Q&A with David L. Craddock, Author of But Can It Run DOOM?

Our next book after Super Mario Galaxy will be But Can It Run Doom? by David L. Craddock, now funding on Kickstarter. Over email David and I discussed the Doom history beat, selecting stories for the new book, the art of the game port, writing habits, Doom's creators, and Mina the Hollower.

Over the last decade or so you've become one of the world's foremost chroniclers of Doom history -- of both the early days and more recent projects like Sigil. Could you tell us about how you came to take on Doom/FPS history as one of the subjects you keep returning to?

Ironically, Doom’s history was the last thing I wanted to write about. David Kushner’s Masters of Doom was a formative book for me, but I thought he did such a great job covering Doom’s creation and popularity that I wouldn’t need to retreat that ground. I was more interested in filling in the gaps in Kushner’s research, like a deep dive into Quake—which I did when I wrote Rocket Jump for Shacknews.

Then I had another idea: What if I wrote about Doom-adjacent topics? Yes, like Quake, but more related to Doom itself. Things like the series’ reinvention in 2016, the prolificacy of mods, and the making of Sigil and Sigil II, John Romero’s “unofficial official” episodes for Doom 1. When I co-wrote and directed FPS: First Person Shooter in 2023, that gave me the opportunity to write about Doom itself, but in a way that plumbed the development depths that Kushner’s book—a more accessible, mainstream publication—did not.

And here we are! But Can It Run Doom? is, along with the Doom chapters in Knee-Deep in the ‘90s and the forthcoming Stairway to Badass: How id Software Reinvented Doom (to be published by Shacknews in 2027), are, collectively, my final word on the franchise. I truly believe I have nothing else to say about it.

When did you realize that the stories that make up But Can It Run Doom? could be a book?

I loved reading about the outrageous Doom ports fans were making on websites like Kotaku, Shacknews, and IGN, but there was a problem: The articles were skin deep. They would say, in effect, “Someone did this, and now it exists. Isn’t that neat?” Yes, it’s very neat, but how did they do it, and why? I wanted to answer those questions, and a book, which lends itself to more detail and deeper storytelling than an internet article, seemed the best way to answer those questions for myself.

A visit to r/itrunsdoom reveals more Doom ports than anyone could possibly cover in a single book! How did you choose which Doom ports made it into the book?

That was actually easier than I expected. I bookmarked articles about the Doom ports I liked and made notes about them. What interested me? Who made it? From there, I attempted to get in touch with the creators, usually through Reddit (since the creators’ handles were readily available) or LinkedIn if they gave their full name. 

How did this book change over time? And what threads surprised you as you conducted interviews with all these brilliant tinkerers?

I envisioned an episodic structure for the book, similar to the layout of Doom 1: first episode deals with X, Y, and Z subjects; then we move on to episode 2’s chapters; and so on. That changed when Gabe Durham and I decided that a clean division of two parts—one for the ports, one for the bonus content found in But Can It Run Doom? Ultimate Edition—worked best from an organizational standpoint. That also made the book easier for readers to digest, since the parts could be easily categorized: ports, and other stuff.

As for what surprised me, I was pleasantly surprised by how much more involved each project was, something the articles about these ports didn’t go into. Alice Averlong’s pregnancy test, for example, doesn’t actually run on a pregnancy test. I won’t spoil how it works, but there’s a lot more to it. Like I said, the articles about these topics tended to be surface-level—and that’s not a knock against their authors. Again, you can only explore so much in an article, especially when you’re publishing on the internet and there’s a flood of gaming news every day that you have to keep up with. I wanted to go further, and by going further, I was consistently surprised by the level of detail I was able to achieve in telling these stories.

In some ways, this book feels like a spiritual sequel to Arcade Perfect, your book telling the stories of how clever developers created satisfying console ports of beloved arcade games. It seems to me that port developers are often the unsung heroes of video games in a similar way to the quiet, important work of book translators. Why do you think we don't hear these game dev stories very often? And why should we hear them more?

