During the planning phase of Id Software’s Doom, Tom Hall wrote a document called "The Doom Bible" that contained planning specifications for the game. Many of the ideas from The Doom Bible were never used, and some reappeared in other games after Id discarded them. There are many interesting tidbits from this phase of Doom development.
- There were to be 6 episodes and a commercial sequel, much like Wolfenstein 3D. Only one of the episode names was used when the final version of the game was made.
- 1. “Evil Unleashed” or “All Hell Breaks Loose”
- 2. “Lost in Hell” or “To Hell and Back”
- 3. “Knee-deep in the Dead“
- 4. “Armed Assault”
- 5. “Base Instinct”
- 6. “The Final Gate”
- Sequel: “Chaos Awake”
- Another similarity to Wolfenstein 3D was the mention of scoring items and extra lives. The scoring items were replaced by health and armor bonuses, while the Soul Sphere changed from a 1-up to a special health powerup.
- Apparently, the Cyberdemon was originally going to have some sort of special weapon, instead of the rocket launcher it ended up with:
"Demons from the gate have stolen a new weapon and you've got to get it back. Once there, you travel hell and find the weapon ... and it’s attached to a huge techno-demon. You defeat him and cut the weapon off, and find its energy systems non-functional."
- Anyone who ever looked at the Doom resource files and wondered why the Imp and Demon sprites are named TROO and SARG will find the answer in The Doom Bible. These monsters were originally called Demon Troops and Demon Sargeants. The BRS in the names of the Baron of Hell sound effects also comes from a Doom Bible reference, where they are called "Bruiser Brothers":
"Demon Troops
These guys do a lot of damage up close. Later Troops cast magic.
Demon Sargeants
These guys do a lot more damage up close. Later sargeants cast floor-boiling magic.
Bruiser Brothers
Twin terrors at the end of episode one, these guys do the following: (Insert interesting description of behavior and how they are beat here.)"
- The BFG was totally different. As can be seen in some of the early Doom betas, the original BFG spewed out a huge torrent of plasma fireballs. If you ever wondered what BFG stands for, wonder no more. The Doom Bible gives a brief description:
“BFG 2704 (red). Horrible hallway-scouring weapon. Damages user a bit. Awful recoil. BFG stands for "Big Fucking Gun." Safest use: back to wall, distant target.”
- One of the weapons listed in The Doom Bible didn’t make its appearance until Doom 64:
"Unmaker (white). Demon-tech weapon that hurts pure demons a lot, demon-humans very little, tech demons some. Made of demon bones."
- Originally, the UAC base was to be on a planet called Tei Tenga, rather than Phobos and Deimos. One interesting leftover of this can be seen in the wall graphics. Look closely at the computer panels, and you’ll see that some of them say "UAC BASE TEI TENGA". Whether this is a mere oversight or if Id left it in on purpose is unknown. Also, the game Terminal Velocity, by Terminal Reality Inc. and 3D Realms, contains a planet named Tei Tenga.
- All of the playable characters in Rise of the Triad are at least partly based on The Doom Bible: Thi Barrett was listed pretty much as she appeared in ROTT. Lorelei Chen became Lorelei Ni. The physical descriptions of John “Petro” Pietrovich and Dimitri Paramo match those of Doug Wendt and Ian Paul Freely. The name Taradina Cassatt is also mentioned, becoming Taradino Cassatt.
If you’d like to read The Doom Bible yourself, check out http://5years.doomworld.com/ where you can view it on the web or download a PDF version.
References:
http://5years.doomworld.com/
http://www.quake.cz/davos/hry/Doom3.htm
Rise of the Triad in-game information
Terminal Velocity in-game information