Doom as a scary game

[TheLostJoJo]

So i thought I'd post this here to maybe open up a discussion about the creepier scarier side of Doom. I know some people view it as a more action oriented series than horror, but i personally saw Doom as a creepy game growing up.

 

Allow me to explain why.

 

When i was about 10 years old I first played Doom, the SNES port (didn't have a computer yet so that was my only way to play the game for awhile.) It was my first FPS, moving around a 3d environment whilw viewing the world from the eyes of my character was a totally new experience in gaming for me. In this game world everything that's living is a horrible monster from the pits of hell, and wants nothing more than to cause me to have a horrible painful death. Enemies that acknowledged my presence would move around with the sole intent of wanting me to die, and judging by the amount of bloody dead bodies around KDITD, they did the same to everyone else that was here before me. It was a big source of fear and dread in my life due to my older family pushing Christianity and the fear of hell into me.

 

Then a year later my mom got a Windows 95 PC, and I figured out how to use AOL to download the shareware Doom. And as much as i loved playing it the feeling of fear and dread intensified. The greater detail and lighting this game has over the SNES game got to me even more. The darker areas held all sorts of nastiness, plus the fact that this game was the first game i ever played where enemies have corpses, every other game i played before this had enemies that, when killed or defeated would disappear in a puff or an explosion, or would fall off the map like in a Mario game, this one had enemies leave coptrses that STAYED there, putting a greater idea in me that these monsters I'm defeating are dead. That combined put chills in me, and sorta still does, even as an adult.

 

Anyway, that's just my take on how I identify Doom as a horror game. Anyone else have any feelings like that toward Doom? 

[leodoom85]

Try getting the PSX version of Doom or Doom 64 because those have a more darker feel to it.

[TheLostJoJo]

@leodoom85 I eventually got to playing those. The Crushed level made it sound like babies and old people were being tortured off in the distance. That crap freaked me out!

[Steve D]

I started playing Doom 2 on the Mac in '95, and yes, it scared the crap out of me. I'd never played an FPS before, and then, as now, I wasn't very good at it. Things got really scary on Map03. I kept dying down in the water, killed by something I didn't see, except for one time when I died at just the right angle to look up and see this dark shadow with horns. My first encounter with Spectres. Spooky as hell.

 

I failed to deal with them effectively in subsequent plays, so I downloaded shareware Doom as a sort of boot camp. Thus began my love affair with KDiTD. It had some scary moments, but it was much easier than Map03 of Doom 2. Once I finished boot camp, I went back to Doom 2 and got all the way to Map08 before my next moment of horror. I was totally freaked when the Cyberdemon appeared and took me out with a single rocket, so when I tried again, I ran away, but I could still hear it on the other wide of the wall as I sat crouching in raw terror. I think I was actually sweating. How the hell was I going to kill this thing? Well, it wasn't easy, nor was it easy when I encountered another Cyb in that dark room on Map10 and ran shrieking as I looked for a way out.

 

Even today I can feel my heart racing from a really good trap, or feel dread in an atmospherically lit room that's quiet, too quiet. I treasure those moments.

[Gokuma]

I was checking out the Deathmatch maps of Hexen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel and after killing nearly everything in Castle of Pain, one last stalker popped up down in the moat and made me jump.

[Chezza]

I would love to see you guys play Doom as a kid. Having true fear of the game but fighting on shows a high level of appreciation of the atmosphere.

 

The mention of Doom being more horror or action vibe pops up quite frequently.

 

I said this once before and I will share again. I think Doom originally wanted to cover both worlds and somewhat evolved during development. This is also reflected with players. Most start off quite cautious and attentive to the sounds and horror elements but once you face your fears enough to overcome them they become a tool. You're familiar with what grunt belongs to which enemy and what weapon is best to kill them before you even see them. You then approach previously completed levels faster and become very efficient, transforming the game to a fast paced fps.

[TheOrganGrinder]

As a general observation, I think Doom is more of a scary game, Doom II is more of an action game - consider the level layouts of the respective games, the use of large vs. small spaces, the general scale of combat encounters, the provision of weapons and supplies, and the tone of the music.  In particular I think the addition of more mid-to-high tier monsters requires that the player uses the rocket launcher and plasma gun more regularly and extensively, and the mancubus and arachnotron especially really want big open spaces to play in; compare and contrast to the tendency toward interior mazes in the original Doom and the reliance on the shotgun and chaingun for bread-and-butter fights against the zombies through demons that make up the greater part of the bestiary.

[asdf2k3]

I absolutely think Doom was supposed to be scary. One reason why most people don't think it's scary is because they turn the brightness up too much. I don't know why, but most if not all source ports are much brighter by default compared to the original DOS game. It's supposed to be dark. The scary parts of Doom are where you can barely see what's going on, just some flashing lights in the darkness, wandering around aimlessly, hearing the groans of nearby enemies. Also, playing with only the keyboard makes it scarier too, because you feel much more vulnerable if you're slower to react.

