickly killed. One reaching for the alarm button has his hand chopped off!"Granted, the occasionally broken English doesn't do the proposed storyline any favours - especially when characters have names such as Janella Sabando and Petro Pietrovich - but it's better than nothing. Between the episode-by-episode summaries and the brief character bios there's enough to provide a flavour of the Doom-that-might-have-been. Think Left 4 Dead meets System Shock.http://images.eurogamer.net/2013/articles//a/1/5/5/2/0/5/7/3.png/EG11/resize/300x-1/quality/91Doom's HUD went through several iterations, getting progressively leaner in line with the trimmed down design
Regardless of the greater plot movements, it's Hall's narrative design that really illustrates how different the game was supposed to be. The finished Doom has players progressing linearly and searching for identical, single-use keycards, but Hall wanted more context for items and areas that had recognisable uses.A cut area called The Officer's Club, for example, is described in the design document as a private bar where players could find "a neat collector's pistol (if we can have weapon quality)". There was no other purpose for the area - the Club was an optional stopping off point for those who wanted to explore and who'd collected a dismembered hand that could fool the biometric locks.The game was still linear, of course. The overall goal was to rescue your friend, Buddy Dacote, from a pair of demon twins who inexplicably hold him hostage - but there was plenty to do on the way and players were encouraged to deviate from the main path. There wasn't much of a rush because behind the scenes Buddy's fate was already sealed - his terrible surname stood for 'Dies At Conclusion Of This Episode'.While Hall's design document lays out Doom - or Doom: Evil Unleashed, as it was known then - as a four-player cooperative shooter in an open world, little of that vision was ever realised. Instead, Hall left the company due to creative differences before Doom was finished and the game was refocused in his absence.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-01-30-the-deleted-scenes-of-doom
"Doom takes up to four players through a futuristic world," explains Hall's summary. "They may cooperate or compete to push back the invading hordes... [and] the environment is one big world, just like real life."Continuing, the design document sketches an outline of a game that's closer to Left 4 Dead than the actual Doom - a co-op romp through a realistic military base filled with undead and devoid of lava traps or acid pits. There was even a proper story too; one set to span six episodes and with a far deeper narrative than Id had ever tried before - or arguably since."You are a soldier in the UAAF (United Aerospace Armed Forces) assigned to the military research base on the darkside of the giant moon Tei Tenga," reads a draft press release - and already there are significant differences. In the finished game the UAAF is changed to the UAC and, while the name Tei Tenga still appears on computer readouts, Doom is actually set on Mars' moons."You and four friends are having a game of cards in the hangar bay," Hall writes, describing the opening cut-scene Doom never had. "Meanwhile, the research team are doing experiments at the anomalies found on the moon. There is a flash of horrible light and two gates open at equidistant points on the moon's surface... Every awake [sic] is quickly killed. One reaching for the alarm button has his hand chopped off!"Granted, the occasionally broken English doesn't do the proposed storyline any favours - especially when characters have names such as Janella Sabando and Petro Pietrovich - but it's better than nothing. Between the episode-by-episode summaries and the brief character bios there's enough to provide a flavour of the Doom-that-might-have-been. Think Left 4 Dead meets System Shock.http://images.eurogamer.net/2013/articles//a/1/5/5/2/0/5/7/3.png/EG11/resize/300x-1/quality/91Doom's HUD went through several iterations, getting progressively leaner in line with the trimmed down design
Regardless of the greater plot movements, it's Hall's narrative design that really illustrates how different the game was supposed to be. The finished Doom has players progressing linearly and searching for identical, single-use keycards, but Hall wanted more context for items and areas that had recognisable uses.A cut area called The Officer's Club, for example, is described in the design document as a private bar where players could find "a neat collector's pistol (if we can have weapon quality)". There was no other purpose for the area - the Club was an optional stopping off point for those who wanted to explore and who'd collected a dismembered hand that could fool the biometric locks.The game was still linear, of course. The overall goal was to rescue your friend, Buddy Dacote, from a pair of demon twins who inexplicably hold him hostage - but there was plenty to do on the way and players were encouraged to deviate from the main path. There wasn't much of a rush because behind the scenes Buddy's fate was already sealed - his terrible surname stood for 'Dies At Conclusion Of This Episode'.While Hall's design document lays out Doom - or Doom: Evil Unleashed, as it was known then - as a four-player cooperative shooter in an open world, little of that vision was ever realised. Instead, Hall left the company due to creative differences before Doom was finished and the game was refocused in his absence.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-01-30-the-deleted-scenes-of-doom