As co-founders of id Software, John Romero and John Carmack created the code behind the company's seminal titles. The principles they defined through experience in id’s earliest days built upon one another to produce a unique methodology and a constantly shippable codebase. In this talk, John Romero discusses id software’s early days, these programming principles and the events and games that led to their creation.

1. The Early Days of id Software
John Romero @romero
Milan | November 29 - 30, 2018

2. ID SO FTWARE’ S
EARLY DAYS
AS T OLD BY J OH N RO M ERO

14. Inside Out Software

17. John Carmack Adrian Carmack(not related!)

29. Me
John
This is John’s Dungeons and Dragons
table where we played all our sessions

30. NES with SMB3 running on it and
an Advantage joystickThe 1st level
of our demo
Cheap
chairs
386/33s from
Softdisk

31. Eraser fluid
Whiteboard

32. More cheap chairs
NES with SMB3 running and
Advantage joystick on a 13-channel
TV set. VCR under NES.
DeluxePaint II
with tiles
Bedsheet used
as tablecloth

33. Founded February 1, 1991

35. No prototypes. Just make the
game. Polish as you go. Don’t
depend on polish happening
later. Always maintain
constantly shippable code.

36. QUICK STORY!

39. It’s incredibly important that
your game can always be run
by your team. Bulletproof
your engine by providing
defaults upon load failure.

42. Keep your code absolutely
simple. Keep looking at your
functions and figure out how
you can simplify further.

43. STA G E 2

46. Great tools help make great
games. Spend as much time
on tools as possible.

56. We are our own best testing
team and should never allow
anyone else to experience
bugs or see the game crash.
Don’t waste others’ time. Test
thoroughly before checking in
your code.

58. As soon as you see a bug,
you fix it. Do not continue on.
If you don’t fix your bugs your
new code will be built on a
buggy codebase and ensure
an unstable foundation.

60. Use a development system
that is superior to your target.

69. QUICK STORY!

75. Write your code for this game
only – not for a future game.
You’re going to be writing
new code later because you’ll
be smarter.

78. QUICK STORY!

91. Encapsulate functionality to
ensure design consistency.
This minimizes mistakes and
saves design time.

93. QUICK STORY!

97. Turbo Mode
28 Games
5.5 years
Fewer than 10 developers

98. Try to code transparently. Tell your
lead and peers exactly how you
are going to solve your current
task and get feedback and advice.
Do not treat game programming
like each coder is a black box. The
project could go off the rails and
cause delays.

99. Programming is a creative art
form based in logic. Every
programmer is different and
will code differently. It’s the
output that matters.

100. The Early Days of id Software
John Romero @romero
Madrid | November 29 - 30, 2018

101. Thank You.
Instagram: @theromero
Twitter: @romero
john@romero.com

102. SI G N ED BY RO M ERO
PO STERS € 1 0
B OO K + PO STER € 3 0
C ASH O R PAY PAL JO H N @RO M ERO . CO M