3D Realms News - The Apogee Legacy Archives

3D Realms News: The Apogee Legacy Archives http://www.3drealms.
com/news/about_3dr_3dr_staff/the_apogee_legacy/
June 26, 2006
The Apogee Legacy #24 - Final Edition

Today we're bringing you the final edition of the Apogee Legacy Interview Series. As
this was put together by Joe Siegler, we'll let him talk about the conclusion to the
series.
"It's a bit of a sad moment, as this series has been a lot of fun to put together. Apogee
has a rich history, being involved in some capacity in over 70 titles in our 19 year
history now. I've been here for a long time myself, having seen the majority of these
games get released. When Scott Miller originally came up with this idea, I wasn't
terribly sure how well it would work, because a lot of the people we spoke with for this
series either haven't kept in touch, or we lost track of them, etc, etc, etc... But it
worked out well. Managed to reconnect with some folks, including a couple we haven't
spoken with as a company in over a decade.
Yes, this is the final edition. It is not the normal edition, as this one is a summary, and
has some recollections by folks of the two people who have worked here who have
since died; William Scarboro & Dennis Scarff. So let's get onto the final edition."
Of all the people who have worked here (and there's been a lot), we're fortunate that
(to our knowledge anyway), they're all still alive. So far only two folks who have
worked here have since died. We want to take this time in the final edition of the series
to commemorate them.
The Apogee Legacy

Past Pioneers of the Shareware Revolution
Issue #24 - Dennis Scarff
First up is Dennis Scarff. Dennis is not a name known to

most people, because he was not a developer. Dennis
took care of some of the business side of things for a few
years in the mid 90's. If you look in our older shareware
from the late 80's and early 90's, you'll see a lot of them
have a listing of foreign retailers, and things of that
nature. It was quite hapzardly done (compared to today's
standards), and after a time, it was decided we needed
someone to coordinate all of that. So Dennis was hired.
Dennis was in charge of handling all shareware requests,
as well as keeping track of foreign retailers, making sure
they paid the royalty money they owed our company,
things of that nature. As was said before, he wasn't really
known to the public, but he played an integral part of our
business side of things at the time.
He was also a tech nerd, although from a previous

generation. Dennis was huge into Ham radio, and had all kinds of ham equipment and
books in his office. He kept talking about how we all should participate in that. He was
also likely to be found in all the local Radio Shack stores looking for parts, and he
frequented several of the mom & pop computer stores in the area.
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3D Realms News: The Apogee Legacy Archives http://www.3drealms.com/news/about_3dr_3dr_staff/the_apogee_legacy/
One funny story about Dennis recalled by Joe Siegler..
"As was said, Dennis was always into gadgety type of things. One time
when the Dallas Stars first located here from Minnesota, several of us
attended a game, including Dennis. In between periods, the Stars would
fly this radio control blimp around the arena, and Dennis claimed that it
would be easy enough to scan for the frequency of the thing and take
control of it himself. He never did that, but it would have been amusing to
see him try. Outside of work, that's the kind of thing he was always known
for. He always had some parts catalog around, some phone thing, was a
great guy. I miss him.
Tom Hall also remembers Dennis.
"Dennis was like the kind ol' grandpa of the company. Always there with a
smile, a nod, a reassuring presence. A good fella."
Scott Miller recalls the original hiring of Dennis, and the reason why we eventually
parted company:
Scarff was hired from a shareware catalog, the biggest of its type, called
Public Brand Software, which was a huge catalog in the early eighties.
Scarff was a big Apogee fan, and at the time we need someone to deal
with all of the shareware outlets that helped drive our business at the
time. But as the 90's moved forward, shareware catalogs and BBSs were
replaced in importance by the Internet and the web. So, around 1996 or
so we released him.
As was said above, Dennis was not as well known to the public, but to those of us who
worked here when he was at Apogee, his is a name that is remembered fondly. It was
with great sadness that we found out later he had passed away (via email from his
widow).
Here's a few pictures of Dennis around the office.
Dennis Hamming it up in the offices
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Wtih Joe Siegler & Pat Miller in Summer 1996 filling Duke3D pre-orders
Dennis smiling
Chatting with Steve Blackburn at an Apogee company picnic
The Apogee Legacy

Issue #24 - William Scarboro
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Second up is William Scarboro. William is far more known to the public than Dennis
was, as William was one of the major folks on our Rise of the Triad project, as well as
being the original lead programmer and engine designer on Prey. William died on Aug
9, 2002 of an asthma attack. It was quite sad actually, as we're told he died alone
(likely in pain due to the way he died), and wasn't found for a few days after he had
passed. But his life was one of fun and passion, and that's the way he's remembered.
In fact, most people who knew him will remember him as this photo portrays him, as it
pretty much summed him up..
Tom Hall (id, Ion Storm, Midway, etc) recalls Wiliam:
"William was a completely unique character. He was always good for a

laugh. He'd describe an event in some crazy anime he'd seen, and then
say, "Dude! That's ridiculous!" He'd have his little bag with his tuna/pasta
/salsa/Omega 3 fatty acid bowls. He'd wear his odd American Male shirts
on his muscle-bound frame, and talk about "chicks". He made the
weapons in Rise of the Triad "insanely rockful". One day, he was so into
typing code he didn't see the big turtle we set next to him for two
minutes. So many little stories. He is missed."
When asked to elaborate on 'The turtle story', Tom replied with this..
"Heh, yeah, he was referring to a

document or book two feet to his
left. In between the two were two
thick books stacked up. So he'd type,
refer, type, refer.... Scott almost ran
over a turtle, so he picked it up to
get it out of the road and take it to
water, but he thought he'd bring it in
the office. We decided to surprise
William with it, so we placed it on
those stacked books. He kept
turning to the reference, back to the
Looking a bit sunburnt in a non
computer, and so on for awhile.
Obviously his brain registered standard white T-Shirt
"TURTLE!" and threw it out as bad
information. Finally he turned and jumped back, his brain finally
registering it as really there. :) "
Fellow Rise of the Triad programmer Mark Dochtermann (later Ritual, now EA) also
recalls William:
"William Scarboro had uncanny way of boiling the world down into black
and white. He either liked something or hated it, he desired it or pushed
it away. His desire to classify his world into two absolute states made him
a very passionate engineer. When he was into the work that he was
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doing, he was unstoppable."
Scott Miller (Apogee founder) also touches upon the original hiring of William, as well
as his connection to Prey both old school and modern.
"William Scarboro was one of the first

two or three actual developers (a coder)
we hired in 1994 when we first shifted to
internal development. Up until that time,
we had solely worked with external
teams, like Id Software and many
others. He was hired to help develop an
Id-approved sequel to Wolfenstein 3-D,
which later became a non-Id game, Rise
of the Triad. For the first year William
worked here, he wore many shirts of
many colors, but soon shifted to an
all-black-shirt wardrobe. Made buying
shirts easy, I suppose! But this became
his signature look for all the remaining
years I knew him.
William eventually became the lead

coder on Prey, leading development of
the Prey portal engine, and just as
significantly, the Prey editor, called
Preditor internally. At the time, this
A rarity - William in a Tuxedo!
editor was a significant improvement
over any previous 3D game editor we'd
seen, and Remedy even used it as the template for their very similar Max
Payne editor.
It's a shame that the original Prey project didn't reach escape velocity,
and for many reasons it eventually ended. William moved on and away
from the game industry, somewhat burnt out and looking for a more sane
job. That was the last I saw of him, and two or so years later I heard he
had tragically died due to an asthma attack.
William was also one of the industry's hardest, most dedicated workers,
and we were proud to dedicate the new Prey to his memory."
Finally, Joe Siegler chimes in on William:
This is quite hard to write, as William was a good friend of mine, and it
quite bothered me when I got an email from a (then) co-worker of his
that he had died. While we were grateful for the update, we were not
happy with the contents. As was said by the others here, William was
quite the character. He could be completely into himself with his work, or
be completely out there with his humour. One of the things that William
an I shared was a case of the giggles. After we had been working
together for awhile, there were certain catchphrases we were able to say
to each other to set the other one off. One was "Uhhh.... 27?" which was
a reference to a Beavis & Butthead episode where Butthead was trying to
pass himself off as 27 years old. The other I can't recall right at the
moment, but after those had been going on for awhile, it got so all we
had to do was look at the other for more than a second or two, and we'd
bust out laughing. That kind of friendship is hard to find. William & I
attended a few concerts together. One was the tour that Van Halen did
with Gary Cherone (which was better than it's reputation gave it), and the
other was the tour that Motley Crue did John Corabi as vocalist. William
was always on a quest to tour Europe where sex laws were not as uh,
"strict" as they are in the US, not sure if he actually pulled that off or not.
:)
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Anyway, here's something I wrote about William back in January of 2006

when I was looking for pictures of other former developers at the start of
this series. I found a picture of WIlliam I had forgotten about, and it
inspired me to write this:
-- Start Story --
Every time I see a picture of him, I get sad. It's still depressing to find out
the way he went. I also recently found out additional information about
his passing. I had run across the original email I got from a (then) current
co-worker of his informing me that he had died. I wrote back to him and
asked what exactly William was doing when he died, as it occurred to me
I didn't actually know that, all I knew was "not in the games industry".
Here's what I was told..
"RIA provides Income Tax

solutions for Corporations,
Accounting firms and CPAs.
He was part of the Platform
Technology Group. This group
was responsible for core
backend services for
computing and printing tax
returns. It involved a lot of
hard core c++ skills. He was
very integral to the group and
will be sorely missed."
I also found out that the folks Joe Siegler, William Scarboro, &
at RIA had gotten concerned Stephen Cole at E3 1998.
when he hadn't shown up for
work for a couple of days. Apparently his mother also was concerned as
well, and she eventually went to his apartment, and it was his mother
who found him dead - terribly sad info.
Anyway, I miss my old buddy, and I wanted to say finding some "new"
pictures (or at least ones I forgot about) was a nice treat. Wish you were
still around, pal.
-- End Story --
A nickname we had for William at the time was "Da Hur" (as in the
whore). All this sounds odd, but if you knew William, it would make more
sense. :) Miss ya buddy.
Here's a few pictures of William from around the office:
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Checking out the ceiling at George Broussard's house during our 1997
Christmas party
Caught by the webcam while walking out of the Tech Support Dept.
William's taking home some dip from a party at Lee Jackson's house
Tossing a football around in the back yard at Lee Jackson's house
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William with his girlfriend - unknown date.
Looking happy in his office - the way we remember him.
We're fortunate that with so many folks we've worked with over the years that so few
of them have passed on. There's some that just seem to have up and disappeared off
the face of the Earth. Take for example Todd Replogle. Todd is well known as the
programmer behind the first three Duke Nukem games, as well as Cosmo, and some
others from the ancient days of our company. The last anyone from here heard, Todd
was living in the backwoods of the state of Oregon. We heard a rumour that he had
turned his money into PVC Pipe and buried it in his back yard. Whether that's true or
not, he hasn't been heard from in years, and no one from 3DR has any idea how to
contact him. We tried, as we wanted him in this series, but he was unreachable.
We tried getting a hold of some other folks for this series but couldn't. Duke 3D Atomic
Edition producer Greg Malone was last heard of being a teacher in Arizona. Bobby
Prince did briefly reply when we initially sent out the queries back in December of
2005, but hasn't been heard from since. Some others just declined to participate.
Some of the folks we did get to participate were not easy to track down. Peder Jungck
was someone we hadn't spoken to in almost a decade, and was found via Google. Mike
Voss was tracked down via another game developer. Lindsay Whipp was difficult, had to
go through Google, to find some dead ends, we finally got a hold of him via someone
at Wildfire in Australia, who had his email. Jason Blochowiak was difficult, as we had to
track him down via a few other former employees. Most of them had him working at
Midway Chicago, but a phone call to their receptionist said he wasn't there, we lucked
out that someone knew where he went. One of the more interesting ones was Dave
Sharpless. Since Dave had a game that was put out over 15 years ago, none of us had
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much (if any) contact with him in the interim. He was eventually tracked down when
Matt at the Jumpman Lounge was kind enough to put us in contact with Dave.
Additionally, we do get quite a few queries about Lee Jackson, so I thought I'd take a
moment to answer folks who want to know what's going on. He's doing fine, and after
he and 3DR parted company in 2002, he briefly applied at another game company, but
decided for a complete change of direction with his life. He went to a Radio
broadcaster's school, and now holds a job with a firm in Dallas that does the traffic
reporting for several radio stations in the Dallas area, including the big news station
KRLD. This company also does reports for Sirius Satellite Radio, so if you have them,
and hear a familiar voice, it's Lee Jackson. It's still amusing to me personally to hear
"This is Lee Jackson in the KRLD traffic command center" coming over my radio.
So it was fun tracking down all these guys and gals, and it was a blast putting all this
together. It's sad that the series is now ending, as it's been a blast going down memory
lane these last six months the series has ran.
If need be, we might have special editions of the series in the future, should we make
contact with someone who would be a good addition, but this was the final scheduled
edition of this series. Thanks for sharing the trip down memory lane with us! This series
went on far longer than we thought, and thanks to all who participated, and thank YOU
for reading it.
So this ends the series. It's been nice looking backwards at our company, but now it's
time to go forwards. The Prey demo is out, the full version will be out soon, so there's
great, cool new stuff for you to look forward to.
That's all, folks!
P.S A special prayer goes out to Dennis & William - sorry we couldn't ask you guys
directly about this series, it would have been nice to still have y'all around and
contribute.
[ View Entire Legacy Interview Index ]

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:18 PM | Discuss this story on our forums
June 19, 2006
The Apogee Legacy #23 - Paul Schuytema

Today we bring you the final "new" issue in the Apogee Legacy series. This edition is
definitely one of the more unusual ones, and with the Prey demo being released this
Thursday the 22nd, a timely one as well.
This week's edition is with Paul Schuytema. Paul was with 3D Realms for a couple of
years in the mid - late 1990's as the project lead on Prey. Now what makes this unusual
is that Prey was not released when Paul was here, so his insights into things are not
the same as what they would be for someone who has published a game through us.
Still, with Prey on the horizon, and having covered Prey's original project lead (Tom
Hall) earlier in the series, we figured we might as well hit Paul up too, and he was glad
to send in his answers. Suprisingly for someone who didn't technically put out a game
with us, he has a lot to say, so make sure and check it all out.
The Apogee Legacy

Issue #23 - Paul Schuytema
1) How did you first come in contact with Apogee?
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I first came to know Apogee from their games.. publishing Wolfenstein and Blake Stone
and then ROTT.I was working as the game design editor for Computer Gaming World
Magazine when I was sent down to Dallas on assignment to cover Duke Nukem 3D
before it was released-it was so obvious from looking at that game that it would be a
HUGE hit. I remember sitting in his office and asking George: "So how does it feel to
KNOW you have a monster hit on your hands?"
I then worked with them to create a feature for CGW on editing in the Build engine. At
the time, I was teaching at Monmouth college and we modeled the student center in
the engine-it was a ball.deathmatching with my students through the campus union!
2) Was there a reason you decided to work

with Apogee, say versus going on your own or
working with another company?
3D Realms lured me away from FASA Interactive. I

was working as the lead designer on MechWarrior 3
and Scott Miller approached me about being the
project leader on Prey. While I loved the MechWarrior
universe and working on the Mech game, the chance
to help grow our own game universe and flesh out a
deep and interesting game character was too good to
pass up.
In the "small world" categoryÃ¢â‚¬Â¦when I left

FASA, my producer was Tim GerritsenÃ¢â‚¬Â¦who
went on to found Human Head. We became good
friends during my time at 3DR and now his team will
be the one that allows Prey to see the light of day. Paul Schuytema's as artwork
3) Looking back, was there anything Apogee could have done better,
regarding the marketing and distribution of your game?
Since Prey wasn't released when I was there, I can't really answer that question. I do
have plenty of hindsight, though, on what we could have done better with the game
and technology; as they say, hindsight is 20-20!
4) Do you think your game was made better or worse by working with
Apogee?
N/A
5) Apogee had a policy of letting the designer or studio retain full intellectual
property rights to their game. Nowadays, it's rare to find a publisher who
allows this, especially if the publisher is providing the funding. Do you
believe that it's best for the creator to retain IP rights? Why or why not?
Since leaving, I've had the chance to create games in which we retained no rights at all
and some in which we retained nearly all the rights. I think it depends on the game.
The honest truth, though, is that whomever bankrolls the project should probably
control the majority of the rights, since they are the chief risk-taker.
In a perfect world, a developer would be able to self-fund up to a prototype state and

then partner with a publisher for completion and distribution and then retain the major
IP rights. The real trick, though, is having the capitol to fund that prototype. That's not
a trivial feat to pull off!
5a) And if applicable, have you benefited from retaining ownership of your
own IP?
For the games we've done as Magic Lantern, it's clearly a benefit to own our own IP - it
gives us some freedom in putting together distribution deals to maximize our potential
return.
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5b) Do you think there'll ever be a sequel to your game(s)?
N/A
6) Is there any story/incident that stands out as interesting during your time
associated with Apogee?
Yowza... there are so many! Four big ones stand out:
- the first time we showed of portal technology at E3- the gulp of amazement from
those who saw it was a real rush for the whole team!
-our team design meetings when we would work on alien race cultures for Prey- the
team really came together, time and time again, and we were able to take blue-sky
ideas and reel them into nuggets that would fit in the context of an action game
-our team trek to see KMFDM (who was then doing the soundtrack for Prey) in Austin -
they were paired with Rammstein, from Germany, and the show was intense and we
got to hang out with the band back stage. [ Ed Note: There are still pictures of this
event online here. ]
-my last E3 with 3D Realms - for just a few demos, we had a real trick up our sleeve -
we did the demo for the press and talked a lot about cool multiplayer stuff and then for
a few (I think we only did it two or three times), we had the press sit down and we
spun a computer screen towards them and showed them that we could deathmatch
right there - that there was game play in addition to the demo - that really wowed
them!
7) Apogee was an early pioneer in

terms of teaming up with external
designers and studios, and continues
to do so even to this day (currently
working with Human Head Studios on
Prey). Why is it that so few other
studios do this (mentor and fund
outside projects with lesser known
teams)?
Every publisher wants to mitigate their risk

and taking a chance on a smaller or
lesser-known team isn't they way to do
that. That's a shame, because it's in those Paul in the back room demo area for
smaller studios that you'll find the real Prey at E3 1998
centers of game play innovation.
Also, the idea of mentoring is almost non-existent, which is a shame. Without mentors,
small studios are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past - with mentoring, they can
grow and flourish. I remember being on hand when Scott and George started their
relationship with Remedy, and I was really impressed with how they coached and
helped Remedy get started as they began work on Max Payne - it was something really
special.
8) What the biggest difference in the industry nowadays versus when you
worked with Apogee?
The consoles have really taken over and everything is "bigger, better, faster, more!" It's
very, very hard for small studios, especially US-based studios (where labor costs are
high as compared to overseas), to thrive. Also, since so much is ruled by so few, and all
the triple-A games need to be multi-platform out of the gates, the barrier for entry is so
high as to be almost impossible. Gone are the days when a great idea and a
willingness to dive in and learn and work your butt off in your basement will allow you
to start a game company - and that's kind of sad.
9) What have you been doing since your time with Apogee?
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I started Magic Lantern (insert shameless plug: http://www.lanterngames.com) in 1999

and since then, I produced and designed 20+ games, from the casual to the hard-core
(including a hand in one of the early Rainbow Six games). We did this in the cornfields
of rural Illinois, and along the way, became very involved in community and economic
development.
Late last year, I "turned the asylum over to the inmates" and started a new career with
the University of Illinois. Now I work to make games and simulations to support faculty
research - really a dream job for me, since I was in academia before I jumped into the
game industry.
10) If you're no longer making games,

have you thought about returning to
this industry? If not, why not?
So far, the grass is pretty green around the

ivory tower and I'm making games right
now - maybe ask me again in a few years!
11) Looking back, are there any

missed opportunities that you wish
you'd have jumped on?
Honestly, I think we maybe spent too much

time living in the now-defunct world of At 3DR HQ around October 1997.
Glide (3DFX's 3D accelerator API) before
we jumped to Direct X - we should have made that leap sooner, but of course, that's
hindsight talking!
12) Other than your game(s), what's your favorite game released or
produced by Apogee (or 3D Realms)?
Duke Nukem 3D, hands-down. The intensity of the multiplayer action was something I
had never experienced before, and the laser trip bombs were just genius!
12a) And what's your favorite 2-4 games released by anyone else?
My all-time favorite is the Age of Empires series - the blend of tactical combat with
world building and a real historical feel made the whole series incredible.
I also logged way too much time with the first 3D Jedi Knight game - the poly count
was low, the characters looked goofy (by today's standards) and the textures were
chunky, but the game play and the sense of scale is still unmatched - and the boss
battles rank as the best I've ever played.
13) Is there anything else you'd like to add about your time here or to fans
of your title(s)?
During the time I was at 3DR, the industry was really coming into its own - the PC was
still the big kid on the block and 3D acceleration was just starting out - and middleware
was just becoming an option - it was very exciting to see so much change - but it was
also a spooky time in which you had to guess on which API to support and what system
specs to target. Did you use MMX? Glide? Direct X? What sound API?
It was also a time of great variety - there were big players in the market, but also small
studios were thriving and the game spectrum was very wide indeed - there was so
much to play and so little time, we were crafting our own game, after all!
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3DR Team in 1995

Back Row L-R: Lee Jackson, David Demaret, Steve Hornback, Mark Dochtermann, Jim
Dose Front Row L-R: Chuck Jones, Doug Wood, Tom Hall, William Scarboro
3DR Team in 1998

Back Row L-R: George Broussard, Allen Dilling, Loyal Bassett, William Scarboro, Scott
McCabe, Tom Pytel
Front Row L-R: Doug Wood, Steve Hornback, Paul Schuytema
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Human Head Team in 2005/6
A special thanks goes out to Paul for answering the questions. To be honest, I wasn't
quite sure what he'd say when approached, but he was glad to help out.
Our Prey Page

Official 2K Prey Home Page
Prey Page on Wikipedia
Lantern Games Home Page
Make sure and tune in again next Monday morning, when we bring you the final edition
in the Legacy Interview Series. The final edition will be a series wrapup with highlights
from the rest of the series, and a tribute to two former 3D Realms employees who have
since died.

June 12, 2006
The Apogee Legacy #22 - The Levelord

As we wind down the Apogee Legacy series (click here
for schedule), we will be bringing you some slightly
different choices to wrap up the series. Today we are
bringing you a mini interview with none othre than the
Levelord himself, Richard Gray! The reason why we're
calling it a mini interview will be self evident shortly.
Richard worked here back in the Duke Nukem 3D days,

and left with some others who were working here at the
time to found what would be come Ritual. Rich has
remained friendly over the years with us, and we get
together from time to time and chew over the old days,
talk about what's going on with our companies now,
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etc, etc, etc.
As Rich was an important part of one of our most important projects (Duke Nukem 3D),
we wanted to get his input in this series. However, Rich being Rich, he didn't answer all
the questions. So we'll bring you an abbreviated interview with him. He answers some
of the questions, but definitely not all. We'll flesh this one out with some pictures from
the archives of him. :)
So here goes:
The Apogee Legacy

Issue #22 - Richard Grey
I had made some levels for DOOM back in 1994 and uploaded them to CompuServe.
They were good enough to catch the eye of Nick Newhard, then with Q Studios. He
contracted me to do levels for Blood. Both my DOOM levels and Blood caught the
attention of George Broussard. He soon asked me to come to Garland, Texas to work
fulltime on Duke Nukem 3D.
2) Was there a reason you

decided to work with
Apogee, say versus going
on your own or working
with another company?
I would have worked at ANY

game company, and would
have cleaned the bathroom
floors with a toothpick, for free,
just to get into the industry ;) I
was also being offered a job at
Q Studios, but I chose Apogee
because it was so close to id
Software. Just seemed
important at the time. This was
late 1994 and there were only
a few game companies making
FPSs.
3) Looking back, was there

anything Apogee could
have done better, regarding Levelord at our 1995 Halloween Party
the marketing and
distribution of your game?
Better, because the Duke Nukem 3D Team was a great one! I also give credit to the
technology of the times. Today, I spend more than half my time wrestling with
technology. Everything has gotten so complicated and complex. Back then, a decade
ago, everything was so much easier to deal with and I spent much more time on the
Fun Factor and polish.
Although I was an internal employee, I would say this holds true for my experience. I
was allowed almost free reins on my levels. This gave me creative freedom, and this
gave the entire team creative freedom. When asking about retaining IP rights, I must
add consideration for ownership and future endeavors with a property. Retaining
creative freedom, as related to an IP, is always good. Financial ownership is another
15 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

thing.
6) Is there any story/incident that

stands out as interesting during your
time associated with Apogee?
Yes, going to my very first E3 in 1996 with

the Duke Team. It was the first E3, so that
made it memorable. I had lived in Los
Angeles from 1980-1990. I lived only a few
blocks away from the Nakatomi building in
the first Die Hard movie. I lived in the
garage of my parents while going to UCLA.
Late one night, at about 2am, they started
filming much of the exterior helicopter stuff Chowing down at the 3DR Offices
at the end of the movie. I thought it was a
real event ;)
Anyhow, that AM/PM store is right there, where the cop bought the Twinkies for his
pregnant wife. This store, being so close to home, was just a regular old store to buy
smokes and gas. To most others, though, it was an icon. First thing we did at E3 was
go to this store and buy Twinkies ;)
7) Apogee was an early pioneer in terms of teaming up with external

designers and studios, and continues to do so even to this day (currently
working with Human Head Studios on Prey). Why is it that so few other
studios do this (mentor and fund outside projects with lesser known teams)?
Trust, and there always seems to be fingers on "the other side". Most external
involvement entails external influence, creative influence. It is understandable, putting
money into something, a lot of money, and wanting control and oversight. However, my
experience is that if you sign-up to have a group of professionals perform a task, you
should trust them to complete the task. I always use the metaphor of hiring a caterer
and then insisting on being in the kitchen and deciding on my own list of spices and
cooking times and such.
As you can see, Rich didn't answer most of the questions, he probably got distracted by
a picture of boobs or something at the time. So, I'm going to plunder his website for a
few funny stories, and go through our own archives for pictures of him.
April 24, 1998:
Rich talks about "The Levelord Drinking

Game" Joe Siegler invented for our
semi-regular trips to the Outback
Steakhouse..
"The Levelord Drinking Game"?

