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'Diablo': A Classic Game Postmortem

GDC Festival of Gaming · 1.1M views · 2016-05-11 · 1:17:43

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Overview

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.

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Frequently recommended whenever Diablo or its origins come up, for its candid account of the human side of game development.

Recommended by 8 HN people across 7 months · HN mentions 2018–2023

Topics

Game history & retro gamingGame design
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diabloblizzard northaction rpggdcgame history

What people said

baristavibes · 2023-07 · Strong recommendation

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!! [VIDEO]

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AndrewOMartin · 2018-03 · Strong recommendation

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.' [VIDEO] If you're in this part of this comment thread, you'll probably enjoy the whole video.

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cpeterso · 2023-06 · Recommendation

To find out what happened next, check out Diablo developer David Brevik’s postmortem presentation at GDC 2016: [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by GDC Festival of Gaming, played through YouTube.

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