Fallout Development Timeline 

No need to apologize for the length, you could talk about this topic for 7 hours and people would still listen :)

My mom passed away in Jan 2019, she knew I loved videogames but didn't really understand them. I'd never really gotten into many western RPGs prior to her passing. She randomly bought me a Vault Boy shirt that Xmas before she passed (no idea what compelled her to do this, she probably thought he was cute). I knew of Fallout, but never took the opportunity to explore the series proper. After she passed away, I finally decided to check it out with New Vegas and the original Fallout and these immediately became the standards I judge all RPGs by. I'll never wear that shirt again, but it'll always be a nice reminder of how I lost someone I love and discovered something I love in what felt like the same breath. Thank you, Tim.

Completely unrelated to anything discussed in the video, but my four year old is watching with me (he loves your spinning globe) and trying to feed you potato waffles through the screen. He would like to know if you have ever eaten a potato waffle. Thanks for everything you create.

6 hours of him going "do this" and you saying "we can't or won't" sounds really funny

Star System Generator has a spinning globe: This confirms to me that Tim has a life-long fascination with spinning globes! :D

Fallout 3 opening scene is gonna hit different after hearing you originally tried to get the rights to I don't want to set the world on fire. Great video, thank you so much for telling the story!

Nearly 24 minutes of Tim? Time to do some dishes and watch this twice!

guys i paused the video like 3 mins ago and now i hear scrapping and ancient chants in dead languages in my attic what the fuck did Tim do to me

13:15 - Wow! This makes the inclusion of the song in Fallout 3 and the homage to it in the Fallout TV series even more epic.

That demo was awesome, fridge Minigun is best minigun! I was so disappointed when I got the real game, found that same fridge, but it wasn't locked and didn't have a Minigun. So disappointed that I'm still complaining about it over 25 years later!

I had no idea you dropped GURPS so late. There are no kids in the EU version, so that must have been the way you resolved that issue. I didn't pause you, Tim.

Proof that Mark Morgan was an amazing choice: so many of his songs made it into New Vegas. And the game is so much better for it!

Yes!! That’s what I’ve been waiting for!! Tim, what influences were important for you in the dark, albeit often times subtle, humor you guys inserted in Fallout? I remember, in my very recent playthrough, when reaching The Glow, hovering the mouse over one of the cadavers and reading “You see the remnants of: Loser”, and laughing out loud so much! 🤣 I would personally love to see a video dedicated to the dark humor in Fallout! Have a good one, Tim! 😄

congratulations you just produced an historic document, it's going in my doctorate dissertation and you can't stop it

Hi Tim, it's me, me. I just want to thank you for putting out all these videos and sharing your amazing insight. Settling in this industry gets much easier listening to you.

Love this timeline video, also: spud, the pet scorpion?! Awesome

Wow I didn't realise you switched to SPECIAL so far in to development, that's crazy! A gold star to your team for managing to turn that around so quickly (especially with the modularity)! Now the video is over, I can go to the bathroom without being reprimanded by Uncle Tim :D

I want more long videos like this. More of Tim is more of happiness.

Was just thinking "wished this guy did longer videos" I like listening while programming :D

Fallout 1 is my favorite game. Thanks Tim

The iconic Fallout intro was created on my 4th birthday? Thank you for the present, Interplay.

I first played Fallout on my 486, on Dos. It ran at about 1fps, and I remember it took a few goes to boot. When I finally got a Pentium, it was the first game I installed. Thanks for the memories Tim!

Happy Friday Tim! Thank you for all you do!

Favorite video to date! Love hearing about behind the scenes events

Love this stuff Tim, thanks for everything you have done

So grateful for all the insight. Thank you all for creating this universe.

these are fantastic behind the scenes bits and pieces to fill in what was going on the otherside of fallout i was playing as an end user, downloading demos off the net on a telephone was such a hassle

Fascinating, Tim. Thanks!

Been binging all the videos ive missed, you are a highly prolific fellow, always a great and insightful listen

this are amazing. found this channel a few days ago. it feels illegal to have this info on youtube lol thank you so much!

I feel so lucky to have one of my favorite creators talk about my favorite game series on RU-vid. I also just DMed my first session of a PnP fallout campaign. My freinds loved it. One didn’t know anything about fallout and he wants to play a game now. I told him he can play any game except the first because that’s what I stole my plot from. 😂 Thank you for everything Tim.

So nice to just listen to your story, sir. Thank you soooo much. Pls be safe.

