Sandy Petersen 🇺🇦
@SandyofCthulhu
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Game Designer, Horror fan, Grandpa. Founder of Lovecraftian gaming. CEO of Petersen Games. Also known for Doom, the Age of Empires series, etc.
Texas
Joined October 2012
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Granddaughters playing a game their grandpa helped design 27 years ago.
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My dad is in the top 1% of Starcraft players in his age category. He is 93.
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It's 1993, and Doom E1M1. John Carmack says, "We need an enemy launching fireballs DOWN at us, to prove it's actually 3-D." Hence the imps up high in the acid room.
Their sole purpose is to convince you it's 3-d.
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Quake Not Fun Fact: the stresses of developing Quake were catastrophic to the team. It directly led to the exit of Romero, McGee, Green, Taylor, and me. Id went from a great workplace to a third-world despotism. The new id of today reversed that, and the company is great again.
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Playing Traveller for the first time in 48 years.
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For the love of Pete, learn the difference. If you already know it, spread the word.
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Correcting errors. I read on the Doom Wiki that the "Mancubus" is a combination of incubus and the Latin "manducare". But it's not. I named the mancubus and just combined the English word "man" with -cubus from incubus. Pathetic I know.
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In 1993, we gave away 1/3 of DOOM for free (the first episode). We sold ~100k copies. Millions were pirated.
in 1995, DOOM 2 was a normal boxed product. Nothing innovative nor free. We sold over a million copies and I built my house.
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A friend of mine used to take "bad" dice onto his back porch, put them on a tree stump, and shatter them with a hammer. When Greg Stafford and I saw this, Greg said, "You should make the other dice watch."
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Origins of Doom II Monsters: the Pain Elemental. The artists loved the Cacodemon - super easy to animate. So I came up with the idea of another cacodemon. I can't remember who thought up having it spit Lost Souls, but it's probably either me or John Romero.
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This infuriates me. The last 200 yrs prove conclusively that capitalist states are well fed & artificial famines are a tool of communism: the holodomor, cultural revolution, Pol Pol. Capitalism preserves life.
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My friend, John Romero, informs me that I am misremembering some facts about original Doom. It's not unlikely - that was 28 years ago! I do remember doing an E1M1 though perhaps I did it in error, not knowing about Romero's E1M1 efforts. Certainly I loved his level.
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Id Software Fun Fact: we had always planned to follow up Doom with a comic combat flight sim (seriously). Then the flight sim became the plan for post-Quake. It never was to be. So you can ponder what a flight sim by id Software would have been like.
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Best anti-zombie weapon is a mace. Sturdy, breaks limbs, crushes skulls, and can break locks & windows. Never runs out of ammo.
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Not everyone likes my Downtown map (Doom II, map 13). But John Romero sure did. He patterned map 15 after it, stylistically and, frankly, outdid me. John Carmack disapproved of ALL outdoor maps, because it made his engine chug.
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a picture from my upcoming Sandy Petersen's Cthulhu Mythos for Pathfinder 2e. Looks like the right side is winning.
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Over the last couple of decades I have watched as John Romero's locks have lengthened, like Samson's. Irrationally I fear he is growing his crop to mock my baldness.
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They say the eye was repaired in yesterday’s surgery. So she will still have her eye! Extremely happy.
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Family tragedy just hit. Literally trying not to let my tears hit my phone. I wish to keep it private, so pls don’t ask but words of comfort or condolence would be welcome.
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Doom 2 was a quickie cash grab, to use some assets from the first game and give the designers something to do while Quake was being built. So when I "complain" about Doom 2 please know that I am fully aware that Quake was well worth it.
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The very first level I built for Doom was E2M6: Halls of the Damned. The line drawing shows its start area, which I constructed in my hiring test. I just built the rest of the Halls around it. So the first wall I ever built made it to the final game.
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I am thankful for the time I spent at id Software. I feel most blessed that I was able to experience that seminal time from 1993-1997 there. It may have ended in tears, but this did not cancel out the greatness that flared up during those years.
