Carmack on Dread or Grind

[danboid]

Has John Carmack publicly commented on Dread or Grind?


I emailed KK/Altair this morning and offered to send him a pre-built Uzebox Omega with case etc if he writes a Uzebox game or demo.


The Uzebox the fastest 8 bit console and the only fully open source one so I'd love to see what he can squeeze out of it of its rather restricted RAM.

[lesta_smsc]

Incredible. I've never heard of this device till now!

Just checked out this video from 16 years ago. Nice chip tunes!

[ Show youtube player ]


Was there any further development on this Doom port?

[ Show youtube player ]

[danboid]

Speaking of Uzebox chip tunes, probably my greatest claim to fame is that we did a Uzebox rendition of Rob Hubbard's C64 Commando theme for my Uzebox Atari Combat remake IKD and Rob emailed me to say it was a very good version.

I don't think that Doom port progressed beyond what you see in that video BUT the same developer who wrote that Uzebox Doom demo (and the great Uzebox game Joyrider) went on to write WolfensteinCGA, a rewrite of Wolfenstein which allows it to run on CGA graphics cards and using an 8088 CPU:

https://github.com/jhhoward/WolfensteinCGA

[TCD]

Originally Posted by danboid

Has John Carmack publicly commented on Dread or Grind?

Why would he?

[danboid]

Why would he? He's one of the most famous (game) developers in the world and he occasionally does interviews. If he has been interviewed by any Amiga fans in recent years, there is a high chance they'd be asking him this.

[TCD]

Let me rephrase my question: Why would he care about Dread or Grind?

[danboid]

I was an Amiga owner in the early ninetines. I sold them all but I ended up buying an A600 about a decade ago.

The main reason I ditched the Amiga for the PC (Linux, in my case) was because the Amiga couldn't run Doom. I wasn't the only one who switched to the PC from the Amiga coz Doom. I think it was most everyone who was around at the time.

Back in the 90's, Carmack said Doom wasn't doable on the Amiga and I expect he was referring to 030 and 040 Amigas in the early 90's. Now, KK/Altair has done a Doom-alike on an unaccelerated, 7 Mhz A500 with 1 MB RAM which I should hope Carmack would appreciate as much as I do. He will have different standards to the rest of us but in my eyes, Dread and Grind are almost as revolutionary and impressive feats of coding as Doom and Quake were.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by danboid

He will have different standards to the rest of us but in my eyes, Dread and Grind are almost as revolutionary and impressive feats of coding as Doom and Quake were.

It is 2024. There is nothing 'revolutionary' about a id Tech 1 alike engine on an almost 40 year old machine. It sure is impressive, but I really doubt you'd get more than 'That's nice' out of somebody who has been on the cutting edge of 3D game development for around two decades.

[Mick]

After seeing those games I'm sure Doom was possible on stock Amiga with a few sacrifices but his decision not to make an Amiga version will have most likely been business related, or maybe he just didn't have the expertise to get the most out of the Amiga.

I remember once buying a shooter for my Amiga 500 back in the day but it was like a dungeon game and you could only move in 4 fixed directions, so who would have questioned him back then?

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Mick

I remember once buying a shooter for my Amiga 500 back in the day but it was like a dungeon game and you could only move in 4 fixed directions, so who would have questioned him back then?

That sounds like Death Mask.

[Mick]

Originally Posted by TCD

That sounds like Death Mask.

Yep, that's the one!

[danboid]

Originally Posted by TCD

That sounds like Death Mask.

If we end up playing Amiga games themed give us a clue then I want to be on TCD's team.

[danboid]

There was of course Gloom and Alien Breed 3D (2) but they both required a least an 020 and 2 MB RAM and even then they weren't really worthy rivals to Doom in the way that Duke Nukem 3D was, on the PC.

Of course all these games (DN3D, Doom and Quake) got open sourced and ported to the Amiga eventually but having something Doom-esqe on a 1 MB RAM A500 or ST is something I never thought I'd see.

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by TCD

Let me rephrase my question: Why would he care about Dread or Grind?

Yeah wrong John. Romero is the one who can't let the 90's go, Carmack is more worried about getting everything done that he wants to achieve before his mind goes. Hence he's now hammering on AI after his trip through VR space. FPS games are way, waaaaaaaaaay in the past.

If you ask questions about Doom to Carmack, he has a "let's get this over with" face. You ask Romero, he brings the beer.