Tom Hall, one of the creators of Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, joined the PlayFirst team, the authors of Diner Dash.
This is a wonderful and not at all April Fools’ lead, they joke on PocketGamer.
The appointment of Hall to the position of lead designer is indeed a strange decision on the part of PlayFirst, but not because this person once had a hand in cult hardcore projects like Commander Keen and Anachronox.
Since 2001, Tom has been closely involved in games for mobile phones and the casual market, developing MMO and, when Facebook appeared, social networks. Recently, he even managed to light up with a project on Kickstarter.
The problem is that they have not released a single notable game after Anachronox. Moreover, most of the recent projects that he tried to actively promote, including the garish platformer Worlds of Wonder and the scary browser-based Ghost Recon Commander, did not even live to release.
The last project he had a hand in was Pettington Park Farm. A year ago, Zynga released it only on Google+, which in itself is alarming. And such a person, whose real merits have remained in the distant past, is hired by PlayFirst as a leading designer.