The first time I tried modding a game, I destroyed my computer so thoroughly I thought I’d fried the motherboard. This was around 2012, when I was still catching up on all the gaming history I’d missed, and I’d just discovered that old DOOM games had these things called WAD files that you could apparently mess around with. My daughter had mentioned it offhandedly – “Oh yeah, Dad, people have been making custom DOOM levels since forever” – like this was common knowledge everyone possessed except me.
Well, nobody told me there was a learning curve.
I found this ancient program called DEU online, downloaded it onto my already-struggling desktop PC (the same one I was using to play through decades of games I’d never experienced), and figured I’d create the most insane DOOM level possible. Why start small, right? Hundreds of demons, every weapon available immediately, corridors designed specifically for maximum BFG carnage. I mean, if you’re gonna mod a game about killing demons on Mars, might as well go all out.
When I loaded my creation, the computer wheezed, stuttered, displayed about three frames total, then crashed so hard I genuinely worried I’d broken something expensive. Had to hold the power button down for ten seconds just to get it to restart. Not exactly the smooth introduction to modding I’d been hoping for, but that moment taught me something important – games weren’t these fixed, unchangeable things I’d always assumed they were.
See, coming to gaming as an adult meant I’d always thought of games the way I thought of movies or books. You buy them, you experience them as intended, that’s it. The idea that regular people could take a game apart and rebuild it into something completely different? That was revolutionary to me in ways it probably wasn’t for people who’d grown up with this stuff.
The 90s modding scene happened during this perfect storm period where games had become complex enough to be worth modifying but the tools were still primitive enough that everything required real effort and ingenuity. These communities existed in a weird space between mainstream gaming and underground hacker culture, sharing discoveries through bulletin board systems and early internet forums, basically making up the rules as they went along.
After my spectacular DOOM failure, I spent weeks learning these editing tools properly. The documentation was scattered across text files that looked like they’d been typed by people who assumed you already knew what you were doing. Creating a basic room required understanding all these technical concepts – sector definitions, texture alignment, something called linedefs that I’m still not entirely sure I understand. No fancy visual interfaces, just numbers and wireframe previews that required genuine spatial thinking to translate into actual playable areas.
My early attempts were predictably awful. Doorways too narrow to walk through, monsters floating in mid-air because I’d screwed up the floor heights, textures stretched and warped into abstract art. But here’s what surprised me about the DOOM community – people were incredibly patient with beginners. Veterans would download your terrible creation, provide detailed feedback, sometimes even send back modified versions showing you exactly how to fix specific problems.
This was back when sharing anything online was a genuine pain in the ass. Before broadband, before Steam Workshop, before you could just upload something and have it instantly available worldwide. Getting your mod out there meant dealing with bulletin board systems that had strict file size limits, or literally mailing floppy disks to people. I remember compressing my first public DOOM level using every trick I could find, removing textures and simplifying geometry just to get under the 1MB upload limit of our local BBS.
Those distribution challenges created a different kind of community though. When downloading someone’s mod required real effort – especially if you had limited download quotas or were paying by the minute for internet access – feedback became more thoughtful. People who took the time to get your creation were genuinely invested in the experience. Everyone who made mods was also actively playing other people’s work, creating this cycle of inspiration and improvement that I’d never seen before.
The jump from DOOM to Quake was like going from building with Lincoln logs to actual carpentry. DOOM modding was primarily about level design with limited ability to change how the game actually worked. Quake introduced this programming language called QuakeC that opened up completely new possibilities. Now you could change fundamental game rules, create new weapons, alter how enemies behaved, basically build entirely new games using the existing engine.
This was when “total conversion” mods became possible – where teams of amateur developers essentially created brand new games using existing technology. The idea that hobbyists scattered around the world, collaborating through email and primitive forums, could create experiences that rivaled commercial products was mind-blowing. These weren’t just new maps for existing games, they were complete reinventions.
I joined a Quake mod team called “Aftershock” in late 1997, mostly because I was fascinated by the collaborative aspect. Our communication was handled through a mailing list, our file sharing involved manually zipping everything with timestamps in the filenames, and our project management consisted of increasingly frantic emails as deadlines approached. It was chaotic and inefficient and absolutely amazing.
The team was this beautiful mix of people who never would have worked together otherwise – me (still pretty new to gaming but enthusiastic about learning), a systems administrator from Germany who knew way more about programming than the rest of us combined, some high school kid with incredible artistic instincts, and several others who drifted in and out as their interest and free time allowed. The modding scene created these collaborations that transcended geography and age and background, united by shared enthusiasm for extending games we loved.
Counter-Strike represents the ultimate success story of this era – what started as Minh Le and Jess Cliffe’s hobby project became one of the most influential multiplayer games ever made, eventually getting acquired by Valve and becoming a commercial product. But Counter-Strike wasn’t unique in terms of impact. Team Fortress, Threewave CTF, Action Quake – tons of mods that began as passion projects ended up with their creators getting hired by established studios or forming new companies.
I never made that professional leap myself, kept modding as a hobby rather than trying to turn it into a career, but the skills I developed definitely transferred to other areas. The spatial thinking required for level design, the debugging mindset needed when your scripts don’t work, the user experience considerations when you’re playtesting – all of that became useful in my construction work, believe it or not. Managing a mod team taught me project coordination skills I still use managing crews today.
