Unfinished Business

Figures - we go several days without any news, and now we have several things at once.

We were just alerted to an editorial over at ga-source.com entitled "Unfinished Business". The article talks about how a good percentage of games are rushed out the door before they're done. As champions of the "When it's done" policy, our own Scott Miller & George Broussard are quoted about their thoughts on the matter. Here's a bit of what they had to say:

George: Look at most publishers and development houses--is the top guy a developer or a bean counter without any development experience? I've noticed that business and financial types ride the lead wagon at most game companies, which to me explains a lot of this industry's problems with shoddy game releases."

Scott: "Game development is not an endeavor that can be finished within arbitrary financial quarters. It requires ongoing research, testing, polishing and even tossing away of work and ideas that don't work after being implemented. Because of game development's inherent unpredictability, we never attach a release date to our games until we're within a few days of launching, and even then we won't hesitate to miss the date if it means improving the gameplay."

There's a lot more to this article than just Scott & George talking about the subject. The person writing the article (Timothy Townsend) has a lot of his own thoughts on the matter. Make sure to check out the article today - it's a great read. Also, check out our own press released entitled "Developers Rule at 3D Realms" - this has been on our site for quite some time, and really explains our own thoughts on development issues such as this.

Thanks Sam Bordiss.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 4:30 PM

Greatest Deathmatch Weapons

We missed this when it was posted last week, but the Daily Radar had a cool piece about their "Greatest Deathmatch Weapons". In it, the Shrinker from Duke Nukem 3D placed fourth - this is what they had to say about it:

Do you want to feel really good about fragging an opponent? Well, you'll find few things more satisfying than shrinking them down with a shrink ray and squashing them under your feet. Deathmatch is a form of gameplay where belittling your enemy is second only to killing them. With Duke's Shrink Ray, you get to do both at the same time.

We agree with that. Check out the piece, and what they had to say about the other 14 weapons on the list.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 12:15 PM

Apogee - What's in a Name?

For the last couple of days, Gamespy.com has been running a pretty unique article that gives information about the origins of company names and their logos.

Over the last couple of days they've done companies such as Human Head, Blizzard, Electronic Arts, & Ritual/Hipnotic. Today they're running Day 3 of the piece, and they covered us, on both the Apogee & 3D Realms names/logos. Here's a bit of what Scott Miller had to say about us:

The name 3D Realms didn't happen until mid-1994, when George and I decided to focus the company on 3D games since it was a safe bet that 3D was the future. I came up with the name after weeks of researching potential company names that were available as an 800 number (800-3DREALMS) and a domain name. The name was also selected to convey the 3D focus of the company.

Scott talks more about the origin of the 3D Realms name, including the admission that 3D Realms was not the first choice. Furthermore, he talks about the design of the Apogee logo as well as the origins of that name.

Make sure to check out what gamespy.com says about us in this article - it's one of the more original articles to come along in some time.

UPDATE @ 2:50PM - Scott Miller found some of the pages that had the rejected Apogee logos on them. These pages were after the point where the logo was already decided upon, but the color scheme had not been. You can see the rejected Apogee logos here, here, here, & here. The color scheme we settled upon isn't on these pages - that one is shown here.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 12:15 PM

Dukemon!

This just looks wrong, doesn't it? This was a fan submission that was sent to us recently - unfortunately, we don't know who sent it to us.

There's a lot more cool stuff like this in our fan art area. Make sure to check all the items out in our fan stuff page.

We take your submissions for the fan stuff page, there's details on the page - so if you've done something fun like this, make sure to send it to us. The best will end up on our fan page!

Posted by Joe Siegler at 6:00 PM

New Version of the Apogee / 3DR FAQ Online

Which of these games used to be Apogee projects?

* Doom
* Descent
* Tubes

Did you know that these games had other names during development?

* Realms of Chaos (Alabama Smith & The Bloodfire Pendant)
* Terminal Velocity (Velocity Brawl)
* Raptor (Mercenary 2029)
* Monster Bash (Graveyard)
* Cosmo (The Adventures of Zonk)

Answers to these questions, and many many others are available right now in the Apogee / 3D Realms FAQ. Written by Apogee fan Sam Stoddard, this FAQ is the single best source of information available about us, our people, and our games. The first version came out in August of 1994, and it's been updated with our games and projects ever since. This new version, v7.0 can be found in oour FAQ area. There you can find a link to a text version of the FAQ, as well as an HTML version of the FAQ.

Some of the other questions covered in the FAQ:

* What's the difference between Duke Nukem & Duke Nukum?
* "Call Apogee & say Aardwolf" - What's that?
* Who designed each of the 176 officially released Rise of the Triad levels?
* What do Fury3 & Hellbender have to do with Terminal Velocity?
* Was there really a v1.3 of Wolfenstein 3D?

If you've ever played any of our games, or if you've ever wondered "Why is that?" - then you owe it to yourself to check out the Apogee FAQ today. Spend some time and read it all, you'll be amazed at the amount of information in here.

BTW, all the games listed in the first question used to be our projects at some point. The FAQ will tell you a little about that.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 6:00 PM

More Fan Art!

This week, a very cool Commander Keen piece of artwork was posted to our forums. It's one of the Bloogs from Commander Keen. What's Commander Keen? Check it out over at our Keen1 or Keen4 pages. There's some classic gaming goodness in these games. Check 'em out if you've never done so.

You can also check out more fan submissions at our fan stuff page. Lots of coolness there. Thanks to all who have sent in fan submissions - there's tons of cool stuff still to come. Visit our fan stuff page for details on how to send us submissions.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 3:30 PM

Duke Nukem Comic!

This afternoon a very cool Duke Nukem fan comic was posted on our forums. It makes light of the "When it's done" mantra. There's not much else to say about this - just click on the thumbnail below to check it out! It's very cool!

You can also check out more fan submissions at our fan stuff page. Lots of coolness there.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 6:20 PM

It's the Great Pumpkin, Duke Nukem!

Yesterday was Halloween here in the states, and in keeping with that theme, we were sent this fan submission today - it's a Duke Nukem pumpkin! Actually, Gabe Cantu sent in two of them! One is Duke in his classic pose from the box art from Duke Nukem 3D, and the other is the Duke radiation symbol!

These are very cool - click on either of the thumbnails below for a larger image. You can also check out more fan submissions at our fan stuff page. Lots of coolness there.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:15 PM