#GiveThanks
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See this is why games like Runequest or Call of Cthulhu are better, because no alignment. Instead just explain "Drow like to feed folks to spiders" or "Cthulhu cultists plan to wipe out humanity" and let players reach their own conclusions.
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Anyway just so everyone knows, the greatest edition of Call of Cthulhu is the 4th edition. Why? Because it has a photograph of ME on the back cover. Nothing else matters. Also the image is sooo old it has hair. Yay!
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Today I turn 65. In theory this is when I supposed to retire, but no one seems willing to give me a gold watch. I am still a sexegenarian, and my wife still rolls her eyes when I inform her of this.
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The Quake Shambler's backstory is it feeds off the space-time rifts caused by creatures ripping through it to invade our dimension. It seeks to kill Our Hero because we try to stop the planeshifting monsters.
At least that was the backstory in my head in 1997. Now you know.
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Shadows of Yog-Sothoth was the first ever Call of Cthulhu campaign. I assembled it from a bunch of unrelated scenarios, and then wrote two scenarios to link them together. It was AFAIK the only CoC campaign Chaosium released in which Cthulhu was the actual baddie.
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Origins of Doom II Monsters: the Arch-Vile. We had the model, but it was John Carmack's idea to have it resurrect enemies. I suspect because this was (A) easy to program, so he could spend more time on Quake and (B) led to emergent play, because giblets aren't resurrectable.
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Origins of Doom II Monsters: The Revenant. We'd paid for a latex model of the Revenant for Doom I, but ran out of time to add it. It did get into Doom 2. Adrian gave it such a cool attack animation we fell in love, plus J. Carmack wrote code for heat-seeking rockets. Neat.
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During Quake's development, I remember John Carmack complaining that the Hell Knight had way too many polys. As I recall, at the time it had 135. I think it eventually ballooned up to 200.
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So some folks are saying that I "accused" Doom 2 of being a cash grab. Well so what? The designers didn't have much to do while the Quake engine was brewing. People wanted more Doom levels. It made perfect sense to put us on Doom 2. Yes we made cash on it. Wasn't it deserved?
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Doom E2M2. The window circled in red was added by me specifically so you could snipe people respawning in Deathmatch, at John Romero's and Shawn Green's request. If you're not sure where it is, play the level I guess.
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My Doom II Map 21, "Nirvana", was made the year Kurt Cobain killed himself with a shotgun. And there is a shotgun in the opening room. I swar it is just is a grim coincidence. I never listened to Nirvana (I don't think anyone at id did.). I picked the map name out of the blue.
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In E3M6 Mt. Erebus, John Carmack had the idea for the secret exit. He said, "make them rocket-blast backwards off a ledge into the secret area." We thought that was the ONLY way to get there. But y'all found other options. Boo.
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The name "shambler" is from Lovecraft's "The Horror in the Museum" in which a dimensional shambler appears. I used the term for a monster in my Call of Cthulhu game. In 1987 it appeared in an art book I wrote with Tom Sullivan, and that image was the basis for the Quake art.
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Exactly 44 years and 1 day ago (Christmas 1978) I asked a woman to marry me. She said she'd have to think about it ... but a week later, on New Years, she said yes.
Still married. Also some descendants happened.
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Update: now they are again saying wife might lose her eye. Prayers are intensifying here
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my game shelf. Who has wasted the MOST ON GAMES!!
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In 1994, id Software's compensation was $100,000 salary per developer. I got the same salary as John Carmack. Of course, John Carmack was also an owner, so he got colossal (well-deserved) bonuses, and my bonuses were far smaller (though still nice). I salute you, old id.
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Stark terror: sobbing wife calls from 15 miles away. “I fell & hurt my eye I can’t drive.” Drove panicked to her. Now in hospital. They say she’ll keep her eye. If you believe we welcome prayers. They’ve been efficacious in our lives
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Found this awesomely named “Ham Museum” in Madrid. Went inside expecting to find wax figures of Nick Cage, Jessica Alba, Steven Seagal, and their ilk but all I saw was dried and cured meat.
