Development:Doom (PC, 1993)

This page details development materials of Doom (PC, 1993).

John Romero freely gave out early content for his games. Doom is one of them.

To do: Romero released more early and unused art, which some images from the archive have already been covered, so here is the updated version. Original is archived here. The full source code the DOS/Mac versions from 1996 was leaked in September 2023. Article on Doom wiki and discussion thread with discoveries on Doomworld. Some stuff not released by Romero is present. Todo for DOS/Mac Source Code sub-page: Compare differences between the leaked code and the officially release. This page probably needs some sorting. Animate sprites. 200 milliseconds per frame should be enough.

Sub-Pages

Notes

Source Code

Linux Source Code The source code officially released in 1997.

Unused Monster

Dubbed "The Blob", this monster concept would spawn off any wall, animate, and spawn a Lost Soul. Its spritesheet was retrieved from a backup image of one of id's NeXT development servers by an anonymous source. The spawning Lost Soul graphic would later be reused as the inside of the Pain Elemental's mouth in Doom II.

(Source: John Romero, http://doomwiki.imgur.com/)

Early and Unused Maps

These map images were provided by the same source as The Blob spritesheet. They were taken with Doom Builder.

A small unused map apparently consisting of staircases with a monster closet at each landing, leading to two larger rooms. There's a Cyberdemon in the last room. It is possible that this was an early rendition of E2M8: Tower of Babel, due to the staircase design and presence of the Cyberdemon, but as it is very small map and with not much room to move, it's not surprising this map never made it to the final game, regardless of what it might have been for.

This is E1M1 from the 0.5 alpha, but with added sections and things. Curiously, the additions are very similar to the ones made to the final E3M1 in E3M9: Warrens.

An early version of E1M8: Phobos Anomaly which is closer to E1M12 in the 0.5 alpha than the final version of the map. Since the alpha, a number of things have been added, some detail sectors and sound blocking lines, and the large room with the Barons of Hell has been brightened.

An interesting take on E2M2: Containment Area. Its texturing is closer to the final map than E1M2 in the 0.5 alpha, but its geometry is still rough compared to E3M2 in the pre-beta. Even stranger, some of the geometry is closer to the final map than the pre-beta, such as the door to the room with the chainsaw being around the corner from the start point.

An early version of E3M2: Slough of Despair. The level layout is mostly the same, only missing the "booger" at the top of the middle finger and a few dividing walls, but a number of detail sectors are missing from it.

21st Birthday Resource Release

To do: Erred on the side of caution with stuff that was actually used in the alphas. Should go over those assets at some point and see if the ones Romero released are earlier/newer.

On December 10, 2014 (Doom's 21st birthday), John Romero released a large number of in-development and unused art and music assets for both Doom games on Twitter.

(Source: John Romero's Twitter)

Graphics in Development

Captures of the player sprites, with one frame near final. Based on the filename, this is actually the Zombieman, though, and the first frame is actually present in the 0.4 alpha.

The (Pinky) Demon's legs were actually drawn over a capture of a toy dinosaur! More specifically the Kenner Jurassic Park Dilophosaurus figure.

Grayscale captures of the Baron of Hell, with some early work isolating the different rotations for its head.

A capture of a skull, which would be the basis for the Lost Soul.

Captures of different Cyberdemon poses, the first in grayscale and color.

Test captures of the Spider Mastermind — these are larger than the ones used for the final sprites.

A toy Beretta, painted black, which would be used for the pistol. It includes some angled captures not used by the final animations.

A capture of a toy, which would become the chaingun.

A sketch of the episode 1 intermission map background.

Sketches that would become the episode 2 and 3 end graphics.

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Demon face sketches of the Arch-Vile and the Baron in the process of being cleaned up, to be used as wall and floor textures (for MWALL4_2 being the Arch-Vile and MWALL5_1 being the Baron specifically).

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Along with the previous textures, the Icon of Sin had the most work put into to get the MWALL4_1 wall texture and the DEM1 "death teleporter" flat textures as seen in E1M8.

Circuit board photos that would be used as the basis for some of the TEKWALL textures.

Experimentation with the Pinkie's stretchy mouth.