Okay, I'm in ;) I bet we could make
a pretty penny with the travel
version. Seriously, you're a funny
man, Joe... ...that's why I keeel you
laaaast!... ...just in case any are At 3DR HQ watching a Duke3D demo
taking this seriously, Master Siegler the night before release.
and I meet at the Outback
Steakhouse in Mesquite every few L-R: George Broussard, Doug Wood,
months. He goes for the Bloomin' Joe Siegler, Allen Blum, Terry Nagy,
Onions and I... ...well, let's just say I Dirk Jones, Jim Dose (obscured),
get very pedophilic with all the high Chuck Jones, Levelord
school waitresses and their short,
short little skirts showing just a hint of flowery panties underneath and
their amply round melon-sized boobs bouncing up and... ...or dear,
...that's two drinks for me!
16 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

September 22, 1999:
Rich talks about the advances of gaming tech and Duke Nukem 3D:
I'm so tired of chasing technology! Cutting-edge and special effects have

become horrible phrases for me. We spend so much time and effort
"getting up" and not enough "going", and for an old fart like me, it just
gets tiring.
Keep in mind that I've been in software since before there were floppies.
Platter "hard" drives stored a whopping 128k and programming was down
on card readers and hoppers. Anyone else remember their Hollerith code
and EBCDIC? I remember being in the Navy, dabbling in FORTRAN, and
seeing the DPs carefully walking down the halls holding 8" floppies, when
they first came out, like some precious serving tray. They were afraid the
bits would get jumbled if the floppies got jarred in any way.
I am so completely convinced that we could release Duke Nukem 3D right

now and it would still sell as many copies and be as popular.
February 8, 1998:
Rich remembers (or tries to, it seems like a rambling piece) on Allen Blum, Megadeth,
& Duke Nukem 3D:
...Well, it's early Sunday morning, got the stereo blasting away, freshing
toasted (toast is so much more crisp when your lungs aren't coated with
tobacco smoke;), and cranking on some levels in our new office space.
This is way cool, apart from the new space being "new", we were
crammed like Bismarck Herrings in the old office. I even have enough
room to crack my 16-foot bullwhip! ...hey, man, ...it's Texas, ...live it,
...love it!
Speaking of stereos blasting, I've got MegaDeath's latest blaring (ya, ya,
it's a 97 release, but remember how old and slow I am!) and just noticed
the title of the 7th track... ...Sin! Yes boys, play it loud please! MegaDeath
will ALWAYS remind me of 18-hour stretches of Duke leveling and Allen
The Third Blum playing "Youthanasia" thirteen times in a row... ...bless
his demented little heart. Dave Mustaine... ...hmmmm, you don't
supposed, do you, that Tom has an alter profession like that sCary Spice
bitch (how ya doin' BTW, Steve)?
March 10, 1995:
Rich recalls his 10 year anniversary of coming to

work for 3D Realms:
Holy sheep shit! (picture is at 3D Realms

in March of 1995)
It was ten years ago today when I first

rolled into Garland, Texas to start working
on Duke Nukem at 3D Realms!
It has definitely been a decade that seems

to have gone by quickly (probably due to
the time warped perspective of growing older), but it also seems like a
LOOOOONG time when I try to remember all the things that have
happened in ten years.
The question for me? Would I do it again if I knew back then what I know
now? It is a question for me, ...even with all the ultracool things I have
gained and enjoyed on the ride, ...it was a truly rough road to travel!
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April 20, 2000:
And finally, this one where his Loness

writes this about Duke Nukem and 3D
Realms:
...and finally, I am really starting to

regret leaving Garland. I played
pool with George the Broussard
last night and Duke sounds fricken
incredible! It all brought back alot
of fond memories. That sure was a
fun game to make and Mr. Nukem
has a long way to go before he
gets too old. I don't know how
they're doing it all without me, but I wish I was still there ;)
Several pictures of The Levelord from E3 2001:
Going after something he likes!
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Working the grill at the God lot. This food was free if you got in the lot, BTW.
With Scott Miller & George Broussard
The Levelord getting happy with a friend. :)
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The Levelord's traditional camera greeting
Getting a bit gay with Joe Siegler.
There's a few more pictures of Levelord in Issue 20 of this series, too.
As was said above, Rich was involved with just one title with us, Duke Nukem 3D, but it
was an important one. Here's a few Levelord related links for you to peruse.
Our Duke Nukem 3D Catalog Page

Levelord's Home Page (graphic material alert :) )
The Levelord page on Wikipedia
Ritual's Website
Make sure and tune in again next Monday morning, when we bring you the next in our
Legacy Interview series, as we wind it down. After this one, there's only two issues left.

20 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

June 5, 2006
The Apogee Legacy #21 - Darren Baker

In 1995, Apogee Software released the first title under
our new branded label concept. That was Terminal
Velocity under the "3D Realms" brand. This concept
was used a second time in 1998, when we released
"Balls of Steel" under the "Pinball Wizards" label. As
with the "3D Realms" branding idea, the Pinball
Wizards one was to launch a series of pinball related
titles. However, to date Balls of Steel was the only title
put out under the Pinball Wizards brand.
One of the driving forces behind the Balls of Steel title

was Darren Baker. Darren Baker was actually involved
with two other titles with us before Balls of Steel in 1998. Those titles were Halloween
Harry/Alien Carnage as well as Mystic Towers (both in 1994). So Darren has been
involved with us for several years now.
Darren, mostly due to his location (Australia), has one of the more unique relationships
with us. Despite having worked on three seperate titles with us, has never met us face
to face. It's one of the more unique aspects of our company, having developers all over
the world. Let's get to his interview:
The Apogee Legacy

Issue #21 - Darren Baker
I came into direct contact with Apogee in 1993 (I was 18) through a group of guys here
in Brisbane who were developing a very cool (256 color parallax scrolling!!) game
called Halloween Harry. I managed to get onto the team and contributed the digital
sound engine. My brother Steven also composed a good deal of the music for the
game.
Harry was picked up for Australian distribution by Manaccom, who then lined up US
distribution through Apogee.
We had heard of Apogee prior to all this of course, particularly with the Commander
Keen and Wolfenstein games, so to be associated with them was very exciting.
The Harry project then led to Mystic Towers (with another team on which I was the PC
programmer), then eventually to Balls of Steel, as Wildfire Studios.
So basically Apogee published the first 3 commercial games I worked on.
2) Was there a reason you decided to

work with Apogee, say versus going
on your own or working with another
company?
I guess the initial reason was that we had

the contacts with Apogee, and Scott and
George were willing to support and take
chances on inexperienced - albeit talented
- teams, and overseas ones to boot.
As for going on your own, other people I

knew had tried the "do everything" route
(eg one or two people doing code, art,
21 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

sound, manuals, packing, duplication, Darren Baker at his desk with Fidelio -
distribution!), and invariably the efforts
Feb 2006
were less than rewarding financially. At the
time, getting products marketed and distributed properly was not something we
properly understood or were even really interested in. We were far more concerned
with the challenge of developing the games themselves, and when a successful
company like Apogee offers you advances to get on and do what you enjoy, how good
is that?! :)
I think Apogee did a great job with Balls of Steel. I think sales suffered a bit because
the game's promotion led the ship date too far (or the ship date trailed the promotion,
depending how you look at it!) That wasn't entirely their fault... ;)
Apogee?
I have no doubt the final product was better for Apogee's involvement.
Balls of Steel took a somewhat different direction than we had originally intended for it
once Apogee came on board. Originally it was to be more of a true-to-life pinball
simulator, but a mixture of Apogee's influence, a need to better our competitors, and
good ol' feature creep led it to be more of a hybrid sim / action game. Of course the
most obvious Apogee influence is the Duke Nukem table, but the overall 'hardcore' feel
probably owes a fair bit to them too.
Yes, it's best from the creator's point of view to retain the IP rights. But it's also best
from the publisher's point of view that the publisher get the IP rights in exchange for
the funding. Both can be reasonable points of view depending on the money involved
and other specifics of the deal.
I certainly believe that developers should relinquish/sell their IP very reluctantly and
only after much consideration. They need to negotiate to keep whatever they can.
5a) And if applicable, have you

benefited from retaining ownership of
your own IP?
Yes, definitely. After Balls of Steel we reused

our pinball engine technology to develop half
a dozen more pinball games and licensed it
out to other developers.
More recently, a key part of our business in

the casual games market is to retain
ownership of our brand and carefully control
territory and platform distribution rights. This
allows us to reuse and license our technology,
create sequels and spinoff games, and control
revenue streams from online and worldwide
retail channels. This strategy has paid off for
our hit game Tumblebugs, for instance.
5b) Do you think there'll ever be a

sequel to your game(s)? Final Balls of Steel Box Art
The idea has been kicked around on and off. Apogee actually owns the trademark for
22 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

Balls of Steel (see, Scott's not *completely* silly and giving away IP rights all over the
place :)) but we're pretty free to do another game, which is great.
We'd really like to do a Balls of Steel 2... maybe with a Duke Nukem Forever table..
yeah, that would be cool.
In the PC market pinball tends to be a budget title genre though, but I'd want
something much better than that. I think it'd be a great fit for the PSP.
What's odd is that such stories are quite hard to come up with, because I've never
actually met *any* of the Apogee folks. Not one. We've only ever swapped emails, and
had the occasional phone call. The upside is I still have something to look forward to!
However, one thing I do distinctly remember is when Scott offered us the Duke Nukem
3D license to include in Balls of Steel.
We hadn't seen the game, and to be honest, we didn't think a whole lot of the first two
Duke games (sorry Todd et al!), so we were sceptical to say the least. And it didn't help
a whole lot either when were sent nothing but a CD full of raw Duke graphics like static
cutouts of pig cops and loads of various gibs :) What's more, we were also going to
have to scrap a whole lot of work we'd done on the Devil's Island table to make room
for it.
I do remember Scott insisting that the game was definitely going to be a hit, but still,
pigs with guns ... riiight...
Anyhow we eventually got a build of the game, and that's when the 'maybe' rapidly
became 'yes please'!
(Besides, it was only fair - they put a Balls of Steel pinball table in Duke :))
7) Apogee was an early pioneer

in terms of teaming up with
external designers and studios,
and continues to do so even to
this day (currently working with
Human Head Studios on Prey).
Why is it that so few other
studios do this (mentor and fund
outside projects with lesser
known teams)?
I'd guess the perceived risk is the big

factor, but I think it's actually a smart
business move if you can manage a
nascent external team and provide
the missing ingredients (funding,
marketing, business, management,
QA etc) and harness their idealism
and creativity.
I have asked myself over the years

whether I'd do for another team today
what Apogee did for us back then, Pre-Pinball Wizards unused Balls of Steel
and I'd like to think I would. One Box Art
difference is I'd want to do more due
diligence and manage the teams a lot more closely ('from the inside') rather than just
hope that they kept delivering milestones from time to time and didn't drop the ball! It
took us over 2 years to ship Balls of Steel, and while I don't think Apogee was overly
sweating the advances, it was definitely a long time to be on a project.
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worked with Apogee?
In some ways that question's quite difficult for me to answer, because I think I have
learned and changed so much over that time that it can be tough to compare
objectively.
I was going to say that were we starting out now, we would have a much harder time
getting a deal, and that there'd be no Apogees out there to give us a break. But with
the booming casual games industry over the last couple of years, the window has once
again opened for small developers to get games to market, so that's not really true.
There is of course the usual observations that the budgets are bigger, the teams are
huge, that most games are based on licences, etc.
For the most part I've been CEO and Technical Director of Wildfire Studios. I worked as
a programmer for a short while in London a few years ago for another developer, and
that was an excellent experience. I'm really enjoying the success Wildfire is having, and
it's interesting moving my focus from programming, which has always been my passion,
to the business to ensure we sustain and grow.
10) If you're no longer making games, have

you thought about returning to this
industry? If not, why not?
Heh, I've thought about *leaving* the industry

from time to time, but there's nothing I can think
of doing that requires such a blend of technical,
creative and business skills. It's very stimulating.
:)
11) Looking back, are there any missed

opportunities that you wish you'd have
jumped on?
Yes, quite a few. I think we could have exploited

the success (critical if not commercial) of Balls of
Steel in various ways, but didn't have the
perception and know-how to do it. That said, we
haven't done too badly at all, but we could have
been smarter and focused on the right things. But
overall I regard the early days (including our time The Duke Nukem table from
with Apogee) as an excellent apprenticeship in Balls of Steel
the industry.
Duke 3D was my favourite, that sucked down (so to speak!) way too much of my time.
The network play was awesome.
I think the Infocom games (Zork etc) are some of the best of all time.
In more recent years I thought the original Unreal was excellent.
These days I don't play games for entertainment anywhere near as much as I used to,
now my interest is more of an analytical one.
of your title(s)?
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I would like to thank Scott, George, Joe and the rest of the Apogee crew that we
worked with over the years. They were instrumental in getting us started in the
industry, and great to work with. I still keep tabs on what Apogee/3D Realms is up to,
and listen closely to what Scott has to say about the business of games.
As to our fans - stay tuned. We've got some great new games on the way!
The Alien Carnage team from a newspaper scan in 1994.

Top Row (L-R): Darren Baker, Tony Ball, John Passfield, Steve Stamatiadis
Bottom Row (L-R): Steven Baker, Robert Crane
Wildfire 2006:
L-R: Adrian Cook, Robert Crane, Robert Gilchrist, Darren Baker, Leon McBride
As was said above, Darren has been involved with three seperate titles with us. We
have plenty of information available on them on our website, please use the links
below:
Our Balls of Steel Catalog Page
25 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

Our Alien Carnage Catalog Page

Our Mystic Towers Catalog Page
Mystic Towers Page on Wikipedia
Balls of Steel Page on Wikipedia
Wildfire Homepage
Legacy Interview series. The series is close to being finished, we have two more
interviews planned, plus a wrap up edition. The last couple will be special issues, so
you're going to want to tune in for those.

May 22, 2006
The Apogee Legacy #20 - Joe Siegler

This week's edition of the Apogee Legacy series reaches
a milestone with it's twentieth edition. I think when we
first came up with the idea, we didn't expect it would run
this long. We are reaching the end of the series, as
there's only a couple left after this one. This week, we're
running a slightly different edition for our twentieth. This
twentieth interview is with well.. myself, Joe Siegler. Now
I hadn't planned on doing one of these myself, as I didn't
think there was a point. Scott Miller asked me to do it,
and when I objected, he said "consider it an order", so
here I am. :)
The short intro to myself is that I run the website here at

Apogee, amongst other things (a more complete list is
here). Yeah, I know most people know us as 3D Realms,
but I've been here for a long time since before the name 3D Realms came up. Those
who know me know I tend to resist change, so even 12 years after we came up with
the name, I still refer to ourselves as Apogee.
One of my concerns is that I'm not a traditional developer, and as such some of the
questions wouldn't apply to me directly. While that is true, I have a lot of friends who
are, and also having read all the interviews before mine, I'd like to think I have some
not completely off base thoughts on the matters at hand. As I've already started
talking, let's get to the actual questions.
The Apogee Legacy

Issue #20 - Joe Siegler
Well, that would require the firing up of the wayback

machine. I started here in Dec 1992, but I was "involved"
before that. I was a customer of this company for awhile.
I'm not sure which was the first game I ever bought - it was
probably either Keen 4 or the original Duke Nukem game. I
was working at a computer repair facility at the time, and
on the repair floor, Apogee games were used a lot on the
computers. You had to test something, and quite frequently
to test repaired floppy drives, some Apogee game would
26 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

get installed. I also was running a BBS at the time, and

Apogee's games were quite popular on the BBS scene.
In fact BBS's are the reason why I'm here. Back in the day,
I used to dial up Software Creations all the time looking for
the latest shareware releases and updates by Apogee. I
would download 'em, and then upload them to several
BBS's around the country on my own dime, all not knowing Trying to imitate James
Apogee at all. So on May 5, 1992, along with most of the Hetfield, circa 1993
rest of the world, I was totally blown away by Wolfenstein
3D. It was some seriously good shit at the time, and I knew then that I wanted to try
and work there, although I didn't know as what, because I was not an artist or a
programmer. After the v1.2 update of Wolfenstein 3D came out, I shortly after that saw
a "user hack" version of Wolfenstein pruporting to be "An adult upgrade of Wolfenstein
3D to v1.3". I contacted Scott Miller on Software Creations about it, since this file did
not orginate there, like all the others did. Scott thanked me, and Apogee/id issued a
statement about it, saying it didn't come from them, there is no "Porn" version of Wolf
from them, and it was for this reason that there is no v1.3 of Wolfenstein 3D. Not long
after this I decided to leverage this and ask Scott if he needed any help being a beta
tester. He said yes, and I was added to the beta testing team (which I later on ending
up being the head of, which was amusing to me). At the time, Math Rescue was in
beta, so that was my first project.
After a short time doing beta testing of that

(and Major Stryker), Scott posted a
message in the beta area asking if anyone
from the beta team was intersted in
coming to work for Apogee. Originally, I
was hired to be telephone tech support for
Apogee. Somewhere in my dusty archives
is the original message he posted, but I
can't locate it now. One highlight in his
"incentive" package was that the Coke
machine at the office cost only a quarter
per can. I figured any company which At the Ft Worth Duke3D Rodeo
talked about "Wearing what you want", and Shootout, 1996. More Info
offering Coke for a quarter in it's "Come
work here" pitch probably was pretty cool. So in October of 1992, I made the decision
to move to Texas from Philly to take this job. I was to replace Shawn Green, who was
the first employee of the company (outside of Scott and his family) who was being
bumped up to the newly created "Online Support" position. However, inbetween my
getting hired and coming down, Shawn quit to go join id Software. I then told Scott I
wanted that job, since it was exactly what I was doing anyway in terms of file releases,
support, etc.. So they gave me that job instead, and to this day I thank Shawn for
making that move allowing me to get this job. It's kind of amusing, 13.5 years later I'm
still here, and I'm still technically in the same job, as I've never really been formally
promoted or anything like that. It's just evolved from BBS's to the Internet and
websites/email.
It's exactly the kind of job I would have wanted had I actually stayed in school and got
a degree (which I didn't).
2) Was there a reason you decided to work with Apogee, say versus going on
your own or working with another company?
Well, unlike the 19 folks who have preceeded me in this series, I'm not a real game
developer as such. Sure, I write tech docs, I do support, maintain the website, and I
even dabbled in level design awhile back with Rise of the Triad, but I hold no illusions.
I'm not a game developer, I just work at a game company. Back in 1992, it wasn't an
issue of working for anyone else, I didn't know anyone in the game industry. Scott
offered the job to our beta team as I talked about above, and I took it. So working for
anyone else was not an option.
27 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

3) Looking back, was there anything

Apogee could have done better,
regarding the marketing and
Well, I do have two games under my belt

as a formal developer, and those are Rise
of the Triad, and Extreme Rise of the Triad.
For ROTT, I got paid "per level", it wasn't a
royalty type of issue there, I got "x" per
level I designed. For EROTT though I got
paid royalties. EROTT was totally done by With Joe Selinske (TRI, Ritual, EA,
Tom Hall and myself, no one else from Black Label) at E3 2001
Apogee worked on that. So I was definitely
excited about getting a royalty check.
I did get a couple of good ones right after release, but it started tapering off not long
after that. That's the one beef I had with the game back then - Extreme ROTT was the
only game at the time we had no advertising for. We advertised ROTT, and all the other
games released back then, but EROTT came out after the 3D Realms label started, and
I think the marketing was there for Terminal Velocity, and Duke Nukem 3D was well
underway at that point, so EROTT got kind of forgotten about, and if we had marketed
it, there might have been more sales for a product that I felt was a lot better with it's
level design than the original product was.
It's not a major thing now, because I'm sure EROTT would have been discontinued
awhile back anyway, and I thorogouhly enjoyed the experience both from the work
done, and working solo with Tom Hall. I'll always treasure that.
One final story to this is that the last

couple of royalty checks I got were under
$10, with the last one I think being about
$2. After that, George Broussard (who
handed out royalty checks for the
company) came to me with a buyout offer,
so he wouldn't have to go through all the
records just to arrive at a check for $2. So I
got a $300 buyout somewhere in early/mid
1996 on my EROTT royalties, which I
figured out back then would carry me over
to around the year 2035 if I spread out the
With The Levelord (Ritual) & Jim Dose
diminsihing rate at which the checks were
(Ritual, id, Valve) at a Mesquite
coming in, so in the end I made out OK
Outback in Feb 2005.
with that in my opinion. :)
Apogee?
Well, again only having one game under my belt makes this a bit different, as I'm not
sure how to answer this. I'd say the game was fine the way it was. Sure, I know there
was a chance to use Build back then instead of the Wolf engine, and I'm sure that
might have made the game better had it been used, but to be honest, I rather like
ROTT the way it was.
Well, again I don't own the IP to Rise of the Triad, Scott & George do. I think it's a great
idea for the designer to retain IP rights. That is however they don't own it just to bury
it like some companies do with some properties they own ( that fans have shown there
is an interest in reviving).
28 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM


your own IP?
This is not applicable to me at all. No

comment.

sequel to your game(s)?
Well, there was already the

aforementioned addon pack for my one With Tom Hall at E3 1998.
game, that being "Extreme Rise of the
Triad". While I'm not Scott & George, and I can't speak for them personally, I seriously
doubt they'd ever want to do another sequel to that.
However... If I ever ran across the kind of stupid money that would allow me to never
have to worry about money ever again, I'd personally fund a Rise of the Triad sequel. I
still think there's potential for a killer game in the ROTT franchise, and I'd probably try
and hire back as many of the original team as I could. Most of what made ROTT "ROTT"
IMO was Tom Hall's silliness - the same zany stuff that made Keen "Keen". There's a
bunch of other cool things there too, but this game was very much (to me personally) a
Tom Hall game.
However, the amount of money required for that dream is far beyond what this
Webmaster will probably ever see in his lifetime. So while I WANT to say yes there will
be, the answer is probably no.

