Mappers that developed a career or launched their own games?

[DoomGappy]

I was thinking about this in the shower. Besides the famous Casali brothers, are there any other stories of players who had any success outside of the "doomsphere"? It doesn't have to be necesssarily only with mapping, modding or programming, but it would be nice to know stories about these people.

Edited February 20, 2024 by DoomGappy

[LadyMistDragon]

Mal Blackwell who made some Doom maps, ended up getting hired by Xatrix Enetertainment who of course became Grey Matter, developers of Return to Castle Wolfenstein and even now, he's been a consultant on some recent GZDoom games in addition to his own work on indie mobile games and stuff, but that's a mass simplification, his resume's quite huge!

 

Alex Mayberry was also hired by Xatrix and has a high up position at Warner Bros as a VP at one time.

 

In addition to Dario Casali, Mattias Worch, Tim Heyadaal,  and Jeremy Statz also hold game director positions of sorts at companies today, and I feel I'm missing someone else too. (Tom Mustaine, lmao)

 

There are a number of other people like Richard 'Levelord' Grey that I think still have careers of sorts but I haven't looked so deeply as to what they're up to.

Edited February 20, 2024 by LadyMistDragon

[plums]

Iikka Keränen comes to mind

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Iikka_Keränen_(Fingers)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iikka_Keränen

[OniriA]

I think Bridgeburner would count as he started his own studio and turned Age of Hell into a standalone Gzdoom game as far

as I'm aware.

Edited February 20, 2024 by OniriA

[Plerb]

John Romero

[DoomGappy]

4 minutes ago, Plerb said:

John Romero

who is that guy

[Major Arlene]

10 hours ago, OniriA said:

I think Bridgeburner would count as he started his own studio and turned Age of Hell into a standalone Gzdoom game as far

as I'm aware.

 

We're working on that ;p We also have a lot of modders and mappers who work with the studio who were mappers previously, I won't name all the projects but we have several. I've personally picked up small level design and voice acting roles for Project Absentia.

 

Uhhh anyone from the Supplice team as well, whom include Esselfortium, Jimmy, Dragonfly, Cage, and several other modders/mappers.

 

Dragonfly worked on Prodeus as well.

basically, if it's a GZDoom standalone game on Steam, you're pretty safe in assuming that a Doom modder or mapper made one of those as most game devs who are more "traditional" don't pick up Doom mapping as it's a much different workflow. While it's the same mapping workflow as Doom, I want to emphasize it takes a lot more backend coding/finangling to get right.
 

[Devalaous]

The most obvious is the Master Levels designers, all but one went on to work on games professionally afterwards.

[Hydrus]

Jimmy Sieben now works for Gearbox Studios

[IHave10Shells]

15 hours ago, DoomGappy said:

who is that guy

very obscure mapper. made some levels on a small wad called "doom". very underrated tbh. It's almost liked he worked on the game or something, his levels are top-tier.

Edited February 21, 2024 by IHave10Shells

[Naan]

Mackey McCandlish, the author of Memento Mori MAP12 among others, is the current Apex Legends head designer.

Also, Tom Mustaine is currently working for Bethesda Softworks.

Edited February 21, 2024 by Naan

[OniriA]

9 hours ago, Major Arlene said:

We're working on that ;p We also have a lot of modders and mappers who work with the studio who were mappers previously, I won't name all the projects but we have several. I've personally picked up small level design and voice acting roles for Project Absentia.

 

Uhhh anyone from the Supplice team as well, whom include Esselfortium, Jimmy, Dragonfly, Cage, and several other modders/mappers.

 

Wow, that sounds awesome.

 

I'm happy to hear that things are working out well for you guys with all o' that.

[Mr Masker]

18 hours ago, DoomGappy said:

who is that guy

He used to make Doom fan levels back in the day, his best wad was this one called 'Hangar', pretty basic name tbh. It was alright for a fan level.

 

Then he went on to make this weird game, I dunno if you've heard of it, it's called like... 'Daikatana' or something. I mean it's cool to see a Doom mapper make a game, but that one was kinda weird. Anyway, at least he's back to making Doom fan episodes now...

Edited February 21, 2024 by Mr Masker

[Jayextee]

Are we only counting big/notable FPS games here because I'm pretty sure more than a few people here have released little itch.io or Steam games here and there.

[Kinsie]

13 hours ago, Naan said:

Mackey McCandlish, the author of Memento Mori MAP12 among others, is the current Apex Legends head designer.

Also had a lengthy history on Call of Duty and Titanfall before getting swallowed up by the Live Service void. Mans has been pushing brushes for a long, long time.

 

On 2/21/2024 at 6:55 AM, LadyMistDragon said:

Alex Mayberry was also hired by Xatrix and has a high up position at Warner Bros as a VP at one time.

Still there as an Executive Producer as recently as last year, unless Mobygames is fibbing to/at me.

 

On 2/21/2024 at 6:55 AM, LadyMistDragon said:

There are a number of other people like Richard 'Levelord' Grey that I think still have careers of sorts but I haven't looked so deeply as to what they're up to.

IIRC after Ritual Entertainment shut down/got sold off, Levelord went onto a brief spurt of designing casual hidden-object games as an indie developer before briefly putting down gamedev to care for an ailing family member, then falling back into the FPS fold with the Duke 3D Anniversary episode. I think he was last seen being involved to some undefined extent with Atomic Heart.

