The first Quake game launched 20 years ago today, but, as director John Romero remembers it, the game started gaining fans well in advance of its full release. In a post celebrating the classic first-person shooter's big 2-0, Romero uploaded several pre-launch screenshots, interviews and other information to remind both himself and fans of Quake's beginnings.

The Quaketalk 95 document is a text file from Oct. 22, 1995, collecting all kinds of early design info. There are email exchanges about the engine, logs from chatrooms where Romero teased the game to id Software fans and the developer's own notes about the development progress. For those who know Quake inside and out, Romero said the file will offer a greatly different look from the game's final form.

A series of early screens don't shown much, but they may be familiar to those who were scouring online for Quake news in the summer of 1995. One fan later sent Romero his own Quake-themed trading cards following the game's release, which are also included in the post.

Quake amassed popularity in the '90s, as id Software released mission packs and well-received sequels. The series went without a mainline entry for years following Quake 4 in 2004, but a new game, Quake Champions, made its debut at Bethesda's E3 conference last week. The arena-based shooter will be multiplayer-only, unlike previous games.