| } Id Software
| } 
| } 
| } Id Software to unleash DOOM on the PC
| } 
| } Revolutionary Programming and Advanced Design Make For Great Gameplay
| } 
| } DALLAS, Texas, November 5, 1992--Heralding another technical revolution in
| } PC programming, Id Software's DOOM promises to push back the boundaries of
| } what was thought possible on a 386sx or better computer.  The company
| } plans to release DOOM in the third quarter of 1993. 
| } 
| } In DOOM, you play one of four off-duty soldiers suddenly thrown into the
| } middle of an interdimensional war!  Wave after wave of demonic creatures
| } spread through the research base where you're stationed.  You must
| } eradicate the enemy and find out where they're coming from.  When you find
| } out the truth, your sense of reality may be shattered! 
| } 
| } Later episodes feature a journey into another dimension, filled to its
| } hellish horizon with fire and flesh.  Decide the fate of two universes as
| } you battle to survive!  Succeed and you will be humanity's heroes; fail
| } and you will spell its doom.
| } 
| } The game takes up to four players through a futuristic world, where they
| } may cooperate or compete to beat the invading creatures.  It boasts a much
| } more active environment than Id's previous effort, Wolfenstein 3-D, while
| } retaining the pulse-pounding action and excitement.  DOOM features a fully
| } texture-mapped environment, non-orthogonal walls, light diminishing and
| } light sourcing, variable height floors and ceilings, environment animation
| } and morphing, palette translation, multiple players, and smooth gameplay. 
| } 
| } Id's Technical Director is very excited about DOOM: "Wolfenstein is
| } primitive  compared to DOOM.  We're doing DOOM the right way this
| } time. I've had some very good insights and optimizations that will make
| } the DOOM engine perform at a great frame rate.  On a 486/33, we're talking
| } 35 frames per second, fully texture-mapped at normal detail, for a large
| } area of the screen.  That's the fastest texture-mapping around--period."
| } 
| } A Convenient DOOM Blurb
| } 
| } DOOM (Requires 386sx, VGA, 2 Meg of memory)
| } 
| } It's a real-time, three-dimensional, 256-color, fully texture-mapped,
| } multi-player battle from the safe shores of our universe into the
| } horrifying depths of the netherworld!  Choose one of four characters and
| } you're off to  war with hideous hellish hulks bent on chaos and death! 
| } See your friends bite it!  Cause your friends to bite it!  Bite it
| } yourself!  And if you won't bite it, there are plenty of demonic denizens
| } to bite it for you!
| } 
| } DOOM--where the sanest place is behind a trigger.
| } 
| } 
| } DOOM FEATURES
| } 
| } Texture-Mapped Environment
| } 
| } DOOM offers the most realistic environment to date on the PC. 
| } Texture-mapping, the process of putting fully-drawn art and scanned
| } textures on the walls, floors, and ceilings of an environment, makes the
| } world much more real, thus bringing the player more into the game
| } experience.  Others have tried this technique, but DOOM's texture mapping
| } is fast, accurate, and seamless.  Texture-mapping the floors and ceilings
| } is a big improvement over Wolfenstein.  Using the power of a 24-bit
| } scanner and multiple NeXT workstations, Id brings new meaning to
| } "state-of-the-ART."
| } 
| } Non-Orthogonal Walls
| } 
| } Wolfenstein's walls were always at ninety degrees to each other, and were
| } always eight feet thick.  DOOM's walls can be at any angle, and be of any
| } thickness.  Walls can have see-through areas, change shape, and animate. 
| } 
| } This allows more natural construction of levels.  If you can draw it on
| } paper, you can see it in the game. 
| } 
| } Light Diminishing/Light Sourcing
| } 
| } Another touch adding realism is light diminishing.  With distance, your
| } surroundings become enshrouded in darkness.  This makes areas seem huge
| } and intensifies the experience.  Light sourcing allows lamps and lights to
| } illuminate hallways, explosions to light up areas, and strobe lights to
| } briefly reveal things near them.  These two features will make the game
| } frighteningly real. 
| } 
| } Variable Height Floors and Ceilings
| } 
| } Floors and ceilings can be of any height, allowing for stairs, poles,
| } altars, plus low hallways and high caves--allowing a great variety in for
| } rooms and halls. 
| } 
| } Environment Animation and Morphing
| } 
| } Walls can move and transform in DOOM, which provides an active--and
| } sometimes actively hostile--environment.  Rooms can close in on you,
| } ceilings can plunge down to crush you, and so on.  Nothing is for certain
| } in DOOM. 
| } 
| } To this we can add the ability to have animated messages on the walls,
| } information terminals, access stations, and more.  The environment can act
| } on you, and you can act on the environment.  If you shoot the walls, they
| } get damaged, and stay damaged.  Not only does this add realism, but
| } provides a crude method for marking your path, like violent bread crumbs.
| } 
| } Palette Translation
| } 
| } Each creature and wall has its own palette which is translated to the
| } game's palette.  By changing palette colors, one can have monsters of many
| } colors, players with different weapons, animating lights, infrared sensors
| } that show monsters or hidden exits, and many other effects, like
| } indicating monster damage.
| } 
| } Multiple Players
| } 
| } Up to four players can play over a local network, or two players can play
| } by modem.  You can see the other player in the environment, and in certain
| } situations you can switch to their view.  This feature, added to the 3-D
| } realism, makes DOOM a very powerful cooperative game. 
| } 
| } Smooth, Seamless Gameplay
| } 
| } The environment in DOOM is one big world.  You enter and exit buildings,
| } climb stairs, and so on.  Just like real life.  Everything is actual size. 
| } You never have to leave the game environment unless you quit or save your
| } first game.  And the frame rate (the rate at which the screen is updated)
| } is high, so you move smoothly from place to place, turning and acting as
| } you wish, unhampered by the slow jerky motion of most 3-D games.  The game
| } plays well on a 386sx, and on a 486/33, the normal mode frame rate is
| } faster than movies or television.  This allows for the most important
| } aspect of gameplay--immersion. 
| } 
| } DOOM will be available in the third quarter of 1993.  Our shareware
| } distributor is Apogee Software, P.O. 476389, Garland, TX, 75047. Or call:
| } 1-800-GAME123. 
| } 
| } Our commercial distributor is FormGen, Inc.  Reach them at: FormGen, Inc.,
| } 13 Holland Drive, Ontario, Canada. Or call: 1-416-857-4143. 
| } 
| } EDITORS: Call the contact listed above for continuing development
| } information and a preview copy when it becomes available.
| } ____________________________________________________________
| } 
| } DOOM, Id, and Wolfenstein are trademarks of Id Software, Inc.
