TWO COMMANDER KEEN BIRTHDAYS...IN A ROW!

Man, there's too many birthdays, that's all I gotta say. Heh. Just kidding - no, I don't get tired of blasting this little cake graphic in the news section every single month or so.

The first Keen trilogy, Invasion of the Vorticons, was released into shareware by Apogee Software on December 14, 1990.

The second Keen trilogy was developed during the second half of 1991 in Madison, Wisconsin and released on December 15th. We had a retail agreement with FormGen, so we had to split the trilogy up into one retail release and two games for shareware release. Alas, Scott's magic shareware formula only works with a trilogy and we didn't sell many copies of this duo titled "Goodbye, Galaxy!", even though it remains to this day my favorite set of Keens. Scott told us all this before release, btw.

The retail version of Keen was titled "Aliens Ate My Baby Sitter!". When my Keen section opens, I'll share with you a scan of the original retail box which we discarded. It was designed by someone who designed the Lipton Tea packaging - not the right person for a computer game that's for sure!

DOOM IS 9 YEARS OLD TODAY!

What can I say? Not much more than has been said before - Happy Birthday, old guy! Now, in human years that's not really very long but in computer years it's a while. Maybe computer years should be 1 for every 7 years, like a dog. That would make DOOM a healthy 63 years old......in OUR time!

It's so cool to see how many people have been affected by DOOM and what its effect on our culture has been over this (almost) decade. And to think it only took one year to create that game, though other games take several years with nary the impact. (I think I know a game or two like that!)

And with the new DOOM III coming out next year, the whole crazy ride can start all over again! It'll be fun watching the resurgence of DOOM, but I will always have a soft spot in my heart for our original baby that was born this day 9 years ago in Mesquite, Texas... in the original black Borg box.

In other news...

We just made an announcement on the Monkeystone Games site about our new game Congo Cube being released very soon. The official Congo Cube site is going to debut in a week or less and the game is going to be featuring an Internet High Scores feature so y'all can compete with yourselves and ME! (Well, really, it would be Stevie since she's the most killer CC player here!) If you're a fan of the 1993 SNES classic Tetris Attack, you'll LOVE Congo Cube.

We're also offering a Holiday Fun Pack that has Hyperspace Delivery Boy! and Congo Cube on one CD, signed by the whole team, for $29.95 -- some copies might make it to your home by Christmas, but most will be delivered after the holidays. Check it out, guys!

November: Things That Have Happened This Month...

...over the years! Well, back in 1992 id Software finally moved from an apartment to a real office space in Mesquite (the Black Cube). In 1996, I started Ion Storm with Tom Hall and our first office space was in the Quadrangle building near downtown Dallas.

Interestingly, we've never released a game during November even though the pressure is on in a huge way to release as early before Christmas as possible. It always happens that things get finished up to the latest possible point!

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! Stevie and I did!

EXULT : Ultima 7 - The Black Gate

Finally, someone has developed a native Windows port of Ultima 7, one of the best Ultimas in the series! Ultima 7 was released back in the late spring of 1992 and we were developing Wolfenstein 3D when it hit -- I was extremely impressed with the complete reworking of the interface to maximize visible area (few games back then had done that). The Voodoo Memory Manager wasn't a cool thing, but that's something the port fixes!

You need to have the original version of Ultima 7 installed on your computer before running Exult. You can install Exult in its own directory, then it will ask you where your U7 directory is. Try it out - it has lots of great video settings!

NewWolf

Finally, a Wolfenstein 3D port that works great! It even runs in Wine under Linux. It's a Russian site and it's kinda slow from my place, but it's worth the wait. The site was last updated yesterday, so the very latest version is out right now. It even supports the shareware version, Spear of Destiny, and has some experimental hires texture support in there (you can download textures and new models). What more could you ask for? How about an automap? YEP!

I just played halfway through episode 5 (mine) and it's just as crazy-fast as the original -- and I'm surprised it's still so fun!

October: The Month of Many Birthdays

Man, last month was hella busy for me and I forgot to announce all the fun birthdays that took place! We have 5 birthdays that happened last month, so let's begin:

October 28th : John Romero - 35 years old (!)

Yes, I'll announce myself first before the other ones since they're, ya know, not living beings. I just turned 35 and, yep, I feel old! Big surprise there, eh? Well, it's been a fun time and I do look forward to the future. I'm having a ton of fun now that I'm back to coding and learning lots of new stuff.

Random fact: Julia Roberts and I share the same birthday and age! Bill Gates was also born on the 28th.

October 10th, 1994: DOOM II - 8 years old

We held the launch party for DOOM II in New York City at the Limeliglht, a really cool old church right in the middle of New York that's a dance club. It was amazing: when you walked in, there was a huge holographic generator that displayed DOOM's monsters (you could walk through them and it was weird); the entire place was booming with the music from MAP28: The Living End - it sounded awesome. There were lots of people deathmatching in a special section, lots of news media was there (local NYC news channels, game press, etc.) During Jay Wilbur's speech some crackpot even claimed we were responsible for corrupting the youth of America! Shawn Green yelled out, "Suck it down, dude!" Hahahahaha, awesome. DOOM II was selling so fast that in Best Buy they didn't even bother stocking the shelves with it - they just dropped the pallet right there inside the door.

October 30th, 1995: Hexen - 7 years old

I loved working on this game with Raven. We got right to work after shipping Heretic, so it was at the beginning of 1995 that Hexen work had begun. I came up with the Hub Design for Hexen since I wanted this game to be a little more involved than Heretic. I still think the first Seven Portals map has 4 portals too many, but if you're serious about playing the game you can get through it. I still remember when Raven first showed me the Wraithverge model and it was a nice, shiny gold cross. I was like, "What? This thing looks like it's a GOOD cross!" It needed to be dark and awful and the next version they sent was perfect. I came up with the idea of the spirits *blasting hard* out of that weapon and Ben really did a great coding job on that. We had some really fun co-op sessions at Ion Storm through this one - 8 players, too! For old-times sake, just play it again but in JHexen this time.

October 10th, 2002: Age of Mythology - Just Born!

Ensemble Studios held the Age of Mythology launch party at a local company here in Dallas called AMS. It looked just like Disneyland inside the place! Tony Goodman sent a limosine to pick up myself and the Monkeystone crew and drive us the 45 minutes to the event - what a cool guy Tony is. I was in the Celebrity Deathmatch tournament and I played with Lucas Davis on my team. We played against The Fat Man and his chosen partner: the best Age of Kings player on the planet. Ugh. We lost, but it was a great night. Lots of fun, food and friends all talking about games! AoM is an instant classic.

In case you hadn't put 2 and 2 together, DOOM II and AoM share the same birthday!

While I'm doing birthday updates, I wanted to say Happy Birthday to Stevie Case, my very significant other, who turned 26 on September 7th. I love you, baby!

Congo Cube on the Orange Smartphone

Congo Cube on the PC