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It's the greatest game ever devised and EVERYONE should buy their own copy. Of every edition.
How do you guys feel about Call of Cthulhu the TTRPG(Chaosium)?
I really love the Glass Cannon Podcast campaign of it but I've never had the chance to play it. 🤔
Any thoughts?
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Wife is sitting on a plane. The woman next to her says, "What a lovely diamond!" Wife says, "It's the Petersen diamond, but it comes with a terrible curse."
"Oh dear, what is it?"
"Mr. Petersen."
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The first Deathmatch map for Doom was a big square room with no steps, no halls, no decorations, no nothing except ammo and weapons. Romero & his minions played that sucker for hours. My feeling was if THAT map was fun, the bar for a good Deathmatch map was being set super low.
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Doom E1M1: why is the imp high up on a platform in that huge room? John Carmack was so proud of his 3-D, he insisted we show it off by having fireballs angling down towards the hero in a big place.
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Origins of Doom II Monsters: The Icon of Sin. For it to take "damage" we required an actual sprite. Adrian Carmack put John R's head on a stick, and gave it a 2 frame pain animation. The goal was that John not find out till published, but alas he caught us. Love at first sight.
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if I’ve learned one thing in 40 years of game design it’s build a cult game that some people will love, rather than a mass game that everyone will feel lukewarm about.
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Id Software's Doom 2 coding was so amateurish that Kills oft exceeded 100%. It didn't allow for Arch Vile & Pain Elemental fiddling. Code to fix is trivial & we knew about it beforehand. The coders were all focused on Quake, so no one took care of it. I thought twas embarrassing.
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A person with the XY genome's muscle mass regardless of declared gender OBVIOUSLY has an edge over the XX genome in most competitive sports. Instead of classifying sport participation by pronoun, why not by genome?
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One of the lesser-known Lovecraftian bits. The Queen in Yellow.
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I built my house (using Doom bonuses) while working on Doom 2. Doom 2 level 16 The Suburbs has a number of different structures. One is my house. Another is the house I grew up in - this is that one.
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One of the greatest things in my life was traveling back to MicroProse in November 1993 and showing my coworkers Doom - the game I’d been doing since they laid me off. Wish I had pics of their faces.
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Doing an Ask Me Anything on Reddit tomorrow, emphasizing my roleplaying chops.
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Heartfelt gratitude for the prayers, which once more proved their efficacy.
After a night of fearful apprehension (& that’s just me; Lord knows what Wendy felt), her eye is saved. She gets released today. And seems likely she won’t need more surgery. Yay!
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Also 1993. I'd just built Doom E1M1 myself. John Carmack says, "Just learned now to make a skybox. Put outdoors stuff in the level." I was busy on Episodes 2 & 3, so Romero threw out my level and built a new one. With skybox. Romero's level was magnificent. Kudos, Mr. Romero!
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A friend of mine sent this image he found on his sidewalk. I told him not to touch it.
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I just want my granddaughters to be able to compete in track & field against people who don't have a genetic edge. Is that wrong?
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Pet peeve: when archers are ordered to “fire” in a period film. Because of course before the invention of matchlocks that term made no sense.
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In 1984 I took my Science Fiction fan dad (then age 56) to see Lynch's Dune. As we know, Not Good. But my dad was so uncritically happy to see Dune on the big screen that I loved it too. By proxy.
Now he's 93, super-excited for Villeneuve's Dune.
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I posted these earlier in the year but hey why not again? These are 28mm-scale lead figures sent to id Software in 1995 in an attempt to get the license to produce them. The company was shot down by id's biz guy over my protests b/c he wanted Mattel.
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There aren't enough images of Cthulhu fighting sea serpents. Here's one.
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My wife at 67 vs. Madonna at 64. I have nothing against Madonna at all. I am just gloating.
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Got some bad medical news this week. Nothing's terminal but looks like meds are in my foreseeable future, plus other life alterations. I guess I'm 65 and have evaded such bullets ere now so maybe it's about time.
