Blood

This page details pre-release information and/or media for Blood.

To do: The Blood wiki has a good article and timeline on the game's development, but don't just copy-paste everything from there! Sources for things mentioned here and in the wiki pages would be appreciated as well. A lot of images that need to go here, namely; more prerelease screenshots, photos of the models used for the characters (both contemporary and non-contemporary), more concept art.

It took quite a bit to make sure that things were "well done" for the final release of Blood.

Development Timeline#

1994

• Late spring - Christoper Rush would leave the project.
• Summer 1994 - Q Studios Corporation, the original developer of Blood is founded.
• July 1994 - Kevin Kilstrom and Erik Klokstad, both artists, are hired.
• August 7th - Date of loose data of the game.
• October 1994 - Erik leaves Q Studios.
• October 25th - Monolith Productions, the developer that would acquire and finish the game, is founded.
• November 3rd - Compile date of the 1994 prototype.

1995

• January 15th - Compile date of the First 1995 prototype.
• Marh 1995 - Richard "Levelord" Gray is moved from the Blood team over to 3D Realm's internal Duke Nukem 3D team.
• June 1995 - Artist Terry Hamel is hired.
• August 1995 - Level designer Jay Wilson is hired.
• December 8th - Compile date of the Second 1995 prototype.

1996

• February 6th - Compile date of the leaked 1996 prototype.
• April 6th - Compile date of the other 1996 prototype.
• June 7th - Weekly updates about the game are released.
• July 22nd - Date of the source code leaked by x0r_jmp. No assets were included.
• November - Q Studios is acquired by Monolith Productions.

1997

• January 11th - A unfinished version of the shareware version is complied.
• January 22nd - Monolith announces that they have acquired the IP rights of Blood.
• March 7th - The game's shareware version releases in North America.
• April 25th - The game goes gold.
• June 30th - Cryptic Passage is released.

1998

• July 15th - One Unit: Whole Blood, a package containing the base game and the expansions is released.

Concept Art#

To do: Transcribe text. There is more images that need to be added here.

On January 13th, 2025, Scott Miller of Apogee/3D Realms would release some pieces of concept art from early 1994.¹

This artwork was done by the late Christopher Rush.

Bellow are some sketches of various things by Kevin Kilstrom. These were originally seen in various places such as Q Studios' website and the Blood website.

1994#

November 1994#

Apogee West is renamed to Q Studios Corporation.

The November 3rd, 1994 prototype is complied.

November 11th, Peter M. Freese creates BSTUB.CPP

1995#

January 1995#

First update in the BLOOD.TXT file found in several of the prototypes and leaked source codes.

February 1995#

On February 26th, Peter M. Freese creates QAVEDIT.CPP, found in both leaked source codes.

June 1995#

On June 19, Peter M. Freese creates ARTEDIT.CPP, found in both leaked source codes.

November 1995#

On November 11th, SETUP.CPP is created by Peter M. Freese.

December 1995#

On December 5th, CREDITS.CPP is created by Peter M. Freese.

1996#

February 1996#

On February 18th, GAMEMENU.CPP is created by Peter M. Freese.

The February 6th, 1996 prototype would be complied. At a later point, a rouge computer repair man would steal the build's files and leak them online.

In an April 2008 interview, Nick Newhard would recount the events following this incident.²

To add insult to injury, we had our source code stolen by an employee at a computer dealer and distributed to the internet. Having your publisher call in the middle of the night (on my birthday, no less) screaming “WTF happened?! How could you let your source code get stolen?” It wasn’t a pleasant phone call. What followed was lots of footwork in MIRC, filing a lawsuit, US Marshals in an early morning bust, depositions, lawyers and money (they are synonymous) and other not-so-fun stuff. Ultimately, Monolith settled. That would never happen now that our Feds are somewhat more enlightened about software and source code theft.

June 1996#

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Update: 06/07/96 Programming:Peter has been finishing up Blood's SETUP program, but also managed to sneak in some new view and lighting tricks. Nick coded a devastating strafe attack for the Tommy Gun and added new weapon auto-selection code allowing players to set individual selection preferences both above and below water.

Artwork:Kevin has been busy adding detail tiles for Blood's special theme areas and levels, adding even more to the game's realism. Final cleanup has also begun on some older art to bring it up to date with our themes.

