Video games nowadays are plentiful; gamers everywhere cannot choose because there are so many games on the market. games like Helldivers 2 and franchises like Call of Duty reign supreme, but where did it all start? Gaming has been in existence for a long time, but it only started catching steam when Nintendo brought it back in the 1980s.
But there were other platforms that were getting games too. People who did not own a Nintendo Entertainment System wanted to play games on their preferred device, a PC. And one company was more than ready to serve them; it was none other than ID software. According to legendary developer John Romero, one game they developed felt like a Nintendo game was running on a PC.
John Romero talks about one of his most legendary games
Years ago, Adrian Carmack, John Carmack, Tom Hall, and John Romero collaborated and founded ID Software. And they did develop something special. They developed a bunch of games in that studio.
Some might think of games like Doom and Wolfenstein when it comes to talking about ID software’s achievements. But these two are not even close to being some of the first games they worked on. They instead worked on a game called Commander Keen.
This was a series of side-scrolling games that these developers worked on. And as they developed and released this game, they gave the world something that was unimaginable at the moment. Back then, Nintendo consoles and all other game consoles had specialized chips; those chips were specifically meant for one single purpose.
This purpose was to keep on redrawing each screen fast enough so players could get a smooth scrolling experience. This was an incredible feat of technology, which assured that PCs that were miles ahead of these consoles in power were not able to match this speed.
The thing was that PC makers were not creating those extra-specialized chips, as PCs were not for gaming back then. But John Carmack and his team decided they could still bring a side scroller to a PC despite the missing specialized chip.
The result was, no doubt, Commander Keen. The game was so successful that they had to develop a bunch of extra episodes for it. Eventually, a game in this series also made its way to Nintendo’s own Gameboy Color. After all these achievements, it comes as no surprise that John Romero is so proud of this game; he even mentioned it in a recent interview.
“The people who reviewed the Commander Keen games were just, ‘Mind blown!’. They appreciated the hard technical work we did to make it possible for a PC to be like a Nintendo.”
Without a doubt, Commander Keen was an incredible achievement for a small development studio that was still working hard on making its name. They did eventually make their name too, but not through Commander Keen but with some other game.
They released Doom not long after Commander Keen, and it was a massive success. This game was such a phenomenon that it was everywhere; to this day, fans play it, and it’s still too hard to put down. Without a doubt, the achievements of ID software and its initial team members cannot be denied.
John Romero went his own way a while later
After working with the co-founders of ID Software for a while, John Romero decided to leave the company. He started his own company after a while and named it Ion Storm. This company went on to develop games like Deus Ex, Thief, and one that John Romero himself made, Daikatana.
This game was not the success he expected it to be. Eventually, Ion Storm was no more, and he founded Romero Games. Under this game, he has developed mobile games like Gunman Taco Truck and console and PC games such as Empire of Sin. Years later, this legendary developer has yet to stop making incredible games.