Lava flat textures, which are based off the original blood/slime textures.

Early shell cases, a box of rockets, and energy cell packs. The lesser ammo pickups were dumbed down and simplified in the final release.

Work in progress graphics of the "Evil Eye" thing object, including cut out versions of the green aura and the eye itself. There is also a mini yellow skull with an unknown purpose.

A sheet that shows tiny skull key icons along with a more early and more accurately colored yellow skull key, a cut out skull from the skull wall that was likely used for the skull switch and skull key poles, and a frame of the Baron that was likely used for the W108_1 texture AKA the hung Baron corpse wall door that can be seen at the start of E2M8.

Earlier UAC logo and CYL1_1 wall texture.

Work-In-progress versions of both the W105 wall texture and the DOOR11_1 door.

More edited and nearly complete versions of other doors from episode 1 and 2.

Highly work-in-progress marble stair and wall textures.

Constantly changing HELL wall textures and the INTERPIC from Doom episode 4 and Doom 2, with the first being a sketch from Adrian Carmack.

Revisions of the game's logo, from the direct scan with little editing to being nearly complete to be used within the main menu.

Revisions of the WALL79_1 wall seen from episode 3.

Work-in-progress SNAK (snake) wall textures, starting from Adrian's sketch to being nearly complete.

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Several iterations of the SPINE wall textures, starting from a sketch from Adrian Carmack once more, to near completion. The 4th image shows an incomplete and goofy-looking skeleton next to Doomguy with a detailed skull, probably related to making the small skull key sprites.

Iterations of the WALL25_1 texture.

The source image for the infamous DOOR2_4 door and PLAT2_1 lift patches being worked on. Unlike the final doors, this one was intended to have a transparent bottom, and looks like it might've been designed to open both up and down. Doors with transparency aren't really (intentionally) possible in the Doom engine, so they ended up giving the final doors a flat bottom instead.

Unused Graphics

An early title screen, apparently pasted over an id Software logo.

A more finalized copy of the logo used on the screen above.

A possible backdrop for the title, featuring a face of the Baron instead of multiple monsters infighting.

This is the original font drawn for Doom.

An earlier style for the BFG9000.

As a side note, one of the unused shooting frames was seen in one of the screenshots of the shareware version's sell screen, so technically this one frame is used in some form within the game's release.

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In the final game, a number of monsters' right-facing frames are just mirrored copies of the left-facing frames, likely to save space on the disk or in memory. The right-facing frames for the player and enemy marines were drawn, however. Here are the player sprites...

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...the Zombieman, with WIP copies of the edits made to the marine in the scratch space on the right of the first frame...

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...and the Shotgun Guy.

An unused player decapitation death animation, and with other death animations of Doomguy but ripped in half, which both the legs are upper torso would be counted as two different sprites. Interestingly enough, these specific death animations were recycled for the Imp's death animation and sprites.

At one point in development, the Spider Mastermind was going to have a magic attack that likely would've held the player in place, leaving them vulnerable to the demon's chaingun. This is one of the frames for it. It was evidently cut rather late, as the chaingun uses its final 6-barreled Wolf3D-esque version, and not the small 3-barreled version seen on the original model.

(Source: John Romero's Twitter)

Various projectile and impact sprites, some of which were unused but still present in early releases of the game. The notable thing here is the impact in cell 26, 17, which looks to be a larger blood spat and has never been seen before.

Frames for two different styles of bush, with two burned variants of each. These may have been intended for Doom II, given its setting on Earth.

Marble wall carving textures featured in the final game, but with alternate eye styles/colors for one of the demons included.

An updated copy of SKY1 from the pre-beta, recolored, with a lot more detail added to it.

(Terribad) Sign and monitor patches to go on walls. Some of these were used in the alphas, but most weren't.

Early wall and door patches, and an id logo.

Some pipe patches intended to be used on wall textures.

A wall labeled "Don't use", so they didn't.

Window midtextures, more casual windows probably intended for Doom 2, and what appears to be gate textures. Some went unused.

