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Today, in 1964, Tom Hall psychotically screamed into the world. He turns 45 today. To me Tom Hall was really just a name on a screen until Rise of the Triad, or more specifically, the ROTT Goodies pack, which came out in 2005 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Rise of the Triad: Dark War. It was only then I witnessed the truly evil genius behind the game.
Tom Hall is not just a name after all though, because he is one of the original four horsemen, along with John Carmack, John Romero, and Adrian Carmack, who worked at Softdisk, and went onto form id Software, which was bought by ZeniMax Media this year after 17 years of independence.
Tom Hall was the creative director at id and worked on games like Commander Keen, which he claims is quite similar to his childhood, Wolfenstein 3D, Spear of Destiny, and Doom. Tom left id after some design disputes over Doom with John Carmack. Tom wrote much if not all of the Doom bible, the original design document, which reveals a lot of features that didn’t make it into Doom. He did design several levels in Doom and Doom II however, referred to as the "Tom Hall levels", although they were modified by John Romero and Sandy Petersen.
He then went off to join Apogee (later 3D Realms). There he was able to release his creative genius on the world with Rise of the Triad. He also had things to do with other projects at 3D Realms, like Duke Nukem 3D. While working on Prey, which was later cancelled and released ten years later, in 2006, he left 3D Realms.
Tom Hall joined up again with John Romero and co-founded Ion Storm. Since then he’s gone on to Monkeystone Games, Midway, and nowadays he is at KingIsle Entertainment.
Facts about Tom Hall:
- He is the creator of the Dopefish, which has appeared in games like the Commander Keen series, Quake, and many others.
- Tom Hall may be psychotic.
- Tom Hall has a hell of an imagination, and this is evidenced by his usual roles in the creative department at the various companies he's worked at.
- Unlike John Romero, Tom Hall has never been known for having great hair.
Happy Birthday Tom!
Sources & Resources:
TOMTOMTOM.com
Tom Hall on Twitter
Tom Hall wiki
Tom Hall wikia
Tom Hall on MobyGames
Dopefish.com
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