Levels:Jay put the final touches on his UnderWorld map, filled with sewers and all manner of nasties - the summoning area is particularly deadly. Richard is back from vacation and will be completing a special theme map that takes place in a lumber mill. If that doesn't sound exciting enough, think zombies and movable, blood-spraying saw blades. Watch your step."

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Update: 06/14/96 Programming: Intensified the spray can attack, which is now a deadlier and longer range weapon. It can also be used as a napalm bomb. SETUP is done. Blood and the rest of our tools now work under Windows 95. New menu graphics and options added. Added in-game keyboard sensitivity/acceleration; keyboard players can make their turns as slow as that space marine game or faster than Duke on steroids. ;) We will be adding on some new sector effects to complement the new train level (see below.)

Levels: Jay finished off the general architecture for his Express Train from Hell level. The exploding engine room is a real piece of work. At first we weren't sure this would be a great BloodBath match, but it turned out to be friggin' awesome. Just don't jump out any windows unless you can fly.

Art: Now that the train level is nearly done, we're all hyper to add some digitized train textures in. This may force the train into the registered version since our artwork alone is already over 20 meg. Maybe we can just >squeeze< it in...

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Update: 06/21/96 Programming / Sound: Finished off 3D sound spacialization for moving objects in the game. (No special sound hardware required.) You know you're in trouble when you hear the fuse of a TNT bundle coming at you from behind. All moving projectiles now have their own individual sound effects like TNT, fireballs, spears, spikes, and flares. After playing a lengthy BloodBath with the spacialization in, we just sat and wondered why other games aren't doing this?

Artwork: Working on more new theme artwork, mainly for the SlaughterHouse. Added some new character art which is quite "electrifying."

Levels: Two words: "The SlaughterHouse" - You'll love it...

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Update: 06/28/96 Programming: Our ambient sound player now works with our ear-splitting 3D sound system. I think we're all deaf after being blown up by the proximity bombs that Kevin drops when he's running away from us. (coward!) Lots of changes to Blood and MapEdit (our much-improved version of Build) to work with all the new features; more sector effects, 3D sound effect generators, ambient sound generators, etc. Added a bunch of new jib code for new jib artwork.

Artwork: More Bloody jibs. Touch up on textures and weapons. Added some new textures for our arctic tile sets.

Levels: Kevin has been working on a detailed castle map which is shaping up to be a real kick-ass BloodBath map. Jay started a chilling new map based around an arctic theme.

July 1996#

Updates for the first two weeks of July did not occur due to American Day of Independence celebrations on July 4th and Q Studios in the process of moving offices. ⁵ 320px|right

Update: 07/19/96 * * * BIG NEWS * * *

Q Studios moved to new offices which is why we skipped the update for July 12th. More on the how and why of this move Real Soon Now. For now the details are Top Secret. Keep watching this page and the Official Q Studios & Blood Web Site at www.qstudios.com.

Programming: Peter wrapped up some sound bugs and added a special effect to control the volume of a 3D sound from a game object. This gives us the advantage of realism over other games, for instance the sound of buzzing lights are now synchronized with actual lighting effect. Nick completed coding sector and wall effects for building more realistic levels. Build levels now look and feel fully 3D. For instance, you can see through holes in floors and ceilings into completely different areas, offering huge creative and strategic advantages over Duke maps using the standard Build engine.

Levels: Jay has almost finished his House of Horror level. It lives, it breathes, and is scarier than the darkest levels of Hell. We know, we've been there and kicked ass.

Art: Kevin has been creating some new gore and bodies for the House of Horror level. He is also working on models for innocent bystanders for the more populated city maps. No promises, but if they look good in the game, expect to mow down the human fodder if they get in the way of a good fire fight!

August 1996#

320px|right This is also the first update that was published simultaneously on both 3D Realms' webpage and the Blood website.⁶

Update: 08/02/96 Programming: The level testing has been going well and the few bugs that have shown up are being squashed. Mike is spending some time on the network code which we hope to significantly enhance. Nick took a "break" to get his computer running again after it was corrupted by the update to the mail program. (Thanks for being patient Joe!)

Level Design: Jay built the "Dark Laboratory" and put it into limited playtest (3 net players). With the synchronized lightning and sound effects it feels like Frankenstein's lab. The stacked sectors made this BloodBath level feel much bigger than it really is.

