id Goofs
The story of id Software is filled with legendary moments, strange bugs, and office antics that became part of gaming history.
Behind the serious coding and groundbreaking technology were loud music, pizza boxes, and developers who constantly tried to one-up each other both in-game and in real life.
Here are some of the funniest and most famous goofs that helped shape the wild spirit of id.
The Doom Bathroom Incident
During the development of DOOM, the id Software office had only one bathroom. John Romero once locked himself inside with the stereo still plugged in, blasting heavy metal while working out gameplay ideas. The rest of the team had to listen to echoing metal through the walls while John Carmack quietly debugged code in the next room.
The Level That Ate Itself
Sandy Petersen once created a map during DOOM II: Hell on Earth testing that looped into itself and started rendering rooms inside other rooms until the engine crashed.
Instead of deleting it, he kept the file and named it “bughell.wad” as a reminder not to trust his own teleporters.
The Desk of Infinite Floppies
During the Wolfenstein 3D era, John Carmack’s desk was buried under a mountain of floppy disks. Tom Hall labeled one of them “DO NOT DELETE – Contains Universe.” Carmack formatted it anyway, saying the universe had inefficient memory management.
DOOM’s Garbage Door Sound
The famous door-opening sound in DOOM was not recorded in a studio. Adrian Carmack accidentally captured it while throwing away a coffee cup into a metal garbage chute.
The sound was later slowed down and became one of the most iconic effects in gaming history.
Quake’s Telefrag Revenge
While testing Quake, John Romero used a debug command to teleport directly into American McGee’s position three times in a row, instantly killing him each time.
As payback, McGee replaced Romero’s player texture with a clown face. It stayed in the development build for weeks before anyone noticed.
The Daikatana Curse
After leaving id Software, John Romero and Tom Hall formed Ion Storm to create Daikatana.
The game’s infamous “Make you his b**” ad campaign backfired, and the long delays became a running joke across the industry.
Even Romero later laughed about it, saying the project took so long that even the DOOM demons retired before it shipped.
The Carmack Hair Theory
Fans in the 1990s noticed that John Romero’s hair got longer with every new game release.
Inside id, the running joke was that “Romero’s hair stores the level data.” When he finally cut it after leaving the company, John Carmack joked, “Good, now the compiler will run faster.”
The Deleted DOOM Bible
Tom Hall’s original design document for DOOM, called The DOOM Bible, was so large it almost froze Carmack’s computer.
When asked to simplify it, Hall said, “Then it’s not a bible anymore, it’s a tweet.”
The Endless Quake
During early testing of Quake, a programming error caused the screen-shake effect to never stop. The world trembled forever.
John Carmack called it “the most accurate earthquake simulation in gaming.”
Legacy of Chaos
For every bug and broken build, there was also creativity, humor, and teamwork.
The spirit of id Software was built on mistakes, pranks, and late-night breakthroughs. These goofs became part of their identity and reminded everyone that behind the code were people having genuine fun.