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My wife’s friend, currently in Japan, sent her this picture. So I guess now I know what my name looks like in Japanese!
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Why is there a nail gun in Quake? Simple. It's John Carmack's homage to the fact we had Trent Reznor doing the music. Nine Inch Nails, amiright?
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When my granddaughter Zelda draws a picture for me, she always includes what appears to be Cthulhu
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I know I haven’t posted in almost a week. Still grieving. Sorry.
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I 100% agree with Jackson's decision to excise Bombadil. It's a weird side track that interrupts the flow. Not as big a flaw in a book as a film, but still. Also though I love Ghan-Buri-Ghan I agree with his absence.
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My son was telling my 5-year old grandson a bedtime story in which the heroes went deep into a cave. Suddenly, my grandson interjected, "And they saw the MOUTH of the world. And it was EATING."
In 12 words he created imagery scarier than 99% of my stuff, and it's my career.
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Quake Fun Fact One: it was originally going to be a fantasy D&D-like setting. The ogres and knights are the only remaining vestiges of that plan.
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Doom 2 is loosely organized in a sequence which blends from built-up structures to demonic nightmares. The maps were not constructed in this sequence. It came about because once we had all the maps, I was tasked with arranging their order. Blame me if you hate it.
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Microsoft spring 2000: "You need to add Koreans to the Conquerors expansion."
Sandy: "To their credit, Koreans weren't expansionist. Why must we add them?
MS: "Because Starcraft sold 3 million copies in Korea."
Sandy: "But ... Starcraft has no Koreans."
MS: "Do it!"
Me: "ok"
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I was asked: "When did you get the idea for CoC?" In 1978 I'd made what I called American Gothic - a modern-era, horror-oriented RPG. In 1980, Chaosium asked me to do an HPL horror game on their BRP system., I had to change everything, but was already headed into that mindset.
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The Vore was named by me and I swear on a stack of bibles I had never heard of the "vore" fetish, if it even existed back then because ick. Sadly I no longer remember where I invented the word from.
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Thanks for all the love vocalized during our recent scary adventure. Wendy is resting. I'm tending to her, and we will be seeing the eye doctor early next week to see what's next, how much vision we can save (crossed fingers for 100%).
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A friend just told me about the gaming store near him. It has a gumball machine filled with dice, and a rule that any roll made can be replaced with a die that freshly came out of it. That's genius. I encourage other game stores to adopt this plan.
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Proud grampa with Lavinia. Sadly son wouldn’t go for Whateley as a middle name.
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a friend made this and showed it to me. Not sure what to think.
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Asked in a DM why so many Spider Masterminds in Doom 2. Since it's a "final boss". The truth is after DOom 1, the Mastermind was another model we could use. Also that id's leads didn't want to spend any time on a new boss. That's why the "ultimate boss" is the lame-o Baphomet.
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Quake's Scrags function like our original plan for Doom's Lost Souls. I.e., float in the distance and snipe at you. I must say the improved Lost Souls which shriek and rocket you are the greatest, and I miss them in Quake, though I suppose the Fiend & Spawn kinda fill the niche.
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One reason I loved HPL is I knew enough science to know that alien humanoids were dumb. Aliens would be shaped nothing like us. Lovecraft's aliens did this. The only exception are Deep Ones, which I believe are Cthulhu constructs designed to interact with humans.
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I was asked to show my library. Currently a mess because preparing to move but …
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In Doom 2:16, The Suburbs, this is the house I was then building, based on the blueprints. I still live in this house today, though fewer Imps now. This shot looks towards my library. The Eye is my entertainment center. The platform in the middle of the floor is there.
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After 40 years of playing Runequest, in one of our games we finally achieved the Gold Standard on our fumble table - a saber tooth cat fumbled and bit its own head off. We literally cheered.
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Origins of Doom II Monsters: Mancubus. An enemy which didn't have a latex-and-steel model first. I can't recall if Kevin Cloud or Adrian did most of the work on this. Also, the sound it makes is literally pigs grunting, not the obscene words you've been imagining, you perv.
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