Oh dear God, there's way too many of

them! I've seen an awful lot of people
come through here, and have been friends
with most of them, I probably could tell a
story on all of them. The problem is I know
so many stories here, how do I pick for
this? OK, I'll do a few of them.
Ken Silverman's US Maps In a stretch limo with the rest of 3DR

on our way to a good dinner at a
A few issues back, Ken Silverman did a bit Steakhouse in Dallas in Nov of 2001.
about his drawing the United States
anywhere. Here's a story I remembered about that. "One time the group of us were out
to lunch at one of the local restaurants. This was one of the places that lets you draw
with crayons on the table on paper they put on it. As Ken stated, he generally was
pretty quiet, so most of us weren't paying attention, just talking the usual trash
nonsense. After awhile one of us looked over at what Ken was doodling, and went
"What the hell?" Ken was sketching the United States Map. He apparently has the
ability to just draw the entire US map on anything. It pretty much took us by surprise,
as he was roughly half done at that point, and from that point on we just watched him
finish the map. So if you go anywhere with Ken, don't let him wander off on his own
mentally, he'll draw the United States somewhere. :)"
ROTT Release power outage
In December of 1994, we were about to release the v1.0 shareware version of Rise of
the Triad. As any game developer can tell you, the day before you release is one of the
most stressful and worrysome times, as even if you think your game is going to be
good, there's that one moment of "What if it sucks?" Anyway, it was the middle of the
night and we were all testing, tweaking, packing, etc, as any end of project was. We
were just about done, doing final checks, and then we lost power. At first we thought
29 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

we blew a fuse, and then we noticed the whole building was out, and then we went
outside and noticed that nothing had power anywhere that we could see. It was as if
the whole power grid up and died. I recall someone at the time saying "id Software did
it!". It was both a relief and a stressful thing as we wanted to finish and get the game
out. Some of us handled the break differently. William Scarboro slept on the floor of his
office. Some of the rest of us (myself, Mark Dochtermann) went downstairs into the
lobby of our office building and brought a water rocket. We were bored, and with no
computers to use, we had to resort to other juvenile attempts at passing the time. We
chose setting off a water pressured rocket inside the lobby of our office building. So we
filled it up with water (there's a picture of this rocket on the ROTT CD), and got all
excited. Pumped it up, and the stupid thing went up about one foot, and as I recall got
Mark completely wet. It was complete failure. We tried again, but the stupid thing
never worked right. For some reason we felt it sounded cooler to name it, so the water
rocket from Planet Failure was called "The Avenger". Power came on a short while later,
and the game was released without further incident, but the water rocket story from
the night of release was one I'll always remember.
Monty Python Tech Support
Back when ROTT was being developed, the

Tech Support department in 1994 consisted of
Kevin Green, Steve Quarrella, & Lee Jackson
(picture). From time to time I'd need to jump in
and help them as we were pretty busy at the
time. When the four of us were together, it
seemed to prompt what I called "Monty Python
Tech Support". You see, Lee, Steve, & myself
were huge fans of British Comedy. Monty
Python & Red Dwarf in particular. The three of
us knew the routines, the lines pretty darn well.
At a moment when relief was needed (or more
likely) when the group of us were just goofing
off, or when we wanted to mess with Kevin,
one of us would start a Python routine. Since
the three of us knew 'em so damn well, we
could do them, and we'd do 'em rather a lot.
Ended up driving Kevin bananas. That issue
aside, it was cool that the three of us had that
kind of rapport where we could do that.
At SWC BBS in 1994.
More ROTT Development
There's a couple of stories from ROTT development that I'll tell here (although I could
do a whole entry on that game's development too). The first is one called "50 Kills".
The second is called "Death to a Coffee Cup".
Towards the end of ROTT development, we (even then) were hearing the cries of
"You're taking too darn long". So Tom Hall, in his bizarre sense of humour, decided to
make a video out of that. We had made this video where he pretended to be an
undercover news reporter, and I was his cameraman. We "broke in" to the Apogee HQ,
and he was going to do this expose as to why it was taking so long. We ran upstairs,
into our offices, and looked around at people's desks, and there was no one there. We
eventually found a couple of guys playing ping pong in another office, and it was
something along the lines of "Hey, it's game research" or something liek that. My
memories of how the video ended are fairly cloudy now. We had Rise of the Triad
running in the background on various people's computers, but the funny part of this for
me was when Tom got into the offices and looked at one of the computers, the rather
distintive sound of a ROTT multiplayer game came up. Tom yelled out in a rather
dejected sounding voice "50 KILLS!" - he had set the game's kill total to 50, so the
game ended. This compltely ruined his "crazed undercover news reporter" thing and we
had to shoot the video again. This was never released, unfortunately - and is lost to
the ages. I tried finding this a few years ago to release, but no one knows if it's even
around anymore. Shame, as it was pretty darned funny.
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Also as a side story to this, the story of losing to an inanimate object in ROTT
deathmatch comes to mind. Back then, ROTT had a record for allowing 11 people to
play at once in a deathmatch game. Doom was the king of deathmatch, but it was
limited with the number of players. With all due respect to Spinal Tap, Rott "Went to
11", and when we were testing deathmatch we didn't always have that many people to
play. So we'd fire up ROTT on other computers, and stick down the fire button, so that
player would at least be doing something, if not actually "playing". The sad part of this
is that we used coffee cups on a lot of the computer keyboards to wedge down the fire
button. More than once, one of the coffee cups managed to win the game. I've been
accused of not being very good at deathmatch games, but losing to a friggin coffee cup
is rather embarrassing.
Mt. Xenophage
Back before I started working here (and right

when I did), we used to take our own 1-800
phone calls for orders. Back then we had a guy
working for us who took orders named Jason
Reed. When we put Xenophage on sale, like
every other title we sold, we got a bunch of
stock to sell. Jason went and sat on top of the
pile of Xenophage boxes, and we took his
picture up there. For some reason the image of
this picture has stuck in my mind over the
years, and it's come to be known as "Mount
Xenophage". We ended up using this picture as
a Camera Captioning Contest entry back in
1997. The memory remained, as some years
later in 2002, we recreated the picture with
Bryan Turner on a pile of boxes.
Blackburn on the log
We haven't done this in ages, but from time to

time we used to go out collectively as a During a voice recording session
company and do something outdoors. One day for Duke Nukem Forever in 2001.
many a moon ago we had rented (or just took
over, I can't remember) a park in Garland where we had our own private BBQ. The
majority of the company came, and we had a great time playing volleyball, having a
cookout, and just generally hanging out.
After awhile we started exploring the grounds behind the picnic area in the park, and
ran across a creek with a big tree that had fallen over it forming a bridge to the other
side. Since it looked pretty unsafe, it instantly became a dare as to who would have
enough balls to cross the thing. Funny thing was that the daughter of one of our
employees was the most nimble, going across it like there was nothing to worry about.
Some of us tried it but without as much aplomb.
Eventually, Steve Blackburn crossed over, got to the other side, and the got stuck there.
He apparently was afraid to come back either because of abuse he was taking, or he
just got scared of crossing - don't remember that now. Anyway, this prompted mass
taunting and abuse from the others here, particularly Scott & George, who were calling
him several names I won't print here. Even the aforementioned kid ran up to him, stole
his hat, and came back.
The climax to this story was when Scott Miller got out halfway on the tree, and started
throwing things at Steve. No one was hurt, but damn were those of us watching this
laughing our asses off. There's a picture of Scott tossing another tree branch at Steve
online here. We haven't done anything like this in awhile, and I miss these kinds of
company outings.
There's so many others, I could spend all day recounting stories. Some of the others I
thought about using here were the story of when we shipped Max Payne, how Corrinne
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Yu loved to eat cereal in the lunchroom, the entire company going out to dinner to
celebrate completing Duke Nukem 3D, Tom Hall's "Iced Tea, No Lemon, No Spoon",
Mark Dochtermann's "Lookin' for some Hot Buns!", there's just too many, man!

I'm gonna pass on this one. I think the folks in this series have already said way better
what I could possibly do with this one. Check out the other entries in this series for
that.
8) What the biggest difference in the

industry nowadays versus when you
worked with Apogee?
Well, I'm still here, so the "when you

worked" doesn't apply. :) But my answer is
the same as most people's. Money. Size.
Scope. The industry is not what it was
when I got hired. Gone are the days like
that. There might be a few small
independants around on the scale of the
old days, but as a whole, the industry has
gotten much larger, and much more As Heinrich Krist during the video
expensive. recording session for Rise of the Triad
on Jan 22, 1994.
I've always said for years that this kind of
thing would come, because there's always this drive from customers for the latest, the
newest, the best graphics, etc, etc, etc. Companies that didn't move forward or just
stayed at the current level they were at generally got left behind, and nobody wanted
that. So the drive internally and externally to provide something bigger and better has
gotten us where we are as an industry.
Game budgets are stupid huge, I often wonder how in the heck money can be made
given how much these things cost (or so I'm told they cost, anyway). The days of
things like Crystal Caves, Cosmo, or other games like that where you could have a
team of at most two or three people doing everything, or in several cases one guy
doing everything are dead, gone, buried, decomposed, sent in, sent back, queried, lost,
found, subjected to public enquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three
months and recycled as firelighters. The public won't allow that level of game anymore,
unfortunately.
We tried a couple of years ago to have a

throwback game like that, which evoked
memories of the past (this would be Duke
Nukem Manhattan Project), but it sold
poorly. My gut feeling is that we won't see
any more of those old school kind of things
from us, unfortunately. I could be
completely wrong, but I don't think so.
Of course, "casual games" have their

market too, and things like the games on
Xbox Live Arcade on the 360 have proven
to be rather popular. Plus there's other Packing Foreign Max Payne Orders -
things like Gold Miner Vegas and things of July 2001
that nature which aren't going to set the
world on fire sales wise, but are darned entertaining games, so what the hell do I
know? :)
32 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

Well, I'm still here, so this doesn't apply at all.
10) If you're no longer making games, have you thought about returning to
Well, this sort of applies to me, as I do work here, but I don't "make games" in the
classic sense of being a game developer. I've often thought about doing maps again. I
have dabbled a bit with "Duke's Enormous Tool", as well as having several ideas for
Prey levels, having played it a lot in the last few months. I might do something after
the fact - we'll see if I have the time. :)

Not really. I'm pretty happy here, and the

company has been pretty nice to me over
the years. I guess the opportunity I was
offered some time ago and did not take
was a good one, so it's a "reverse missed
opportunity". I was offered a job working
for Dan Linton up in Massachussets at
Software Creations. It would have been a
pay increase as I recall, but I turned it Scaring Bryan Turner & Nick Shaffner
down, because I am a creature of habit, at DFW Airport on the way to E3 2001.
and I didn't want to upset the apple cart
and leave Apogee. Good move, as Software Creations ceased to exist within two years
of that offer.
Let's see, since I can't say ROTT (ha), I'll go with Monster Bash, Wolfenstein 3D,
Commander Keen, Death Rally, and Raptor. I liked all of our games for some reason or
another, but these are my favorite "games", or old some special meaning to me. Keen 4
was the reason I got my first sound card - I was a PC Speaker person, but at my
computer repair job I mentioned above, one of the test machines had an (original)
Sound Blaster card in there, and I loved the extra sounds - so I ran out that night and
bought my first sound card just to hear the cool sound and music in Keen 4. :)
12a) And what's your favorite 2-4

games released by anyone else?
Oh dear, there's way too many! I don't

know where to begin. I am a fan of Sports
games (baseball & football mostly), as well
as open ended things like the Sims and
GTA, and the like. Some other games I've
enjoyed in the past are Unreal
Tournaments, Quake 3 Arena, Doom,
Monster Truck Madness 2, Big Rigs (just
kidding), and .. there's just way too many.
I have a shelf full of games, a lot are there Joe at his desk (holding Alf) on May
because I know someone from another 22, 2006.
company who worked on it. A lot of old
friends of mine from other companies (Joe Selinske, Levelord, Jim Dose, etc) are
people whose games I like to have on my shelf, it makes me feel good. Also seeing all
those games by friends reminds me of how lucky I am to be in this industry and to have
survived as long as I have. Granted, my not being a formal game developer has a lot to
do with it I'm sure (not the same pressures and issues), but so many of my friends
have bounced all over the place, and several aren't even in the industry anymore. It's
probably silly, but I like seeing my friends work on my bookshelf.
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But for things I truly enoy from other companies, I'd say the ones in the first paragraph,
plus Animal Crossing. I wasted a lot of time on that one, and I can't wait for Animal
Crossing Wii. :)
of your title(s)?
Thanks for buying our games over the years and keeping me employed. ;)
By request, me with the Duke Girls and then Jeanette Papineau at E3 1999
and 2001 respectively.
Thanks to myself for doing the entry. :) Yeah, this is the bit where I usually thank the
person doing the interview, so how do I thank myself here? The series is winding down,
there's only a few left, so make sure and stick around for the finale of the series. Here's
a few pages about myself or other things I've done.
My bio page here

Our Rise of the Triad Catalog Page
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My Page on Wikipedia
My Page on imdb.com
My Blog
My Black Sabbath Fan Site
My Texas Rangers Fan Site
My Anti Dallas Cowboys Fan Site
Another thing I'm proud of in having done this series is getting a lot of other games
released as freeware. Given this was my own entry, and my stuff is either still available
for sale (ROTT), or is freeware (EROTT), I decided to look into the past and see what
obscure thing I could get released. Found one. Some time ago we released an addon
for Wolfenstein 3D called "The Wolfenstein 3D Super Upgrades". This package
consisted of a boatload of extra levels for Wolf (over 800), a level editor, and a random
level generator. This is pretty obscure, in fact, most people don't even know we sold
this for awhile. But it's another step in my goal of getting everything we don't sell
anymore released as freeware. You can download it from our downloads page in the
Wolfenstein 3D section. Enjoy.
Legacy Interview series.

May 15, 2006
The Apogee Legacy #19 - John Romero

Anyone that knows our company should also know the name John Romero. If
you don't know him, you haven't been paying attention. His name as been
attached to some of the most notorius games in our industry's past. Both
with us (Commander Keen & Wolfenstein 3D), and not with us (Doom,
Quake, Daikatana).
John has bounced around a bit since his id days. He's been involved with Ion Storm,
Monkeystone, Majesco, Midway, amongst others. His name carries a lot of weight in our
industry, so we were glad to have him participate in the series.
Enough of this lame introduction for someone who shouldn't need introducing anyway.
:)
The Apogee Legacy

Issue #19 - John Romero
Scott Miller had several of his games published through Big Blue Disk and had a
monthly subscription to it. He saw one of my games, Pyramids of Egypt, on BBD and
was really excited by it - seeing an opportunity for me to take the game, create
additional levels, then publish it through Apogee Software.
Scott knew I worked at Softdisk and knew they filtered mail to make sure no one was
trying to steal their programmers and artists. So he sent me about 4 letters in the mail,
all of them pretending to be someone who played the game and wanted me to write
them back for various reasons ("I think I found a bug, write me back!" or "Please write
back - I'm 67 years old!"). The names were all different but the mailing address was
the same on them all.
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I didn't pick up on the duplicate mailing addresses until I was reading PC Games
magazine and read an article about Scott and his Kroz games. At the end of the article
was the address and I was thinking "I know that from somewhere. Where could it be
from???" as my head slowly turned toward my wall where I had my prized fan mails.
WTF!!??? I admit I went nuts. Mostly because my ego was instantly gibbed because I
realized those weren't really fan mails they were just some guy trying to get me to
contact him.
Well, I wrote Scott back and we got in touch and very quickly we settled on doing a
trilogy of games for him titled "Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons". We
worked day and night for 3 months and Apogee released the trilogy on December 14,
1990. If you want more detail the book Masters of DOOM does a good job with this part
of the story.
Well I wasn't trying to moonlight while at Softdisk since I was really focused on my
work there - Scott just provided an opportunity and I took it. Regarding why I didn't do
a startup instead: before Softdisk I had already had two startup companies where I had
about 17 published games between the both of them. I wanted a break from it for a
little bit.
3) Looking back, was there anything Apogee

could have done better, regarding the
marketing and distribution of your game?
Apogee did a wonderful job getting the game out in

front of people. Software Creations was a great tool in
that respect. It was probably the biggest and best BBS
back then, run by Dan Linton.
Apogee could have done a better job with taking

orders in the early 90's by using their income from
Wolfenstein 3D and buying a networked order-taking
system instead of the "stacks of paper" system where
operators took the phone orders, wrote the info down John Romero, recent
then entered all the orders into a computer at the end vintage
of the day. We had a talk with Scott about this and
gave him some time to implement it but he didn't - that's why we self-published DOOM.
Apogee?
I don't remember getting much creative feedback from Apogee because we were fairly
experienced at game design and development - we just finished the game and handed
it over.
We wouldn't have signed a deal with Apogee back then if we couldn't have retained our
IP. Besides, Apogee didn't pay for the development of our games - they gave us a
$2,000 advance during Keen1-3 development but that was all for our entire
relationship.
own IP?
id Software definitely benefited from retaining ownership. If you look at the time period
from 1990-2005 you'll see that the Keen and Wolf3D properties have had sequels and
36 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

made money for id and Activision.

Yes and there have been sequels made. I

don't doubt more will be made in the
future.

There are actually many fun stories about

that time...but I'll bring one almost John & Tom Hall during the Ion Storm
forgotten story up here. days
I remember when I had discovered Raven
Software in Madison, Wisconsin and gone over to meet with them and came back
impressed with their team. I talked to the other 3 id guys and then Scott Miller (over
the phone) and we both came up with a development budget that I could propose to
Raven if they'd move over to PC game dev (they were Amiga guys) and license our
Keen4-6 engine and make games for Apogee.
They declined the offer and one of their founders quit because he was upset with the
decision.
Not 6 months later they had a deal for a PC game with EA and so we modified the
Wolf3D tech and licensed it to them for Shadowcaster. Id saw no money from this
engine license - the only time that had ever happened.

Did you know that I helped Human Head Studios become a company? I gave them
$250,000 so they could leave Raven, get an office, buy computers, etc. and start
making a game for me using Unreal tech.
Actually, most big publishers find and publish outside projects all the time. In fact, they
are always on the lookout for unknown teams with talent because the cost is much
cheaper especially when the studios are outside the USA.
Much rarer is having a developer (not publisher) help other developers with their
businesses and game designs because most developers are always struggling to stay
alive. Id Software was one of the first to do this (Raven, Valve, Parallax, Rogue, Ritual).

worked with Apogee?
Well, the PC gaming industry is much more

mature. We were there at the very
beginning of when the hardware was just
starting to be something you could do
smooth scrolling and animation like console
systems (with a lot of tricks and fancy
coding).
Nowadays the gaming world is all 3D

thanks to Wolf3D, DOOM and Quake. The
world has definitely changed since those
days, each of those games forever altering
the course of 3D game development.
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Quake brought the world into high-speed

full 3D games then Quake II brought 3D
acceleration and color; everything since
then has been icing on the cake. John at the Ion Storm Dallas offices.
Games! I'm currently on my 7th startup company and I've returned to the PC from five
years of mobile games and then console games. And now I'm developing in the genre
that I consider the future of PC games - MMOG. If you want to know exactly what
games I've been working on you can simply check my MobyGames profile.
N/A!!
11) Looking back, are there any missed opportunities that you wish you'd
have jumped on?
The only opportunity that I'm aware of was when Paul Neurath asked me to join him as
his first employee at Blue Sky Productions (later Looking Glass Technologies). I didn't
take the offer because I had already planned on starting a company with my boss
(Inside Out Software). If I had taken the offer at Blue Sky then an incredible amount of
things would have been different. I'm glad I did what I did.
Duke Nukem 3D, hands down - I love that game so much it's crazy. I actually listened
to the music from Duke 3D for about 5 years every day while I worked....THAT'S how
much I loved the game (and music). It was such a fully featured and well done game -
and it was truly the very last of its breed when it was released just before Quake hit
the scene.
My favorite OTHER games: Chrono Trigger, Resident Evil 4, World of Warcraft, Half Life
2.
of your title(s)?
If you're a fan, there's a lot of pages out on the net about the games! And if you want
to know what I'm up to just check out http://rome.ro. Over and out!
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id Software, circa 1992.

L-R: John Carmack, Kevin Cloud, Adrian Carmack, John Romero, Tom Hall, &
Jay Wilbur.
More info on pic here.
L-R: Killcreek, RonSolo, Unknown (in background), Romero, & Tom Mustaine
watching Tom play ROTT in 1995.
Of the games that John did with us, we still sell them all, so check out the links below.
John is also a record holder with us - having the longest hair of any developer we've
ever worked with. ;)
Our History of Keen Page

Our Keen Vorticons Catalog Page
Our Keen Galaxy Catalog Page
Our Wolfenstein 3D Catalog Page
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John Romero Page on Wikipedia

John's Homepage
John's a cartoon!

May 8, 2006
The Apogee Legacy #18 - Petri Jarvilehto

Our Legacy series marches on today with it's 18th entry
in the fifth month. Today's edition is with with Petri
Jarvilehto of Remedy Games. Petri has been involved
with several games with Remedy and 3D Realms. The
first one was a car racing game in 1996, called Death
Rally (one of the final games under the old Apogee
label). Remedy then went on to make the runaway hits
"Max Payne", and "Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne"
that 3D Realms produced.
Petri has some interesting insight in that he worked with

us under the old Apogee label, as wel as the 3D Realms
label more recently. If you were a fan of Remedy and
Petri's work, you'll want to read his interview, which he wrote a preface for:
[ Remedy has worked with Apogee both with the older shareware concept/label (Death
Rally), as well as with the 3D Realms label (Max Payne games). Considering that this is
a legacy interview I'll just focus on the older times :-)]
The Apogee Legacy

Issue #18 - Petri Jarvilehto
Back in '95 when Remedy was starting, we did a quick demo of the racing game we
wanted to create and sent that over to all of our publishing contacts. Apogee was
looking like the best fit for the game, so we ended up signing the game with them.
We were just starting up, so going on our own wasn't really an option.

