Diablo - Original Design Pitch

[Myrthos]

In an article on Gamasutra about the original design documents for Diablo that were used to pitch the game, we learn that in that original pitch Diablo was described as a turn-based role-playing game with randomly-created dungeons at its heart and that is was heavily inspired by games like Nethack and Rogue.

Over the weekend game designer David Brevik published a scan of the original 1994 design proposal Condor, Inc. (which would later become Blizzard North) used to pitch Diablo to potential publishers.

Brevik made a promise to publish the document online after referencing it in his Diablo classic game postmortem at GDC last week, and it's worth perusing to get an understanding of how one of the most influential action-RPGs of the '90s was originally conceived.

More information.

 

[Kobu]

Him or one of the other guys actually bothered to give a rundown on what it was going to be on the roguelike games Usenet group. By then it was already live action and I recall people being dismissive. I don't think anyone realized at the time how big it was going to be.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I already knew about the NetHack likeness ... and, to be honest, one must be blind as a mole not to see it.

 

[Avantenor]

That's not really a new story, that Diablo was originally meant to be turn-based. German PC Games had a report about that in 2010, and I don't think they've been the first one.

http://www.pcgames.de/Diablo-3-Spie...in-ueber-die-Entstehung-einer-Legende-748530/

edit:

David Craddock in 2012: http://www.shacknews.com/article/76406/chapter-8-finale-condor-and-blizzard-lock-horns-over-diablo

 

[screeg]

Diablo was a great game, but I've often wondered how it would've turned out if it was turn-based.