Artwork: Kevin reworked more items into the "better than polygons" technology. We may change some of the hazards like the spike, machine gun and flamethrower traps to the new 3D rendering system too.

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Update: 08/09/96 Programming: Added in-game keyboard configuration. Players don't have to exit net/modem games to reset their key mappings anymore.

Artwork: Kevin continued his mission to eradicate normal sprite items from the game. Almost all items and objects use the new renderer. The new Blood logo is also beginning to look very impressive.

Levels: More internal BloodBath testing on Dark Lab and House of Horror. Jay started an untitled map with a mall theme, which he says is a tribute to Dawn of the Dead. We're also going through maps to add more ambient sound effects, tricks and traps.

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Update: 08/16/96 Artwork: Added sequences for a humorous additions to our creature list. The Fly takes serious advantage of our 3D sound spacialization code and is pretty annoying. We're not giving away any details on what the Fly is or does just yet, but it is both humorous and satisfying.

Kevin has the HellStaff artwork nearly complete and Kevin replaced another weapon to test it. This is absolutely the best looking/feeling weapon in the game, and may even become favoured over the Voodoo Doll.

Levels: Finished off the Mall map and put it into internal playtest. Kevin will be adding some new art to support this level. Jay is organizing Death Days for our internal staff to compete against each other in the various multiplayer games. Blood is at the top of the list, of course.

Programming: Tidied up some menu and interface code. Started coding AI for the Fly.

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Update: 08/23/96 Not much work got done yesterday (8/22). Everyone here is aching from riding jet skis at the company party. We and our guests went down to a local lake (Sammamish) and rented a bunch of jet skis for the whole day. Plenty of food, fun and drinking made for a great party. Now it's back to the grind. Everyone will be here tomorrow to compete in the chosen Death Day games - Industrial Quake and Blood.

We managed to sneak in a little programming even though we got strapped creating some paperwork for the big boys at 3DRealms and interviewing people for some future projects.

Kevin has been detailing the Tchernobog model and adding hanging bits of rotting flesh. After painting it, digitizing should begin in a week or so.

Jay reworked some older levels with new effects and tightened them up for BloodBath play. He's also been teaching some new level designers the nuances and features of MapEdit - they all know it beats the competition hands down.

I got bored late one night and came up with some friendly anagrams for a few game companies - see if you can figure them out. If you don't know what an anagram is, look it up. :) The first one is easy.

1. DIE, SOW FART!
2. ERE ST. DAHLMER (or RESET DAHLMER for those of you not familiar with Old English)
3. I DO HURT TO SEED

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Update: 08/30/96 Work continues on monster AI and special effects. We've got plenty of cool, otherworldly surprises in store, and the ideas just keep coming. Expect to feel the presence of the restless dead as you make your way through the game. . . ;-)

Nick came up with a great concept for Tchernobog's lair that opened up all sorts of sinister possibilities and led to a stronger, creepier backstory. (BTW, compared to Tchernobog, Shub-Niggurath is a lazy slug.) Kevin is still working on artwork for the innocents. He also created a lovely balloon for his carnival level that will help make Blood a kinder, gentler place. . . or not. *POP* Jay reworked The Great Temple, the last level in the shareware. It was already perilous before he got hold of it--now it's, well, more perilous. And it looks better too.

Craig continued working on his train station/train yard level. He can't get over how much easier MapEdit is than Build. He's also puzzled at how Jay can slaughter him so badly in his own levels.

In other news, Jay and his fiancee got a new car yesterday (no, it wasn't a Ferrari) and are still coming to terms with their newfound mobility. They can actually drive places now.

Check out these web sites: http://www.lith.com and http://www.blood.com.

September 1996#

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Update: 09/06/96 Made Blood's weapons more powerful now that armor has changed a bit. Finished off the Napalm Cannon. The projectile is a large, smoking fireball that does massive concussion and fire damage to the victim. The are a little faster than flares used to be, with a wide concussion and flame area of affect.

Sped up the flares, gave them more impact damage and less burn time, making them far more accurate and deadly. You still get a nice toasty feeling when flares stick in your chest and melts away your fire armor. Double barrel blast from the shotgun is way more hefty. Single barrel blast remains the same, but is more accurate and faster to pop off. The Tommy Gun (with or without the AP power-up) just rocks now that the damage has been tripled. Next stop - HellStaff, Voodoo Doll and Spray Can power increases.

