David Brevik's GDC 2016 postmortem of Diablo covers how it went from a turn-based claymation DOS concept to a real-time action RPG, plus the story of Blizzard North and development anecdotes.
Why Hacker News points people here: Frequently recommended whenever Diablo or its origins come up, for its candid account of the human side of game development.
“heartily recommended if you want to know about the human aspect behind game dev”HN comment, 2023
Brevik tells how Diablo became real-time and birthed the ARPG.
Full comment
Allow me to quote Diablo developer David Brevik describing when he finally yielded to demands and hacked together a "real time" version of his turn-based Diablo, by making turns elapse the rate of 20 turns a second. 'I remember taking the mouse, and I clicked on the mouse, and the warrior walked over and and smacked the skeleton down, and I was like "Oh my god! That was awesome!".' 'And the sun shone through the window, and God passed by, and the angels sung, and sure enough that was when the ARPG was kind of born at that moment, and I was lucky enough to be there.' this video If you're in this part of this comment thread, you'll probably enjoy the whole video.
Strongly recommendsbaristavibesJul 2023
“heartily recommended if you want to know about the human aspect behind game dev”
Shows the human side of game development.
Full comment
This story and many others are captured really well in the Game Developer Conference (GDC) post-mortem talks, heartily recommended if you want to know about the human aspect behind game dev!! this video
RecommendsdoikorFeb 2018
“you really should check the postmortem from the GDC a few years back”
Postmortem covering Diablo's origins and Blizzard North.
Full comment
Brevik was one of the founders Condor (Brevik was the president while the Schaefer brothers were vice-presidents) which later became Blizzard North when Blizzard bought them. The work on Diablo started before Blizzard bought them. He really was one of the "creators". IIRC they made the first Diablo game with a team of 15-20 people. In a team that small pretty much everyone is a "game designer" as in everyone wears many hats (especially the president of the company) If you are interested you really should check the postmortem from the GDC a few years back this video
RecommendsReedxMar 2018
“Worth watching for any fans of the original”
Origins of Diablo and Blizzard North, with amusing Q&A.
Full comment
David Brevik released that just after the Diablo postmortem from GDC a couple years ago: this video Worth watching for any fans of the original and if you want more context around that pitch. Lots of interesting tidbits about the origins of Diablo and Blizzard North. And an amusing moment during the Q&A: Someone in the audience went up and gave David some money to make up for pirating the game when he was a kid.
RecommendsoraknaboJun 2018
“I love the idea that it was originally a dungeon crawl inspired by X-COM”
Gives new respect for Diablo, including its turn-based origins.
Full comment
I was never a huge Diablo fan, but I could always appreciate the things people liked about it. I gained new respect for it from watching Brevik's GDC postmortem [0] from a couple of years ago. I love the idea that it was originally a dungeon crawl inspired by X-COM and would love to play one of the early builds before they changed to real-time combat. [0]: this video
RecommendsReedxJun 2018
“the GDC post mortem is well worth a watch”
Detail on Diablo's origin, turn-based to real-time, Blizzard North.
Full comment
For anyone interested in the history of Diablo, the GDC post mortem is well worth a watch: this video Quite a bit of detail regarding the origin of the game, going turn-based to real-time, the studio becoming Blizzard North, etc. Also here's the original design doc: link
RecommendswcarssJul 2020
“a pretty excellent post mortem at GDC”
Story of Diablo becoming real-time and other anecdotes.
Full comment
Diablo was far from the first ARPG, but given how influential it has been for the genre, I was floored to learn that it was actually designed and implemented as a turn-based game, and only turned into an Action RPG by request of folks at the main Blizzard office. The founder of Blizzard North (David Brevik) thought it was a dumb idea, and only agreed to do it because it seemed like a large enough work item to justify requesting an additional budget milestone from Blizzard, which his office was hurting for sorely. Brevik then got it working over the course of roughly an afternoon, by just running the turn system automatically and responding to clicks a little differently. It was only after seeing the action-oriented click-walk-attack-click flow actually work for the first time that he realized: they'd struck gold. He told this story (and lots of others!) in a pretty excellent post mortem at GDC[1] a few years ago. 1 - this video
Recommendssomedude895Feb 2021
“post mortem on D1 from GDC by the way”
Fantastic postmortem on Diablo 1 development.
