Doom I

Doom is id Software's 1993 first-person shooter, brought to the Macintosh in 1994 by Lion Entertainment. A space marine fights through a UAC research base on the moons of Mars after a teleportation experiment unleashes a demonic invasion from Hell. The Mac release was the gateway port for a generation of Mac gamers.

Setting

The Union Aerospace Corporation runs experimental gateway research on Phobos and Deimos. When the experiment punches through to Hell, the player -- an unnamed marine later nicknamed Doomguy -- is the lone survivor and must shoot a path through possessed humans and demons across three episodes (with a fourth, Thy Flesh Consumed, added in The Ultimate Doom).

Gameplay

Doom is a fast, run-and-gun first-person shooter built around labyrinthine levels, hidden rooms, keycard hunts, and an arsenal that escalates from pistol and shotgun to chainsaw, plasma rifle, and BFG 9000. Five difficulty levels scale enemy counts and aggression. The PC original popularized cooperative play and deathmatch; the Mac port preserved single-player and supported AppleTalk multiplayer.

Engine

The Doom engine renders a 2.5D world: 3D-perspective levels with sprite-based monsters and items, accelerated by binary space partitioning for visibility, plus palette-based diminished lighting. Maps and assets live in WAD files, which made Doom one of the first widely-modded commercial games. Lion Entertainment's Mac port targeted 68040 and PowerPC machines under Mac OS 7.1 or later.

Development

id Software built Doom from late 1992 to December 1993, with John Carmack on engine, John Romero on tools and design, Sandy Petersen on level design, and Bobby Prince on music. The Mac conversion was handled by Lion Entertainment and shipped on CD-ROM, typically as The Ultimate Doom, published by GT Interactive in 1995.

Reception

Doom was a commercial and cultural phenomenon, selling millions of copies and effectively defining the FPS genre. The Mac port was warmly received as a faithful conversion that brought the full experience -- including network deathmatch -- to Macintosh users who had been waiting more than a year after the PC release.