I think there are two reasons for that. First, people who port games don’t have the rock star status of the original creators. We know John Romero and John Carmack led Doom’s development, and we know Ed Boon and John Tobias “ko-kreated” Mortal Kombat, and we know Shigeru Miyamoto made Donkey Kong. They get the credit because they made something from nothing. They were first. I wanted to cover the people who came next.

Second, stories of ports are technical by nature. In the old days—I would define that as pre-PlayStation One—developers had to take a game’s source material and squeeze it onto platforms that were technically inferior to that source material. That fascinates me, and it fascinates you, but we’re art of a fraction of readership who want to take the time to wrap their heads around jargon and specs. Anyone can do that, but it’s simply not as palatable as, say, Arcade Perfect or Long Live Mortal Kombat, my books in which I know when to stray into the weeds of technical details and when to stay on the path more traveled—more accessible definitions that anyone can understand. 

The deluxe hardcover edition of the book is mostly full of your interviews with Doom’s creators – especially John Romero. Have you noticed any change in how Romero, Carmack, Hall, and others discuss the game over time as they’ve matured from dev wunderkinds to dev behemoths -- and are now approaching the era of dev elder statesmen?

I’ve noticed that Doom’s creators no longer speak about just the game. They’re more willing to talk about who they were as people when they made classic games, especially Quake, rather than just developers. For instance, John Carmack has admitted to me that he pushed the team too hard on Quake and took some difficult stances that he can see, with hindsight, were not conducive to a good working environment.

Romero, too, has said that he prefers Doom to Quake because it was less of a slog. In fact, despite always working 12+ hours a day during his time at id, Romero only described Quake’s development as “crunch” because the other long shifts, if you will, didn’t feel like work. They were fun. As proud as he is of Quake, Romero probably doesn’t think of the last six months of development as “fun.”

You're a prolific writer! For years now, you've put out at least a book a year alongside your work with Shacknews and other venues. Could you share a bit about your process and your habits?

Since 2023, I’ve known what I’ll be releasing through 2027. I work short-term (one book per year) and long-term (preparing for books that are further out so I’m ready to hit the ground running when they come around).

As far as daily habits, I write a minimum of 2,000 words every weekday before starting on my Shacknews projects, which are “long reads” that often turn out to be book-length articles divided into chapters. I don’t write on weekends, though. My wife strictly forbids that! And that’s a good thing. I use weekends to recharge for the week ahead.

Finally, I read a lot, and I read far and wide. There’s no book I won’t try, no genre I haven’t tapped. Westerns? Let’s do it. Erotica? Bring it on. The more you read, the more well-rounded a writer you’ll be by way of sampling many voices and styles of prose. I’ve honed the voices I use for my books based on bits and pieces of authors I’ve read (John Grisham is a favorite of mine) and added a bit of my own flair to create unique styles. The more you read, the more options you’ll have when developing your own voice. 

You and I first worked together on your book on the making of Shovel Knight, which came out in 2018. Have you kept up with Yacht Club's work since SK and its many expansions? What do you think of Mina the Hollower?

I can’t believe eight years have passed since our Shovel Knight book was released! I’m so glad we were able to work together again.

Since May, I’ve been working on a documentary chronicling Mina’s development, and this is what Yacht Club’s developers told me: Mina the Hollower is the Zelda to Shovel Knight’s Mario. Players can see that in more ways than just its top-down view. There’s more exploration, more RPG mechanics, more items, more everything—a larger, livelier world to explore.

As much as I love platformers—they’re my favorite genre!—I love me a good Zelda-like, and Mina scratches that itch. I’ve had a lot of fun exploring its regions and enjoying seeing how Yacht Club has taken inspiration from Bloodborne and other games, adding that to the Zelda formula to create something wholly unique.

[Ed.: After David and I did this interview, the Mina doc came out!]

Check out But Can It Run Doom? on Kickstarter!