Fallout Co-Creator Reveals Engine for RPG at Secret Pizza Party Due to Team Restrictions

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Tim Cain, co-creator of Fallout, wasn’t initially supposed to share his ideas with the rest of the team working on the iconic post-apocalyptic game. To keep things under wraps, he organized a secret after-hours pizza gathering to showcase the engine that would eventually drive the RPG.

“I was tinkering with engines in my spare time,” Cain shared in a recent interview. “At Interplay, my main job was creating installers for various games, since back then, games came on physical floppy disks that required specific installation processes.”

Cain reminisces about developing a functional sprite engine but notes he “wasn’t allowed to approach” the rest of the team directly due to their commitments to other projects. Instead, he cleverly found a workaround. “I booked a conference room for 6 p.m., right when everyone was supposed to leave, and sent out emails inviting anyone interested in discussing potential games using this sprite-based isometric engine to join me for pizza.” He recalls that only about eight people attended, and without realizing it, he was attracting the most motivated team members.

Among those who showed up was Leonard Boyarsky, the lead and art director, who admits he can’t fully remember the meeting but recalls Cain presenting various concepts, including a 3D engine and a voxel engine.

“When we discussed our direction, I thought 3D would be exciting, but at that time, it was challenging to achieve detailed work in 3D,” Boyarsky explained. “That’s when we opted for the sprite engine that Tim had already developed.”

Cain mentioned that he might have taken the Fallout series in a different direction than Bethesda did, but “the sales figures indicate that players love what they created.”