 

14 hours ago, Naan said:

Also, Tom Mustaine is currently working for Bethesda Softworks.

After Ritual, Tom co-founded Escalation Studios with former Id Guy Shawn Green, which worked on such titles as Doom Resurrection (aka the bad iphone touch screen lightgun game), the 3D/VR version of Please Don't Touch Anything, the PASS Time game mode in Team Fortress 2 and Doom 2016's Snapmap mode (hence the Perdition's Gate reference in one of the official Snapmap levels!) before getting swallowed into becoming Bethesda Game Studios Dallas, where they've primarily worked on dragging Fallout 76 into the realm of basic dignity and co-developing Starfield.

 

On 2/21/2024 at 6:55 AM, LadyMistDragon said:

Mattias Worch

Matthias has been a very busy lad over the decades, and is currently the design lead on "special projects" (read: tech demos, occasional weird fortnite shit) over at Epic Games. You last saw his work on the "The Matrix Awakens" Unreal Engine 5 tech demo!

[Shepardus]

Mikael Kasurinen participated in a Finnish magazine's Doom mapping contest in 1994, and later joined Remedy Entertainment, working on such projects as Max Payne 2 and, more recently, as game director for Control.

[Gifty]

Didn't American McGee start out making fan maps before getting picked up on that fateful day fixing Carmack's car? Maybe I'm misremembering.

Edited February 22, 2024 by Gifty

[LadyMistDragon]

I ended up looking into James Wilson (whom I kind of am unfamiliar with), who did some okay-ish mid 90s maps that probably had problems even then, and apparently, he was the lead designer on Diablo III. He seems to have departed the industry in 2016 because of "..the amount of online vitriol." I can't possibly imagine what he's talking about :P

6 hours ago, Gifty said:

Didn't American McGee start out making fan maps before getting picked up on that fateful day fixing Carmack's car? Maybe I'm misremembering.

You are probably thinking of Tim Willts. I think American was hired for some reason unrelated to level design that wasn't programming, like tech support, but the rest is naturally history.

[RileyXY1]

Christen Klie, one of the developers of the Lost Episodes of Doom and a Master Levels developer, went on to work at LucasArts for a time.

 

[DoomGappy]

Was anybody from New Blood a member of the Doom community before? 

 

On 2/22/2024 at 5:21 AM, Shepardus said:

Mikael Kasurinen participated in a Finnish magazine's Doom mapping contest in 1994, and later joined Remedy Entertainment, working on such projects as Max Payne 2 and, more recently, as game director for Control.

This one was amazing, but I smiled reading all of the people who trhived doing what they love. 

[Major Arlene]

6 hours ago, DoomGappy said:

Was anybody from New Blood a member of the Doom community before?

 

Leon Zawada, who made Return of the Triad (Rise of the Triad for Doom), is one of two developers for Amid Evil. *edit, both of the devs did, thanks kwc!*

Edited February 24, 2024 by Major Arlene

[kwc]

38 minutes ago, Major Arlene said:

 

Leon Zawada, who made Return of the Triad (Rise of the Triad for Doom), is one of two developers for Amid Evil.

Simon Rance (the other of the two developers for Amid Evil) also worked on Return of the Triad! 

[dybbuk81]

I sort of did but not my own game. Soundtrack to Project Warlock 1 and 2. I was a bad mapper though and haven't released much since like 99, nothing on /idgames. just other places

[Major Arlene]

4 hours ago, kwc said:

Simon Rance (the other of the two developers for Amid Evil) also worked on Return of the Triad! 

oh duhhhh!! I couldn't for the life of me remember his name, that makes sense though lol

[T-Rex]

On 2/23/2024 at 11:42 AM, LadyMistDragon said:

You are probably thinking of Tim Willts. I think American was hired for some reason unrelated to level design that wasn't programming, like tech support, but the rest is naturally history.

Yeah, Tim Willits made his start with his set of maps known as the Empire series, which were then revamped to make part of the Raven series which he did jointly with his sister Theresa Chasar. Id must have been impressed by his work, considering they soon gave him a job as a level designer where he made levels for The Ultimate Doom, Master Levels for Doom II, Quake, Quake II, and so on, and while he was working for Id, he did make Kick Attack! for Royal Crown Cola and designed levels for Strife by Rogue Entertainment.

[Lisaancelle]

5 hours ago, dybbuk81 said:

I sort of did but not my own game. Soundtrack to Project Warlock 1 and 2. I was a bad mapper though and haven't released much since like 99, nothing on /idgames. just other places

 

Kudos, I really liked those OSTs.

[Maximum Matt]

On 2/21/2024 at 9:34 AM, DoomGappy said:

who is that guy

John Romero, seen here holding a real-life blur sphere

...also Tim Willits had a pretty good career post-Doomige

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

8 minutes ago, Maximum Matt said:

John Romero, seen here holding a real-life blur sphere

...also Tim Willits had a pretty good career post-Doomige

His left hand looks like it's having an AI moment.

 

 

Edited February 24, 2024 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[DoomGappy]

8 hours ago, Maximum Matt said:

John Romero, seen here holding a real-life blur sphere

...also Tim Willits had a pretty good career post-Doomige

He looks like my uncle. 

[DoomGappy]

14 hours ago, dybbuk81 said:

I sort of did but not my own game. Soundtrack to Project Warlock 1 and 2. I was a bad mapper though and haven't released much since like 99, nothing on /idgames. just other places

Hey, that's really cool! It's on my wishlist now. Thanks!