Not much. Getting GT Interactive involved

and eventually having them handle the
retail box sales and still retaining the
direct shareware distribution was a really
good combination at that time.
40 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

4) Do you think your game was made

better or worse by working with
Apogee?
Death Rally definitely benefited immensely

from having Scott and George involved.
We were quite newbies at that point, so
having people with their experience levels
working with us made a big difference.
5) Apogee had a policy of letting the

designer or studio retain full Petri during motion capture sessions
intellectual property rights to their for Max Payne 2 in New York.
game. Nowadays, it's rare to find a
publisher who allows this, especially if the publisher is providing the
funding. Do you believe that it's best for the creator to retain IP rights? Why
or why not?
IP rights can be incredibly valuable, and it's always fantastic if the developer can retain
those rights. Developers who own their IP usually have even stronger motivation to
create the best possible game out of it.
own IP?
Definitely.
5b) Do you think there'll ever be a sequel to your

game(s)?
Well, as much as I would love to see Death Rally 3D (or DR

2), I don't think that'll ever happen. As to the Max Payne
series, I definitely wish that we'll see a Max Payne 3.
6) Is there any story/incident that stands out as

interesting during your time associated with
Apogee?
Loads of stories. We did hide some of them as easter eggs

in Max Payne 1 and 2 :-)
7) Apogee was an early pioneer in terms of teaming

up with external designers and studios, and
continues to do so even to this day (currently
working with Human Head Studios on Prey). Why is
it that so few other studios do this (mentor and fund
outside projects with lesser known teams)? Petri in Feb of 2006
It's pretty risky, especially nowadays that the investments involved are so much larger.
worked with Apogee?
The industry has changed vastly. Sometimes it feels like the industry in its current form
was only begun in the early nineties, and everything operates on massively different
scale nowadays. Production has changed from a bunch-of-guys-in-a-basement into
massive almost movie-scale projects. Game design, code, pretty much every aspect of
game development has seen radical changes in methodology and process.
In early 90's gaming was pretty much only something the nerds would do, whereas
nowadays the mainstream acceptance is pretty much a given and game productions
are high profile stuff that get a lot of visibility.
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We'll around the time of shipping Death Rally, Apogee re-branded into 3DR and shipped
Duke Nukem 3D. We had a good development relationship going forward and created
the Max Payne games (where again, the input from Scott and George was invaluable,
especially on Max Payne 1). I worked as the Project Lead on Max1 and in the Lead
Game Designer role on Max Payne 2.
More recently, Remedy is now developing the Alan Wake game series, and I'm leading
the game design on those.
10) If you're no longer

making games, have you
thought about returning
to this industry? If not,
why not?
Still here, and no plans of

leaving the industry. With the
increased budgets and
production capabilities, it's all
just getting even more
interesting.
11) Looking back, are

there any missed Death Rally Screenshot
opportunities that you
wish you'd have jumped on?
Not really. I think we've always been pretty good at taking advantage of the most
promising opportunities and the ones we haven't jumped on... well, usually there's
been pretty solid reasons why they wouldn't have worked for us, so there's no point in
second guessing them now.
Out of the older Apogee classics, Raptor is something that I really got a kick out of. Any
arcade game where you're never supposed to let go of the fire button is ok in my book.
Nowadays, I'm finding myself playing more and more semi-obscure japanese RPG
variants. Games like Disgaea or Fire Emblem series and so on. The most recent game
that I found completely stunning was Shadow of the Colossus. The sheer audacity of
the game design is fantastic (even if the control scheme is a bit borked ;).
of your title(s)?
Not that much. We're grinding away with Alan Wake, and I'm really excited on how the
game is shaping up. Can't really talk about it yet though.
Unused logos for two of Death Rally's former names.
42 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

Petri smiles as Steve Blackburn of 3DR knaws on food at the State Fair of
Texas. Sam Lake is oblivious.
Developers at Gathering of Developers (L-R): Mike Maynard, Jonathan

Wright, Petri, Markus Stein, Sam Lake, & Sverre Kvernmo.
Thanks to Petri for taking time out of his busy Alan Wake schedule to help out with the
answers and some pictures. All of Remedy's games are still available for sale, so check
out these pages (please not that 3DR no longer sells Max Payne 1 or 2).
Our Death Rally Catalog Page

Our Max Payne 1 Catalog Page
Our Max Payne 2 Catalog Page
Death Page in our Online Store
Death Rally Homepage
Death Rally Page on Wikipedia
Max Payne Page on Wikipedia
Max Payne 2 Page on Wikipedia
43 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM


May 1, 2006
The Apogee Legacy #17 - Mark Randel

Mark Randel is the subject of our latest legacy Interview. Mark is one of the founders of
and is the current CEO/Owner/President of Terminal Reality. Terminal Reality (or TRI) is
another local gaming company here in the Dallas Metroplex. Their first game was
published with us back in 1995, and that was "Terminal Velocity". Mark Randel came
from Microsoft, and was one of the folks responsible for (at that time) the Microsoft
Flight Simulator series. He took that knowledge and founded TRI. They have gone on
to publish many games through many people, including the little known two sequels to
Terminal Velocity (Fury3 and Hellbender) through Microsoft. They're also responsible for
BloodRayne 1 & 2 as well as many other titles. For us they only did the one title, but it
was an important one.
Terminal Velocity was also the launch of the 3D Realms brand name. As such, TRI had
a lot of added pressure I'm sure in that it was the launch of our new "3D Games"
brand. This branding was later continued with the Pinball Wizards line (of which we
have a Legacy Interview pending for that too). However, TRI and Terminal Velocity was
the first foray into this concept of branding. Of course, since then, the 3D Realms brand
has been used almost exclusively, and has become the defacto name of the company,
but back in 1994 when the idea was first originated, "3D Realms" was a gamble.
One other final note. This interview comes out on May 1, 2006. That's 11 years to the
day that the original v1.0 of Terminal Velocity was released; happy birthday! Here's
Mark's interview; enjoy!
The Apogee Legacy

Issue #17 - Mark Randel
We first came in contact with Apogee due to proximity; they were already well
established in the area when we started up in the Dallas Metroplex.
The potential for working with Apogee was really attractive: at that time they were the
premier publisher for independent game studios trying to make it big in the industry.
3) Looking back, was

there anything Apogee
could have done better,
regarding the
marketing and
distribution of your
game?
I think Apogee/3D Realms

did a great job marketing
Terminal Velocity. As is
their policy even now, they
were really careful with
44 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

every aspect - from

picking the title to
positioning the logo on the
box for maximum visibility.
At the time when they
started the 3D Realms
brand, it was scary being
the first title under it.
Nobody knew it, and
everybody knew Apogee.
Nowadays, it is kinda the
other way around.
4) Do you think your

game was made better
or worse by working Terminal Velocity Artwork
with Apogee?
Definitely the game was made better. We had a flexible schedule, which we ourselves
finally pushed to get the game out the door. There were a lot of ideas that Scott &
George had that in hindsight would have made the game even better, but we really
wanted to get our first title shipped and probably rushed it out too quickly.
Of course, it is always better for the developer to retain full IP rights to its titles. It is
not always possible in this day and age for many reasons. Very high development
budgets often call for licensed properties such as movies, comic books, etc., so there is
no way to own that yourself. Also, publishers see a lot of risk in taking on new IP, so
they would like a cut of that if they are fronting the development money for it. We have
always kept the license to our engine, which for us is very important.
own IP?
We have benefited from owning our IP and engine. It makes us more valuable as a
company. Also, we are going to get into the engine licensing business starting with our
full featured Infernal Engine for PSP. We have the first full development platform for the
PSP, with radiosity lighting, physics, vehicles, indoor/outdoor rendering, streaming, etc.,
that we will be announcing formally soon.

I would love for there to be a sequel of

Terminal Velocity someday--if it made good
sense. If everything were to come together
- a great idea, funding, etc., then it would
be really cool to work on again. Scott,
George, care to fund Terminal Velocity
II?!?!?!?

Any interesting story during development

of Terminal Velocity? Sure! He'll probably
hate me for this, but Tom Hall was our
producer at the time, and every time we
went out for lunch, he would order "ice tea
45 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

with no lemon and no spoon" every time to

drink. I guess that little bit of eccentricity is
what makes him a really creative
individual. Mark in 1999 at the Fly! Release Party
Ed Note: There's a website about Tom's Iced Tea thing here.

It's different for each developer. We're so completely focused on producing our own
titles (especially moving into next-gen production) that we simply don't have the
bandwidth. We are working with a few developers in various capacities on some
unannounced projects right now.
worked with Apogee?
The biggest difference from now and when we worked on Terminal Velocity was the
budgets and team sizes. We made it with less than $500K with about 8 people, now it
takes over ten times that amount of money and at least 5 times that many people.
We've been busy making games for the past decade. We did the Monster Truck
Madness series for Microsoft, The Fly! series, 4x4 EVO series and Nocturne for
Gathering of Developers. We made the BloodRayne series a big hit for Majesco. We are
currently finishing up Spy Hunter: Nowhere to Run for Midway. Those are some of our
highlights, and we have some new stuff in development as well...

why not?
N/A

there any missed
wish you'd have jumped
on?
Sure, there are always missed

Terminal Velocity Screenshot
opportunities--we passed on
one development opportunity that went to another developer and wound up selling
millions of copies. That's life. But there will be plenty more of them to miss in the
future. You make the best decision you can at the time given the information you have,
and use what you continue to learn to shape later decisions.
Other than what we released, we loved Duke Nukem, and are still waiting for Duke
Nukem Forever.
Favorite games by other people? There are probably dozens - Katamari Damacy comes
to mind. The new Prince of Persia series. GTA on the PSP is really fun. Ico, a long
underappreciated PS2 game that everyone in this industry needs to play.
46 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

of your title(s)?
Checkout our website at http://www.terminalreality.com for a glimpse of what we are

currently working on. And we always love to hear from our fans!
Mark Randel at his desk in 1999 at TRI.
Mark Randel now.
Thanks to Mark for taking time out of his busy schedule to answer some questions
about the past. We still sell Terminal Velocity today, so you can check out these links
below:
Our Terminal Velocity Catalog Page

Terminal Velocity Page in our Online Store
47 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

Terminal Velocity FAQ by Adam Williamson

Terminal Reality Homepage
Terminal Velocity Page on Wikipedia
A visit to TRI in 1999
Fly! Release Party Info from 1999

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:27 PM
April 24, 2006
The Apogee Legacy #16 - Jason Blochowiak

Today our "Apogee Legacy" Interview series continues on with an interview with Jason
Blochowiak. Jason's company "Argo Games" was responsible for the 1996 title,
"Xenophage" with us. In addition to Xenophage with us, Jason was also involved back
with id Software in the day, and was a co-owner of id for awhile in 1991. Jason did
sound code for id games back in the Keen/Wolf era, wrote code for Keen Dreams, etc.
So his name should be familiar to fans of our company's Legacy titles.
Xenophage was our lone attempt to get into the fighting game market. Xenophage did
bring a lot of firsts into this genre of game. We did try a second fighting game with
someone else, but it was never released, so Xeno remains our lone entrant into this
style of game. In fact, this interview is coming out at a very timely manner. On April 26,
1996, Xenophage v1.0 shareware was originally released. So this is the 10 year
anniversary for Xenophage, and because of that, we also want to announce that we're
releasing the full version of Xenophage as freeware to go along with this interview and
the anniversary. Read through the interview to get the download link. The Xenophage
freeware release also has another tie to our current product. The "Art Director" on Prey
is Rowan Atalla, who was Jason's parter in Argo games. Rowan also did art on
Xenophage; things have a tendency of coming full circle, don't they? :)
We thought last week's entry in the series by Peder Jungck was the longest in terms of
words, but Jason's now holds that record. Jason talks at length about many of the
sujects in the interview, including what he's done post Apogee. This is a very long, and
very good interview, so make sure to check it out.
The Apogee Legacy

Issue #16 - Jason Blochowiak
Well, I was around when the Id guys first got going - Jay Wilbur, John Carmack, and I
were all living in the same house when Id started. After I left Softdisk, I worked with Id
briefly (during the Keen 4-6 & Wolf 3D era) when they were working with Apogee. So
that's how I got to know Scott, George, and other Apogee folks. Later on, when I
decided to make a fighting game (ultimately titled Xenophage), I contacted them, and
they showed interest in helping develop it, and publishing it.
The fact that we all knew each other certainly helped, and Apogee's friendly style of
doing business was also a plus. They were also successful enough to help out
48 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

significantly with funding, which was important for our small studio.
By the way, Xeno was our first experience with "outsourcing" art - it's interesting to see
more companies doing that sort of thing these days, and I see them experiencing the
same set of issues that we ran into. We ultimately pulled all art production in-house to
finish the game, but we wouldn't have been able to get the initial assets in place
without the outsourcing effort, and we wouldn't have been able to get those without
Apogee's help, both logistically and financially.

No, not that I can think of. Apogee's

prominence in the shareware industry
pretty much guaranteed broad exposure
for any titles they released. Keep in mind
that this was before the Internet had
"gone wide" - it was pretty much only for
researchers, academics, and students. So,
shareware lived on Bulletin Board
Systems (dedicated machines with banks
of modems that you'd call into), and
shareware catalogs. Because everyone
knew Apogee as a premier shareware
brand, any shareware releases were Box cover art for Xenophage
quickly disseminated from the original
release points (equivalent to current "file mirroring"), and got large amounts of page
space in the catalogs.
Apogee?
Definitely better. In retrospect, the biggest thing my studio (Argo Games) was lacking
in was game design experience, and the guys at Apogee definitely pushed us in the
right direction - if anything, we probably would've been better off listening more.
I go into a bit more detail later about this, but I've been hopping between game genres
my entire career. This has a number of advantages, but it does sometimes mean that
my understanding of a particular genre will be deeper at the end of making a game,
rather than at the beginning, when the game is in the planning phase.
As an independent developer, I'd say that it's definitely beneficial for the studio to
retain the IP. Of course, the publishers generally have a different take, for fairly obvious
reasons.
It seems that the conventional wisdom about this is that the publishers are taking the
financial risk, so they should own any resulting IP. This completely ignores the much
larger personal risks that people at smaller studios take. The days where everyone at a
studio is a scruffy 20 year old, and the difference between the studio doing well or
doing poorly means the difference between good beer or cheap beer - that's gone
(well, at least for the majority of large-scale professional developers Ã¢â‚¬â€œ see
#13). Most of us now have mortgages and spouses, and quite a few of us have kids.
Not to mention that doing games means working twice as hard for half the pay of other
(albeit, far less interesting) jobs.
Of course, the exception to this is where the publisher brings the IP to the table in the
first place - either something they developed internally (like, say, extending a franchise
49 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

into a different genre), or a license that they're shopping to developers.
own IP?
It certainly leaves more options open. In the specific case of Xenophage, I don't think it
will make a practical difference (see next question), but there are other back-catalog
titles of mine where it might - and that's the important thing, that I have the choice,
without having to negotiate to release rights with anyone.
5b) Do you think there'll ever be a sequel to your

game(s)?
We're probably not going to be seeing Xenophage II. I mean, it

brought some stuff to PC fighting games that hadn't been seen
there before - like the zooming playfield that let us have large,
detailed character sprites. However, the game really missed
striking the right nerve in the gaming public. There were a
number of issues with the game, but I think the statement (from
some random person on a message board somewhere) that
sums up the public's reaction was the the fighters were "too big,
and too weird."
6) Is there any story/incident that stands out as

interesting during your time associated with Apogee?
Sheesh, it's been almost ten years since Xeno got released, so Jason and his wife
I'm sure there's plenty of amusing stuff that I've completely on vacation in
forgotten.
Istanbul
7) Apogee was an early pioneer in terms of teaming up
with external designers and studios, and continues to do so even to this day
(currently working with Human Head Studios on Prey). Why is it that so few
other studios do this (mentor and fund outside projects with lesser known
teams)?
Clearly the stakes are getting much bigger for front-line titles. The more money is
involved, the more conservative people get. As with everything, there are a set of
tradeoffs - people at smaller studios tend to be more devoted to getting it right,
compared with "gameplay programmer #47" at the bigger places.
worked with Apogee?
The biggest thing would have to be the money. Back in the day, 3-5 people could put
out a front-line game in well under a year, with budgets that were in the low hundreds
of thousands, if even that much. The last two projects I worked on before I left Midway
had budgets that were, well, I'm not allowed to tell you the exact numbers, but both
had 8 digits to the left of the decimal point.
Things are also more, well, deliberate. With bigger projects and more people, much
more planning and logistics are required now. Everything was a lot more cavalier back
then - it's been interesting watching the game industry go through the process of
maturing.
(Pardon the relative long-windedness here - more than two-thirds of my gaming career
has been after Xenophage was published!)
Awhile after Xeno was released, I decided to try a somewhat different career path - I
hadn't ever worked for a larger company, so I joined Midway at their Chicago studio.
I've been pretty happy that I've been able to work on so many different game genres -
puzzle (Rescue Rover 2), platform (Keen), fps (Wolf3D), board (Hexxagon), trivia
50 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

(Trivia Shell), fighting (Xenophage). I hadn't done any arcade games, though. So, after
helping out on the tail-end of an arcade gun game (Carnevil), I led the programming
effort on an arcade snowmobile racing game (Arctic Thunder). Arctic was a fun game
with broad appeal, and it sold well, but the arcade industry in general was on its last
legs, so Midway exited the arcade business, and focused entirely on home consoles.
After Arctic, our team pitched a number of concepts to management, and the one that
stuck was what turned into "PsiOps - The Mindgate Conspiracy." It was definitely an
interesting experience - although I had helped out the people porting Arctic to the PS2
and Xbox, I didn't really have any significant console programming experience. So,
starting with a blank page and building a new cross-platform game/graphics engine
and toolset for a genre I hadn't done before (3rd person action/adventure), on
platforms I hadn't worked on before (PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube), recruiting, managing
& directing a programming team larger than ever before (up to 20 programmers, at one
point) was, well, to call it challenging would be an understatement. It was an intense
few years, but I'm really proud of the game on a number of fronts.
On the anal-retentive side, it's

great that the game was so
clean (actual professional
tester quote - "It's really
frustrating when your job is to
break the game, but you
can't.") that our QA costs
were below 50% of the
company average, and that
we got quick approval from
the console manufacturers.
On the "I made that" side,

PsiOps garnered the highest
aggregate review scores of Xenophage Screenshot
any title developed internally
at Midway, and the second highest of any title ever published by Midway. This at a time
when management was really wanting to improve expectations about the quality of the
console titles coming from the company.
On the "holy crap, we pulled it off" side, the programming staff started with one
programmer (me), added a mix of a few industry vets, some folks with some game
experience (but not necessarily a whole lot), and some complete gaming noobs who
showed general promise, and came together as a team to make a game we are all
proud of.
There is one Chicago restaurant's pizza, though, that none of us ever want to see
again. Ever. Really. Not because it was bad, mind you, any food that you eat that much
of during months of crunch Ã¢â‚¬â€œ youÃ¢â‚¬â„¢re just going to get sick of it.
Anyways, after PsiOps, I provided some initial technical direction on a new project
("John Woo's Stranglehold") for next-next-gen consoles, which looks to be on track to
really capture the full essence of the cinematic experience of his action films, to a
depth that gamers haven't seen before. It's a great team, doing some great stuff, but
I'd been at Midway for 7 years, and I guess the 7-year itch set in, so I decided to move
on.
So, p1mpage for my new venture: Monster Entertainment! My partners (who are
finishing up their current gigs) and I are striking out on our own and starting a new
studio. There are a number of factors that shape the culture of a work environment,
and we have some very specific ideas about how to (and how not to!) build a studio
that's functional, profitable, and a personally rewarding place to work for everyone
involved.
Additionally, although the PsiOps engine was a decent enough piece of engineering, it
was rooted in my understanding of the world (and software engineering) as of 4 years
ago, and I've learned so much since then - it's great to be able to start over fresh, and
51 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

build new tech that's clean, flexible, and poised to take advantage of the latest crop of
PC and console hardware.
As a side benefit of building fresh tech, it's been great fun to brush up my graphics
programming skills - even though, at the end of the day, writing HLSL code isn't all that
incredibly different than writing VU1 code, and dealing with the PS2 DMA controller and
VU1's limited memory looks a lot like dealing with the Cell SPE's "Local Storage."
Despite the similarities, the increase in raw power that's available with the current crop
of GPUs does make for some interesting possibilities - in particular, I think going for
"photo-real" will become increasingly passe, and going beyond it will be a part of the
visual branding process for studios.
Well, seeing as I am still making games, I'll reverse the question to "why are you still
making games?" The answer is that it's still interesting to me. As I mentioned above,
I'm very happy I've been able to avoid doing the same game over and over again. I've
had the opportunity to work with a wide variety of hardware, software, and wetware.
There's enough continuity of what making games is about, so I'm not totally bewildered
as new cycles of hardware come along, but there are enough differences to keep things
interesting.
I actually think there are a number of strong similarities between making games, and
cooking (which is pretty much my only hobby). Both involve basic technical skills,
without which you can't really do anything. They involve the psychology of the
consumer. They require foundations in things people are comfortable with, but to be
successful you need to introduce fresh elements, and keep evolving.
In the professional sense, for both heading a team or studio's programming effort, and
heading a working kitchen, the skills you need to develop reach beyond craftwork.
There's a certain magic required to transform a collection of different people, with
different technical skills, different educational backgrounds, different levels of social
skills, etc., into a functioning team that can deliver under intense pressure. Learning
that magic is tricky, but interesting.

there any missed
on?
Well, buying more Midway

stock when it was at $4.43
and selling it when it was at
$23.73 would've been good,
but aside from that, not really
- I've been really fortunate to
have all the opportunities I've
had.
Xenophage Screenshot
12) Other than your
game(s), what's your favorite game released or produced by Apogee (or 3D
Realms)?
I'd have to say Duke 3D. I hear there's a sequel being worked on, but it hasnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t
come out yet.
Half-life 2 was pretty excellent. My first experiences with Steam weren't.
I've had a running love/hate relationship with the Civ series for quite awhile now. More
love than hate, though.
52 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

Baldur's Gate II is definitely on the list.
Age of Empires III ate at least a couple weeks of my life recently.
of your title(s)?
Well, I'll take this occasion to ramble a little (more). The Chinese curse of "may you live
in interesting times" definitely seems to apply to the game industry.
While AAA game budgets are skyrocketing to levels that frighten anyone with a
calculator and a brain, it's also interesting that the actual barrier to entry for making
simple games has gone to pretty close to nothing beyond having a PC of moderately
recent vintage, and a willingness to learn & put some hard work in.
When I took a gander at the source code archive for Xeno, there were something like
20 variants of a routine to copy graphics rectangles around in different ways, all hand
coded in assembly for speed. Now, even the cheapest graphics hardware handles all
that, and tons more as well.
You can get an industrial grade C++ compiler for free, including a fairly comprehensive
Integrated Development Environment, in the form of the Visual C++ 2005 Express
Edition.
The DirectX SDK, by itself, includes a ton of code to springboard from (some of it good,
some of it crap), and a bunch of free utilities that easily accomplish what experienced
folks were tearing their hair out about not all that long ago. HLSL/Cg is much easier for
most people to understand than the previous iterations of vertex and pixel shaders.
There are free image editors (and a bunch of free textures out there). Free modeling
and rendering programs (and a bunch of free models). Free scripting languages (why
anybody "invents" any more game scripting languages is really beyond my
comprehension at this point). Free language parsers (Spirit is interesting to play with).
XML can handle a bunch of things handily, and there are free XML parsers, processors,
transformers, etc. Free audio compression/decompression - with Ogg Vorbis and
OpenAL, I added streaming music/sfx to my new engine in less than a day. Now,
granted, IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ve been doing this awhile, but that timeframe had more to do with
ease of use than it had to do with experience.
So, with all this available, a determined programmer can put a game together without
too much difficulty, and the only difference (albeit an important one) between what a
solo amateur can do versus a seasoned team is cranking out professional content with
the appropriate level of polish.
What does all this mean? Well, lower barriers to entry means more crap, but it also
means that someone out there somewhere can make a little game, get it out there,
and actually make money from it Ã¢â‚¬â€œ just like back in the day.
53 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

From Jason Blochowiak's Wedding:

Dave Mueller, Jason (standing), & Chris Rhinehart.

Jason & Kristin (standing), plus Erika & Rowan Atalla.
54 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM


Rowan, Chris, Dave, Pat, & Jason
A few words about the people in the pictures from Jason:
Chris (Rhinehart) - Prey's project lead for Human Head. Fellow Lead Dog
programmer with me on the freeware 33-hour insanity project "Duelling
Minivans" and the followup "Super Duelling Minivans."
Dave (Mueller) - At Midway, currently on the MK team, I believe. Worked at Argo
after Xeno, before Midway. Currently has my Arctic Thunder arcade machine in
his apartment (because none of the doorways in my house were big enough).
Erika (Ersland) - Kristin's older sister.
Jason - um, me.
Kristin - my wife.
Pat - my mom.
Rowan (Atalla) - my best man - I believe his current credit is for art lead on Prey.
Xeno was his first intro to non-traditional media. Clearly his mastery of the
subject has improved with exposure - just take a look at Prey.
Thanks for Jason for writing such a good, long interview. Thanks also to him for
allowing Xenophage to be released as freeware. Check out these various links below.
Our Xenophage Catalog Page

Full Freeware Release of Xenophage
Xenophage FAQ by Doug Howell
Monster Entertainment (Jason's current gig)

55 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

April 17, 2006
The Apogee Legacy #15 - Peder Jungck

Today our "Apogee Legacy" Interview series
continues on with an interview with Peder
Jungck (pronounced 'junk'). Peder was
responsible for the 1992 title, "Secret Agent"
with us.
Secret Agent was Peder's only title with us. It

was a cool little game that yours truly bought
before he started working here all those years
ago. :) Anyway, it's a game where you play
Secret Agent 006 1/2 on a mission into the
secret island fortress of the DVS. Secret Agent,
along with Crystal Caves are believed to be the
#1 & #2 record holders for time elapsed
between original release and a maintenance
patch release. For Secret Agent it was just
about 14 years between it coming out, and us
releasing a patch for it in October of 2005.
Peder is no longer making games, and was a little harder to track down than most of
the folks for this series, but we're glad we did. We haven't spoken with Peder in several
years, and as you will find out by reading his interview below, he was more than happy
to contribute. In fact, Peder wrote probably the longest entry in terms of words for the
series. It's a great read, covering all kinds of stuff.
The Apogee Legacy

Issue #15 - Peder Jungck
In the late 80's I wrote a graphics package for the Zenith-100 (pre-PC & EGA days) that
was used for many of my early games on that platform. When the EGA video adapters
started driving decent graphics in the PC I ported my libraries and developed a
commercial product called the ProGraphx Toolbox. I advertised these tools in
Programmer's Journal and wrote several articles on graphics programming. George
Broussard was running MicroFX and had purchased the ProGraphx Toolbox and
contacted me about doing some enhacements to the library. As it turned out, I had just
recently moved from Chicago to Arlington Texas, not too far from George in Garland.
We got together one day at a Chili's to discuss the requirements and it grew from
there.
I had developed games ever since I was 10 on platforms like the Commodore Pet &
VIC-20, Apple II & Mac and Zenith-100. I had my own companies, published through
bigger companies and at times worked with small incredibly talented teams. Having
experienced some of each I have come to the conclusion that the best things happen
when you find a group of incredibly talented people driven with a vision. George and
Apogee were just such a group. When you meet great people with vision, your decision
is not about some calculated move of which company but rather one of excitement and
fulfillment of goals. So, if I were to place one reason of why Apogee, it was all about
the team.