Full comment
That's an interesting thought, but I'd assume 20 year old 3D models wouldn't be much use today, would they? I know they were thinking about making D2 a 3D game at first, like Runescape, but then went with 2D, because 3D technology wasn't at a point that allowed them to carry over the gritty and dark theme they wanted for Diablo. And then went on to make D3 look as cartoony as it does... They used photos of clay figurines for Diablo 1, would be fun if they remade that with 3D scanning techniques. Do check out David Brevik's post mortem on D1 from GDC by the way, it's fantastic: this video
RecommendscpetersoJun 2023
“To find out what happened next, check out Diablo developer David Brevik”
Brevik's GDC 2016 postmortem on what happened next.
Full comment
To find out what happened next, check out Diablo developer David Brevik’s postmortem presentation at GDC 2016: this video
Cites itcpetersoJan 2018
Listed among favorite talks of 2017.
Full comment
* To Serve The People: Public Interest Technologists. Matt Mitchell is a hacker, security researcher, operational security trainer, and data journalist who founded & leads CryptoHarlem, impromptu workshops teaching basic cryptography tools to the predominately African American community in upper Manhattan. link * Stop Rate Limiting! Capacity Management Done Right. Jon Moore is the Chief Software Architect at Comcast Cable, where he focuses on delivering a core set of scalable, performant, robust software components for the company's varied software product development groups. link * Keeping Time in Real Systems. This talk will tour the fascinating timekeeping mechanisms used in real systems. We will explore atomic clocks, NTP and GPS through systems that use them, and logical clocks in the context of systems built on logical time. link * Level Up Your Concurrency Skills With Rust. This talk will show you how Rust will catch many concurrency errors at compile time. link * Diablo: A Classic Game Postmortem. Diablo developer David Brevik returns to the GDC stage to give a classic post-mortem on Blizzard's action RPG hit Diablo in this 2016 talk. this video * The Flash Games Postmortem . In this 2017 GDC talk, Kongregate's John Cooney attempts to encapsulate the immense history of Flash games and how it has shaped the current game industry by giving game developers their first chance to build and publish their games quickly to the web. link * Siege Battle AI in Total War:
Cites itstateoffFeb 2018
Brevik describes in his own words inventing the real-time RPG.
Full comment
In this case he really did invent the "Realtime-RPG" that made Diablo what it is. In his own words: this video
Cites itshooAug 2018
“a whole lot of other fascinating stuff”
Discusses isometric tile rendering among other fascinating topics.
Full comment
there's a bit of discussion about isometric tile rendering nonsense, although not specific to vsync, in David Brevik's diablo postmortem this video along with a whole lot of other fascinating stuff
Cites itbdowlingJun 2019
Cited for Diablo's real-time mode on a turn-based core.
Full comment
You picked the wrong time to use that example, considering that Nintendo will soon release Super Mario Maker 2, a new game which includes a mode with virtually unchanged mechanics from Super Mario Bros 3. link Regarding Roguelikes, the biggest change was Diablo in 1996. Diablo was arguably a Roguelike with fancy graphics and a real-time mode hacked onto a turn-based core. this video
Cites itbexsellaJun 2023
Source of the story about Diablo going real-time.
Full comment
My favourite story of Diablo's development (as relayed by David Brevik in the Diablo Postmortem - see below) is the part where Diablo was made real-time. He passionately championed that it should be more like Rogue or Moria purely turn-based and permadeath. That was until he implemented real-time movement in an afternoon and attacked a skeleton. This was a directive from Blizzard, and it effectively created the ARPG genre. this video and for those adverse to Google: link
