
The original pitch for Diablo (1994) [pdf] - dsl
http://www.graybeardgames.com/download/diablo_pitch.pdf
======
c0l0
Good to see plenty of people in the comments experiencing nostalgia due to
fond memories of playing this great, great game :)

You may be unaware that there is "Belzebub", a "HD mod" for the original
Diablo, available today, that taches the original engine a few tricks (besides
the obvious 1080p resolution), and also re-introduces a lot of the game's
planned content that had to be cut from the final release shortly before the
gold master was spun. And IT IS AWESOME! Even if you never tried the original
classic, you should probably give this a go if ARPGs in a dark fantasy setting
are something you might like.

To whet your appetite, check the trailer
([https://youtu.be/m4PfLbMJCoA](https://youtu.be/m4PfLbMJCoA)) on the (afaik,
unfortunately discontinued) mod's website:
[https://mod.diablo.noktis.pl/features](https://mod.diablo.noktis.pl/features)

The 1.045 release you may still download there (you need to provide a copy of
the game's assets in the form of the main CDs ".mpq" data file yourself) is
essentially a polished and extended re-make of the original Diablo 1. I played
for hours each day for a few days straight after I discovered the project in
2015. Hope someone else in here enjoys it as much as I did! :)

~~~
lobotryas
Do you know if the mod includes features/content from the D1 expansion? It's
hard to track down and I never played it (despite wanting to).

~~~
c0l0
If by "expansion" you mean Sierra's "Hellfire", then no - there's no content
overlap between it and Belzebub that I'd know of (that's not already included
in the original Diablo, of course).

------
AdmiralAsshat
Worth noting to those who haven't read the pitch: the original design for
Diablo was _turn-based_. The hexagonal movement system was causing a huge
headache for the programmers, however, and eventually they decided to make it
real-time.

The now-defunct Gametrailers did an amazing retrospective on the Diablo series
at some point:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83bFa9qL8XQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83bFa9qL8XQ)

EDIT: I also thought some of the side illustrations looked familiar. They are
taken from some illustrations for the _Dictionnaire Infernal_ :

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictionnaire_Infernal#/media/F...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictionnaire_Infernal#/media/File:Bael.jpg)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictionnaire_Infernal#/media/F...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictionnaire_Infernal#/media/File:Astaroth.jpg)

~~~
AndrewOMartin
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.'

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VscdPA6sUkc?t=27m](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VscdPA6sUkc?t=27m)

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

~~~
djur
Ultima Underworld (1993), Ultima Underworld II (1994), Ultima VII (1994), and
The Elder Scrolls: Arena (1994) all come to mind quickly as computer-based
action RPGs that preceded Diablo (1996). And the Japanese were making top-down
action RPGs as early as the '80s, especially those made by Nihon Falcom (Ys)
and Quintet (Soul Blazer). I would particularly cite Brandish (1991, Nihon
Falcom) as a similar type of realtime action dungeon crawler (although it
wasn't released in the West until 1995).

All that isn't to diminish the substantial achievements of Diablo, which was
quite innovative. The fast, smooth gameplay was novel, as was the setting. It
was compulsively playable and accessible while a lot of earlier action RPGs
were kind of clunky. The art design was superb -- everything from the dreary,
gothic environs to the satisfying animation and sound of a pile of gold
bursting forth from a slain enemy. It's fair to say that Diablo was a
milestone in ARPG history and highly influential.

~~~
Will_Parker
I'll add
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Faery_Tale_Adventure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Faery_Tale_Adventure)
(1987) and
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_of_Lore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_of_Lore)
(1988)

~~~
animal531
I'll disagree on all those (and the Ultima's etc in the grandparent comment).
They were all focused on RPG and story first, then adding some action on top
of that (via isometric, fps etc. modes).