56 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM


regarding the marketing
and distribution of your
game?
I had a great experience with

Apogee and thier ability to
market. In the days of bulletin
boards and emergence of
Shareware in packaging at
the computer stores I felt like
my game was in front its
target audience. Within the
first few months the sales Title screen for Secret Agent
started ramping up and
response was positive. Secret Agent did very well in its first year and if there were
anything they could have done better, it would have been to kick my tail to have gotten
it out a lot sooner as it was on the tail end of the side scroller generation. In actuality,
without the marketing genius of Apogee to develop the 3 episode shareware approach
where episode 1 was free and 2 & 3 cost money shareware marketing was a bust.
Additionally, the development of cheat codes in every game with access only through
purchase made it as captivating as an infomercial today. Apogee had the best
marketing in the shareware gaming space hands down.
Apogee?
Definitely a better product. Apogee drove the quality of the game play, pushed for high
quality graphics and did extensive quality assurance testing to ensure compatibility and
in those days completability of the game. We found issues where certain EGA cards
didn't pan thier graphics smoothly and had to make modifications to support each.
Apogee brought in artists to do opening cover art and upgraded the icon and pixel
graphics for smooth character movements. Apogee invested in each developer and
each product extensively in a tight relationship more so than the publishers of the day.

designer or studio retain full intellectual
property rights to their game. Nowadays,
it's rare to find a publisher who allows
this, especially if the publisher is
providing the funding. Do you believe
that it's best for the creator to retain IP
rights? Why or why not?
I do believe that it is important for game

developers to retain rights to thier work. In
many ways this is an art and one does not
want to constrain an artist. That said I think
that the IP rights issue in the early days was a
bit different than it is today. For one, the
product was often created by an individual or a
small team. Today, it often can take dozens or
even more than a 100 for big title. Second,
gaming has become big business and as such
intellectual property protection, lawsuits, cross-
promotion deals and branding is expensive. I
think that an individual won't be able to fully
maximize the potential of thier intellectual Peder in 1992
property value today as they did then. I believe
that the choices by Apogee in the early days of PC gaming was the right choice and
part of thier success. I am not sure that I believe that this is the best choice today for
either the publishers or designers.
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own IP?
I have benefited in two ways. First, it brings a peace of mind. I have often thought of
playing with the software to experiment with gaming on other platforms. I know this
code (although not well anymore) so it always seems easier to take an existing code
base to try something rather than start from scratch and know that you are potentially
violating an agreement. The second way is that I have watched the resurgence of
casual gaming on devices like PDA's and cell phones. I truly believe there is an
opportunity for the revitalization of the Apogee phenominon that occurred pre-3D on
portable devices. Having a say in this option is valuable.
Sure, if not we close the door and every great trilogy needs to leave the door open. On
the PC, I would doubt it unless it was written by one of my sons and fortunately that's
not too far out of the question. If there is, I would see it on a cell phone. Besides that
is more Secret Agent 006 1/2's size. :>
While I recall many long nights on the phone and transferring files and bug lists it was
the social times that are most memorable. Being a car guy, I must say that high end
cars have always been a big motivation in life. I recall meeting with George driving my
4-cylinder mustang and he had an old camaro. One day as things were starting to pick
up for Apogee and George tempting me with the fruits I would see when my game
shipped, he showed up with a bright red Acura NSX. Mind you in the early 90's in the
wake of depressing cars from the big 3, this was an almost iconic vehicle. There is no
low end version of an NSX, it was pure race technology design from the ground up.
Getting to drive that car provided a memory I will never forget and it drove me to finish
my game fast. Net result, spend most of my first few months sales on my Saleen
Mustang and a 1966 Mustang painted to match. Every time I see an NSX I think of
Apogee even today.
7) Apogee was an early

pioneer in terms of
teaming up with external
designers and studios, and
continues to do so even to
this day (currently
working with Human Head
Studios on Prey). Why is it
that so few other studios
do this (mentor and fund
outside projects with
lesser known teams)?
I think that to be successful at

this the business leaders need Secret Agent Screenshot
to be gamers, passionate,
involved and savvy business people all in one. This is a rare combination to find in a
small group of individuals. It also needs to be part of the culture from day one. Apogee
was a special place that resulted in special products.
worked with Apogee?
Shortly after my Secret Agent days with Apogee, I went from building games on the
side to doing gaming for full-time business. TerraGlyph Interactive, a CD-ROM
edutainment company I helped start, was one of the first of the big business venture
capital based mega game companies. In a matter of a few years in the 90's, the scale
of titles went from a few developers over the course of a year to a title I directed and
58 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

produced, Beowulf, had over 200 people-years of effort to product and millions of
dollars. I have heard that the gaming industry is driving more revenue than movies in
some categories and the technology required to develop has become increasingly
complex. Just like the Internet has gone from a government and university experiment
to the change of a culture, gaming has gone from its small text based adventures to
massively multiplayer games that are leading to online dating and marriage. This is a
night and day difference, however, deep inside these organizations, there is still the
passionate gamers spending late hours coding and drinking Mountain Dew. That is the
industry I miss and still look for because it contains the heart of what will always keep
gaming on the top of the entertainment charts.
Building and playing games was a passion as a kid and a sideline through college and
afterwards bringing in lots of enjoyment and money for college bills and cars. After
Apogee I published a book on gaming, Graphics Programming and Animation, that was
one of the first for PC gaming that was very successful for me. I then went into gaming
full-time for the first time ever with TerraGlyph that ran for 3 years before the big game
systems and Internet revolution changed gaming from CD-ROM onto its next phase.
TerraGlyph got me hooked on big Venture backed startups in my home turf of
networking and high end computing. I have continued to do startups since 1997
running a IT Consulting and Systems Integration house in Chicago, taking the role of
CTO at yesmail.com which we took public in 1999 and then starting CloudShield
Technologies in 2000 which develops supercomputers for the network that are sold to
the service providers and government. I spend most of my time solving multigigabit
problems for processing applications such as VoIP and Security on the Internet.
Sure. Once a gamer, always a gamer and every time something new comes up you
can't help but think of the good times. Ideas continuously pop up that makes me think
about how to find the time to do just one more foray into gaming. I gotta tell you,
mobile phone look just like an old 286 with EGA to me perfect for those old side
scrollers. Maybe I could use this forum to announce Secret Agent for Windows Mobile?

there any missed
on?
Sure. I watched the 3D

events unfold before my eyes
and even had an engine built
in 93 that if I had jumped on
could have done well. Do I
have regrets, no way. The
real-time programming and
detailed hardware knowledge
I learned in bit blasting the Secret Agent Screenshot
EGA/VGA gave me an
understanding of computing that has formed a basis of what I do today. In many ways
we all make decisions that we can never be sure of the alternatives, however, I am
happy with the outcome and to have been part of Apogee during some magical years.
I must admit that Duke Nukem titles were always my favorites. Even the side scrollers
before the 3D. They were easy to jump into and just have a great time blasting away.
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As I said earlier, I like cars and as such car games are some of my favorites that I go
back to over the years. Twisted Metal on the Playstation, Rage Racer and now Need for
Speed Underground for the PSP have gotta be at the top of the list.
of your title(s)?
Apogee is one of the few gaming companies still around which embodies the true
essence of what gaming companies are all about. I just would like to thank the devoted
followers of Apogee, Secret Agent and the titles I provided graphics engines for. In the
world of mega gaming companies supporting independent player such as Apogee is
what will keep the big guys honest and the game quality highest possible. Some day in
the future, I hope to return to the gaming world in a more active fashion and its great
time spent remember the early days.
Thanks again to Peder for helping out. We still sell his game almost 15 years later, and
it's a cool fun game, so check it out with the links below:
Our Secret Agent Catalog Page

Shareware Episode of Secret Agent
Secret Agent Page in our Online Store
Wikipedia Entry for Secret Agent
Cloudshield Technologies (where Peder works now)

April 10, 2006
The Apogee Legacy #14 - Scott Host

Today our "Apogee Legacy" Interview series continues
on with an interview with Scott Host. Scott was
involved with us on two games, although only one of
them was released.
The first was Apogee's only attempt at an RPG game,

one called "The Second Sword" based on the old
Shadowcaster engine from id Software. It never got
very far, though and was abandoned. Scott did do a
game that is more well known to Apogee fans, that
being "Raptor: Call of the Shadows". Raptor was a
scrolling shooter game much in the vein of Scott's own
independant game Galactix. It was a big hit for us and
Scott back in 1994, and it's following continues today.
Scott was a local developer. His company at the time

(Cygnus Software) was based in the same building that id Software was while they
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were working on Doom and Doom II. Scott has returned to his roots from his
pre-Apogee days and is an independant developer again operating under the name
"Mountain King Studios".
The Apogee Legacy

Issue #14 - Scott Host
As far as I remember, Scott Miller sent me a letter after seeing a game I made called
Galactix and so I called him. We made a deal to make a 3D RPG game Called "Second
Sword". Which we stopped working on to make "Raptor".
Well at the time in shareware Apogee was "the shit" so there was no real other choice.
At the time I was selling my game "Galactix" and it was a pain in the butt.

anything Apogee could have
done better, regarding the
marketing and distribution of
your game?
Higher level of Marketing towards the

Pygmies on the isle of Zoot. They
only have 1 pc but damn there is
millions of them little buggers.
4) Do you think your game was

made better or worse by
working with Apogee?
Better. Though it was difficult to have

an outside source commenting on the
making of "Raptor", I look back and
think of that as a good thing.
5) Apogee had a policy of letting

the designer or studio retain full
intellectual property rights to
their game. Nowadays, it's rare
to find a publisher who allows
providing the funding. Do you
believe that it's best for the Raptor Manual Artwork
creator to retain IP rights? Why
or why not?
I think its better, at least for me it was. ( more under next question )
own IP?
It was good for me because we stil sell "Raptor" today ( ported to windows ) and it is
still selling after all these years on www.mking.com ( << can i do that hehe ? ) [ Ed
Note: Sure, but remember we still sell the original version, too. hehe :) ]
YES !
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Playing PaintBall and The Pygmy thing but since I dont want to be cursed by the Chief
Of Zoot again, I shall not discuss this.
7) Apogee was an early pioneer in terms of

teaming up with external designers and
studios, and continues to do so even to this
day (currently working with Human Head
Studios on Prey). Why is it that so few other
studios do this (mentor and fund outside
projects with lesser known teams)?
I think today at least they do not want to take the

chance because its so easy these days to make
something that looks good but is no fun. It seems
in the past, alot of publishers where putting out
anything that "looked good" but didn't sell.

industry nowadays versus when you worked
with Apogee?
Shareware was new so it was easier to make

something small that had a big impact.
9) What have you been doing since your Scott after a Jimmy Buffett
time with Apogee? concert
I moved back to Chicago ( where Im from ) and renamed my Company to "Mountain
King Studios". To this day, I am still making shareware games and now selling them
too. My Girlfriend Nadeya moved in with me and we play "Worlds Of Warcraft" together
alot. For the last 2 years I have been working on not a game, but a "paint/animation"
program which will hopefully be done soon.
N/A

there any missed
on?
Not really. I wish I didn't try

making an RPG 3 times in the
last ten years. I put alot of
time in trying to make the
games yet they never got
done, but it was fun trying.
12) Other than your

game(s), what's your Title screen for Raptor when it was known as
favorite game released or "Mercenary 2029"
produced by Apogee (or
3D Realms)?
Duke Nukem 3D and Wolfenstein.
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I like so many games, I will just name the ones I put the most time in playing... Origins
Ultimas ( all ) WarCraft 2 StarCraft Elite Force
of your title(s)?
This ain't no dinosaur game!
Screenshots from the abandoned Apogee RPG, "The Second Sword"
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Scott with his son Dean at a Go Kart track
Scott at his computer at home.
Thanks again to Scott for helping out. Raptor had one unique thing in it's release date,
it was put out on April 1st, 1994. At the time, most people didn't believe we were
actually going to do that, they thought it was a joke. Since then, we've released a few
other things on April 1st - each time most people don't believe it's actually happening.
:)
Our Raptor Catalog Page

Shareware Episode of Raptor
Wikipedia Entry for Raptor
Mountain King Studios Website
Scott's rendition of the Apogee Theme Song (details)

April 4, 2006
The Apogee Legacy #13 - Andy Edwardson

Today our "Apogee Legacy" Interview series continues on
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with an interview with Andy Edwardson. Andy did one title

with us, a racing game back in 1994, called "Wacky Wheels".
This game continues to have quite a following to this day,
and was one that has been remembered quite fondly.
Andy was one of our overseas developers, he's from the UK,
and back in 1994, it meant getting builds was a little more
adventersome (and slow) than it is today in the land of the
Internet and broadband connections. Wacky Wheels was
also one of the first games to include a "Dopefish Cameo",
something that has become somewhat accepted when a
game is made by someone who was involved from back in the the day. :)
Andy is no longer in the game industry, but once he was tracked down, he was quite
happy to contribute to our series.
The Apogee Legacy

Issue #13 - Andy Edwardson
It is a bit hazy but I guess it was about 1992/93. Scott Miller contacted my partner
Shaun Gadalla, who did the graphics for Wacky Wheels , and expressed an interest in
taking the game on.
In our opinion Apogee was the top shareware company and the commerical outfits did
not think that arcade games on the PC had any future. Wolf really showed that
anything was possible. Plus Scott is a great sales guy as well ;)

anything Apogee could have
done better, regarding the
marketing and distribution of
your game?
Well I doubt it had anything to do

with Apogee but the really annoying
thing for me was that I wanted to
see our game in regular stores. I
used to get really mad when I saw
other titles in the shops but never
ours. Apparently Formgen had plans
to make it retail but it never seemed
to happen.
4) Do you think your game was

made better or worse by
working with Apogee?
Better.
5) Apogee had a policy of letting
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the designer or studio retain full

intellectual property rights to
their game. Nowadays, it's rare
to find a publisher who allows
providing the funding. Do you Wacky Wheels Manual Artwork
believe that it's best for the
creator to retain IP rights? Why or why not?
Not sure if IP meant much back then to us. My gut feeling though is that the creator
should retain the rights to the IP but then again I find it hard not to be on the fence on
this subject. Surely it all depends how much the publisher has invested in it as well.
own IP?
I guess we own the IP but I cannot think of any real benefit.
I doubt it. There has been a few times I thought about it but not as much these days.
Seeing a framed cover of our game in your offices in Garland next to all the classics you
had brought out. That was a cool moment. Oh and going to George's house and
meeting his Shark. Originally the Shark in Wacky Wheels was called "Bubbles". George
told me that it was a bit of a sissy name for a Shark. I renamed him to Razer because
of that.

My perception has always been that Apogee/3d Realms are a kind of mini
publisher/developer hybrid. I am not so sure that other studios would feel as
comfortable doing this. Like you say, you have been doing this forever, and it works for
you.
8) What the biggest

difference in the industry
nowadays versus when
you worked with Apogee?
The sense of adventure back

then was really great. It was
a magic time. The industry
seems much more formulaic
today and kind of sterile in a
lot of ways.
9) What have you been

doing since your time with
Apogee? Wacky Wheels Screenshot with Dopefish Cameo
Well it's been over ten years now and a lot of stuff has happened. As far as my
professional life goes I have been writig lots of software and hoping for that magic to
return again :)
I do not make games anymore but I design and architect software for education. I find
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that my old games experience comes in handy. As far as returning to the industry , I
doubt anybody would have me!!!
have jumped on?
I wish we had joined Apogee earlier on. A little known fact is that we had a game
cancelled by Apogee. It does not appear in the FAQ but it was called Prime Time
Warrior. Anyway shortly aftert that we where asked to come over and work for you
guys. I kind of regret not doing that.
Monster Bash. I loved that game to bits.
Doom & Pac-Man.
of your title(s)?
Remember Kids Wacky Wheels is only a simulation. Don't drive like that in real life.
The Wacky Wheels Team at E3 2001.

Andy Edwardson & Shaun Gadalla
Thanks again to Andy for agreeing to contribute. Wacky Wheels was one of the more
fun games in development for me personally in my time here at Apogee. There is more
to the Wacky Wheels Story as well. A few years back Andy wrote some text about
Wacky Wheels' development for the Apogee FAQ. I'm going to include that text here as
well, but before you read that, check out these Wacky Wheels links:
Our Wacky Wheels Catalog Page

Shareware Episode of Wacky Wheels
Wikipedia Entry for Wacky Wheels
Andy Edwardson's History of Wacky Wheels (as it appears in the Apogee

FAQ):
Back in 1993, we were doing some low budget stuff for a Belgium outfit called
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Copysoft. I got fed up with the meager work, so I decided to work on a game engine in
my spare time. I figured that the PC could do the mode7 stuff that the Super Nintendo
was doing. I could not find any references for it, so I just studied Mario Kart and tried to
figure out how it worked. I had a prototype engine up in about a week that did the
floor painting and the rotation stuff. After that, I worked on it for a few more months,
and Shaun Gadalla did artwork for it, and it started to get pretty solid. I showed it to
the Copysoft crew, and they were quite excited and put a few screenshots of it on
Compuserve. The problem was, we hadn't come to any commercial agreement with the
company, and it was not a sure thing that they would get the game. Scott Miller,
Apogee's president, happened to come across the screenshots and contacted Copysoft,
and then we got into a fight with Copysoft over royalties, should Apogee end up
distributing the game. I had made an unfortunate mistake -- I had included the C++
source code on the demo disk we left with them.
Shaun contacted Scott, and we came to an agreement. Shaun and I agreed to pay back
what CopySoft had given us for equipment and so forth.
Development went on. When we went into beta we thought we would be out of there
in a few weeks. However, when we got in there it was apparent that we needed more
features. Beta was really important for me. If I had not listened to those testers, the
game would not have been what it is. Most of the ideas came from us, but they kept
the pressure up. It would have been too easy to sit on our hands and think what we
were doing was best. The testers kept me on my toes, and, best of all, they told the
truth. Another thing was Joe Siegler. I hate to admit this, but I didn't understand why
he was so blunt all the time. I was so wrapped up in myself and becoming a bit of a
pre-madonna. It was only later that I realized Joe was just being honest with us and
trying to help us make the best game possible. I think Joe symbolizes what Apogee is;
he works so hard all the time, and he practically lives there. At any rate, at one point I
wanted to make amends with him. I knew he was into Dopefish, so I asked if we could
put the fish in as a cameo. We discussed how it might work, and he sent me some stills
and a collection of belches that he had recorded when he sat down one night with a
microphone and a two liter bottle of Diet Coke. I picked one of them, but I think that
Joe would have preferred it if I had picked one of the louder ones he sent me!
Because Doom had introduced the concept of modem play, the beta testers wanted it.
Despite popular belief, Rise of the Triad did not introduce Remote Ridicule -- Wacky
Wheels had it first. Rise of the Triad did take it one step further by allowing you to type
messages to each other. At any rate, modem play really made my head spin. I never
realised how unreliable packets were until I did the multiplayer engine. My hat goes off
to John Carmack for his net play engine. To make matters worse, I was working at
Shaun's place, and his phone lines were awful. But it did make the protocol really
robust!
The music in Wacky Wheels was really lacking, and George Broussard said we needed
more tunes. Jim Dose had just been hired at Apogee, and he had a terrific sound
engine. We ripped out the old one and put his in. Jim also put us in touch with Mark
Klem, and I would spend hours on the phone with him listening to his music. I really
love the stuff he did, and I really should contact him for old time's sake.
As testing went on, I got more and more worried that, in the wake of Doom, all
gameplayers wanted now was blood and guts, and Wacky Wheels wasn't about that.
But we kept going, and I was determined to make it work. Anything the beta testers
wanted, they got, except for the rear view mirror suggestion they kept plugging for. I
didn't think it lent anything to the game, and it would have meant rendering another
3D view in another little window.
One memorable moment for us was when Shaun and I flew over to Texas, and we went
to see George and Scott at the Apogee offices. I will never forget going into and seeing
the pictures on the wall. They had the cover art for each of their games in a frame.
Wacky Wheels was next to Wolfenstein 3D. That was an incredible moment in my life --
to be anywhere near associated with one of the greatest games of all time was neat to
say the least. We went out to dinner with George and Scott, then visited their houses.
(George had this bloody great big shark in a tank!) We got to talking about games, and
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George showed us Pitfall and asked if we could do anything like that. After Wacky
Wheels, we did a test engine for them, but they were moving into the 3D market by
then, and we didn't have anything to offer in that area at the time.
Anyway, we finally cracked the modem play, and it had one final round in beta testing.
Joe Siegler gave it a good test, and he was happy with it. So it was finally ready to
ship.
Then the bombshell hit us. Scott faxed us that Skunny Kart, a game from Copysoft that
used my engine, had hit Compuserve. My heart sank. The only saving grace was that it
was not all that similar to Wacky Wheels, and there was quite a legal wrangle over it
all.
I was so angry, and it took all of Shaun's resolve to stop me from acting rashly. There
was no way Copysoft had the ability to write an engine like that from scratch. In a
perverse way, it taught me a valuable lesson. I was very hurt by it all, and it still
bothers me to this day. In hindsight we were very stupid and should have known better.
If I could turn the clock back and make Wacky Wheels violent, full of blood and gore
would I? Nah. It was fun, and kids big and small can enjoy it.

March 27, 2006
The Apogee Legacy #12 - Mike Maynard

Today our "Apogee Legacy" Interview series finishes up it's third month with an entry
from Mike Maynard. Mike and his group ("Jam Productions") put out two games through
us. The first was released on Dec 3, 1993, and was titled "Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold".
The second was put out on Oct 28, 1994 and was titled "Planet Strike: A Blake Stone
Adventure".
Mike was one of the three guys who made up "Jam Productions", and had the arduous
task of working on the first 3D action game by us in the post Wolfenstein 3D era. Blake
Stone had many firsts in 3D gaming, one of which was the rather common practice of
NPC's, or "Non Player Characters". These were characters that would give you helpful
information, so just going in and shooting everything you see was not the way to go
here. Some other novelties in Blake Stone was the fact that you could go backwards to
levels you already had visited. In some cases this was necessary to unlock certain
locked areas in upper levels.
Planet Strike was also novel in our company history, as it was the first time we ever put
out a game in the retail channel directly. Later on, some of our earlier games ended up
there, but Planet Strike was our first ever foray into the arena of "Hey, pay attention to
my box on the store shelf!" (that's why there's a woman on Planet Strike's cover art
when there was no woman in the game at all).
Anyway, Mike has continued to stay active in the gaming industry since his time with
Apogee in 1994. He's worked at such gaming companies as 7th Level, Ion Storm, Third
Law Interactive, TKO Software, and is currently employed at id Software. Read on to
hear what Mike has to say about his time with us (now 13 years ago).
The Apogee Legacy

69 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

Issue #12 - Mike Maynard
In 1990, I worked at Softdisk Publishing in

Shreveport, LA. It was a very interesting time
because all the original guys that ultimately
formed id Software also worked at Softdisk. Of
course they ultimately left to form id and work
with Apogee on the Commander Keen series
and eventually Wolfenstien. With the success
of Wolfenstien, Apogee wanted more games
using that technology. John Romero
recommended a friend (Jim Row) and me to
Apogee and we signed a deal to create the
shareware version of Blake Stone.

work with Apogee, say versus going on
your own or working with another
company?
We weren't necessarily shopping game ideas to

different publishers and we certainly couldn't
fund ourselves. (However, we did create a
side-scrolling, space-themed shooter for the
Amiga in our spare time called Outpost 13. We The JAM team in 1993
ended up selling it to Compute! magazine for (Mike's on the left)
$1000! woohoo!.)
Apogee was looking for a team to create a game using id's Wolfenstein technology. We
had experience making games and had worked with id's previous technologies.
At the time, Apogee did several things to market their games. The most cost-effective
was to send nice, color fliers to previous buyers of their games. For instance, anyone
that bought Wolfenstien 3d was sure to get the advertising flier since they were similar
games (FPS, using Wolf 3d technology). I believe they also included fliers with actual
products that people bought, too. They also placed general 'Apogee' ads in magazines
that listed several games so the cost of the ad could be spread over several products.
We were fairly pleased with all of these methods.

