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              <p><font color="#0000FF"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000CC">volume 
                1, issue 36</font></b></font></p>
              <p><font color="#0000FF"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000CC"> 
                </font></b></font></p>
              <p>  <p><font face="Courier New, Courier, mono"><b><font color="#339900" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Today 
                in loonygames:</font></b></font></p>

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              <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><a href="http://www.raven-games.com">Raven-Games.com</a>: 
                A great resource for classic Raven games.</font></p>
              
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      <td width="62%" height="936" align="left" valign="top"> 
        <p align="center"><font size="+3" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0022A8">Inside 
          Raven Software:<br>
          <font size="+1">the definitive history</font> </font></p>
        <p align="RIGHT"><font color="#804000"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">By 
          Jason &quot;<a href="mailto:jason@loonygames.com">loonyboi</a>&quot; 
          Bergman</font></b></font></p>
        <p align="RIGHT">&nbsp;</p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Shortly after <b>Black Crypt</b> 
          shipped, the boys at Raven realized that the Amiga wasn't really a viable 
          platform any longer. When they placed an ad in a local paper for a new 
          PC programmer, they attracted the attention of another developer in 
          the Madison area, id Software. Raffel explained, "they came over to 
          see us, and it was Tom Hall, and John Romero, and John Carmack, and 
          Adrian [Carmack]…the original clan. They liked what they saw of our 
          stuff, and we got to be friends." id had already achieved success with 
          their <b>Commander Keen</b> titles, and were currently working on their 
          first real FPS title, <b>Wolfenstein 3D</b>. "The thing that surprised 
          us right away is how open John Carmack was…we saw <b>Catacombs</b>, 
          the first [game from a first person perspective]. And my brother said, 
          'jeez, that's the way games are gonna go.' We thought Carmack could 