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Early designs of the signs along with new "BAY" signs pointing left and right. There is also new caution, building/sector, and repair signs that were not seen from the other builds. On the right there is also early voltage, and explosive signs that don't have shading. Only the red octagon sign with the "disallowed entry" icon survived development and was properly used within the final game in the Cacodemon room in E2M3.

Different variations of skull candles. Some of them have different head and skull sprites, and even the Zombieman was used as a reference.

Graphic	Description
	The visor HUD was planned to have more readable stats on-screen, such as an active enemy count, total enemy count, active sprite count(?), area number (probably relating to what room or what episode and map you are on), player ht(?), and degree facing (what angle the player is facing).
	Elements that were likely to display on the HUD, such as the weapons, weapon names, general numbers, text, and some small lost soul sprites that have an unknown purpose. The Lost Soul sprites seem to have active and inactive states, along with highlighted and untouched states. The same graphics also have versions without their jaws.
	Early UAC logos along with UAAF (United Aerospace Armed Forces) logos, which is a different agency mentioned from the Doom Bible that coexists with the UAC. The UAAF was never mentioned again after the Doom Bible was made. "Edge of window" is likely meant to be used within the HUD.
	Same style of UI as the previous sheet, but more detailed with more of a 90's techno command-line style instead of the black and blue visor palette. Basic stats such as the current holding weapon, current ammo capacity, other ammo capacities, armor, health, keys, time, and status bar/multiplayer chat (as seen later). Some new stats are stamina, likely related to the speed or how the player is walking or running, lives and score are self-explanatory. The key card colors are pretty bland, as there is one yellow, white, and dark yellow key instead of blue, red, and yellow. A hand and red reticle icons also exist with unknown purposes. There appears to be some sort of a red radar map, and beside that is some sort of unknown vertical rectangle with a red to white gradient. Some single colored dark green digits for two different sizes are also seen on the bottom of the sheet. Some of the UI was used later.
	Getting closer to the final release, this shows a similar UI to the visor view, but more dumbed down and more similar to the current HUD. The key cards are also more recognizable, as the blue and yellow cards do exist, but the red one appears to be green in this case. It's notable some of the UI was used for version 0.5.
	The HUD is nearly complete, and has the stone design along with some tabs for the removed and unused score system, and the weapons which also went unused. The weapons tab seems to also have abbreviated text reading "WPNS" and "PONS" as if the weapons tab was going to be shrunken to fit onto the HUD with the other tabs. The arms tab also seems to be unnamed. There is also long unmarked tabs which have unknown purposes; probably just a placeholder. Miniature weapon sprites can be seen, to show what weapons you own and don't own, which Quake would later reuse that concept. Early less detailed large HUD number text in white, yellow, and orange can be seen that was later changed to the iconic red digits.

Several graphics of the HUD or relating to the HUD.

Early graphics of the barrel exploding with less detailed explosions. These explosions may have been repurposed for the Cyberdemon's death animation, as those sprites also have less detailed explosions. Another version of the barrel is seen without any liquid visible.

Hey look! It's the chair! And it has a more detailed and higher resolution version too! The direct photographs of the chair in its different rotation frames can also be seen from the first sheet. The early barrel and the storage canister is also here labeled with "anim", likely meaning the canister was going to have an animation of some sort, maybe of it opening, but it never got finished.

Early toxic waterfall animation.

Graphic	Description
	The graphics here are similar or are directly from version 0.3, but now the pickup sprite of the pistol's text is now yellow instead of dark red.
	A lot of different changes that retain to alpha 0.4 and alpha 0.5. The BFG 2704 didn't have a pickup sprite from alpha 0.5, but on here beside the chainsaw, this is what it would have looked like! Truly does look like a "Big F***ing Gun".
	Some of those strange powerup jars, the brown barrel, flag stands without any mounted flags, the small black lamp that breaks, and another barrel, but grey.
	Within the fourth sheet, the first jar was changed to an early version of the Super Shotgun interestingly (based on an educated guess by the grey colored gauge), the 2nd slot has the jar marked with "NG", likely meaning "not used" in some way, the barrels were changed into the final ones with both of them consisting with the barrel's animation, the first flag stand was changed to the backpack, the second flag stand was removed entirely, and all other textures were marked with "NG".