Apogee?
They made certain areas of the gameplay

better by taking out monotonous gameplay
(for example: traversing back and forth
through various floors of the buildings) and
adding bosses throughout the game to give
the game intermediate goals. However,
these changes (and others) were made
fairly late in the development cycle which
actually delayed the release a bit. I really
don't remember a lot of input or even a Mike in 1992 before Blake Stone
need to see the game on a regular basis development started
until at least 12 months of development.
While that made for 'no-hassle' development I think it hurt us in the end.
Considering Blake Stone was released one week before another little game called
DOOM, that delay pretty much sealed our fate. We had decent pre-orders and the first
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couple of months were pretty good but sales dropped pretty quickly. Had we gotten
more input from Apogee earlier on in the development process I think we could've
released the game 3-4 months earlier than we did.
You could argue either way on this topic. Since I'm not a publisher, I'll go with the
argument that the developer should retain all IP rights.
Simply put, a publisher isn't going to fund a project that they think won't make them a
reasonable profit. So whatever they fund (whether they own the IP or not) they're
betting that the game will make them money.
If they own the IP and the project fails, the IP is worthless so it doesn't matter who
owns it. If they DON'T own the IP and the project is a success, they'll still make money
(and profit) on the HUGE percentage of royalties they'll get from that project. So a
publisher taking ownership of a developer's idea is purely for control and greed.
own IP?
We did the sequel to Blake Stone shortly after it was released; it was called Planet
Strike and published by FormGen. :)
As far as a sequel with up-to-date technology, I doubt it. I've talked to people that
think a new game (FPS or otherwise) based on the Blake Stone IP would be cool.
However, the IP alone wouldn't attract more than a handful of old-school gamers. Any
new Blake Stone game would pretty much have to reinvent the IP and stand on its
own.
There's nothing that really stands out

but some details about development
include:
After a couple months of

dealing with art problems
Apogee was generous to
increase our monthly funding
so we could bring in a full-time
artist, Jerry Jones.
Dr. Pyrus Goldfire was
originally called Dr. Goldstern.
One person sent an email to
Apogee complaining about
how the name "Goldstern"
portrayed Jewish people as
evil. So we had to change the
name.
Joe Siegler sent an email on
Thanksgiving Day saying that
the version we uploaded for
testing didn't work. So I went Blake Stone Artwork
71 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

up to the freezing office and uploaded a new version of the game. I ended up
calling the management at his house bitching about the lack of heat in the
building.
Some people (bank tellers n such) would ask us if JAM Productions was a music
company. JAM was Jim And Mike.
The game was so successful at one point we were making $1 million a month. ..
Oh wait, that was Doom. Nevermind. haha

It has to be money. Otherwise, every studio would be working with external teams and
try to become the next EA or Activision. I know at Third Law Interactive and TKO
Software / Dallas, we were happy just to get projects for the internal teams to work
on. Working with external teams was the last thing on our minds.
worked with Apogee?
Everything associated with making games has gotten bigger.
The size of the development team - While JAM Productions did contract out
music and a small amount of art, the majority of the game was created by 2
programmers and 1 artist. We did our primary jobs (programming and art) as
well as game design, level design, business matters, production, and publisher
relations.
The budget needed to create the game - JAM's total budget for Blake Stone (18
months development time) could barely pay for a small team of, say, 12 people
for 1 month. If you're licensing a quality engine, be prepared to spend the salary
of several quality people.
The technology needed to compete against other games - The technology used
in today's AAA games are much more impressive and more complex than when
we created Blake Stone. And that doesn't just pertain to the graphics engine.
Other things like AI, physics, networking, and animations have become much
more complex.
Making video games, of course! Ask

me in another 12 years and the
answer will be the same; that is
unless I'm able to get my PGA Tour
card! ;)
Here's a quick rundown of companies

and games (newest to oldest):
ID SOFTWARE
<< wouldn't you like to know >>
TKO SOFTWARE
Call of Duty (Nokia NGage)
Leisure Suit Larry (Nokia NGage)
Ms Pacman: Maze Madness (PS2 /
PC)
PARADIGM ENTERTAINMENT
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Terminator 3: Redemption (PS2 /

XBOX)
THIRD LAW INTERACTIVE

KISS: Psycho Circus (PC)
Aliens vs Predator 2: Primal Hunt
(PC)
NOLF: Game of the Year Edition (PC)
WWII: Normandy (PC)
WWII: Iwo Jima (PC)
Planet Strike Artwork
Minigolf Megaworld / Minigolf Master
2 (PC)
ION STORM
Daikatana (PC)
7TH LEVEL
Return To Krondor (PC)
N/A
have jumped on?
I had the chance to join id Software early on but I was already knee-deep into JAM
Productions and Blake Stone. I'm not the kind of person that just quits something I've
started unless I'm really forced to. I wanted to finish Blake Stone and try to grow JAM
into something cool. Besides, I finally got the chance to work at id Software again
(been there about 6 months now) and I'm excited about helping them create their next
generation of games!
Even still, the companies I've worked with has allowed me to interact with a lot of
talented people and different technologies. But mostly, I really like the fact that I've
been able to work on many different genres of games including: First Person Shooters,
Real-time Strategy, Third Person Action, and even a couple games my son has been
able to enjoy (Minigolf and Ms Pacman). There's nothing cooler than having your son
enjoy games you've created.
The games I played the most were Wolfenstein 3D and Balls of Steel.
(in no particular order)
Quake
Unreal Tournement
Tiger Woods Golf
Grand Theft Auto
Rollercoaster Tycoon / Sim City (sim games, in general)
Any game my son wants me to play with him.
of your title(s)?
Of all the games I've worked on, Blake Stone was probably the most fun and intense at
the same time. Simply because there were only three of us (Jim Row, Jerry Jones, and
Myself) to do pretty much everything. We did the Game Design, Programming, Art,
Level design, Working with contractors, Business matters, and LOTS of other little
things that simply take a ton of time and effort. It was the first big game I created from
73 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

the ground up and except for the timeframe, I think it turned out pretty good.
Unused Title Screen from Blake Stone Beta
Mike in 2000 when at Third Law
Mike at home on March 28, 2006
Thanks again to Mike for helping out with his questions. Since Mike was local, it was
easy enough to go over to id and say Hi. Was nice to go back and reminise with Mike
74 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

about his time with Apogee back then. We still sell both Blake Stone & Planet Strike,
and if you're interested in trying them out, you can do so with the links below. One
other thing Planet Strike is notable for is being the only game in our history that does
not have a shareware/demo version. As it was our first retail game, the decision was
made back then not to have a demo. It was thought that the existing Blake Stone
game was enough of a "demo" for the retail Planet Strike game.
One final comment about Blake Stone.. Just where were all those medics? ;)
Our Blake Stone Catalog Page

Our Blake Stone Catalog Page
Shareware Episode of Blake Stone
Wikipedia Entry for Blake Stone

March 20, 2006
The Apogee Legacy #11 - Dave Sharpless

Today our "Apogee Legacy" Interview series continues with a trip way into the past.
Today we're going to bring you an interview with Dave Sharpless.
Dave is not a name that is known to most fans of our company, simply
because he did one title with us, and it was withdrawn quickly after its
initial release. This title was Jumpman Lives! which was put out in early
1991. For various reasons the game was withdrawn from distribution shortly after
release, and (to this day) we no longer offer it in any capacity. The game however, has
enjoyed a cult following over the years - mostly since the rise in public use of the
Internet. To this day there remain fans who still create new levels for the game, which
brings me to my next point. Jumpman Lives is a first in PC shareware gaming - it's the
first game we're aware of that contained a level editor with the full product. This
practice is common now, but back in early 1991 when this game was first released, it
was quite a novel concept for a PC title.
Dave continued on with gaming after his brief time with Apogee about 15 years ago,
and was glad to contribute to our series.
The Apogee Legacy

Issue #11 - Dave Sharpless
1) How did you first come in contact with

Apogee?
Sometime around January 1991, I was a

student attending the University of Toledo for a
CSE degree and living in an apartment in a
really bad neighborhood just off campus when
I received a typed letter from Scott Miller. Scott
got my home address from my shareware
"Joust" and/or "Mario Brothers" games. In it he
wrote about his appreciation for the two
games, explained the Apogee business model
75 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

a bit, and asked me to give him a call at the

800 number. During our phone conversation(s)
we both agreed that JMLives would be a good
game for Apogee to sell and for me to make.

company? Dave during the Summer of 1990,
about 6 months before Jumpman's
Yes, to try something new. My last two games release.
were circulated on my own via BBSs, etc and
generated very little revenue and I hated preparing the disks, mailing labels, and
mailing them out.
Yes, somebody could have read the Jumpman owner's manual and realize he was from
Jupiter and not Saturn! (The introductory screen to JMLives shows Jumpman coming
from Saturn). Seriously, it would have been nice to avoid the legal issues that
eventually surrounded JMLives by spending more time creating a variant of it instead of
an exact copy. At the time Jumpman was still property of Epyx and they forced Apogee
to discontinue selling it just months after it was released.
Apogee?
Better... and definitely faster. Scott often let cash do the talking which is great
motivation for a starving college student. Some folks at Apogee also contributed in the
way of screen graphics and levels which was a big help at crunch time.

designer or studio retain full
intellectual property rights to their
game. Nowadays, it's rare to find a
publisher who allows this, especially if
the publisher is providing the funding.
Do you believe that it's best for the
creator to retain IP rights? Why or
why not?
If you're the creator, then of course it is!

Back in the days of JMLives, Apogee didn't
start paying for the game until it was
mostly done so the IP rights were going to From 1992 - Employment badge of one
the right party. of the coolest places to work in the
world at the time.
benefited from retaining ownership of your own IP?
This isn't really applicable.
No.
Not particularly, since my time working with them was so short.

pioneer in terms of
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designers and studios, and

continues to do so even to
this day (currently
working with Human Head
Studios on Prey). Why is it
that so few other studios
do this (mentor and fund
outside projects with
Good question. It seems like

big companies would rather Jumpman Lives! Title Screen
let the studio prove
themselves by making a hit and then buy them outright.
worked with Apogee?
The size/complexity of projects and the size of the development teams required to
create them.
I finished school and took a job with WMS Gaming (casino & lottery games) in Chicago.
It wasn't my dream job but it did land me in the same building with sister companies
Midway, Bally Pinball, and Williams Electronics. After a few years of that I joined a
startup company down the street in Chicago called GameWorks doing wacky products
for the casino environment. Spielberg wanted the name so we became High Impact.
High Impact was purchased by Anchor Gaming which relocated me to Las Vegas in
2001. Anchor was then purchased by the market leader International Game Technology
and I'm still there today trying to give you the best possible gaming experience while
money is slowly being extracted from your wallet.

why not?
All the time. I'm just waiting

for the right opportunity I
guess.

there any missed
on? Jumpman Lives! Level Editor Screenshot
No, I'm pleased with the way things turned out. Life is good!
I don't have a favorite Apogee game because I never played any of them. I don't mean
any disrespect because I have seen most of them and it's obvious that they're of very
high quality. Maybe I just don't allocate as much time as I should toward playing
games!
Another World (Amiga). Magic Carpet (PC). Carmageddon I (PC). Conker's Bad Fur Day
(N64).
77 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

of your title(s)?
Thanks for reading the interview. Keep up the good work. Feel free to contact me via
email - don't be shy (and remove the "-nospam").
Screenshot from Jumpman Lives!
A recent picture of Dave - from 2005
Thanks again to Dave for helping out with the series - his was one interview we were
eager to have here given the uniqueness of his title in the past history of our company.
While we don't distribute this game anymore (either in shareware or registered form),
we are making available for the first time online the original hint sheet that we sent
out for a brief time when we did ship the game. Back then, all of our games came with
a "hint sheet" which contained tips & cheats. In 1994, these things were done away
with and converted into on disk files, but this one has never been available since the
game was discontinued 15 years ago.
Additionally, there is plenty of information about the game on the web. Check out these
links below:
Matty's Jumpman Lounge - by Matt @ classicgaming.com
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Apogeegames.com Jumpman Page by Lon Matero

Interview with Dave Sharpless by Matt @ classicgaming.com - Sep 2004
Apogee's Jumpman Lives! Hint Sheet - in pdf format

March 13, 2006
The Apogee Legacy #10 - Allen Blum

Today our "Apogee Legacy" Interview series continues into its
tenth edition, this time with long time Apogee staffer, Allen Blum.
Allen has had his hands in a ton of titles of ours, and goes all the
way back to some of the earliest works of our company. He's been
involved as a developer on all the Duke Nukem games released by
Apogee/3D Realms (Duke Nukem I, Duke Nukem II, Duke Nukem
3D, & Duke Nukem Forever) directly. He's also been involved in
many others such as Shadow Warrior, Dark Ages, Cosmo's Cosmic
Adventure, as well as the aforementioned Duke games. He was
however, the lead designer for our 1993 title, Major Stryker.
Stryker was an (EGA) scroller game in the vein of our other such
titles like Stargunner & Raptor.
Allen's also one of our internal beta test team, so even if's not
listed above, he's played through it a lot and had input into the titles (some titles under this
category are both Max Payne games as well as the forthcoming Prey). Allen (and his hats)
have been a major part of our company history, and it's a pretty safe statement to say we
wouldn't be where we are without him.
The Apogee Legacy

Issue #10 - Allen H. Blum III

Apogee?
In 1990 my High School friend Todd Replogle

was working on some games for Apogee such as
Caves of Thor and Monuments of Mars. At the
time I was into the graphic abilitys of the Amiga
and was working on a Super Mario Brothers 3
clone for fun.
Todd started working on Dark Ages and needed

a level editor so we used my Mario clone editor Allen with Randy Pitchford, Doug
on the Amiga. I ended up doing art and level Wood, & Dirk Jones.
design on the Amiga while the game only ran on
the PC. After that we did Duke Nukem 1 the same way with most content made on the
Amiga and the game running on a PC. It was pretty nice being able to see most of a level
and all the textures for the game on one high-res screen on the Amiga while the PC was
only able to do 320x200 EGA. With the success of Duke Nukem 1, Todd moved to Texas to
work closer to Apogee on Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure while I continued school at the
Univisity of California at Santa Cruz. I little while later while I was out visiting Todd and
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checking out Apogee, I was working on a top down shooter for fun called Dr. Protons
Revenge. Apogee happened to see it and asked me to make it into a complete game which
was released as Major Stryker in 1993. After that I moved out to Dallas and did Duke
Nukem 2, Duke Nukem 3d and currently working on Duke Nukem Forever.

company?
Back in 1992 the "Shareware model" seemed

like a great way for me to make my own game.
It was easy enough to just release it on bulliten
boards for people to play and if they liked it
they could buy it.
I'm glad to see that a simular thing is part of the

Xbox360 with the Live Marketplace. They just
need to get rid of the "old tech" games like Allen holding his gift from the gift
joust and have more games like Wik or exchange at the 2005 3D Realms
Geometry Wars. company Christmas Party.
3) Looking back, was there anything Apogee could have done better, regarding
the marketing and distribution of your game?
Other than bulletin boards and flyers sent out to thousands of people, I would have really
liked a Superbowl commercial. :)
4) Do you think your game was made better or worse by working with Apogee?
No response to question.

designer or studio retain full intellectual
property rights to their game. Nowadays,
it's rare to find a publisher who allows
this, especially if the publisher is providing
the funding. Do you believe that it's best
for the creator to retain IP rights? Why or
why not?
This didn't really apply to Major Stryker.
5a) And if applicable, have you benefited

from retaining ownership of your own IP?
Allen averting his eyes to the light at
Not really, as I never did anything with the his desk at 3DR - May 2005
Major Stryker franchise. Can it be a franchise
with just one title in the line?
Duke Nukem Forever is getting closer to being done day by day.
It's all a blur, man!
7) Apogee was an early pioneer in terms

of teaming up with external designers and
studios, and continues to do so even to
this day (currently working with Human
Head Studios on Prey). Why is it that so
few other studios do this (mentor and
80 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

fund outside projects with lesser known

teams)?
I have no idea! Money? It's all about the

bling-bling now, isn't it? You want to have the
largest piece of the pie, I'd suppose, and that's
diluted this way.
8) What the biggest difference in the Allen at the 2001 company Halloween
industry nowadays versus when you Party
worked with Apogee?
Back when I started you could really make a game from home. Major Stryker only had 3
people working on it, Bobby Prince in Florida doing music, Gary Sirois in the north east doing
art, and me in California. We never worked in the same room and actually never even saw
each other. We only worked over the phone. I'm sure you could probably do the same thing
much easier and faster with todays tech and such for small games. But for anything else like
DNF you need a big bunker filled with people. At least now I get some excecise running
around to the other side of the building to the coders area.
Since? I'm still here!

have you thought about returning to this
I'm still here! Are you trying to get rid of me or

something?

jumped on?
OK, why do all these questions make it seem

like I'm some old fogey who has retired in a
corner and drools on themselves? I'm still here! Just WHAT is Allen doing with this Lara
Croft statue at E3 2000?
12) Other than your game(s), what's your
favorite game released or produced by Apogee (or 3D Realms)?
There's other games besides the ones I worked on?
Seeing that I live in an FPS working on DNF and play most all FPS games, I would say
almost any racing game would be my favorite, just becuase it is completly different from an
FPS. And I like to drive fast without worrying about wraping my car around a telephone pole.
Current top of the list would be Trackmania, Burnout or Flatout.
13) Is there anything else you'd like to add about your time here or to fans of
your title(s)?
....need more stripper research.
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Screenshots from Major Stryker
Thanks to Allen for sending in his answers, and being a good sport about so many goofy
pictures of him being taken over the years. While Major Stryker was discontinued some
years ago, here's a few links about some of the other games Allen has worked on over the
years you might find interesting:
Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure Page

Duke Nukem I Page
Duke Nukem II Page
Duke Nukem 3D Page
Shadow Warrior Page
Major Stryker Page
Freeware Registered Version of Major Stryker

March 6, 2006
The Apogee Legacy #9 - Lindsay Whipp

Today our "Apogee Legacy" Interview series continues on with the latest edition, this time
with programmer Lindsay Whipp. Lindsay was the author and developer of one of the more
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amusing titles in our line, "Mystic Towers". This featured a character that originally was in
someone else's game, "Baron Baldric: A Grave Adventure".
Baron Baldric (the character) was funny in that he would scratch his butt and fart while
during the game - something that was definitely not the case in any other game of ours at
the time. Lindsay only worked on the one title with us, but it was definitely one of the
funnier titles in our product line. Read on to hear Lindsay's opinions on the Mystic Towers
development, and how he has a connection to the current "Destroy All Humans" game.
The Apogee Legacy

Issue #9 - Lindsay Whipp

Apogee?
...I was referred by the Australian distributor

Manaccom.
2) Was there a reason you decided to work

with Apogee, say versus going on your own
or working with another company?
...Working out of Australia, I needed a bigger

market, and one world publisher was the best
option.

Apogee could have done better, regarding
the marketing and distribution of your
game?
...No, I was pretty happy with the results. Modest

by today's standards, but, hey! We're talking 286
computers and the end of the DOS era here!
A Lindsay Whipp "toon"
4) Do you think your game was made better
or worse by working with Apogee?
...It was made DIFFERENT. What started off as a comic graphic adventure ended up as a
comic shoot-em-up. I went along with that quite happily, but still think it lost some of its
original humor along the way.
property rights to their game. Nowadays, it's rare to find a publisher who allows
this, especially if the publisher is providing the funding. Do you believe that it's
best for the creator to retain IP rights? Why or why not?
...In my case, that didn't apply. I approached Apogee with a completed product, although it
changed radically during Beta. These days, the budget demands are too great to allow
small developers to do that, which is a pity in many ways - it cuts out the quirky
individualism, and everything has the same blandness. My daughter recently worked as lead
artist on Pandemic's "Destroy All Humans" and had to work damned hard to allow that
element to be retained.

your own IP?
...In my case - no.

83 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

...What, Baron Baldric for Geriatrix? Barren

Baldric more like...

...Yes. George telling me that there were 3

important aspects of all games and they
were, in order of importance: 1. interface 2.
interface 3. interface - not the sort of
advice one forgets!
Lindsay in 1989 on the computer the
7) Apogee was an early pioneer in original Amiga that Baron Baldric was
terms of teaming up with external written on.
designers and studios, and continues
to do so even to this day (currently working with Human Head Studios on Prey).
Why is it that so few other studios do this (mentor and fund outside projects with
...The cost! The complexity of todays games are horrifying. The days of the maverick like
me are simply long gone, or even small studios.

worked with Apogee?
...The scale of all productions, and the

size of the teams needed to produce
games at that level.
9) What have you been doing since

your time with Apogee?
...Working with software publisher and

distributor Manaccom in Australia - the
company that distributed my stuff here at
the time the Baron was active.
10) If you're no longer making

games, have you thought about
returning to this industry? If not,
why not?
...I have a daughter in the games

industry, one son in the media business,
one in the IT business - enough is
enough, already!

missed opportunities that you wish Mystic Towers game manual cover art
...No - I made products for public comsumption, and that's what happened.
12) Other than your game(s), what's your favorite game released or produced by
Apogee (or 3D Realms)?
All the Dukes of course! (funny - my tongue seems to be glued to the inside of my cheek...)
Abe's Odyssey, GP3 (great driving fan)
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your title(s)?
...Get a life!
Screenshot from Mystic Towers
Thanks to Lindsay for sending in his answers, as well as the "toon" of himself used above.
We still sell Mystic Towers, so if you've never checked it out, you can check it out with the
links here:
Apogee Mystic Towers Page

Download Mystic Towers shareware
Buy Full Version of Mystic Towers
Mystic Towers Page at Wikipedia

February 27, 2006
The Apogee Legacy #8 - Ken Silverman

Today our "Apogee Legacy" Interview series continues with its eighth edition, this time
with Build engine programmer, Ken Silverman. Ken's work can be seen in several of our
titles, most notable Duke Nukem 3D & Shadow Warrior. His Build engine has been used
in numerous titles by other companies as well (there's a list here). Ken was an engine
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guy, he never had a released "game" like others in this series up to this point, but don't
mistunderstand that. Ken's contributions to the success of our games have been huge,
specifically Duke Nukem 3D & Shadow Warrior.
The Apogee Legacy

Issue #8 - Ken Silverman
I wrote a letter to Scott Miller about marketing Ken's Labyrinth in October 1992, 3
months before the game was released. We didn't reach a deal at that time. In March
1993, Epic released Ken's Labyrinth - which caught Scott's attention. He and Mark Rein
of Epic sent me competing offers until August, at which time I chose Apogee.
Sure. Apogee offered me the best deal. Unlike Epic, they offered a good salary - a
fantasy for a kid just getting out of high school. Also, I knew about Apogee's reputation
of producing high quality games, so I knew there was likely to be long-term benefits as
well.

regarding the marketing
and distribution of your
game?
No. I would look pretty silly

complaining here when
Duke Nukem 3D was the
hottest selling game of
1996. Actually, now that I
think about it... this slogan
might have increased sales:
"Duke Nukem 3D, from the
makers of Ken's Labyrinth"
Just kidding : )
4) Do you think your

game was made better
or worse by working
with Apogee?
I wasn't really working on

my own game. Supposing I
had to do it all myself, I Ken Silverman - October 2005
probably would have made
something in the same style as Ken's Labyrinth, just with an updated engine. It might
have looked a lot like the "KenBuild" test game on my website, or JFBuild (Windows
port by JonoF). A commercial version would have included more maps, more crappy
artwork, and a pointless story like "find some keys and exits because that's how you
win". It would have been bad.
So my answer to this question is obviously yes. Apogee put a full committment into
using my engine and tools. They took a risk by hiring a kid just out of high school to
take on that kind of responsibility at their company. They did a great job on all aspects
of the game.
86 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

In my case it didn't matter. My rights to the Build Engine were shared with Apogee/3D
Realms. After I left the company, I did nothing to market the engine on my own. Any
potential licensors dealt with Apogee/3D Realms, because that's who they knew about.
own IP?
No. In retrospect, all it meant was that I didn't have to ask Apogee/3D Realms
permission to release my own source code. I gave them a heads up anyway.
For Duke Nukem 3D? Ha! You tell me : ) I can only speculate by pointing out that most
mathematical models would suggest that the answer is no. After 10 years, I have no
further information about this than a typical fan.
6) Is there any
story/incident that stands
out as interesting during
your time associated with
Apogee?
Sorry, I suck at remembering

funny anecdotes. I didn't go
out very much with the guys
... and when I did, I usually
just sat there like a mute. It
was hard being younger than
everyone else.

