Doom Guy
Life in First Person: Building DOOM and a Gaming Revolution
-
- USD 9.99
-
- USD 9.99
Descripción editorial
The inspiring, long-awaited autobiography of video-game designer and DOOM co-creator John Romero
“A highly entertaining and thoughtful memoir” (Wall Street Journal) * ”The best non-fiction gaming book of all time." (Forbes)
After decades in the gaming spotlight, Romero tells his story at last—revealing new, behind-the-scenes insight into the development of his games and his most pivotal creative and business partnerships, from the highest highs to the lowest lows. He shares hard-earned lessons about design, code, and an industry he helped define.
Romero, gaming’s original rock star, is the co-creator of DOOM, Quake, and Wolfenstein 3-D—landmark titles that reshaped the medium. Widely regarded as the godfather of the first-person shooter, a genre that still dominates the market, he holds a singular place in gaming history.
In DOOM Guy: Life in First Person, Romero recounts a difficult childhood and a groundbreaking career, beginning with his early days submitting Apple II game code to computer magazines and pushing boundaries wherever he could to keep building.
At id Software, Romero helped drive the design and technical breakthroughs that turned DOOM and Quake into cultural phenomena. This electrifying account captures the intensity of that era—from collaborative, heavy metal–fueled development to the high-profile falling-out with cofounder John Carmack—charting the rise of a visionary who forever changed how games are made.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Video game designer Romero, best known as the creator of Doom, catalogs his personal and professional challenges in this surprisingly moving autobiography. In the 1960s and '70s, Romero's family was involved in the drug trade, and his father, who was addicted to "everything from cocaine to alcohol," abused Romero, his mother, and his younger brother. Romero found refuge in early video games, including Space Invaders, which led him, at age 11, to learn computer programming. He walks readers through the details of his career, from his first gig at the Texas-based Origin Systems when he was 20 up through his triumphs at id Software and Ion Storm in the 1990s. It's then that Romero developed Doom, realizing his vision for "the fastest, most violent, most immersive computer game in history" and innovating the archiving of gamers' keystrokes as video files and other advances that changed online gaming. Though some passages get a little too technical (including one on video buffers' bit depths), Romero mostly manages to appeal to gamers and non-gamers alike with this celebration of triumphing over adversity. Creatives of all stripes will be satisfied.