Diablo changed things in that it focused on action first, whereas the RPG
element is just an add-on. Its gameplay cycles between essentially going
deeper in a dungeon that's becoming more difficult, obtaining/selling etc. of
items/potions in town so that you can descend further. Its story isn't really
of (heavy) importance.

~~~
AdmiralAsshat
So what about Zelda II: Adventure of Link? The RPG elements were clearly
secondary, given that they were absent from the original LoZ.

------
jsgo
I miss this game moreso than probably any others in the series, maybe any game
at all outside of perhaps Chrono Trigger. There were trainers and what not,
but I remember after playing through it trying to create a "godmode" character
proper (no trainer) by specifically hunting for tomes to increase spells. That
was probably the thing that bummed me most about D2 and subsequently D3 in
that leveling spells after you'd "maxed out" was still something you could
grind in D1.

Vaguely related but mildly funny anecdote, I got into this game really late
(basically, when it was cheap). I remember buying it from Wal-Mart and also
buying one of the bigger bags of crispy M&Ms (Wikipedia says those came out in
1999 so I must have been even later than I remember). The game was incredibly
good, but the first couple times playing it, I'm going through said bag of
M&Ms because the game felt like a pretty intense movie at the time. Ever since
that point, anytime I played that game, I'd crave crispy M&Ms, which went away
after a while (though have since come back apparently).

~~~
wil421
I just noticed Chrono Trigger is available for iOS. Haven’t bought it yet but
I hope the port is a good one. I also enjoyed FF7 on my iPhone. Glad to see
Square is rereleasing titles for mobile.

I would kill for Nintendo to release a few old titles on iOS.

~~~
thebooktocome
Warning: the iOS port (and also the PC version on Steam) of Chrono Trigger is
widely regarded as terrible. Same with FFVI and FFV.

Luckily the old 3DS port of Chrono Trigger is good. The only way I know to
play FFVI now is with an SNES Classic: an overpriced raspberry pi.

~~~
jsgo
yeah, if you have a DS, go with the Chrono Trigger port. I can't speak to iOS,
but I tried some Final Fantasy port and gave up because I hated the controls.
The PC version, I have a 3440x1440 screen, it renders as a regular 1440p
screen in full screen and the tiles are nauseating. The only resolution that
looks okay is 800x600.

------
Humdeee
Fond memories of this as a kid. I remember after playing it for a while with
friends and coming across BoBaFett's trainer and DooM-Gaze's (sic?) trainer
enabling god-mode, fast spellcast, maxed stats, Godly Plate of the Whale
armor, King's Sword of Haste, dropping elixirs all over town around Deckard
Cain, etc. I was legitimately scared at my age to step into the cracks of hell
to go after Diablo when they opened behind Pepin's hut. And the Butcher...
kept all the lights on for that quest...

As a 10 year old, it was the first "adult" game I played (alongside Leisure
Suit Larry). Dropping the turn based style and keeping classes more simplistic
was an excellent decision. It's what introduced me to the online world via
battle.net and PKing (player killing) was a joy in itself. Clans, online
friends, and memories all shortly followed. Loved reading this.

Diablo 1: still better than the 3rd.

Source: overbearing nostalgia

~~~
callinyouin
I had pretty much the exact same experience and it seems we're about the same
age. It was my first exposure to online gaming and I remember being so amazed
that you could play a game like that over the internet with total strangers!

Cheating was a big downside to playing on battle.net though, in my experience.
It got so bad that you would enter a game and another player would either
crash the game (by dropping a modified ear IIRC) or everyone would be playing
with god-mode on. And creating an open, "legit" game only enticed cheaters to
join in order to kill everyone. Oh well. My friends and I had plenty of fun
playing over IPX and later LAN, or having password protected games on
battle.net with people I met in the chat rooms.

I was surprised to find that only a handful of years ago people were still
playing on battle.net. Not a lot, but enough to join a couple games and have
some fun. Didn't see any cheating, either.

~~~
Humdeee
The rush of cheating wore off pretty quickly. I think everyone went through
their 'ear collection' phase, but it was rather beating Diablo on Hell
difficulty as the real accomplishment. I always found the Lazarus quest to be
harder though.

I remember first discovering online mode. Clicking Multiplayer and seeing some
sort of "you must be connected to the internet" type message. I started up the
dial up connection and tried again and then the world opened up to me.

As much time as I spent on D1 and enjoying myself, it paled in comparison as
the gateway drug to SC:BW for me.

------
nilkn
I'd really enjoy seeing a modern ARPG that is legitimately unsettling and dark
in the way that Diablo was (and D2, to a slightly lesser extent). We've got
D3, which has really fun gameplay but feels commercialized and looks like WoW,
and we've got PoE, which has a lot of really brilliant ideas and has a darker
theme but at no point is ever actually unsettling.

~~~
rntksi
You might want to try Grim Dawn. If Turn-based works too then Darkest Dungeon.