pioneer in terms of Ken showing off his US map drawing - Apr 1996
I can't speak for them. I can only guess that it has something to do with risk and them
not wanting to take it.
8) What's the biggest difference in the industry nowadays versus when you
worked with Apogee?
There's more interest and more competition now. Gaming is now as mainstream as
movies. Online, I see lots of kids begging to get noticed - which is not unlike the
struggling actors you see in Hollywood. Back then, I felt like an innovator for writing my
own engine. Today, I am made to feel silly for not using an existing one. It hurts
because I don't have the other skills.
I returned to Brown University in 1997 to finish college. Since graduating in May 2000,
I've been working for myself. I still do the same amount of programming I used to, but
I don't make money on it anymore. I release things on my website for free. Sometimes,
I collaborate with friends online, such as Tom Dobrowolski (Voxlap/Moonedit) or
Jonathon Fowler (JFBuild/JFDuke/JFSW). Also, I volunteer time at local schools, helping
students with programming-related tasks. It's fun.

why not?
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I sometimes do small projects

by myself and release them
on my site, but nothing
commercial. Most game
companies in the New
England area seem to be
focused on money and
business plans rather than
making a fun game. I haven't
looked too hard though. I'd
rather be doing my own thing
since I can. Ken with Frank Maddin in 1997 during Shadow
Warrior development
there any missed opportunities that you wish you'd have jumped on?
No. I turned down a lot of offers in those days. In retrospect, I am very happy with the
ones I chose.
I guess Death Rally since it's one of the few games I've actually finished.
My favorite games of all time are:
Pole Position: I loved the 3D effect at the time

Super Mario Brothers: smooth scrolling, easy to play, great music
Quake 3 Arena: great gameplay (with fast internet connection)
of your title(s)?
I've said enough. If you want more, or if you want to see my recent projects, you can
visit my website: http://advsys.net/ken.
Ken (R) with his brother (L), and Duke Nukem programmer Todd Replogle at
3DR HQ.
Thanks to Ken for sending in his answers, as well as a few pictures from his archives.
Make sure and visit Ken's sites via the links in his answers above. However, our
webmaster will relay a funny story as Ken said he wasn't good at that.
"One time the group of us were out to lunch at one of the local restaurants. This was
one of the places that lets you draw with crayons on the table on paper they put on it.
88 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

As Ken stated, he generally was pretty quiet, so most of us weren't paying attention,
just talking the usual trash nonsense. After awhile one of us looked over at what Ken
was doodling, and went "What the hell?" Ken was sketching the United States Map. He
apparently has the ability to just draw the entire US map on anything. It pretty much
took us by surprise, as he was roughly half done at that point, and from that point on
we just watched him finish the map. One of the pictures above has another one of his
"map doodles". So if you go anywhere with Ken, don't let him wander off on his own
mentally, he'll draw the United States somewhere. :)"

February 20, 2006
The Apogee Legacy #7 - John Passfield

Today our "Apogee Legacy" Interview series continues with
the seventh edition, this time with John Passfield. John was
one of the creators of our 1994 title, "Halloween Harry" (later
renamed to Alien Carnage). John's influence went beyond that
though as some people who worked with him on Harry also
worked with us on other projects, too (Balls of Steel and
Mystic Towers come to mind here).
Carnage/Harry is unique in our product line, as it's the only

game title to have a name change after it was released. That
frequently happens with titles before they come out, but not afterwards! John
continues to be a successful game developer in Australia, and was more than happy to
help out with our Legacy series.
The Apogee Legacy

Issue #7 - John Passfield
First, in a little break from the norm, John also sent in a bio about himself to go with
the interview:
John Passfield is a veteran of the computer games industry with more than 20 years
professional experience as a games designer, lead programmer and scriptwriter on
numerous award-winning titles. He is also credited as a founding member of the
Australian games development community and helped establish some of the first
development houses.
John was also a founding director of Krome Studios and co-created their flagship TY the
Tasmanian Tiger series. He also created and owns the innovative Halloween Harry,
Jaruu Tenk and Flight of the Amazon Queen properties. John is now the Creative
Director of Pandemic Studios Australia.
We're based in Brisbane, Australia and we were in discussion with Ian Mackay of
Mannacom, a local software distributor to publish Halloween Harry. He happened to
handle a lot of Apogee games - so we signed a deal with him and he hooked us up with
Apogee.
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We really wanted to retain our Intellectual Property (IP) and weren't going to hand it
over to anybody - and Apogee was very developer friendly.

They did a pretty good job except I

remember one of our European distributors
stiffed Apogee and didn't pay up royalties.
Apogee decided not to pursue it for
whatever reason and we lost a lot of our
European sales. Which sucked.

Apogee?
From what I can remember Apogee had a

very hands off approach. We pretty much
made the game and let them sell it. So I
don't think the partnership had any impact
on the actual game. But they certainly
helped get it out to the world and make us
some money.
Looking back, I think we could have been

more involved in the process. We were
Alien Carnage Print Manual Cover
young, naÃƒÂ‾ve and thought we knew it
all. In hindsight I should have jumped on a
plane and met up with Scott and George in person and talked about how to market the
game and how to grow our business. I think we could have learned a lot from the guys
and could have grown the Aussie industry a lot sooner.
Nowadays, it's rare to find a publisher who allows this, especially if the publisher is
providing the funding. Do you believe that it's best for the creator to retain IP rights?
Why or why not? Personally I like to own my IP. But realistically ideas are a dime a
dozen. I think it's more important for developers to create quality games on time and
budget and build up their reputation first. Then they can worry about owning their own
IP. And remember, IP is useless unless you do something with it.
own IP?
Well, the IP is generally owned by the developer - which is usually a company. In the
case of TY the Tasmanian Tiger, an IP I created with Steve Stamatiadis the company
we created, Krome Studios, owned that IP. As soon as I sold my share in Krome Studios
I lost any interest in the property. So unless you have the IP assigned to you personally
you're still in the same position as working for a publisher that owns the rights.
However, when I left Krome I made sure that I was personally assigned the rights to a
number of IPs that I helped create over time including Halloween Harry, Flight of the
Amazon Queen, Mystery Club, Jaruu Tenk, Shadow Town, etc. I can exploit these IPs
anyway I want and in some cases can derive extra revenue from them.
Yes. I'm currently working with an independent developer to produce something new
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with the Halloween Harry license.
6) Is there any
Apogee?
I remember visiting Ian

Mackay at the Brisbane office
of Mannacom in 1993 to show
off the latest build of
Halloween Harry and he had
just received a build of the
new id game from Apogee.
We gathered around the PC to
witness a game that very few Screenshot from Alien Carnage
people had yet seen: DOOM.
That was pretty amazing. Here was a fast paced 3D game that would change the way
games were made, and there we were with a quaint 2D side scroller!
Ed Note: In its earliest incarnation, the original Doom was still a project that id was
working on to be published through Apogee. id then decided to "do their own thing"
during the title's development.

I think most publishers and developers are risk averse. I know of one company that
was developing handheld games but no one would sign them. A local independent
company partnered with them so they could port their PS2 game to the GBA. As soon
as the GBA title shipped publishers signed them up because they were now "real"
developers. That is so very typical.
worked with Apogee?
Well, in the console space the budgets have grown obscenely large. But in the PC space
I think it's gone full circle. I see Casual Games as being very similar to shareware back
in the nineties. Games are developed by a small group of passionate developers, there
is a try before you buy policy and most games are independent productions. But since
the nineties shareware scene there have been some amazing improvements with the
Casual Games industry. BBSes, for example, have been replaced by the web, everyone
now uses credit cards and aren't afraid to buy stuff online, and development costs are
much cheaper and the potential audience is much, much larger. There are no excuses
for wannabe games makers to not make and market games today.
Well, I founded Krome Studios, one of Australia's largest games development

companies and have worked on almost twenty published games. I recently sold my
share in Krome and have joined the Pandemic Studios Australian team as their Creative
Director. I've also been creating shareware style games in my spare time - the latest
one being Word Shake which is available from Casual Games Arcade. I've also married
and started a family - which is one of the best projects I've had the privilege of working
on!
10) If you're no longer making

games, have you thought about
returning to this industry? If not,
why not?
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N/A

missed opportunities that you
wish you'd have jumped on?
Professionally, we didn't have a viable

business until 1999 when we formed
Krome Studios. I think that moving to
the States when Alien
Carnage/Halloween Harry came out
would have accelerated that process
by at least five years. So I think I
missed the opportunity to grow the
business faster - but you live and you
learn!
12) Other than your game(s),

what's your favorite game
released or produced by Apogee
(or 3D Realms)? Halloween Harry from our 1993 Print
Catalog
Wolfenstein 3D was pretty cool!
My favourites are Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, the Zelda series and Mario 64.
Just recently I've been digging the new games on PSP and Nintendo DS - Mario Kart,
GTA: Liberty City Stories and Animal Crossing all rock. I love these new handhelds!
of your title(s)?
Check out Casual Games Arcade to grab some quality PC and Mac games. These are
the spiritual successors to the shareware games we grew up with! Oh, this is probably
the place where you'll see the new Alien Carnage/Halloween Harry game first!
The Alien Carnage team from a newspaper scan in 1994.

Top Row (L-R): Darren Baker, Tony Ball, John Passfield, Steve Stamatiadis
Bottom Row (L-R): Steven Baker, Robert Crane
Thanks to John for taking the time to send in his interview, as well as the old
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newspaper clipping image. While Alien Carnage is no longer available from us (it was
discontinued a few years ago), his other projects are up and running. Check 'em out:
Casual Games Arcade

Pandemic Studios Australia
There is also more information on Carnage/Harry on our archived catalog page for the
game here. There's more to read over at Classic DOS Games Archive. Finally, you'll
want to read the Halloween Harry entry in the Apogee FAQ, which talks not only about
the game's name change, but the two sequels to the game (Zombie Wars & Halloween
Harry 3D), as well as an aborted TV series about the game.

February 13, 2006
The Apogee Legacy #6 - Mike Voss

Today our "Apogee Legacy" Interview series continues with its newest edition, this time
with Mike Voss, author of the 1994 game, "Hocus Pocus". Mike only did one title with
us, but it was a memorable one; it was a great entry in Apogee's long line of
sidescroller titles. Mike (who we have no pictures of) no longer works in the game
industry but was very happy to be interviewed about his game with us now 12 years
ago.
The Apogee Legacy

Issue #6 - Mike Voss
I was playing around with the idea of writing a shareware game around 1991. I started
with a graphical adventure style game that ended up tired and boring after a while.
Then I was inspired by Duke Nukem! I studied the game and figured that I might be
able to tackle a similar style game. I was somewhat pessimistic about the idea of the
shareware marketing model paying off until, in a local specialty magazine store, I came
across "shareware magazine" and thumbed through it. I read in an article that Apogee
was receiving about 300 orders per day.
I began to devote a large amount of time to programming. I created a game called

Clyde's Adventure and tossed it into the shareware arena. The game was a modest
success. I could almost make a small and very modest living. Very very modest. After a
few months I received a letter from Scott Miller suggesting that possible fame and
fortune was on my doorstep. Apogee offered to publish my next game. I said okay.
Given that Clyde's Adventure was a small, run and hop type game, it wasn't as if
Electronic Arts and Sierra was banging on my door. Further, I never really intended to
make a career out of programming games. Apogee was offering to market my work and
toss a chunk of the profits my way. It was a win-win proposal. I worked with Apogee
because they asked me to.
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anything Apogee could have done

better, regarding the marketing
and distribution of your game?
Hocus Pocus was released

immediately following the release of
Raptor. I saw full page ads in gaming
magazines for Raptor. I saw no
advertising for Hocus Pocus. At the
time I felt cheated. Apogee always
presented their company image as
"not like the other companies" and
that all games are given equal
attention. I recall hearing George
Broussard mention to me that
"advertising does not do much to
improve sales." I couldn't believe that
he was telling me this. I understood
the logic: Raptor sold better than
Hocus Pocus. A dollar spent advertsing
Raptor would always bring in more
money that a dollar spent advertising
Hocus Pocus. It was simple business
sense not to spend money advertising
my game. Still, I felt that I was Hocus Pocus Game Manual Artwork
unfairly treated. I got over my
resentment on a recent Dr. Phil show, perhaps you saw it.
Apogee?
Apogee absolutely made my game better. They had contacts for sound engines, music,
art, etc. I hammered out Hocus Pocus on a 386 20 Mhz machine with an old 10 meg
hard drive. My monitor died on me and for a few weeks I was using an old sony 6 inch
black and white monitor. You might go so far as to say that my resources were on the
lean side.
Given that I have kept my head out of the computer gaming business for the last ten
years, I don't feel that I'm qualified to give a good opinion about this issue.
own IP?
Hocus Pocus 2: With a Vengence.
6) Is there any
Apogee?
The best time I had working

with Apogee was meeting Jim
Dose. Jim was working on the
Apogee sound system in New
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York and I would have long

phone conversations with him
on many occasions. He later
ended up working with
Apogee in Texas. Although we
never met in person, Jim was Screenshot from final version of Hocus Pocus
one of the best people I met
in the gaming industry.

Companies tend to continue with what works for them. Apogee started out by working
with outside companies so it's no surprise that they continue this practise.
worked with Apogee?
Again, I have been out of the gaming industry for so long, I don't know too much about
the changes that have occurred.
Shortly after I started developing Hocus Pocus, I got married. Apogee advanced us
$5,000.00 to help us financially, the advance was free of interest for more than a year.
Kudos to Apogee for a class act.
We now have two children, Jacob, who is six and Heather who is four. We have a small
house in the suburbs and lead a comfortable and calm existence.
Like 98% of programmers, I began to do commercial web programming during the dot
com bubble until it popped. My hobby now is playing with my kids and hoarding Google
stock.
In a rather strange career move, I am currently completing my training to become a

paramedic in the spring. Adios, programming.

why not?
Sheesh, no. The industry now

is so different from the small
development teams that I
worked with. If I'm not the
star of the show, so to speak,
then I don't want to be
involved. Nowadays, to be a
star, you need an IQ like a
phone number. I dropped out Screenshot from final version of Hocus Pocus
of the game programming
industry after id software wrote a little ditty called Doom. I could not compete with
that. I tried for a little while, and just when I was getting the 3D concepts, they
released Quake!
have jumped on?
I believe that all things happen for the best, good or bad. We learn from bad
experiences and profit from good experiences. Regret is like driving while looking in the
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rear view mirror.
Halloween Harry is my favorite Apogee game.
Civilization
Doom I and II
All MS Flight Simulators
All Sim City's
of your title(s)?
My deepest appreciation goes out to everyone who played and enjoyed Hocus Pocus.
Even the ones who enjoyed the pirated copies. (George will hate me for saying that.)
I'd also like to thank Scott Miller, George Broussard, Todd Replogle, Jim Dose, Jason
Blochowiak and my beta testers, Andre Foucault and Chris tenDen.
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Screenshots from early build of Hocus Pocus in March 1993.
Thanks to Mike for taking the time to send in his interview. We still sell Mike's game,
and it's still a good sidescroller game. You can check out the shareware version on the
downloads page, or you can buy the registered version here. There's also some more
information about Hocus Pocus on our catalog page for it here.

February 6, 2006
The Apogee Legacy #5 - Frank Maddin

Today our "Apogee Legacy" Interview series continues with its fifth edition, this time
with Frank Maddin, author of a few games with us. His first game with us was 1991's
Crystal Caves, and then followed it up with 1993's Monster Bash. After that, he teamed
up with Jim Norwood to do 1997's Shadow Warrior. Frank also briefly did some work
with is on a fourth game after Monster Bash called "Cybertank", but it was abandonded
early on in development (was to be a tank game with a 3D engine). Additionally, Frank
is one of the few developers we've had to ever get dressed up as one of their
characters (see the pictures below).
Frank now works at Microsoft, and was happy to participate in the interview series.
Hereeeee's Frank! :)
The Apogee Legacy

Issue #5 - Frank Maddin
I met George Broussard in Lufkin, Texas. He calls it a "stinky little town". His family had
moved there from Dallas. I'd lived there most of my life.
I had a Commodore Amiga (Jack Tramiel was the devil the ST was crap) and knew very
few people in town with one. So I put an ad in a local trade paper and his mom called
me. We became good friends - his mom and I - eventually we let George hang out with
us. :-) We commuted to college together in nearby Naca-nowhere.
Scott was a friend of George from back in Dallas and would come down to visit
occasionally with Terry Nagy. We'd all go play tennis or something. Of course, I was by
far the best tennis player and there was usually tears and gnashing of teeth, but I
digress.
When George graduated he and his family moved back to Dallas. Fast forward a year or
two and I had a job at Lockheed that I didn't like, and George was getting ready to
compete with Scott because Apogee was starting to take off. I told him to send me
some code and I'd take a stab at it.
A number of months into the development of Crystal Caves, George joined Apogee and
Crystal Caves became an Apogee product.
I'd just sort of fallen into game development. I doubt I could have gotten a job at a
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real game company, or started my own at that point.

Back in the day, the BBS was the main

distribution method. The main form of
marketing was mailing out to previous
customers. Once they built up a reputation,
that was pretty much all they needed to at
least get new people to download and try
new games. The 3 episode hook got people
to pay. Worked pretty well for the time.

Apogee?
The level of support varied from game to

game. Sometimes tools, sometime design,
etc. They generally had good design input. If
I was making the game in a void I'm sure it
wouldn't have turned out nearly as well. Frank with his son back in 1991
Well sure, you should keep the IP. If the game is a hit it might be worth something.
Seems to me it's about who has the upper hand and the position they are in. How
badly does the publisher want the developer? How far along is the game?
own IP?
I don't think it's highly applicable to me. Seems like with my projects it's kind of a joint
ownership thing with Apogee. Of course I could do something with it if I got permission,
or payed them something from profits.
Probably not. I have the most fondness for Monster Bash, so if I could choose, that
would be the one.
6) Is there any story/incident that stands

out as interesting during your time
There is an interesting "brush with greatness"

with the author David Gerrold.
The fellow that wrote the script for the Star

Trek episode "Trouble with Tribbles", David
Gerrold, actually played and liked Crystal Caves.
Mr. Gerrold, like Jerry Pournelle, was also a
computer guy and wrote articles for computer
magazines. I was reading a computer mag (I
think it was a programming mag called PC
Techniques) and I noticed that the author
mentioned Crystal Caves, talked about it a bit,
called out that the first episode was "Trouble
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with Twibbles" and seemed to think that was

funny. At the time I thought it was cool but I
didn't realize the significance. Not much later I
think I picked up a SF book he'd written and
saw that he wrote the Star Trek episode. I was
pretty floored. That probably had something to Frank dressed up as Johnny Dash
do with his mention. from Monster Bash at the 1996
Apogee Halloween Party
There is also the "Great Romero
Misunderstanding"..
My best work was probably the snake in Crystal Caves. There is a story about that. At
one point during development we'd flown to see id software (involved with Apogee) for
business reasons and I'd shown CC to them. Later, I heard that John Romero thought I
had stolen the snake from one of his earlier games it looked so similar. The truth was
that I hadn't seen that game and that it was the only way I could figure out how to do
a snake in 16x16 pixels. But it kind goes to show you the limitations can really
influence what the art is. So John, REALLY, I didn't steal your snake! Swear to GOD
mode. I just know this will get back to him.
I'm sure there are many others lurking but I can't dredge them up.

Seems like a good thing. I'm not too up on these working relationships these days.
Japan seems to have more separation of design and development, but that's maybe
not quite the same thing.
worked with Apogee?
I remember George said once, something like "Making games is too hard. id came
along and screwed it all up. I'd have been happy making side scrollers forever". That
was probably back in 94 or 95 or something. It's just gotten harder. It takes vast effort,
lots of people, and oodles of resources.
Raising a couple of kids, enjoying life. Still making games. The majority of my time has
been spent at Digital Anvil/Microsoft.

N/A

Can't think of any large ones. Shipping

earlier on all games would have been
good. Frank at his office at 3DR in 1997.
Should have put a better level as the first level of Monster Bash. There were many that
were better. Wouldn't have programmed the bug that didn't allow you to finish level 4
:-)
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Commander Keen. It opened my eyes to seeing the PC as something that could play
games like a console. I didn't have a high opinion of the PC at the time, being an
Amiga person and all.
Fairy Tale Adventure, Splinter Cell, Call of Duty
of your title(s)?
I had a lot of fun in those early days developing, and I hope you enjoyed playing.
The Shadow Warrior Team in 1997 (L-R):

Frank Maddin, Lee Jackson, John Galt, Keith Schuler, Jim Norwood, & Stephen
Cole.
Screenshot from early build of Frank's cancelled Cybertank game.
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Screenshot from early beta of Crystal Caves.
Thanks to Frank for helping out with the interview series. We still sell all the games
released with us during his time here (Crystal Caves, Monster Bash, & Shadow Warrior),
so make sure and check them all out on our Games Page.
If you want to read more about Frank, you might also want to check out this interview
done with him over at the "Perilous Crystal Caves" fansite, where he talks more about
the development of Crystal Caves.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:58 AM | Discuss this story on our forums
January 30, 2006
The Apogee Legacy #4 - Tom Hall

Today our "Apogee Legacy" Interview series continues with its
fourth edition, this time with Tom Hall, a core figure in the early
days (and more) of our company. Tom was a founding member
of id Software, working with them and us on Commander Keen
& Wolfenstein 3D. He later joined Apogee, and was the project
lead on Rise of the Triad, as well as having his hands in several
titles doing work for them ranging from Hocus Pocus, Duke
Nukem II, and Duke Nukem 3D. Additionally, he was the
original project lead on Prey when it was in it's original
incarnation.
Since his time here, he's worked at Ion Storm, Monkeystone,

Midway, & now KingsIsle. Tom has a huge connection with us and our past, so we're
sure you're eager to hear what he has to say...
The Apogee Legacy

Issue #4 - Tom Hall
Scott Miller had been trying to hire John Romero from his old days as a contributor to
Uptime (an old monthly software magazine on disk), then he'd been getting fan mail
from various people which he hung up. Then he noticed they were all coming from the
same address! Both amused and angered, John wrote a strongly-worded letter back,
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only to find out it was Scott wanting to publish something.
Carmack and I had stayed up late one night making a funny joke demo of Super Mario
Bros 3 and putting it on Romero's desk in the morning. This lead to a demo for
Nintendo, which got to the head table but was rejected, so we decided to do our own
thing. I went off to my office and in 15 minutes came up with the story of Commander
Keen, which Scott was dying to publish, and so he did!
Scott was so excited to publish us, and he sent us pizza money, which was so cool of
him and a big convincer. Once Keen started selling, we realized we could live on that
money. The rest is history.

Well, the initial "Miller Model" of the buy

one, get two was brilliant. But they needed
to grow as we did. We had our computers
networked before they did, putting the
money back into the company, and we
knew DOOM was gonna take off at least as
well as Wolfenstein 3D did, and we didn't
want that handled by a company with Tom on his first day at Apogee
SneakerNet going on. But we totally owe
our initial success to Scott believing in us.
Apogee?
I think the Keens were made better by the trilogy thing. I think they were a little
me-too during the development of early Prey. But working with Scott and George was a
pleasure. Those guys love games.
That is awesome of them. Just wish I owned Keen. :-) It's kinda just a business
property to the folks over there at id. Ah well. For some reason they want the ten
thousands it is worth while the millions roll in.
own IP?
N/A
If I owned Keen, there sure would be. I don't consider that GBA game canon by any
means. :-)

Back in the development of Duke Nukem

3D, I walked into George's office and said,
"When people get done with work, they are
playing DOOM. Something is wrong if you
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have a new first-person shooter with

deathmatch working, and everyone's not
playing it." George took over the project
and gave it a much higher fun factor.
George MADE that game fun.
And the reception for the Dopefish was so Searching for something in the offices
strange. One guy became an ordained where Rise of the Triad was developed.
priest of the church of the Dopey Fish. It's Mark Dochtermann is in the
just funny that a dumb fish from one level background.
of Keen 4 is now an industry easter egg
thing. Heh.

