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  • A Day in the Life: iD Before Doom



    iD have always been more interesting than their games. That’s not to take away from Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, or Quake. The technology that John Carmack created for those games and their mutual successors redefined the shape of a videogame, the type of interactive space a person could create. His partner, the ever-lovin’ John Romero himself, was no slouch either. Of course, John’s legacy lies not in the realm of groundbreaking design tools but in aesthetics (read: the preponderance of games about shooting things directly in the face.) I can’t disrespect those games, nor the creativity behind them. After reading David Kushner’s Masters of Doom, though, it’s impossible not to think of those personalities before anything about the games themselves. The story of Carmack, Romero, Tom Hall and the rest of their team is almost operatic. There’s betrayal, sex, fame, money, broken dreams. The history of iD is the nerd version of Carmen.

    It would be pretty interesting to be a fly on the wall of their cluttered office before it all went wrong, a look at young people at their creative peak creating something brand new for the world to play.

    It’d probably look like this.

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John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Hooksexup, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.


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