There's a lot of different sprite changes and unused graphics these sheets with the weapons and items.

The soul jar had a rework, the bloody chalice was changed to the demonic dagger, the skull treasure was changed into the evil sceptre, the unholy bible was changed to be opened, the early mega armor was changed into the completed version, the early cell/shield generator was changed into another jar, and the antenna for the 2nd shield generator was removed.

Early shields, and jars galore. The early barrel (see later), the strange bright column, flags, water, and more lamps.

Teleporter textures with one being blue and one with the base being silver with the pentagram in gold marked as "NOT USE".

Some unused stone flat textures.

Berserker powerups, with an unused berserker stimpack, and along with the soul jar. Why is it with the berserker items? Who knows.

An (seemingly) empty barrel, a slightly overflowing barrel, and the green armor as well as the early mega armor.

Switches, but now there is very tiny 8x8 switches with 3 different colors, green, red, and white with each of their activation states. What could have these been used for? Who knows.

Episode 3's switch, but with red veins around the eye. The second image has the eye encased in some sort of stone or metal encasing and looking around; probably used for different states or maybe it was to look at the player or around its environment. It is worth noting that the Cacodemon was recycled for making the switch, then was given a more realistic and more human-like eye.

None of the ceiling textures here were changed except for the placeholder "tom is king" ceiling that was probably meant for the v0.2 prototype that was changed to "tom is shit" as id Software employees and developers had some beef with Tom and Adrian back then.

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Experimentation of the hanging corpse objects, along with burning ones and ones that appear to be gibbed.

This strange and out-of-place graphic for Doom, is a graphic from Raptor: Call of the Shadows. Probably used as a placeholder for the title screen or cutscenes as the first unfinished graphic was labeled as test4_lbm.

Different variations of the TLITE flat.

More HUD elements, but this time with several unused and never before seen item names and messages.

• Multi-Clip, perhaps early name for ammo box.
• Lots o' Shells, early name for shell box.
• Super Cell, early name for cell pack.
• Std. (standard) armor, likely the regular armor.
• Officer Armor, the early name for mega armor?
• Strength, early name for the berserk powerup?
• Speed, maybe a Sonic speed shoes-like powerup at some point?
• Vampiric? I guess you can steal enemy health similar to how Glory Kills work in the reboot? Maybe it got reused for the game? Who knows.
• Soul Jar, likely the early name for the supercharge/soul sphere.

The source cabinet sprites, but not stretched out.

A yellow switched on lamp that seems to break, fray, and spark with incomplete animations.

An entirely unused version of the armor bonus, likely a more buffed armor bonus, other early armor type, or early invulnerability graphics as the invulnerability sphere's animation is seen below the helmet graphics.

Hanging wired lights, the barrel, and the storage canister. The storage canister seemed to have an electric sparking animation.

More wired lights, early light amplification visor, box of rockets, cell pack, ammo box, shell case, a lamp, and some other decorative objects.

Early key cards, early radiation suit with a soul jar that has the word "DUPE" and an arrow pointing to it, a stalactite that is likely the source of part of episode 3's skybox, and a taller version of episode 1 and 2's column.

Another jar, and different versions of different lamps, but colored brown with the light being blue.

Interestingly, the left wall texture on the first image was used for the W65 AKA "fireblu" texture. The texture was later replaced for the W94 wall texture, with some of the wall being colored incorrectly and clips out of the usual 128x128 resolution. Right texture was reused for the WALL63 and WALL64 textures.

A test screenshot or some sort of mockup. Some flat textures appear to clip through the player's held weapon, and the background monsters are (Pinky) demons.

Very tall versions of the AG128 wall textures.

An unused small version of the WALL25_1 texture, labeled "Don't use".

Unused variants of W96 and WALL97 textures labeled "Don't use".

2 different iterations of an unused stone wall texture. This texture is labeled as Wall61.

An unused frame of the W73 wall texture.

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Several different unused iterations of the W98, W99, W101, W92 textures, and other variations. The fifth and ninth appear to have an eye looking at the player or at its environment, similar to the moving eye switch seen earlier.