~~~
hitekker
I'd recommend against Darkest Dungeon. Whereas Diablo 1 & 2 carefully
cultivated its gothic aura, DD went full-on edge and melodrama.

~~~
milesvp
I respectfully disagree. Darkest Dungeon captured the essence of Lovecraft in
ways I've not seen anywhere else. I highly recommend this game to anyone who
likes brutally hard turn based 1 dimensional combat. The game requires a lot
of compromises and you will suffer casualties. It's a rare game where I spend
almost as much time preparing for a dungeon run as I take doing the run. The
artwork also really spoke to me.

About the one warning I give about the game, is that it doesn't explain in
game enough early game. I got frustrated because the early game is really
punishing and it's too hard to figure things out since many interactions are
probabilistic. I finally found a wiki on the game which allowed me to
understand what I was doing wrong (and which dungeon artifacts should be
skipped when no protection). After that I fell in love with the gamr.

------
badgers
The turn based gameplay, square tile floor design, randomized levels and loot,
fantasy medieval world of sword and sorcery remind me of an earlier 1990s game
called Castle of the Winds -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_of_the_Winds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_of_the_Winds)

~~~
callinyouin
Thanks for mentioning this! I used to play the shareware version that I got
from one of those "1001 Games" type discs back in the day. I see the creator
released it into public domain so it looks like I'll be wasting a few hours
with this later this week.

~~~
jstarfish
Ha! I got my copy the same way.

I ended up giving up on it quickly when I got to the first dungeon/castle and
couldn't figure out how to move through the diagonal passages. In later years
I unlocked the secrets of the numpad.

------
zf00002
Thought I'd toss this out there for anyone interested that doesn't know. David
Brevik and his wife stream regularly on Twitch:
[https://www.twitch.tv/thejunglequeen](https://www.twitch.tv/thejunglequeen).
It's mostly his wife playing various games while David is next to her
playing/working on something. He will often talk about various experiences
making games.

He's been working on a new game, "It Lurks Below", you can find it on Steam
(not released yet). The game is in closed beta though. He's mentioned that one
of his daughters did some of the artwork and has actually released at least
one game of her own on Steam as well.

~~~
digi_owl
Yeah i'm tracking his upcoming game already.

It is basically Terraria with classes (meaning that you pick some kind of
special ability at the start of the game), survival elements (need to eat,
sleep, etc), and Diablo style randomized loot (all weapons are gun shaped
wands with wildly varying stats and firing patterns).

From what i have caught of others playing it, there are even an NPC in town
later on (you plop down preconfigured buildings for them) that can reroll old
dungeons.

Meaning that you can technically play the same world over and over, rather
than keep rolling new ones as seems to be the pattern with Terraria.

------
JD557
The title should be "The original pitch for Diablo (1994)", the 4 is in the
wrong place.

It would be pretty weird to have a pitch for Diablo 4 in the 90s, before
Diablo 3 was released. :)

~~~
thriftwy
It will not be unheard of. Bits of story of Might & Magic 8 were thought out
when the original Might & Magic 1 was created, along with most of e.g. magic
system.

------
munificent
It's crazy how close the original pitch was to classic Roguelikes — turn-
based, random dungeon, single town at the top, and a stack of dungeon levels
descending below. It's basically Rogue/Moria/Angband + graphics.

Of course, going real-time fundamentally changed the feel of the game, but the
initial pitch was much more "bring Moria to the masses".

------
Reedx
David Brevik released that just after the Diablo postmortem from GDC a couple
years ago:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VscdPA6sUkc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VscdPA6sUkc)

Worth watching for any fans of the original and if you want more context
around that pitch. Lots of interesting tidbits about the origins of Diablo and
Blizzard North.

And an amusing moment during the Q&A: Someone in the audience went up and gave
David some money to make up for pirating the game when he was a kid.

~~~
Tokiin
Related vid:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4D_bVgplit0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4D_bVgplit0)

IGN Unfiltered episode with David about his origins and the creation of
Diablo/Blizzard North.

~~~
corysama
FYI: We collect material like this over in
[https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMakingOfGames/](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMakingOfGames/)

------
brandmeyer
The initial pitch barely mentions the part of the game that makes it so ~~much
fun~~addicting: You get to beat on pinatas until some loot pops out. Then
collect the loot and/or convert it into in-game currency.

Diablo was one of the earliest games to start exercising those little dopamine
hits of microjoy when the monsters go pop, hoping for just one more bit of
treasure/xp/whatever.

