Tom Hall

Infobox Person
name = Tom Hall


image_size = 212px
caption = Tom Hall at Ion Storm, Dallas, 1999
birth_name =
birth_date = Birth date and age|1964|9|2
birth_place =
death_date =
death_place =
employer = KingsIsle Entertainment
occupation = Game designer
spouse =
partner =
children =
website = [http://www.tomtomtom.com/ TOMTOMTOM.com]

Tom A. Hall (born September 2, 1964) is a game designer born in Wisconsin. He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison and there received a B.S. in Computer Science. In 1987 he worked at Softdisk Inc., where he was both a programmer and the editor of "Softdisk", a software bundle delivered monthly. Along with some of his co-workers, John Romero, John Carmack, and Adrian Carmack, he founded id Software. He served as creative director and designer there, working on games such as the "Commander Keen" series, "Wolfenstein 3D", "Spear of Destiny", and "Doom".

After some disputes with John Carmack about the design for "Doom", he left to join Apogee/3D Realms. He was the game designer for "Rise of the Triad", produced "Terminal Velocity", and helped in varying degrees on "Duke Nukem II" and "Duke Nukem 3D" as well. He also worked on the "Prey" engine until August 12 1996, when he left Apogee.

Next Hall co-founded Ion Storm with John Romero, where he produced "Anachronox". The company was less than successful, apart from "Deus Ex", in which Hall voiced one of the characters. He and John then founded Monkeystone Games, a company with far less grandiose plans. He designed, and Romero programmed, "Hyperspace Delivery Boy!", which was released in 2002. He and Romero were hired by Midway Games, and Monkeystone closed in January 2005. Hall also left Midway early that year and did independent game consultation work out of the Austin, TX, until in February he joined a startup company called KingsIsle Entertainment based in the same area.

Dopefish

Hall is also the creator of the Dopefish, a large, green, buck-toothed, belching, dimwitted fish whose thought process is restricted to "Swim, swim, hungry". The Dopefish first appeared in "Commander Keen" episode IV, and references to it have appeared in many other video games since.

Voice work

* Tom Hall provided the voices for Morpheus, a sentient AI, Howard Strong, a ruthless and cruel MJ12 operative and Walton Simons, the nano-augmented Director of FEMA, for the computer role-playing game Deus Ex. He also voiced the project director in 's opening cutscene and PAL-18, Councilman Willis, Dr. Hush-Hush and Eddie the Chew in Anachronox.

External links

* [http://www.tomtomtom.com/ Hall's personal website]
* [http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId=891/ MobyGames' entry on Hall]

Persondata
NAME=Hall, Tom
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Video game designer
DATE OF BIRTH=
PLACE OF BIRTH=Wisconsin
DATE OF DEATH=
PLACE OF DEATH=