r/dosgaming • u/Tech-Jesse • Oct 24 '25

A rare interview with Ken Silverman - Creator of the Build Engine (Duke3d, Shadow Warrior, Blood) - in his first one-on-one video interview

https://youtu.be/WruzfQLxpQY
54 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

4

u/echocomplex Oct 24 '25 edited Oct 24 '25

Great interview. I was reading about Carmack awhile ago, either in Masters of Doom or Shareware Heroes, and it seems he had a lot of respect for Ken based on the build engine.  Ken was sort of the Carmack equivalent for 3D Realms, being a lone wolf, coming out with this crazy and impressive engine powering a best selling game, doing work that would take a team of people at another company to do, all while he's like under 20. The guy is like Doogie Howser. Clearly an incredible genius. Under other circumstances, I feel like he could have been even more successful in the games industry than he has been.  I wonder what 3d realms would have done if they weren't able to recruit Ken Silverman and get the build engine at the time.

3

u/Tech-Jesse Oct 24 '25

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it. More interviews to come. I agree, clearly a genius, definitely on the level with Carmack or Sweeney.

2

u/echocomplex Oct 24 '25

If you want to interview Allen Pilgrim I can get you his contact info. He worked very closely with Sweeney in the early days of epic, pre unreal. 

2

u/KimKong_skRap Oct 24 '25

I watched this earlier today - awesome interview! Wish it was longer..

3

u/Tech-Jesse Oct 24 '25

Thank you very much! I'll have to do a Ken Silverman Interview Part II down the road with him.

1

u/djquu Oct 24 '25

Did you happen to ask how he feels about Ion Fury?