History of the Build Engine

Today I came across a video in YouTube featuring the history of Ken Silverman’s Build Engine.

I remember spending countless hours, when I was young, using the Build tools for designing and scripting levels for games such as Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior, as well as creating new artwork and even editing the game configuration files (CON files).

Build Engine’s CON files were my first approach to programming, way before I learned how to program using C++. They used to have a weird syntax, but you could do all sorts of changes to the game. Even defining new monsters and items was possible thanks to CON files.

Here’s the video. It’s about 10 minutes long, but completely worth it.