Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

My favourite story of Diablo's development (as relayed by David Brevik in the Diablo Postmortem - see below) is the part where Diablo was made real-time. He passionately championed that it should be more like Rogue or Moria purely turn-based and permadeath. That was until he implemented real-time movement in an afternoon and attacked a skeleton. This was a directive from Blizzard, and it effectively created the ARPG genre. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VscdPA6sUkc and for those averse to Google…

The excellence of Diablo lies in the atmosphere of the game. I think it is one of the best games in terms of the overall atmosphere and that general feel of play. All the pieces work perfectly together to deliver this unique sensation while playing the game. Especially the music. Matt Ulemen has created a masterpiece soundtrack! PS. It is very funny that reading this pitch document I haven't noticed any of that ephemeral things that build this unique atmosphere…

Good to see plenty of people in the comments experiencing nostalgia due to fond memories of playing this great, great game :) You may be unaware that there is "Belzebub", a "HD mod" for the original Diablo, available today, that taches the original engine a few tricks (besides the obvious 1080p resolution), and also re-introduces a lot of the game's planned content that had to be cut from the final release shortly before the gold master was spun. And IT…

> The entire game operates on a turn-based system Diablo was initially meant to be turn-based and was only later changed to real-time. According to the lead programmer the change was decided by a show of hands [0]. [0] https://youtu.be/huPF3Gid7DE?t=30