It is so neat seeing all this behind the scenes history. Really neat how much goes into a video game that isn't obvious from an outside perspective

Fallout's been a part of my life for a quarter of a century. Thank you for making this, and all of these early Fallout dev videos.

I appreciate the long-form content. Thanks Uncle Tim! "Fallout Development Timeline" title is very unassuming. but the actual video is very pleasant.

Organizing the code in a way that allowed you to remove GURPS easily saved that company a lot of money. Were you aware that the deal could fall through and decided to prepare early? Or were you guys just that disciplined all the time?

love fallout, love gurps. so glad you have this channel

Hey Tim, I wanted to say that watching your channel has been fun, a lot of developers are in the shadows sometimes, and watching your videos and relating to you has inspired me to hopefully have a career in the gaming industry someday!

Did Steve Jackson games ever give reasons for WHY they hated the Vault-Boy? Every time you mention it, it baffles me.

I would love to see a video about how you learned how to code. Like details on what resources and methods, and your perspective looking back on that journey

Leonard Boyarsky really doesn't age, damn.

"I would never pause you, Tim!" he lied, as he had just paused the video to write this exact comment.

Ahhhh, a fantastic bit of history. Trying to remember exactly when I got my copy, might not have been until later in October? I *definitely* remember champing at the bit to get it and start playing.. Thanks!

Would be neat to one day have a tour of that bookshelf that's always in the background of these videos. In addition to the books there seems to be a lot of neat memorabilia

No, wait! Darn it, I had 2 whole free hours for this. 24 minutes is just wetting the appetite! (LOL!) Thanks for your videos!

Made my friday. Thank you :)

It warms the heart to hear all this. Fallout is so SPECIAL to me. Thanks a lot to all its makers.

""Gurps!", Pip-Boy swallowed." This was a headline in a Fallout history article in the finnish Pelit (Games) magazine x>

Great video!

Oh dude an Earthdawn game would have been SICK.

Looking forward to the TV show the trailer looks great must be exciting for you too

Can’t wait to see your thoughts on the fallout TV series when it releases

"It's kinda long..." Cool, I got my coffee ready.

18:52 Man, Steve Jackson really missed the jackpot there...

You can't stop me from pausing you, Tim!!

On the early release stuff, lots of stores that had moratoriums for release dates would just ignore them and get more "word of mouth sales" by selling them the day they received them. I used to have a buddy at EB that did that crap all the time. I got many games a few day's before they officially released like that. 😬

Thanks!

8:20 so cool. thanks for sharing this picture

If only we had "fly-on-the-wall" footage of that weeks-before-shipping interaction between Tim and the executives who wanted last minute design changes 🤣

I could listen to Tim talk about Fallout indefinitely. My personal favorite game. In hindsight it makes sense why I didn't love Fallout 2 as much; was just missing something.

The intro movie did such a magnificent job of setting the tone of the game. Really the entire franchise.

Mr. Cain, I have been watching your videos since the beginning, so I do not recall the following ever being answered, but have you checked out Fallout 2: Restoration Project, which implements some of the ideas you mentioned, e.g. The Abbey. If so, would you be comfortable sharing your thoughts on the matter?

Thanks for this, Tim. Very informative. During that six-hour meeting with Steve Jackson, had you been empowered to make the changes he wanted, do you think you would you have agreed to them?

Love these long form fallout videos Tim! I have a question regarding the Fallout TV show. Do you think you’ll watch it, and maybe even give your thoughts in a video once it’s out? Thanks!

4:43 Man, I wish we had a "GURPS Baldur's Gate 3"

My favourite classic games was pandemonium and small soldiers. 90s was a great time to be a gamer.

From the UK the reason the interplay office would have said about the removing kids or killing them was down to the shooting at a school in Dunblane scotland in 1996 (famous tennis player Andrew Murray was there at the time as a student). and the BFFC ( the organization that would age rate stuff before PEGI) would have banned it for sale, BFFC is also the reason Carmaggeon turned people to zombies in the uk. FO2 still had children turned invisible used to think the game was infinite combat turning while in the Den while killing Flick down to it moving all the invisible kids.

Having experienced cert on consoles since 2012, it's nuts that you sent the final build October 1st and physical copies were in stores October 10th.