Finishing touches on levels and the new Blood Home Page continues...

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Update: 09/13/96 Added the taunt message and macro interface to Blood. Started on the RTS sound effect playback mechanism. Modified Blood's cheat code system to work more like a couple of other multi-player strategy games we play around here. Instead of typing the cheat codes sight-unseen, you now hit the SendMessage key and type in the cheat code text.

Craig is still finishing off "THE WRONG SIDE OF THE TRACKS", his fantastic train station map. BloodBath is fast and furious and the map is just big enough to make single play exploration scary and fun. There's a really cool room where zombies rip through the walls and come after you full bore. It scares the hell out of everyone who plays it.

Kevin is still working on the Innocent models. Apparently he had an accident with the foam latex, and can't even talk without coughing up bits of foamy goodness. The Official Blood Home Page at www.blood.com is looking awesome, especially the new ScreamShot(tm) area. Check it out.

On the home front, Kevin's and Nick's wives are pregnant, which means they've been doing far more than programming and artwork lately. (Hey, that almost sounds like bigamy, but it's grammatically correct.) Craig likes it so much here in the Northwest he is thinking about moving closer to work to bicycle in. Little does he know how much it rains here in the winter. Hehe..

The answers to the anagrams posted a few weeks ago are as follows:
DIE, SOW FART is ID SOFTWARE
ERE ST. DAHLMER is 3D REALMS (with the 3 spelled out.)
I DO HURT TO SEED is STUDIO 3DO

The version on the Blood website featured a link to a separate page. 320px|right

Update: 09/20/96 INNOCENT BYSTANDERS BLOWN AWAY BY BLOOD!

Kevin completed the first Innocent Bystander model. The first dude is a scrawny prisoner that can be shot, burned or blown to bits - all the while screaming and letting other players know right where you are. The death frames are also done, but weren't ready at the time the first screen shots were taken. More screenshots will follow. The second innocent is more like the hookers in Duke, in that they do not walk around. Still, killing them is far more hilarious than killing a chick. We aren't saying who the second innocent is, just that he fits in with the "DARK CARNIVAL" and "HOUSE OF HORRORS" level themes.

Found a new and unique use for the Crystal Ball besides spying on your opponents. Jay created a new map, "CRADLE TO GRAVE", that has become our new death match favorite. It will likely be positioned as the first shareware map.

Nick has been fixing editor bugs in the art tools, making them more useful for artists and preparing them for release when Blood ships. And speaking of release dates, the Official Word from 3D Realms is "When it's done." We appreciate all your mail with questions and comments about Blood, but please don't inundate us with e-mail asking us when the shareware version will be out. The game will get done when it's done and will kick ass over every other 3D multiplayer/network games. Just let us keep on working and providing weekly updates and we'll all stay happy.

Ken Silverman will be here for a couple of weeks to work on Blood's net and modem code for the DOS version. Maybe he will enhance the 3D sprite editor for doing 3D characters while he's here. Keep watching. We'll let you know about any new groundbreaking changes.

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Update: 09/30/96 We powered up Blood's HellStaff weapon, making the alternate fire an almost instant death weapon - if you can get close enough without getting a shotgun to the face. The HellStaff receives the power of your target's soul when you destroy him. Don't use the HellStaff Blast on zombies though, it just wastes ectoplasmic energy.

Ken changed around how the video system works in the Build engine. Blood now has in-game, on-the-fly video mode switching in addition to the dynamic key mapping we added to Blood a few weeks ago.

Corpses rot away instead of just disappearing - now if we could just get rid of those damn flies. Explosions now have twice the previous radius, calling for another round of playtesting the shareware maps.

Friday night Blood appeared front page on c|net. Check out www.cnet.com to see their exclusive on Blood!

NOTE: Effective immediately, the day that the new updates will appear will now be Monday, as opposed to Friday, like it used to be.

October 1996#

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Update: 10/07/96 Jay put the finishing touches on E1M1, "Cradle to Grave," and launched into reworking Kevin's "Dark Carnival" map. In addition to the various and sometimes grisly attractions Kevin came up with, players can also look forward to a white-knuckled spin on Jay's Happy-Go-Pukey, one of those rickety carnival rides that pushes 5.8 Gs and reminds you why you thought that third corn dog was probably a bad idea.

