Softdisk - Standalone Programs and Gamer's Edge

Standalone Programs and Gamer's Edge

Softdisk has also published some standalone programs, including screensaver creator Screen Saver Studio (which is now published by Flat Rock Software).

However, they are probably most famous for being the former workplace of several of the founders of id Software, who worked on a short-lived game subscription product, Gamer's Edge. Gamer's Edge was a bi-monthly PC game disk started in 1990 by John Romero. The disk's developers were John Carmack, John Romero, and Adrian Carmack. Tom Hall, then a programmer who worked in the Apple II department of Softdisk, would come in at night to help with the game design. Lane Roathe was the editor.

These developers later left Softdisk to found id Software. However, to complete their contractual obligation to Softdisk, they did several more games for them including Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion, Rescue Rover, Hovertank 3D, Rescue Rover 2, Tiles of the Dragon, Catacomb 3D and Keen Dreams (the "lost" episode of the Commander Keen series). Softdisk later published games by other developers using the game engines of the earlier games. This connection led to Softdisk being mentioned extensively in the earlier parts of the id chronicling book Masters of Doom.

Also, some of the earliest employees of Origin Systems worked there before moving on: Greg Malone (Moebius, Windwalker), Dallas Snell (The Quest and Ring Quest), Joel Rea (The Quest and Ring Quest), and Alan Gardner (Windwalker, Ultima VI).