Sublime

create an arbitrary 3-D world with Internet play. Carmack began the project as he often did, by reading as much research material as he could gather. He paid thousands of dollars for textbooks and papers, but everything was purely academic.

What if, Carmack thought, instead of redrawing everything, I could figure out a way to redraw only the things that actually change? That way, the scrolling effect could be rendered more quickly.

Making a game, writing code, for Carmack, was increasingly becoming an exercise in elegance: how to write something that achieved the desired effect in the cleanest way possible.

While Carmack was exceptionally talented in programming, Romero was multitalented in art, sound, and design.