Craig spent the week creating an as-yet-unnamed battle-damaged pirate ship level that will go in the registered version. While the ship has become a favorite new deathmatch level around Monolith, people are starting to get sick of Craig's seafaring terminology, as in "There's a shotgun on the fo'c's'le" or "Head aft to the poop deck and jump off to starboard." Jay has been threatening to add a plank and make him walk it.

Nick and Ken worked on all manner of network changes, cutting network and modem lag time to nothing. Playing network BloodBath beats the hell out of some other games we've played recently. We came up with a plan to implement TCP/IP networking, But More on That Some Other Time. We also got single player demo recording and playback working. Multiplayer recording works too, but needs some special tweaking for players dying, restarting, entering, and leaving.

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Update: 10/14/96 Craig and Jay spent most of the week playing and touching the shareware maps. Jay modified and finished up most of the Dark Carnival. The House of Horrors and the lumber mill are getting the most attention though, adding lots of stacked 3D areas. The Phantom Express was shortened by one car to make it tighter in BloodBath and single play.

We all got tired of the the player-as-cultist character, so Kevin is working on a new player character model. Those of you who intend to download the shareware version when it's released will just have to bite the bullet because this will probably add another half meg to the download size. The new character really rocks, so once the model is done and digitized we will post some pix just like we did for the Innocents.

More new net code programming, testing and debugging this week. Tweaked some sound code. Started adding all the new sounds for the enemies. For a while the rats sounded like cultists, which was hilarious hearing them yell at you in their death throes.

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Update: 10/21/96 A Mutant Space Virus From Hell struck many of us on the Blood Team at Monolith. We've muddled through, but progress has been slow as the mounds of snot-soaked tissue have grown. Alas, game developers are no more immune to the common cold than anyone else.

We're not sure what Jay did last week, but we know it mostly involved sleep, tissues and lozenges. We'll just call him Patient Zero from now on. Craig has been working on the lumber yard map, despite the fact that he is sick. Nick reworked some of the menu code for Kevin and started a massive bug-hunt session before being stricken with the nasty cold too. Kevin is digitizing the new player character, and remains unaffected by our local plague. He had time to create the new menu font and is reworking the interface to match Blood's Web Site at www.blood.com.

We've brought an additional programmer on to Blood. Daniel Leeks will help bust out the new creature AI as we finish up the game. The creature AI, flight and swimming physics are now top priority to get Blood out the door.

The website would refrain from posting new updates for the next two weeks, due to 3D Realms' webmaster, Joe Siegler getting married and being on his honeymoon.

November 1996#

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Update: 11/11/96 Jay worked on "Thin Ice" a new registered level map. A lot of action takes place either underwater, on ice flows, or on high icy ledges. This larger deathmatch map makes for some really nasty back-stabbing kills to humiliate your opponents.

Craig finished up the lumber mill, but he still can't get through it on the hardest setting--primarily because he tends to panic and blow himself up whenever he runs into spiders. Since he's not afraid of spiders in real life, one can only presume that Nick (who IS afraid of spiders) is in big trouble on this level. Craig also completed the lair of Cerberus, which turned out to be a fast and furious deathmatch map.

Dan worked on more AI. The bats are smarter and even more annoying. He started on Cerberus' AI and tweaked code for some of the other opponents.

Kevin continued his work on player animations, the stone gargoyles attack, and a really twisted painting of the player character for cover and/or magazine art.

Nick added more player-to-player interaction code, burned a new Blood beta CD for GTI and 3DRealms, and moved to larger quarters with Craig's help. Thanks Craig! Last but not least, Nick spent most of the week reading documents from the lowest form of life in the universe (and we don't mean used-card salesman)...that's all we have to say about that.

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Update: 11/18/96 Kevin has been adding various textures for Jay and Craig to polish off the shareware levels. The player character is just a few actions from being completely in. We might have some in-game player screenshots as early as tomorrow.

Craig took over two of Kevin's old maps, expanding on them and making them even spookier and deadlier than before. The first, Rest for the Wicked, is a winter-bound resort where Tchernobog's minions can be found enjoying some R&R.; The second, unnamed level will take you to a hotel suspiciously reminiscent of the Overlook from Stephen King's The Shining. Kevin will probably keel over when he sees what Craig has done to it (if he does, rest assured we'll take pictures of him lying unconscious and post them on our website).