I definitely loved this! Where my knowledge was somewhat weak was regarding the development of Mac. I used to think that Tim Hume was the one who had translated GNW in a weekend, but it seems that it was Chris Desalvo instead and Hume was then in charge of polishing the version of the game itself using that MacGNW, right? Was it a quick process done at the end or was it made accompanying the development of DOS/Windows on a daily basis once he joined the project?

Ayy November 13th mentioned, that’s my birthday!

Fallout changed my life, and my perspective on gaming. I started on 3, but later played 2 and loved it. I still need to play the first one. Thank you so much!

3:00 I love the notion of a card game so complex that the creator doesn't even know the rules.

This bloke is the best

Oh, Tim, if I needed to go to the bathroom you’re just comin with me, bud.

Thank you Tim! Can you do an Arcanum one as well? :) Have a great weekend!

BTW, the Epic Store currently has The Outer Worlds for free until April 11th (2024).

thanks for fallout! ;)

6:55 Ahhh, Gizmo Junk. I wonder what impact this name had on the game :)

😎 Great video!

Why the hell wouldn't at least Ferg meet with Jackson, seems disrespectful when they were the ones with decision making power

1996 for Mark Morgan arrival - fantastic. 4 years until I was born!

Hey Tim, I’ve been watching a lot of your videos a lot lately and I’ve been really enjoying them. Especially because I admittedly do not know much about game development or the behind the scenes stuff that goes on in the industry; it’s been really fascinating and interesting to hearing your perspective on a lot of things. One thing I’m curious to know your opinion on is on gaming consoles and their effect on game development. Have game consoles throughout game development history been a chokehold on games or have they been beneficial to the industry? It’s kindof hard to articulate exactly what I mean, but PCs in general have always been more powerful pieces of hardware compared to their contemporary consoles of their time. I know that some games are developed only for PC for this reason because they’re the only things capable of running it, yet I know that the console market has always been huge and it makes perfect sense if developers make compromises on the games they make if they want to reach a larger market. Do consoles limit the game development or is it a completely irrelevant thing?

Ooo I caught this one early! Glad I already got my coffee and went to the bathroom

Thank you for the wonderful breakdown on the timeline of Fallout! It's always such a treat to see all the small details you noted down. I heard you mention working on Stonekeep, do you have any memories or notes to share of your experiences on that project? Interplay games were my early childhood, and Stonekeep and Fallout were easily my two favorites of that time.

This is awesome and insightful thanks for telling us your history working in games what do you do now ?????

Hello Tim, I was wondering back when you were developing fallout you mentioned how you created multiple game engines. How did you know how to create them? Were there books/websites on how to create them? I’m asking since I assume the internet didn’t have as much resources as it does know. I love your videos I always watch them for motivation for my own game dev journey.

Folding laundry got a lot more entertaining, thank you tim lol

It blows my mind that the executives or whatever didn’t like Vault Boy. He’s the perfect Mascot and Fallout wouldn’t be the same without him.

Apologies Tim. I had to pause the video to use the bathroom 😥. Interesting video though. Also hello from a fellow Tim. Have a nice day!

If I recall correctly for the German/European market release kids where removed from the game.

Damn, Leonard’s showing off the big guns in that pic.

I loved that story:!

As a huge fan of Earthdawn since its release I've always lamented the lack of any implementation on PC/console. Now, after hearing you mentioning someone having suggested it as an IP I can't stop thinking about what a parallel universe would have looked like where you'd have picked Earthdawn over GURPS. On that note: has it ever been suggested again, or are you even familiar with the system? Earthdawn in an isometric crpg would pretty much be my personal dream-game... 😊

Fallout music producer.. so talented..

Hi Tim! A bit of an off-topic question: have you heard about, or played Underrail? A lot of people consider it a spiritual successor to original Fallouts, which I adhere to as well. It's, of course, a post-apoc from a different perspective than you guys had, but it has a very deep and rich lore standing on its own two legs. I believe they weren't trying to replicate your design philosophy, but they took all the right notes. I hope you have time to give it a shot, I'm pretty sure you'd like it!

Do you have any notes regarding Arcanum soundtrack creation? Or anything interesting about it to tell? Still one of the best soundtracks in games fitting the setting and good music on its own

OMG an Earthdawn video game I wanna cry.

I'd love an in-depth on the creaion of the cutscene physical models, the digital creation, the animation.

Hi Tim, have you ever played or watched player mods for the original Fallout series? Such as the Fallout 2 restoration project or Fallout Reloaded? Do you think you could talk a bit about that topic?

It’s 2 am I’m high af watching this