Tom Hall
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Tom Hall (born September 2, 1964) is an American
video game designer Video game design is the process of designing the rules and content of video games in the Video game development#Pre-production, pre-production stage and designing the gameplay, environment, storyline and characters in the Video game development ...
best known for his work with
id Software id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: game programmer, programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer T ...
on titles such as '' Doom'', '' Wolfenstein 3D'' and ''
Commander Keen ''Commander Keen'' is a series of side-scrolling platform video games developed primarily by id Software. The series consists of six main episodes, a "lost" episode, and a final game; all but the final game were released for MS-DOS in 1990 and ...
''. He has also been the co-founder of Ion Storm, together with his friend and colleague
John Romero Alfonso John Romero (born October 28, 1967) is an American video game developer. He co-founded id Software and designed their early games, including ''Wolfenstein 3D'' (1992), ''Doom (1993 video game), Doom'' (1993), ''Doom II'' (1994), ''Hexen ...
. During his years in the company, Hall designed and produced '' Anachronox'' and was also actively involved in the development of '' Deus Ex''.


Career

Hall attended the
University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...
, where he earned a B.S. in
Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...
. In 1987, Hall worked at Softdisk Inc., where he was both a programmer and the editor of ''
Softdisk Softdisk was a computer program, software and Internet company based in Shreveport, Louisiana. Founded in 1981, its original products were disk magazines (which they termed "magazettes", for "magazine on diskette"). It was affiliated and partly ...
'', a software bundle delivered monthly. Along with some of his co-workers,
John Carmack John D. Carmack II (born August 21, 1970) is an American computer programmer and video game developer. He co-founded the video game company id Software and was the lead programmer of its 1990s games ''Commander Keen'', ''Wolfenstein 3D'', ''Do ...
,
John Romero Alfonso John Romero (born October 28, 1967) is an American video game developer. He co-founded id Software and designed their early games, including ''Wolfenstein 3D'' (1992), ''Doom (1993 video game), Doom'' (1993), ''Doom II'' (1994), ''Hexen ...
and Adrian Carmack, he founded
id Software id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: game programmer, programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer T ...
, having always dreamt about the possibility of making videogames for a living. During the subsequent years, he served as creative director and designer there, working on games such as '' Catacomb 3-D'' and the ''Commander Keen'' series, of which he was the lead designer, then '' Wolfenstein 3D'', '' Spear of Destiny'', and '' Doom''. After some disputes with John Carmack and John Romero over the direction to take with ''Doom'', Tom left id Software in August 1993 to join Apogee, a company that had become well renowned in the market for its highly successful
shareware Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer. ...
distribution philosophy, and came to be known as 3D Realms in later years. Tom was the game designer for '' Rise of the Triad'', produced ''
Terminal Velocity Terminal velocity is the maximum speed attainable by an object as it falls through a fluid (air is the most common example). It is reached when the sum of the drag force (''Fd'') and the buoyancy is equal to the downward force of gravity (''FG ...
'', and helped in varying degrees on '' Duke Nukem II'' and ''
Duke Nukem 3D ''Duke Nukem 3D'' is a 1996 first-person shooter, first-person shooter game developed by 3D Realms and published by FormGen for MS-DOS. It is a sequel to the platform games ''Duke Nukem (video game), Duke Nukem'' and ''Duke Nukem II'', published ...
'' as well. He also worked on the ''
Prey Predation is a biological interaction in which one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not ki ...
''
engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ge ...
until August 12, 1996, when he left Apogee. In November 1996, Hall co-founded Ion Storm with former id Software colleague John Romero. During the years at Ion Storm he produced the critically acclaimed '' Anachronox'', a sci-fi themed adventure game with prominent
role-playing Role-playing or roleplaying is the changing of one's behaviour to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role. While the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' offers a definition of role-playing ...
elements. The company also produced the 2000 Game of the Year, '' Deus Ex'', in which Hall voiced several characters. He and Romero then founded Monkeystone Games, a company with the goal of producing mobile games in the new mobile industry. He designed '' Hyperspace Delivery Boy!'', which was released on December 23, 2001, with programming by John Romero. He and Romero joined
Midway Games Midway Games Inc. (formerly Midway Manufacturing and Bally Midway, and commonly known simply as Midway) was an American video game company that existed from 1958 to 2010. Midway's franchises included ''Mortal Kombat'', ''Rampage (franchise), Ra ...
in 2003, and Monkeystone closed in January 2005. Hall also left Midway early that year and did independent game consultation work out of
Austin, Texas Austin ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and W ...
, until in February he joined a
startup company A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an Entrepreneurship, entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses tha ...
called KingsIsle Entertainment based in the same area. Hall left KingsIsle Entertainment and joined Loot Drop on January 1, 2011. Along with Loot Drop, he unsuccessfully tried to crowdfund a game called ''Shaker'' on the
crowdfunding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and Alternative Finance, alternative finance, to fund projects "withou ...
platform
Kickstarter Kickstarter, PBC is an American Benefit corporation, public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York City, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative project ...
in October 2012. Hall later tried to crowdfund another game on Kickstarter, ''Worlds of Wander'', which was also unsuccessful in reaching its goal. In March 2013, Hall joined PlayFirst as Principal Designer. In 2020 and 2021, he worked as a designer on the
virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a Simulation, simulated experience that employs 3D near-eye displays and pose tracking to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video gam ...
tabletop RPG '' Demeo'', published by Resolution Games for the Oculus Quest hardware.


Dopefish

Hall is the creator of the Dopefish, a green, dimwitted fish in ''Commander Keen'' episode IV. References to it have appeared in other video games, including the ''Quake'' series, '' Rise of the Triad'', '' Daikatana'', ''
Duke Nukem 3D ''Duke Nukem 3D'' is a 1996 first-person shooter, first-person shooter game developed by 3D Realms and published by FormGen for MS-DOS. It is a sequel to the platform games ''Duke Nukem (video game), Duke Nukem'' and ''Duke Nukem II'', published ...
'' and '' Max Payne'' since.


Voice work

Hall provided the following voices for the computer role-playing game '' Deus Ex'': Morpheus, a sentient AI; Howard Strong, a ruthless and cruel MJ12 operative; and Walton Simons, the nano-augmented Director of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), initially created under President Jimmy Carter by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Exec ...
(FEMA). He also voiced the project director in '' Deus Ex: Invisible War'' opening cutscene, and PAL-18, Councilman Willis, Dr. Hush-Hush and Eddie the Chew in '' Anachronox''. He was also the voice and likeness of the main antagonist of '' Rise of the Triad'', El Oscuro, voiced the Death Monk enemies from the game, and earlier he voiced some of the characters in '' Wolfenstein 3D'', including the female character Gretel Grösse.


Personal life

Hall suffered a
stroke Stroke is a medical condition in which poor cerebral circulation, blood flow to a part of the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: brain ischemia, ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and intracranial hemorrhage, hemor ...
on Tuesday, April 13, 2010. He was in rehabilitation until April 21, when he was released. He was married for eighteen years to Terri Hall, who died on May 2, 2021.


Games


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hall, Tom American video game designers Creative directors Id Software people Living people Artists from Wisconsin University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science alumni 1964 births