Jay has been compiling the list of shareware textures and touching up some of the shareware levels. He also worked on the mines level for episode 2, as well as testing the nearly complete episode 2 levels.

Dan has been taking a regular beating from Jay and Craig in BloodBaths. He's now extracting revenge by making the enemies his own little minions of death. Craig can now be heard cursing the enemies as their AI is much improved. Dan continues his work on the AI for the HellHounds and Cerberus. More work on the Gargoyles and some new Cultist maneuvers are next.

Nick is polishing off the programming for the remaining shareware elements. Bugs are falling right and left, squashed under the heels of a very determined coder. One particularly nasty memory corruption bug had Nick cursing through the night, but it was rooted out and destroyed after an intense debugging session.

OGR would publish an interview with Nick Newhard and James Wilson.¹⁰

The version on the Blood website featured a unique image. 320px|right

Update: 11/25/96 Dan spent the week (and weekend) working on putting in creature sounds. AI work continues for the HellHounds, Cerberus and the Gargoyles. The cultists are the next object of Dan's scrutiny. Bloodbath testing continues with Dan starting to show signs of life against the regular beatings of Jay and Craig. He actually can manage a righteous kill or two. (Nearly out of ammo too, eh Dan? Good kill!)

Nick pulled a few magic tricks out of his hat this week. The new explosion/concussion processing code is tons faster. Added a bunch of gimmicks to weapon animations. Began adjusting and normalizing sound effects for the entire game. The 3D audio system got some mods this week and everyone loves the war zone feel in BloodBath games.

Jay worked on his mine level for Episode 2. He also did a fair amount of work testing, optimizing, and tweaking the shareware levels.

Craig continued work on Kevin's alpine hotel level and started a war-torn city map tentatively titled "The Siege" for the registered version. While he declines to reveal any details about the latter level (lest they be "borrowed" by less deranged and creative minds), his frequent bouts of maniacal laughter guarantee that you'll be in for a treat. Hmmm, no wonder Soundgarden's "Blow up the Outside World" is his theme song.

Kevin created more textures and sprites to populate levels with. Kev also added some "interactive body parts" for the player and zombies. Some weaponry art touch-ups were also done.

A bunch of us went on a game buying spree this week. Top on the list of purchases were Tomb Raider and Red Alert. Both are pretty cool games. Despite the lack of network play and a somewhat glitchy renderer Tomb Raider seems to be a late-night favorite. Red Alert had the network play advantage, but some players maintain that, except for Mammoth Tanks, the Russians are incredibly weak. Kind of like the Nod having an advantage in the original C&C.; Of course, during work hours we all play Blood and Claw...

December 1996#

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Update: 12/02/96 Craig improved shareware levels and continued work on the various nearly completed registered maps for the second and third episodes. He also did some more R&D; work and research for The Siege. He spent most of the long holiday weekend moving to his new apartment, but still managed to get in some work, six or seven extended BloodBaths (which he won, for the most part), and even a game or two of Red Alert (which he lost, for the most part).

Jay continued working on Episode 2 levels, including the mines, mansion, and ice flow levels. Lots of small tweaks to "Cradle to Grave" and some of the other shareware levels. Internal testing continues on the shareware levels. (Jay actually spent most of the week eating turkey over the Thanksgiving holiday. He did have some lovely Bar-B-Q chicken too. Work was difficult for him after being squashed by Jason 25-22 in a Bloodbath match that has since been talked up to epic proportions.)

Kevin added and tweaked textures for the levels Jay and Craig are working on.

Dan put the finishing touches on the Cultists and Cerberus. Cultists now swim and can actually put themselves out in the water when they are burning. Next on Dan's list of AI tweaks are the GillBeast and Innocents. Dan's sinister plan of world domination was thwarted when Jay launched a vicious Mammoth Tank assault in C&C; Red Alert.

Nick began fixing bugs from bug reports and implementing features collated by our internal beta testers and BloodBath players. The shareware weapons and some of the registered ones are play balanced while each retains advantages and disadvantages in BloodBath games. Nick also worked on the net game startup menus and related game options, which are almost finished.

