My Father Was Part of the Shankenstein Team. Any Good Questions to Ask Him?

Hello all!

So I've stumbled upon this great forum while researching information on the add-on "Shankenstein".

Long story short, I run a podcast about video games. I'm only 25, so we usually talk modern games, but on our 64th episode, we celebrated nostalgia and our childhood gaming memories. I explained that my first game was Wolfenstein 3D. I played it originally when I was 2 years old. This is because my father (alongside Larry Shanked and Jeff Kish) created an add-on for Wolf3D called "Shankenstein", and it was his way of sharing his passion with his infant son.

After some research (once again, here's how I came to join this forum), I came to realize that it was actually released on CD (after they released it on some pre-internet bulletin boards. Every thing I read on the topic seemed generally positive, and all around respected.

I'm sitting him down soon and putting him on mic to shed some light on the development process. Does anyone have any questions they'd like me to ask him, or any good meaty questions in general?

I'm not sure if he's humble or what, but he has never really talked about it at length. Any assistance is appreciated. I also work as a freelance games writer, so I'd love for the world to hear his story.

Think of it as a son's way to repay his father for starting his passion. I owe it all to him, guys. I want to do right by him, the Wolf3D community, and the spirit of the game with this story. Please help me accomplish this in any way you can.

Cheers,
Matthew Owen, Host of Super Gamecast 64.

Firstly how long did it take you to create 60 levels?

What types of hurdles did you run into putting the maps on cd and selling them?

How much did you make off of your endeavor? :

I really miss the freedom people had back then, today if you created a set of maps for a game and charged for them most companies would have a fit. Personally I have no issue paying for mods or extra content regardless of who creates them. I'm curious in this case involving Wolf 3d how did you get around this issue with iD? Of course iD became very accepting of the modding communities in time, but did they have issue with unlicensed add ons that distributed a part of their assets likely at a cheaper price?

What tools did he use in the Dos days? What was his rig?

What does he think about the modding scene still being alive today and the SDL based projects?

How exactly did one find editing tools in the earlier days of Wolf 3d? I'm assuming some sort of BBS you logged into to download programs. Do you remember the names of any?

What did he think of Doom when it came out? Did he ever try making maps for it?

Does he think violence in video games is a cause for concern in a societal level?

Thanks for all the great questions.

I can try to answer some of those, as he had explained a little bit of that to me.

Essentially, they did it for fun because they all worked together.

For the time, he said hundred upon hundreds of hours.

He handled the programming and tech side, where Larry Shanked was the one who did the level design. As far as money, he never saw a cent (but that doesn't bother him, he was never in it for the money.)

Larry Shanked was the one who put his name on it, in fact my father had little to do with the marketing side of it. I'll try and see if Larry is around still and ask him some of that. I did hear something like 3600 as far as money being made, but I think that's a ballpark.

He had worried that the violence and whatnot might effect me, but beyond that he never saw it as a real possibility that I would go out and hurt someone because of my playtime.

He explained how they got their hands on the editing tools, and I will post when I get that info. I'll also post the interview when I do it.

Keep em coming guys! He's currently trying to get a hold of Jeff, but he hasn't talked to him since around '96, so he's digging through some stuff.

Once again, thank you so much. I love Wolf3D so much and I love how embracing this community is.

Cheers,
Matthew Owen