They don't have the guts, and they are run by business people, not former (or current)
developers. Some studios ARE run by former developers, but they've been converted
into the evil business people, like some sort of Body Snatchers movie.
worked with Apogee?
Shareware isn't such a big thing, since everyone does demos now. And the bar is so
high with the new graphic cards and consoles, and there's SO much high-quality web
content out there, it's hard for a small timer to stand out. Even phone games are
getting high tech! But
There's always room for innovation. Perhaps the next place for the small games is
e-paper. Who knows?
Did id Software, ION Storm, Monkeystone Games, Midway, and now KingsIsle
Entertainment. I've been busy. Anachronox won a number of awards, Congo Cube was
rated "A" by PC Games, Area 51 did well (I had a little input, but didn't make that
game), and now I'm doing an MMO (massively multiplayer game). I'm still excited to be
making games.

N/A

jumped on?
No, it's been a pretty good ride. Wish I had

the rights to Keen and Anachronox, but I've
tried to stay creatively happy throughout my
career, and have pretty much done that.
12) Other than your game(s), what's

your favorite game released or
Other than our stuff, Duke Nukem 3D is still

the best from that studio. Really fun.
Tom in 2003.
12a) And what's your favorite 2-4
games released by anyone else?
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Chrono Trigger (SNES), Wizardry I (Apple ][), Ultima III (Apple ][), Half-life 2 (PC), Day
of the Tentacle (PC), Secret of Monkey Island I & II (PC), um... oh wait, you said 2-4.
Did I mention Sneakers (Apple ][)? Ape Escape (PSX)?
of your title(s)?
See, a bunch of folks can just get together, make the type of games they love and
come out with fun, popular stuff! And dudes, finish Duke this year. Really. Ya might, I
dunno, put a milestone schedule together, maybe something in Project. Just an idea.
Just kiddin'! We all want to PLAY it! Quit hoggin' it, man!
And to the fans... really, thanks for playing the dumb little games me and my buds have
been making in a little room somewhere. What an odd job this is!
Thanks!
Tom with George and David Gerrold when David visited the 3DR offices in 1995.
Thanks to Tom for helping out with the interview series. You can read more about
Tom's life on his website. Additionally, we still sell all the games he worked with during
his time with us (Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Rise of the Triad, Terminal
Velocity, etc...) so make sure and check them all out on our Games Page.

January 23, 2006
104 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

The Apogee Legacy #3 - Karen Crowther

Today we bring you the third in our "Apogee Legacy" Interview
series. This week we speak with Karen Crowther (now known
as Karen Chun), the author of the only two educational games
in our product line. These are Word Rescue, and Math Rescue,
both released in 1992. These are the only titles in our line she
was involved with directly, but she's been a friend to the
company for awhile now. Additionally, she's the only female
lead game designer we've had. We've had other women work
for us, or on our titles, but she's the only lead designer we've ever had.
So without further delay, we take you to Hawaii for our interview with Karen...
The Apogee Legacy

Issue #3 - Karen Crowther-Chun
I was a fanatic Commander Keen and Duke Nukem (sidescroller) player. I love those
games and still think they're the best. (And I really miss Tom Hall and his wacky sense of
humor...hey, Tom, you need to visit me in Maui!!!)
Dang! My mind is going...I know Scott and I were involved in a lot of political stuff
(fighting off government regulation of computer games etc. with Diana Gruber and
Rosemary West - hammering out the role of shareware and making sure the authors
didn't get ripped off by the retail publishers) but I think that came later.
First, I really liked Scott Miller. He put me in touch with Todd Replogle (Duke Nukum) who
helped me with some programming issues. If no one else tells you, Todd is a really great
guy and pretty humble considering what a good programmer he is. Scott helped me with
PC sound effects and cool ideas. And I loved interacting with George Broussard. When Joe
Siegler came along, he was a lot of fun too. I think that Scott is a marketing genius.
3) Looking back, was there anything Apogee could have done better, regarding
the marketing and distribution of your game?
Apogee did a great job for me. They basically let me do anything I wanted and made me
a millionaire (well, started me on the way, at least). I have nothing but good stuff to say
about them.
4) Do you think your game was made better or worse

by working with Apogee?
Well, better, of course! When I listened to Scott, my games got

better. That's why the games I distributed through Apogee are
the most successful. Although Pickle Wars (distributed through
another company) did become a cult classic with game
developers, it never made much money despite what I think
was some pretty fantastic music by Bobby Prince. So, in
retrospect, I can say that Scott's instincts were right on. The
games that I was paid beaucoup bucks to produce for big
name retailers are dead, dead, dead now. The Apogee games
(Math and Word Rescue) are still going strong.
5) Apogee had a policy of letting the designer or studio

retain full intellectual property rights to their game.
Nowadays, it's rare to find a publisher who allows this,
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especially if the publisher is providing the funding. Do you believe that it's best
for the creator to retain IP rights? Why or why not?
I liked the fact that I retained the rights because I had fun wheeling and dealing.
However, knowing what I know now about the way that big retail publishers can mess up,
I'd probably have left more of the decision-making in Scott's hands. He has the clout to
make them keep their contractual promises. But you know, at that time, we were
all winging it and learning by doing. I can say for certain, that I made more money
through Apogee than any other publishers.
5a) Do you think there'll ever be a sequel to your game(s)?
I have so many people asking me to update my games to Windows. I start doing it and
then I get "Polynesian Paralysis" (e.g. you start working and then you decide to go to the
beach instead). Plus I absolutely HATE Windows programming. Now that I'm getting into
Java and PHP programming, I might make web versions....but then again, I might go
surfing instead :-)
7) Apogee was an early pioneer in terms of teaming up with external designers

and studios, and continues to do so even to this day (currently working with
Human Head Studios on Prey). Why is it that so few other studios do this
(mentor and fund outside projects with lesser known teams)?
I tell you, my experience with big game companies is that they are by and large run by
idiots. That's why. They're the typical corporation where some guy with a great line of BS
comes in, dazzles the clueless bosses and then makes life difficult for the programmers,
artists and so on because all he wants is a raise and promotion. Meanwhile he has no
common sense and no love of the games and the things that those of us who make
games value (like cool programming and having fun).
worked with Apogee?
When I created my first games for Apogee, it was just me and the artist, doing it on spec.
Nowadays the look and feel is so expensive, you need at big bucks and it is much more
difficult to do a complete game on your own while your working at a day job. I still think
that the Internet (in our days, BBS) is the key to new people getting started. But the
retail (store shelf) arena is locked up by a few big companies.
I moved to Maui and started paddling outrigger canoe. I'm such a fanatic that I actually
coached at 2 clubs here on Maui and have been racing...doing the 41 mile Moloka'i to
'Oahu channel race (7 hours of paddling) a couple times. I design and build houses, do
webpages - some for money and some (like the Maui Sierra Club website) to give back to
the world that has been so good to me.
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I've always been into my kids and now I have a granddaughter (who also paddles
outrigger canoe). Every morning I wake up and say to myself, "Dang, I'm living in
paradise!".
I'm starting to get a little bored. Now that I've figured out how to make CSS and Java
games, I'll probably do some small web games. I took a break for a while because I hated
Windows so much. When I programmed my old games, there were just a few instructions
(a tiny set of C instructions and the DOS interrupts) so you could program just about
anything by being clever. Then along came Windows with API docs bigger than the San
Francisco phone books! I'm not good at memorization and programming just wasn't fun
anymore.
11) Looking back, are there any missed opportunities that you wish you'd have
jumped on?
Not really. I had a lot of fun, got to do exactly what I wanted (be with my kids, make
games, go to Maui, build houses). I had the opportunity to become more of an
administrator and have Redwood Games become a big company, but I found that I didn't
enjoy being a supervisor so I just took an abrupt U turn and ditched that whole scene. I
like the hands-on part. In fact, I think that was the most important strength of the
Apogee business model...it let people like me do exactly what we wanted to do which
was the hands-on stuff and have the creative control while getting help and feedback
from Scott and his team.
12) Other than your game(s), what's your favorite game released or produced
by Apogee (or 3D Realms)?
That is really, really hard. It's a tie between the side-scroller Duke Nukem and the old
Commander Keen games. Also I liked Blake Stone and the early 3D games.
Well nothing was as fun as the side scrollers but I really like William Soleau's puzzle
games. (You can tell I am stuck back in the early 90's ;-) )
your title(s)?
A big thank you to those who enjoyed my games and for continuing to enjoy them. I'm
getting people now who played Math and Word Rescue when they were kids, buying the
games for THIER kids. I really value the emails I get from players of my games. It gives
me a real lift to know that folks appreciate what I created.
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Thanks to Karen for agreeing to help out with the interview series. You can read more
about Karen's life on this page at her site. Additionally, we still sell Math & Word Rescue
almost 14 years after they were originally released, make sure and visit these pages for
more information on them.
Official Word Rescue Page (w/ shareware download)

Official Math Rescue Page (w/ shareware download)
Buy Math & Word Rescue Combo CD
Visit Karen's Redwood Games Site

January 16, 2006
The Apogee Legacy #2 - Keith Schuler

Last week we started a new series on our website about some
of our developers from the past. We called this series "The
Apogee Legacy Interview Series". In our first edition, we
brought you an interview with Jim Norwood. For the second
edition, we are bringing you an interview with our own Keith
Schuler. Keith has been involved with us for a very long time,
and continues to do so to this day. His first project with us
came out back in 1991 (Paganitzu), and then he went through
Realms of Chaos, the aborted Duke Nukem Forever scroller
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game, as well as Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition, Shadow

Warrior, and now Duke Nukem Forever.
So without further delay, we bring you the tallest developer in our history, Keith
Schuler...
The Apogee Legacy

Issue #2 - Keith Schuler
I had seen Kroz games in shareware catalogs and other places, so I was familiar with
the name. Big Blue Disk published one of my earliest games, Chagunitzu. About a
month later, they forwarded a fan letter to me. It was written by a little boy, and he
wanted to know what my high score was at Chagunitzu. I thought it was an odd
question, but I couldn't ignore my fan, so I wrote a letter back to him.
Shortly thereafter I got a phone call from Scott Miller. He explained that he had written
the fan letter so that he could contact me without raising suspicion at Big Blue Disk.
Apparently he had been approaching other developers there, as well. Scott thought
that Chagunitzu would work well as an episodic game, and he wanted me to write a
sequel trilogy, to be published by Apogee.
Scott mailed me some of the current projects that other devs at Apogee were working
on, like Monuments of Mars and Commander Keen. Commander Keen, in particular,
completely amazed me. After seeing such groundbreaking games (and getting an
unsolicited check for $50) I was convinced that Apogee was the team to play for. It was
certainly an improvement over my two current jobs: Burger King and my father's lawn
mowing service (for which I was not getting paid.)
3) Looking back, was there anything Apogee

could have done better, regarding the marketing
and distribution of your game?
With regards to Paganitzu, I don't think anything could

have been done better. It was still selling long after
many other Apogee games had retired. With Realms of
Chaos, I don't think anything could've been done to
save it. Like other 2D games at the time, it was stillborn
into the post-Doom era.
4) Do you think your game was made better or

worse by working with Apogee?
Definitely better. George and Scott absolutely excel at

taking a game and polishing it to perfection. It's what
they do best, in my opinion.
5) Apogee had a policy of letting the designer or

studio retain full intellectual property rights to
their game. Nowadays, it's rare to find a
publisher who allows this, especially if the
publisher is providing the funding. Do you
believe that it's best for the creator to retain IP
rights? Why or why not?
They did? Crap, I don't think I own the IP for my two games. Or do I? I don't know, I'd
have to ask. I don't have a clearly defined answer to your question. Best for who? It is
best for the creator to own the IP when it is strong, and he can leverage that strength
to put himself in a better position with the publisher. That doesn't guarantee a better
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game, though, so what's best for the creator might not be best for the player.
own IP?
If applicable, no. The Paganitzu and ROC IPs are not strong enough to matter, anyway.
I still want to make a sequel to Paganitzu. Something that runs under Windows, is
mouse driven, with updated sound and graphics, and gameplay that is more fair and
fun. Unfortunately, these things take time, and I'm not a teenager living with my
parents anymore. That's not even considering whether Apogee/3D Realms would want
to publish it. And, assuming they didn't, IP ownership and non-compete issues might be
a problem. I haven't looked into it, since it's not even close to being an issue right now.
Duke Nukem Forever and parenting take up all my time.
The way Scott Miller contacted me is probably the most interesting story. Other than
that, there was the time I was in limbo after completing Realms Of Chaos. George tried
letting me produce some external titles (including the original, side scrolling Duke
Nukem Forever), but those projects were all dropped shortly after Duke 3D came out. I
finally talked them into letting me move to Dallas and becoming an internal employee,
although it was unclear what I would be doing. When I got here, the guys who would
eventually become Ritual had just left, and the remaining guys were working on the
Plutonium Pak. I picked up the Build editor and made a little Duke 3D map of my own,
just trying out the different features. When George saw what I'd done, he made me a
level designer on Plutonium Pak. The rest is history.

I think Apogee is in a unique position. They are financially independent, yet still have
enough money to fund outside projects. And, like I said above, George and Scott excel
at producing polishing games to perfection. Max Payne showed that the process could
succeed. If Prey also succeeds, that will prove it wasn't a fluke. The repeated successes
may encourage other studios (and possibly publishers) to take similar risks. Who
knows? In the future we may actually see production houses that have no internal
projects at all, but exist only by funding external projects and acting as liaison between
the developer and the publisher.
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worked with Apogee?
Everything's bigger. Dev teams number in the hundreds, in some cases. Games have
much higher production values and require much longer to create. Gone are the days
when a guy like me would create an entire game by himself, in less than a year. Now
you have James Bond games starring the actual film actors. Sports games have all the
sports stars. Now, movies are being made based on games, instead of only happening
the other way around. (Of course, they aren't *good* movies.)
9) What have you been doing since your

time with Apogee?
Working on Duke Nukem Forever.
10) If you're no longer making games, have

you thought about returning to this
N/A

jumped on?
I wish I'd started my IRA a lot sooner than I did.
12) Other than your game(s), what's your

favorite game released or produced by
Apogee (or 3D Realms)?
Duke Nukem 3D Keith dressed up as Alabama

Smith from his Paganitzu game.
12a) And what's your favorite 2-4 games
released by anyone else?
Robotron, Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, System Shock 2, & Thief 2
of your title(s)?
Follow your dreams. You can reach your goals. I'm living proof. Beefcake! BEEFCAKE!
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Keith with his wife Rose (who was the voice of the Anime Girls in Shadow
Warrior)
Title screen from early beta of Realms of Chaos when it had a different title.
A special thanks to Keith for agreeing to help out with the interview series. Keith's two
projects are still available for sale from us, if you'd like to check them out, make sure
and visit these pages for more information on them.
Official Paganitzu Page (w/ shareware download)

Official Realms of Chaos Page (w/ shareware download)
Buy Full Paganitzu
Buy Full Realms of Chaos

January 9, 2006
The Apogee Legacy #1 - Jim Norwood

The Apogee Legacy
Issue #1 - Jim Norwood
Today we lead off a new regular section on our website. Apogee Software has been
around since 1987, and while we changed the name we're generally known by (to 3D
Realms), the origins of the company are in the name Apogee. We were involved with
many developers back in those days. Some of these folks have gone on to bigger things
in the game industry. Some are not working in the industry at all anymore. But we've
sought out as many of our old developers that we could locate (some of which we
haven't had any contact with in a decade) for an interview series based on their time
working with us. It's been fun talking to these folks about their time with us, and we
hope you enjoy this insight into the developers who helped found what our company is
today.
This series will be a regular thing on our website, with a new interview appearing each
Monday for you to check out. This first edition of the series is with Jim Norwood. Jim
was involved with two projects with us, 1993's Bio Menace, 1997's Shadow Warrior, and
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assisted on a whole scope of other projects from back in those days such as Duke
Nukem, Secret Agent, & Wolfenstein 3D among others. Bio Menace was also recently
released as freeware, so we thought that would be a good starting point for our
interview series..
I was at the time, like many developers, 'doing my own

thing'- just working on a 2D game in my spare time that was
something I thought would be fun to play. My day job at the
time was some boring dBase programming gig in the
business sector working for Raytheon. At least I got to see
Patriot Missiles up close and I had cool national security
clearance, but those were about the only perks.
At the time, I was making a side-scroller. Those were the

popular games back then. I saw the Commander Keen
engine from Apogee and was so impressed by how smooth John Carmack had gotten
the scrolling in the engine, I naively just picked up the phone and called up Scott Miller
at Apogee (yes, CEO's still had direct lines back then. Isn't that something?), and asked
him if the source code to the Keen scrolling technology was also shareware. (Duh) Of
course it wasn't, but that got Scott and I talking. When Scott also found out I was doing
all the art for my own game, he became even more interested and asked me to send
him samples of bitmap art I had been doing.
Well, after doing that, they liked my artwork and that landed me my first job in the
game industry working on the original Duke Nukem 1 side-scroller doing background
art. They even bought me a new PC to do the work on - I felt like a king. I was also
given art tasks on various other games as well. In the mean time, I continued with my
programming skills on my own, until eventually, we all went down to Shreveport,
Louisiana to meet up with John Carmack, and the other ID folks, who by the way, were
still working for SoftDisk at that time. They were not really ID just yet, not the way
you'd know them now. By the way, just so you know - secretly, my favorite Id game is
still Dangerous Dave. I just couldn't get enough of that shotgun. If you loved the
shotgun in DooM, you owe a debt of thanks to Dangerous Dave for that!
So in the end, I got that Keen scrolling technology after all when I licensed the
technology for my first solo game project, BioMenace, where I'd also be the game's
only programmer, as well as the artist, and the designer, the level designer, and the
sound engineer...whew! It was great fun, and I will always look back on those days
fondly...but honestly, it was also a lot more work than one person should attempt on
their own, even in those days.
Apogee was the first company I had contact with and they gave me break into the
game industry, which is what I always had wanted. And quite frankly, I didn't know
anyone at any other game companies at the time.
Marketing and distribution weren't as big a problem as lack of development resources

at the time. I needed a team to get things done before the game became too dated,
even if I didn't realize it at the time. I think those early game projects might have been
bigger hits if I had had a little help from some friends and put them out a year earlier.
Apogee?
As opposed to working with who as an alternative? This is hard to quantify, but I feel
that Apogee had a clear vision for what made great games at that time. Their early
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success proves that fact.
The man footing the bill wins. If a publisher pays for your development costs, he is the
one taking all the risks, not you. I believe in that case, the publisher should retain the
rights and not the developer. However, in cases where the developer makes the game
and then approaches the publisher with a nearly finished product, the developer should
clearly hold the rights instead. It's all about who is the one taking the most financial
risks on the project. Those are the folks that should reap the most rewards. But you
cannot have a hit game without a developer either, so being generous for a job well
done is also warranted even if that developer does not retain property rights to his
project. I've always felt this was a pretty cut and dry issue, but you'd be surprised at
just how muddled development deals can become...

your own IP?
Hah! Of course I benefited! I got royalty

checks for my first games for over ten years!
Imagine getting a paycheck for ten year old
work you did! Well, I did...on a monthly basis,
until the sales finally just fizzled out from old
age.

No. We tossed around the idea a few times,

but my projects were never big enough hits,
mostly due to late release dates, that they do
not have the following to merit a sequel. The
comparison here would be to look at sales Jim in 2006
and popularity of Duke Nukem 3D vs. Shadow
Warrior. Shadow Warrior has a following sure, but it's paltry compared to Duke.
A better question would be: are there any stories about my time with Apogee that
don't stand out? I had a great time in my seven or so years with Apogee/3DRealms and
met and worked with some of the greatest minds in the game industry today. What's
not interesting about that? As you know, Id Software was affiliated with Apogee for a
good while - so we all knew each other personally.
A very interesting story was the time we had to evacuate from George's house and run
for our lives when a certain disgruntled developer who forgot to take his lithium came
calling unexpectedly late one night, weapon in hand... I won't go in to details, but that
certainly DID get one's blood pumping, and stands as a clear memory to this day. The
police arrived to save the day, so we all survived the ordeal in the end.

Is it true that other developers do not do this? Microsoft and EA are prime examples of
large companies that work with smaller external studios. I work at EA, Redwood Shores
now and we have plenty of external development houses helping out on various
projects. (I cannot be more specific for legal reasons - sorry.)
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8) What is the biggest difference in the industry nowadays versus when you
worked with Apogee?
Size. It's bigger, it's more mature. The stakes are higher, the projects monolithic, the
competition more fierce than ever... The game industry is for the 'big boys' now. It's
moved into a multi-billion dollar industry and the little guys either get assimilated, or
destroyed if they resist (sorry for the obvious geeky reference there). Or they just plain
run out of funding because they cannot compete with the quality of projects that really
large game companies are capable of now.
Jim looking thrilled at having his picture taken.

This was Jim's desk at 3D Realms HQ in 1997.
Making more games of course... I'm currently at EA as a software engineer.
I don't plan on ever NOT making games - when some guys in white coats from the
geriatrics ward arrive at my desk to take me away, that's when I'll be done with the
game industry.
have jumped on?
Id Software offered to hire me on to work on Doom 1 and help me finish BioMenace in

the bargain. I declined their generous offer at that time for various reasons. But getting
BioMenace done faster would have been a boon, and missing the chance to join Id?
Well... need I say more? We don't always make the best choices in life since we might
be blinded by other factors at that time. As they say, hind sight is 20/20.
Duke Nukem 3D. That game kicked ass - period. Dudes - where is Duke 4!? Huh huh?
X-COM 1, Doom 2, No One Lives Forever (series), any game having to do with the
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WarCraft franchise (I'm currently addicted to World of Warcraft), and ALL BioWare
games. (I admit it - I'm a shameless BioWare camp follower).
of your title(s)?
Sure - figure out how to revamp the Apogee line by creating next-gen side scrollers! It's
the 3D revolution, but I'll never stop being a fan of the side-scroller genre. I'm
convinced it can still be beautifully done with current generation technology, but most
companies, if not all, won't take the marketing risk.
Also, to Frenkel, who created map images of all the BioMenace levels (link) - I thought
that was great! My hat is off to you.
Jim with John Galt, the voice of Lo Wang in Shadow Warrior
We'd like to thank Jim for his time in giving such a good interview to launch the series
with. If you'd like to continue the trip down memory lane, you can check out the
freeware release of Bio Menace, as well as information about Shadow Warrior, both of
which are available on our website.
Please remember to tune in next Monday for the next interview in the Apogee Legacy
Series.
Posted by Joe Siegler at 10:02 AM | Discuss this story on our forums
116 of 116 5/14/2013 10:34 PM

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June 26, 2006

The Apogee Legacy #24 - Final Edition

The Apogee Legacy

First up is Dennis Scarff. Dennis is not a name known to

He was also a tech nerd, although from a previous

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One funny story about Dennis recalled by Joe Siegler..

Tom Hall also remembers Dennis.

Here's a few pictures of Dennis around the office.

Dennis Hamming it up in the offices

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Chatting with Steve Blackburn at an Apogee company picnic

The Apogee Legacy

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Tom Hall (id, Ion Storm, Midway, etc) recalls Wiliam:

"William was a completely unique character. He was always good for a

"Heh, yeah, he was referring to a

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doing, he was unstoppable."

"William Scarboro was one of the first

William eventually became the lead

Finally, Joe Siegler chimes in on William:

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Anyway, here's something I wrote about William back in January of 2006

"RIA provides Income Tax

Here's a few pictures of William from around the office:

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Tossing a football around in the back yard at Lee Jackson's house

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William with his girlfriend - unknown date.

Looking happy in his office - the way we remember him.

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That's all, folks!

[ View Entire Legacy Interview Index ]

June 19, 2006

The Apogee Legacy #23 - Paul Schuytema

The Apogee Legacy

1) How did you first come in contact with Apogee?

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2) Was there a reason you decided to work

3D Realms lured me away from FASA Interactive. I

In the "small world" categoryÃ¢â‚¬Â¦when I left

In a perfect world, a developer would be able to self-fund up to a prototype state and

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5b) Do you think there'll ever be a sequel to your game(s)?

Yowza... there are so many! Four big ones stand out:

7) Apogee was an early pioneer in

Every publisher wants to mitigate their risk

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I started Magic Lantern (insert shameless plug: http://www.lanterngames.com) in 1999

10) If you're no longer making games,

So far, the grass is pretty green around the

11) Looking back, are there any

Honestly, I think we maybe spent too much

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3DR Team in 1995

3DR Team in 1998

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Human Head Team in 2005/6

Our Prey Page

[ View Entire Legacy Interview Index ]

June 12, 2006

The Apogee Legacy #22 - The Levelord

Heh, I've thought about leaving the industry