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Update: 12/09/96 There's been a lot of in-house debate about the awesome power of the Voodoo Doll in BloodBaths. Once Jason got a hold of Blood, he just started tearing up the ranks. Jason is our CEO and one hell of good Duke player -- he's beaten everyone he's played at 3D Realms, including George Broussard. Now that he's found the sweet spot for using the Voodoo Doll, he claims that it just takes skill to use it. Kind of like the BFG in Doom; it's a bad-ass weapon that requires skill to master against good players. The debate continues...

Dan spent the week and weekend adjusting when sound effects are played for the enemies. He also spent time adjusting the movement of the HellHounds and Cerberus. The attack of Cerberus should be completed this week. Work continues on the GillBeast and the Innocents. Dan actually won a game of C&C; Red Alert last week realizing his goal of world domination.

Nick is wrapping up bugs and finishing up network code for the shareware version. Started work on some of the feature requests made by Blood's level designers.

Kevin is still working on extra art for Craig and Jay. He started work on the Blood intro, working out storyboards with Craig. He also said something about working on A.J., but he wouldn't tell us who or what "A.J." was. Hmmm...

Jay finished the work on his mine level, as well as redoing parts of Phantom Express.

Craig wrapped up The Overlooked Hotel for episode 2. It's a huge level, but it's still a lot of fun in BloodBath. Basically, everyone ends up fighting over the registration desk, which is the tactical nexus of the entire level. Many hilarious war stories came out of Sunday night's playtesting session -- always a good sign. Craig also spent more time going through the shareware and other episode 2 maps making improvements to lighting and item and monster placement.

This update was the last one available on 3D Realms' webpage for the game, it is unclear if they continued on the Blood website or not as there are no other webpage captures available after December. 320px|right

Update: 12/16/96 Kevin is pumping out lots of new detail sprites for Jay and Craig as well as the new Voodoo Death for the FatBoy zombie. He also created an incredibly detailed and lifelike map of Monolith buildings 11/12 which is pretty much entirely destructible. Once Kevin has finished the upstairs area he'll pass the map off the Jay. Maybe he will add the other Monolith buildings and parking lot too. (Whaddya say Jay? Oh yeah, and about my office...)

Nick primarily fixed bugs and added features. The coolest feature by far is the new team scoring system that Jay uses in his BloodBath Base map (see below.) He further optimized the explosion code which now allows tons more gibs and debris. Next stop -- Gib Munchies so we can get rid of those nasty giblets all over the ground.

Dan continues work on the enemies. His work mainly was on AI bug fixes and features for each of the characters. He also helped Blood's Sound Engineers by putting most of the new sounds into the game for them.

Craig spent the week improving various levels for Episodes One and Two, slightly expanding an area of the train station and adjusting the ship level as a tribute to a true horror classic -- we'll see if any of you can figure it out when the registered version ships. :-) He also finally discovered the unparalleled space-sim joys of Tie Fighter Hi-Res Collector's Edition and vows his service to the Empire (at least until X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter ships this winter.)

Jay worked Iceflow into shape for the second episode. He also finished an awesome, team-based level and scoring system for the BloodBath Episode. Players feel the ground shaking beneath them when they activate all of their base's PURGE defenses and annihilate everyone in their base! The power and defenses of a destroyed base automatically reset and the BloodFest continues. Scoring in Blood is currently based on two teams which seems to be the most popular in capture the flag and clan-style matches.

From the Last But Not Least Dept. -- Monolith had a visitor this weekend. Bowelgrin (aka. Shawn) is the first outsider to see and play the beta version of Blood shareware. Dan, Nick, Craig and Jay were here and played against each other and Shawn in one of the bloodiest BloodBaths to date. Shawn managed to get in lots of kills with every weapon in the shareware game and proved himself a worthy keyboard player. Up against us mousers(mostly three-button) he didn't have much of a chance. In the end Craig (aka. Croweater) defeated everyone on the Blood Team -- but not by much. Next time Croweater pays...in Blood!!

¹²

* * * H A P P Y H O L I D A Y S * * *

Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah from the Entire Blood Team!

Jay restructured and improved the haunted house level, as well as some minor work on the Monolith office map and som touching up of second episode maps. Craig and Jay also finalized the decisions on which maps were going to be in the 3rd and 4th episodes.