~~~
FrozenVoid
Actually people quickly got bored with item collection with wide availability
of duped items and gold(with exception of some variant gameplay groups which
played legit), the game actual attraction was its randomness(dungeon
layout/content) and challenge to complete levels at higher difficulties. Items
and gold were central to Diablo2, which is exactly the "pinata simulator" you
describe. In general, Diablo could be completed with trash items or(with
sorcerer, even nothing worn).

------
shawabawa3
Interestingly ahead of its time in that they had the idea of "DLC"'s already,
in the form of small interchangeable expansion packs.

Apparently that never worked out, maybe because without the ease of
downloading it wouldn't have sold enough against a single big expansion

~~~
pferde
I think this idea, at least in the exact form as described in the PDF, was
scrapped later due to addition to randomly generated items. Having expansion
packs which add more items does not make a lot of sense in that context.

~~~
stevenwoo
Here are some ways it could make sense (but would have to be careful to not
upset game balance): a.) more unique items (D1 has a small set of unique
items) b.) new suffix/prefix to add to item modifier lists c.) in
addition/response to the new suffix/prefix could add new resistance/attack
types only available with expansion pack d.) could make multiplay require same
expansion packs on each system to encourage upgrading

------
zupa-hu
For anyone curious, as per the pdf they planned the development to take 12
months. According to wikipedia, they pitched Blizzard in January 1995,
released the game on 31st December 1996. So that is ~24 months if they started
working immediately. They probably didn't. Plus the pdf doesn't mention sales
and marketing (Edit: in the schedule). Seems quite an amazing execution.

Please correct any mistakes I made.

~~~
ecesena
I was about to ask, thank you for adding the data from wikipedia. It’s
absolutely remarkable.

------
72mena
If someone has experience with Game Development I'd like to know your comments
on the timeline from the last page. The pitch mentions 1 developer and 2
junior-devs, and the timeline shows 11 months of work (4 of those are for
testing). How does that timeline compare to current processes? Any other
insights that can be shared from it? Thanks.

~~~
stevenwoo
I did not work on this but you'll need to take in mind that this was a fixed
resolution game with 2D sprites. There is no 3D art in the final product.
Finally this was just the proposal, Blizzard bought Condor and published
Diablo (1) and if you check the mobygames entry (which is usually a pretty
accurate copy of the in game credits), it has a much more extensive list of
software developers in the credits (three! people on the installer, though to
be fair, I'm pretty sure all the guys were down at Blizzard South providing a
lot of the low level libraries). IIRC the networking was also outside the
scope of Blizzard North's expertise at the time and most of that part was done
by Blizzard South via Battle.net.
[http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/diablo/credits](http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/diablo/credits)

edit: it also took them about twice as long including pre development time.

------
idank
Oh Diablo. I will never forget how you broke my heart when my hardcore
character died because my mom picked up the phone when I was busy slaying
demons.

------
gumballhead
My first experience with programming was making a "dump file" editor for my
Diablo character in 8th grade with Visual Basic.

Someone had built a utility to dump the memory for your character to a file,
where if you knew or could figure out the addresses, you could edit it and
load it back into the game. I spent a lot of time changing a value in game,
dumping the memory, and running a little diff tool I built to figure out where
everything was. Then I built a little editor that could edit your character
and item stats with a ui that looked like the game.

Such huge nostalgia for that game. StarCraft Remastered really brought back
memories too. Blizzard is so, so good at game design.

------
thriftwy
Original Diablo pitch is basically Angband. I'm glad that they made it RT :)

I'm also glad they had the guts to add permadeath mode into Diablo II.

------
pmarreck
This is written by "Condor." When did Blizzard acquire this?

~~~
kanzungjak
"Condor" was the name of the now defunct "Blizzard North" subsidiary.

------
ananab
Diablo and Diablo 2 were the best games ever released. Period.

------
tschellenbach
Anyone know how much time it took them compared to the original estimate? So
cool how small teams were building games back in the days.

~~~
stevenwoo
The original estimate is for the proposal, and it ended up taking about twice
as long. It was small, but not that small, IIRC Blizzard South did the
multiplayer and the cinematics among other things (after buying Condor ) so
it's not possible to evaluate the time estimate/team size estimate on its own
merits.

------
markfer
Thanks for posting this. Anyone know if you can play a modern update to this
on Mac?

------
thisismyusernam
Nostalgia overload...

How would I play the full, original Diablo now on my MacBook, if I wanted a
trip down memory lane? I wouldn't even know where to begin.

