'Diablo': A Classic Game Postmortem

Caption notes

David Brevik recalls Diablo’s transformation from a turn-based single-player proposal into an action game with online play. He explains palette lighting, draw order, playable prototypes and feedback, while acknowledging underestimated budgets, networking work and cheating. Battle.net’s connection service and the game state on players’ machines have different responsibilities. A lightweight service did not make the clients trustworthy. This is a retrospective account, and Brevik explicitly flags several uncertain memories.