Craig divided his week between various shareware improvements and The Siege. He's finished the basic layout of The Siege and is now packing it full of cool special effects and detail. In other news, he has officially defeated everyone at Monolith in Blood, including the virtually undefeatable Mr. Elite, Messiah, and Shade. We'll see what happens when the Blood ladder starts up, as all of the above-listed people (except for Craig) have vowed to be the best Blood players ever.

This week Dan worked on Cerberus' attack and fixed some AI bugs. This week Dan will revisit the Innocents and the GillBeast. He continues to take weekly beating from Craig and Jay but seems to be steadily improving. Dan worked on the game loading and saving code which should be nearly done by the time you read this.

Kevin continues to get hammered with requests from Craig and Jay for new detail art for the shareware and registered levels. He also added some player gibs for the new character. Kevin has started converting all of Blood's latex creations to 3D models for Blood's intro and episode animations which will be created using our new motion capture studio and render farm.

Nick polished off the level start-up code and menus. Single and multi-player demos are now working as well. At Jason's request, he also added in some rocking new features that haven't been done before in a first-person 3D game. Destruction and mayhem in multi-player games has been elevated to a totally new level. You just won't find this kind of BloodBath anywhere else.

1997#

January 1997#

¹³

Blood Beta 3 should be out to the external beta testers later this week.

Craig and Jay spent much of the week working with Rick, our GT Interactive rep, reviewing the shareware, finalizing episode and level names, discussing bonus goodies for the retail shareware, and so on. We won't discuss the details of Craig's and Rick's BloodBath except to say that another poor soul has felt the sting of Croweater. Craig also managed to finish up The Siege in his spare time. Now it's on to The Sick Ward.

Dan divided his time between adding cool new features to the game and more bug fixes. The AI tweaks continue as usual with more details being added. Dan still shows signs of being immune to the Diablo bug that is going around. It's kind of scary.

Nick has been adding new gib graphics from Kevin into the gib list, and revamping the gib system so the levels designers and players can pretty much gib their way into a Bloody frenzy.

Jay spent last week putting the final touches on the shareware levels, and rebuilding the Dark Carnival level from the ground up. The new main carnival attraction is way cool and replaces the Happy-Go-Pukey.

Kevin says he did lots of new stuff for Jay and Craig. That's what he said last week, and the week before, and... We're think he's just back there playing Diablo.

On January 22nd, 3D Realms and Monolith Productions would announce the sale of the Blood IP between the two parties. It would also be announced that Q Studios had been merged into Monolith.¹⁴¹⁵

March 1997#

The shareware version is spilled out into the world.¹⁶

April 1997#

GT Interactive would announce that Blood had been downloaded over 350,000 times.¹⁷

May 1997#

¹⁸

On April 25, 1997 Blood Went Gold!

We shipped the master to GTI and some of us headed out to the Computer Game Developers Conference (CGDC) in Santa Clara, CA.

The Blood Team is back together and will be starting on the Blood Plasma Pak very shortly.

Nick returned from the CGDC where Blood and our team received kudos aplenty. Jay is back from his honeymoon. Craig is working on "MetalTek" but may sneak a map or two into the Pak. Kevin was here all along, and has been moonlighting on Claw. I wonder if Claw will have to be rated M13 now? Dan was here too, but taking a break to be with Tammy (who is now a PhD. Congrats!)

Meanwhile, it's back to the grind. We will soon be releasing a 1.0 patch to update the shareware version to the equivalent registered version -- including more gib features like bouncing shells, blood splats, and more gore...with all new sound fx!

¹⁹

Cryptic Passage#

Early screenshots of Cryptic Passage exists showing a few differences from the final levels. Notably, Tchernobog is featured here, despite not being present at all in this expansion.

Note: the comments are from captions seen in a promotional video and lower quality versions of these images.

Scrapped Console Ports#

The "Upcoming Projects" page for Q Studios mentioned that the company planned to port Blood and its future projects to consoles, mainly aiming the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn. Blood only ever saw release on DOS and would see no other ports to other systems. It is unclear if any actual work on ports had ever existed or if any plans were still in place after Monolith acquired the game.

Console players would have to wait over 18 years to be able to get their hands bloody with Blood: Refreshed Supply in December 2025.

References#