The First Game I Ever Helped Was Wolfenstein 3D

At Media Vision, game developers regularly needed help getting our hardware to cooperate with whatever they were building. Unpublished developers could not always get hardware of their own, so every now and then I would install something on my personal system and test it for them.

One caller asked if I would try an unpublished game. I said yes, installed it, and started working through the hardware questions. The game turned out to be Wolfenstein 3D. The person on the other end of the phone was John Romero.

To be clear, I did not design Wolfenstein, write its engine, or stroll into the room with the one idea that made it famous. I helped test an early build on our hardware. That was my contribution, and it was a small one.

But I still love the story because it captures the moment. PC audio and multimedia were opening new doors, game developers were running through them, and I happened to be sitting at the intersection with a screwdriver, a sound card, and a willingness to answer the phone. Not a bad place to be.