Duke Nukem 3D’s Build editor was a revelation in terms of accessibility. While Quake was pushing technical boundaries with increasingly complex tools, Build offered this surprisingly intuitive interface for creating 3D spaces. It lowered the barrier to entry substantially while still enabling sophisticated results. I spent an entire summer creating a Duke level based on my high school, partly because the Build editor made it feasible to recreate real-world spaces without needing a computer science degree.
That level became briefly famous on our local BBS, with people I’d known in school downloading it specifically to see familiar locations transformed into alien-infested battlegrounds. There was something magical about seeing everyday spaces recontextualized as game environments. The principal’s office became an alien nest, the cafeteria turned into a boss arena, the gymnasium became this sprawling battlefield with the bleachers providing sniper positions.
What really impressed me was how the modding community developed these collaborative improvement cycles that predicted open-source development patterns. Someone would release a mod with an interesting feature, another community member would enhance that feature and share their version, the original creator would incorporate those improvements into their next update, and the cycle continued. This iterative, collaborative approach to development was fundamentally different from traditional commercial game creation.
I experienced this directly when another modder took one of my Quake levels and completely reworked the lighting to create more dramatic shadows and atmosphere. Instead of feeling territorial about it, I was amazed by how much better the space looked with those changes. We ended up collaborating on several projects afterward, combining my architectural sense with his aesthetic vision to create environments neither of us would have developed alone.
Game developers’ attitudes toward modding evolved significantly during this period. Early on, many publishers viewed modding with suspicion or outright hostility, worried about intellectual property issues or controversial content. id Software’s embrace of community creation, with John Carmack and John Romero actively encouraging modding, represented a major shift. They understood what many developers later realized – extending a game’s lifespan through user-generated content benefited everyone involved.
Not every company got this memo. Some actively worked to prevent modification, using encrypted files or legal threats to shut down modding communities. The contrast between closed ecosystems and thriving modding scenes became increasingly obvious. Games that embraced community creation often remained relevant and continued selling for years, while those that resisted modding often faded from memory quickly.
My perspective on buying games changed through involvement in modding communities. I started evaluating purchases partly based on moddability – games with accessible file structures, documented engines, or official editing tools moved to the top of my list because they offered more long-term value through community expansion. Still think that way, honestly.
The education provided by these communities was remarkably comprehensive considering how informal it all was. Learning to mod games meant understanding file systems, 3D geometry, texturing techniques, basic programming, lighting principles, and fundamental game design concepts. These weren’t abstract academic exercises but practical skills applied toward creating something playable – learning reinforced by immediate feedback and tangible results.
The complexity barriers kept rising though, especially as engines became more sophisticated through the late 90s. What had started as an accessible hobby gradually developed professional-level skill requirements, particularly for total conversion projects aiming to compete with commercial quality standards. I watched friends bounce off these increasing technical demands as modding evolved from something anyone could try to something requiring serious dedication and expertise.
Preservation became an issue even during this period, as early mods began disappearing when BBSs shut down or websites changed hosting. Many groundbreaking works were lost during these transitions, surviving only in screenshots or memories. The ephemeral nature of digital creation became painfully clear as projects representing hundreds of hours of work vanished without documentation.
My own contributions mostly disappeared during a chaotic period involving changing web hosts and lost backup disks. A few screenshots remain, but most of my early creative work exists only in memory now – a common experience for modders from this era. This impermanence contrasts with today’s more robust preservation infrastructure, where platforms provide stable long-term storage for creative works.
The legacy extends far beyond specific works created during this pioneering period. The practices, community norms, and development approaches established then continue influencing how games are created and extended today. The expectation that PC games should be moddable, the value placed on developer-provided tools, the understanding that player creativity can extend a game’s relevance – all trace back to this formative period.
More broadly, modding communities demonstrated the creative potential of democratized development tools years before “indie game development” became recognized as a category. The lesson that passionate amateurs with accessible tools could create experiences rivaling professional productions laid groundwork for the independent development explosion in following decades.
Those years spent learning DOOM WADs and Quake programming shaped not just my relationship with games but my understanding of technology more broadly. The modding community taught me that technology isn’t fixed or immutable but responsive to creativity and determination. That the distinction between creators and consumers is artificial. That digital tools, when made accessible, unleash creative potential that consistently exceeds designers’ expectations.
Sometimes I try explaining to younger gamers what it was like – the excitement of downloading promising mods at painfully slow speeds, the community celebrations when anticipated total conversions finally released, the forums where techniques and discoveries were shared. They listen politely, but I recognize that glazed look of someone hearing ancient history. The tools are so much better now, distribution so much simpler, communities so much larger.
But something special existed in those primitive conditions – a frontier spirit, a sense of collective discovery, communities simultaneously inventing creative works and the processes for creating them. The 90s modding scene operated at this unique intersection of technological possibility and open creative experimentation that produced remarkable experiences and a template for collaborative digital creation that still resonates today.
That lesson – that games aren’t fixed, finished products but potential starting points for community creativity – remains the most significant legacy of this era. My first DOOM level crashed spectacularly, sure, but the ripple effects of that moment and thousands of similar discoveries expanded not just what games could be but who could make them.
Timothy discovered retro gaming at forty and never looked back. A construction foreman by day and collector by night, he writes from a fresh, nostalgia-free angle—exploring classic games with adult curiosity, honest takes, and zero childhood bias.