Early Music

Along with the scans and other art for Doom 1 and 2, there is also early fragments and some complete tracks within the archive. Doom 1 and 2's music were influenced heavily on other rock and metal bands, and these tracks do not hide the fact. All tracks that were set to play in the game will be using DOS/Windows MIDI for comparison.

Cover Tracks

Bobby Prince made several covers of other bands tracks, and he did so for Doom 1 and 2 all because he was a lawyer. The original song a track is derived from is seen on the left, with the MIDI cover in the middle, and the final release's track on the right.

E1M3 - Dark Halls

Original Song	MIDI Cover	Alpha Version	Release

This is the most revised track in the game as we know of, as there is 4 different versions of this singular song. One thing that should be noted, as the original Man in the Box track constantly changes through different tempos throughout the song, while the MIDI cover doesn't feature any tempo change. An early version of Dark Halls can be seen and heard in Romero's data dump with some very heavy instrument changes compared to the Man in the Box cover. It's very subtle, but the drums are almost the same along with that singular bell tone for the background melody being the chorus of Man in the Box throughout all tracks. Between the alpha version and finalized version of Dark Halls, though, there is very minor instrumentation, note, and volume changes.

E1M9 - Hiding the Secrets

Original Song	MIDI Cover	Release

Similarly to E1M3, the main riff heard in the direct cover of Alice in Chains "We Die Young" was changed up to be more of Bobby's style, but the drumbeat is primarily the same (albeit a minor tempo change).

E2M1 - I Sawed the Demons

Original Song	MIDI Cover	Release

Noticeable note changes, and some changes within the track structure.

E3M2 - Donna to the Rescue

Original Song	MIDI Cover	Release

The starting basis of "Leather Rebel" is used for the track, with more instruments added to the mix within the final. Similarly, the main basis of Body Count's "Body Count's in The House" could also be interpreted for an inspiration as another similar riff can be heard.

E3M3 - Deep Into the Code

Original Song	MIDI Cover	Release

We also have Slayer's (appropriately fitting) "Behind The Crooked Cross", to the mix of "inspirations" with a fast paced track. Only slight instrument additions and changes.

E3M8 - Facing the Spider

Original Song	MIDI Cover	Release

Two different tracks were created from the gritty "Sargent "D" and the S.O.D." from S.O.D., which one was one changed and used for the track when you face Spider Mastermind. Perhaps both were meant to be used within the same level, but who knows.

Unused Covers

Doom 1/2 has a surprising amount of unused MIDI covers of copyrighted songs. These might either not have fit the quality of the game's theme or were demos.

S.O.D. - Pi Alpha Nu

Original Song	MIDI Cover

S.O.D. - Milano Mosh

Original Song	MIDI Cover

Bachman-Turner Overdrive - Let It Ride

Original Song	MIDI Cover

A modified version of this cover found its way into Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold, as the music track "Jungle".

S.O.D. - Speak English Or Die

Original Song	MIDI Cover

Slayer - Raining Blood

Original Song	MIDI Cover

Slayer - Silent Scream

Original Song	MIDI Cover

Stone Temple Pilots - Dead & Bloated

Original Song	MIDI Cover

Soundgarden - Rusty Cage

Original Song	MIDI Cover

Soundgarden - Outshined

Original Song	MIDI Cover

Soundgarden - Slaves & Bulldozers

Original Song	MIDI Cover

Alice In Chains - Rain When I Die

Original Song	MIDI Cover

Alice In Chains - Rooster

Original Song	MIDI Cover

Alice In Chains - Junkhead

Original Song	MIDI Cover

Alice In Chains - Dirt

Original Song	MIDI Cover

Alice In Chains - God Smack

Original Song	MIDI Cover

Pantera - Walk

Original Song	MIDI Cover

Some minor instrument, note, and volume changes. This is the only original track that Bobby Prince made for a level from the resource dump.

Unused Original Tracks

Romero's Funkiness

What? An original track that's unused? Perhaps this was maybe a placeholder track, as this uses John Romero's name into it and has no connection to any hit songs. A track in Doom 2 has John Romero's name titled "Waiting for Romero to Play".