          point to our programmers how to do that…we were kind of na&iuml;ve at 
          the time." While Carmack didn't teach the Raven programmers how to do 
          it themselves, he did agree to license a version of the <b>Wolfenstein 
          3D</b> engine to them for <b>Shadowcaster</b>, their next title. This 
          pre-<b>Doom</b> engine was more advanced than the original <b>Wolfenstein 
          </b>engine, and had some pretty high system requirements for its day: 
          it required a 386. This started a relationship with id that has continued 
          to this day. Raven's current project, <b>Soldier of Fortune</b> uses 
          a highly modified version of the <b>Quake II</b> engine. </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">"[<b>Shadowcaster</b>] was 
          one of our first of many attempts to blend role-playing and action," 
          Michael Raymond-Judy, one of the game's designers explained. <b>Shadowcaster</b> 
          was to be his first game, as he came on board towards the end of the 
          game's development. How he wound up at Raven is yet another one of those 
          strange "friend-of-a-friend" stories that would appear to be a running 
          theme. "When Brian [Raffel] decided to go full time, he had been teaching 
          at one of the high schools near here. When he retired from teaching, 
          the person who took his job, his wife worked with my wife. They passed 
          along the information that there was actually a game company here in 
          Madison that was looking to hire someone with a role-playing background 
          to make maps, which was just unbelievable. I had just finished my degree 
          in history, which I figured would get me a very high paying job at Burger 
          King." He hopped on board, and finished up the level design on <b>Shadowcaster</b>.</font></p>
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              <div align="center"><i><font size="-1"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Shadowcaster</font></b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> 
                used a pre-<b>Doom</b> id engine.</font></font></i></div>
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        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Shadowcaster</b> was also 
          the first title for Raven newcomer Brian Pelletier, who actually turned 
          down a gig at Marvel Comics to join the team (considering their current 
          financial situation, you might call this an excellent decision). Brian 
          had a mutual friend of Brian and Steve Raffel who told them about his 
          work. They were looking to hire artists, as they were expanding, and 
          Pelletier accepted the job. He explained, "Because I had just gotten 
          in with Marvel, I was getting little things, and it was just really 
          slow. And those guys offered me like a real art job full time, paying 
          a lot more than I was making as a manager at a grocery store. So I took 
          the job, thinking, okay, I'll work here for a while until the Marvel 
          gig picks up and I get a lot of work." Obviously Pelletier decided to 
          stay a bit longer than that. He's currently heading up the art team 
          on <b>Star Trek: Voyager</b>, one of Raven's current projects. During 
          <b>Shadowcaster</b>'s development, id began work on the game that would 
          change everything: <b>Doom</b>. Since they already had a solid relationship, 
          Raven was asked to be one of the two companies who would work on <b>Doom</b> 
          engine titles (the other one was Rogue, who used it to create <b>Strife</b>). 
          Raven agreed, and <b>Heretic </b>was born.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">But while <b>Heretic </b>was 
          in development using id technology, another first person shooter was 
          in the works at Raven Software using their own engine, written by Carl 
          Stika (now at Crystal Dynamics). <b>CyClones</b>, a first person adventure 
          that put the gamer up against a race of Cybernetic Clones (get it?) 
          was made in 11 months. In that time they managed to create an original 
          first person, sprite-based engine, finish the entire game, and get it 
          on the shelves. Pretty fast, don't you think? They would later repeat 
          this feat of speed with <b>Heretic II</b>, although that title used 
          a licensed engine! Looking back on it, Brian Raffel sees it as a learning 
          experience. "Even Spielberg has <i>1941</i>…considering the time we 
          had, and the budget we had, I think we did a great job. It's hard to 
          beat Carmack…we didn't want to have all of our eggs in one basket, and 
          it was something we wanted to try." Eric Biessman pointed out a few 
          of the innovations in <b>CyClones</b>, "it was the first game to have 
          mouselook, jump, flight and an inventory system. But, it was slow. That's 
          what it came down to."</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">SSI published <b>CyClones</b> 
          in late '94, but the boys at Raven didn't take any time off…they were 
          already well into development on <b>Heretic</b>, the game that would 
          propel them into the spotlight. Michael Raymond-Judy started work on 
          <b>Heretic</b> just after completing <b>Shadowcaster</b>, and for him, 
          this was a big transition. "It was a major leap in the sense that there 
          weren't as many restrictions. You could very often do things that you 
          shouldn’t do. I still remember quite frequently building these very 
          complicated, convoluted pieces of architecture and as soon as you start 
          it up you realize you've hit the max visible area and it dumps you out."</font> 
        </p>
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            <td> 
              <div align="center"><i><font size="-1" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">This 
                version of <b>Heretic</b> didn't ship until after <b>Hexen II</b>.</font></i></div>
            </td>
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        </table>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Heretic</b> has a really 
          bizarre publishing history, as Brian Raffel recalled. "First they did 
          it shareware, it sold about forty or fifty-thousand units. At that time 
          id had been putting out those little demo disks, and people were selling 
          them for about ten dollars a pop, and they didn't care, they just wanted 
          to get the word out, to get the shareware out. Which was a good concept. 
          Well, GT [Interactive] came up with the concept of, 'let's try to sell 
          this. You give us exclusives to these copies, and we'll sell it.' And 
          so they boxed up the shareware version of <b>Heretic</b> and it sold, 
          like, 500,000 units. And then, and this is the only thing I wasn't happy 
          about, they decided to hold <b>Heretic</b> [the retail version] until 
          after <b>Hexen</b> was done and through its sales cycle, and then they 
          republished <b>Heretic</b>."</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">If that sounds strange, just 
          wait…it gets better. After <b>Hexen</b> was released, the full version 
          of <b>Heretic</b> finally hit the shelves. But it doesn't just stop 
          there. In fact, after <b>Hexen II</b> was released, <b>Heretic</b> was 
          released <i>again</i>, this time under the moniker <b>Heretic: Shadow 
          of the Serpent Riders</b>. This was to be the final, final version of 
          <b>Heretic</b>. I suppose it's no shocker that Raven's next game to 
          arrive after <b>Hexen II</b> would be <b>Heretic II</b>. I guess they 
          just can't help coming back to <b>Heretic</b>.</font></p>
        <p>&nbsp; </p>
        <p align="RIGHT"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><i>(<a href="index3.php">Continued 
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      <p><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2"><b>Credits:</b> 
        Illustration &copy; 1999 Rowan Crawford. This article is &copy; 1999 Jason 
        Bergman. All other content is &copy; 1999 <a target="_self" href="http://www.loonyboi.com">loonyboi 
        productions</a>. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited, so 
        don't try it...or we'll peck your eyes out. </font></i></p>
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