Tom Hall is an American video game designer most famous for co-founding id Software. He worked on famous games such as Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, and Commander Keen. He also co-founded Ion Storm with his friend and colleague, John Romero. While working at the company, Hall designed and created the game Anachronox. He also helped develop the game Deus Ex.
Career
Hall went to the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He earned a B.S. in Computer Science there. In 1987, Hall worked at Softdisk Inc. He was both a programmer and the editor of Softdisk, a collection of software sent each month. With some co-workers, including John Carmack, John Romero, and Adrian Carmack, Hall started id Software. He had always wanted to make video games for a living. At id Software, he worked as a creative director and designer. He helped create games such as Catacomb 3-D and the Commander Keen series. He was the lead designer for these games. He also worked on Wolfenstein 3D, Spear of Destiny, and Doom.
After disagreements with John Carmack and John Romero about the direction of Doom, Tom left id Software in August 1993. He joined Apogee, a company known for its shareware distribution method. Apogee later became known as 3D Realms. At Apogee, Tom designed the game Rise of the Triad. He produced Terminal Velocity. He also helped with Duke Nukem II and Duke Nukem 3D. He worked on the Prey engine until August 12, 1996, when he left Apogee.
In November 1996, Hall co-founded Ion Storm with John Romero, a former colleague from id Software. At Ion Storm, he created Anachronox, a science fiction adventure game with role-playing elements. The company also made Deus Ex, which won the 2000 Game of the Year award. Hall provided voices for characters in this game. Hall and Romero later started Monkeystone Games, a company that aimed to make mobile games. He designed Hyperspace Delivery Boy!, which was released on December 23, 2001. John Romero programmed the game.
Hall and Romero joined Midway Games in 2003. Monkeystone Games closed in January 2005. Hall left Midway early that year. He worked as an independent game consultant in Austin, Texas, until February 2005. Then, he joined a startup called KingsIsle Entertainment in the same area.
Hall left KingsIsle Entertainment in 2011. He joined Loot Drop on January 1, 2011. He tried to fund a game called Shaker through Kickstarter in October 2012. The campaign did not reach its goal. He later tried to fund another game, Worlds of Wander, on Kickstarter. This campaign also failed.
In March 2013, Hall became a Principal Designer at PlayFirst. In 2020 and 2021, he worked as a designer on the virtual reality tabletop RPG Demeo. The game was published by Resolution Games for the Oculus Quest hardware.
Dopefish
Hall is the creator of the Dopefish, a green fish that is not very smart. It appears in Commander Keen episode IV. The Dopefish has been mentioned in other video games, such as the Quake series, Rise of the Triad, Daikatana, Duke Nukem 3D, and Max Payne.
Voice work
Hall provided voices for characters in the computer role-playing game Deus Ex: Morpheus, including a thinking AI named Morpheus, a harsh and unkind MJ12 agent named Howard Strong, and Walton Simons, the nano-augmented Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). He also voiced the project director in the introductory scene of Deus Ex: Invisible War, and characters such as PAL-18, Councilman Willis, Dr. Hush-Hush, and Eddie the Chew in Anachronox. He also provided the voice and appearance for the main villain, El Oscuro, in Rise of the Triad, and voiced the Death Monk enemies in that game. Earlier, he voiced several characters in Wolfenstein 3D, including the female character Gretel Grösse.
Personal life
Hall had a stroke on Tuesday, April 13, 2010. He received rehabilitation until April 21, when he was released from the facility. He was married to Terri Hall for eighteen years, who passed away on May 2, 2021.