[P41R47]

I think that @Chezza practically covered up all the aspects of what was Doom back then.
And as silly i might sound, when i was a kid, around four years old, i didn't know there was other episodes, i always played KDITD. But not because i liked it, just because i was a kid and didn't know a single word of english, and obviosly always in god mode, so no fear to die... But that die ending really put questions in my head at that time. Then, when i growed and started kindergarden, around a year after i played Doom for the very first time, i learn how to read pretty fast, and discovered that there was other lenguages aside from my native one. So i took a dictionary English-Spanish, and started learning word by word, and thats when i learned that there was episodes in the original Doom.
The shores of hell doesn't give me anything different aside from new tricky maps to play... Until i reached The Tower of Babel.
Lord! That was soo fear inducing that i had nightmares, and i'm not the one here that still heard the abominable footsteps of that CyberDemon and star trembling by the fear that arise from the past experience.
When i finally defeted the Cybie and saw the ending pic of episode 2... WOW! That sole image of a floating land over hell was soo nightmearish and inspiring that i dreamed of one of the most bizarre Doom maps never made and that i still remember it a bit that night.
I wish i can learn how to map to properly made it.
Then when i played inferno, i was thrilled by the satanic and hellish imagery. But not get any kind of new nightmare-fuel from it. I just get amazed by the  maps. Slought of Despair and it hand shaped map get stuck in my head and always wondered what that could possibly mean. And Mount Erebus is still one of the first images that comes to my head when i heard the word Hell. I love that map! 
But now that i remember right, yes, there was a momento of fear... or more correctly, massive surprise when i played Inferno, yes, that was Warrens. THAT WAS A BIG NASTY SURPPRISE! but i was totally tamed by that time.
I honestly wish i could had played Thy Flesh Consumed at that time of my life. I just got to play it a few years ago, like 2008 or so, abd the experience and wonder was vastly different from my childhood one. Still, Thy Flesh Consumed is the episode i love the most of all.

I played Doom 2 almost like ten years after, when i was around 13 years or so. And for certain, it was harder than the original Doom, but i didn't like it that much. Even today, Doom 2 first episode is a slog to play and really get me bored pretty soon. Icon of Sin and the intermission screen with all that flesh faces were some good things i remind fondly from that time and were the same in my head. The idea of SIN get stuck on my head and started to grow on me about it meaning and what we perceive as it. Yeah, i had a lonely time in my teen years for thinking that way.
When i was around 20, i played the expansions, TNT: Evilution, that i love! Plutonia that gives me the same feeling of playing the first maps of Doom 2 all the time. And then i played Thy Flesh Consumed. And was outstanding!
All in all, i think we had a lot of fun and fear inducing time playing Doom, and i think that this combination of feelings can only be coupled during childhood, and as we grow up, we get more of one or the other but scarcely at the same time. And i think it is a defining experience in life that could change or made us perceve things in different way sometimes.
Thanks Id software for this!

[Juza]

Horror doesn't necessarily have to be made with the intent of scarying you. It's a theme.

 

I don't think it's possible to not call this an action-horror game, as I sometimes see people do, when the whole premise is that demons are invading Earth and you have to go to Hell itself to stop them. Regardless of whether one finds Doom scary or not, it's undeniably horror-themed. Which is why I think PSX Doom, Doom 64 and Doom 3 are as Doom as they could be.

[insertwackynamehere]

I’m always happy to see I’m not the only one who played Doom at an age when reality and make believe still blend together.

[Mayomancer]

Oh yeah i used to play the PSX version of Final Doom when i was around 5, and was terrified of that thing. I didnt go very far because i sucked, but i still remember playing the first map of the master levels a whole lot

[The Nate]

Honestly, I hate how some people try to argue that Doom was never meant to have the element of horror in the first place.

[DoomedFox]

Doom used to be scary to me as a kid just by the fact I thought dying was way way more scarier to experience. As in I thought there would be a animation of you in a POV shot getting eaten alive by a pinky demon for example. I always played on itytd cause of that fear. 

[Gaia74]

when I played doom for the first time, I was so terrified that I always played without enemies, for the fear I had of demons 

[Eurisko]

I was 12 when I first played the PSX version of DOOM and it was kinda scary. Aubrey Hodges soundtrack totally changes the feel.

[leodoom85]

You know....even as a first time when I played Doom on the SNES, it never scared me. Just got pumped into action cuz of maps and music. Discovering stuff was great back then. 

What took me by surprise was some monsters hidden in the dark, like in E2M6 where the red key is, especially near the light goggles. Those moments startled me a bit for the first time...

[mrthejoshmon]

PSX Doom was my first game as a wee tot at the age of 4, I remember being distinctly afraid of the player death sounds and the "ouch" face (especially the >20 health one I found to be achieved by chain sawing a barrel) I also remember jumping a fair bit because of Pinkies (who were actually a threat sometimes due to hitscan chomps with extra range) who would sneak up quietly and let out a loud bassy chomp that would rattle my CRT TV.

 

The visuals were dark, amazingly coloured and gritty, enemies made imposing sounds as they hunted you down, everything hit with meaty sounds and you felt every blow as you were pushed back from impact and the screen bled red, the bigger more imposing foes making deep thick grunts as they barrel towards you, the smaller thinner creatures making shrill creeping sounds...

 

Honestly it was amazing.

[Maximum Matt]

Dude, Wolfenstein scared the crap outta me back in the day. 

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

17 hours ago, asdf2k3 said:

I don't know why, but most if not all source ports are much brighter by default compared to the original DOS game.

GL rendering?  That often messes with the look of the lighting, on GZDoom at least there are a few settings you can mess with to adjust how it handles sector lighting.

[TheLostJoJo]

Since the PS1 Doom and Doom 64 are mentioned a few times I guess Ill say mine.

 

For the longest time my only means to play Doom were the SNES port and the shareware. However I got a PS1 in 1996, with three games, Twisted Metal 2, Descent, and Mortal Kombat 3.

 

At one point I was doing good enough in school to where my mom would let me rent a game for the weekend if I did my homework. One day I saw it, PS1 Doom! I picked it out and brought it home to play for two days.

 

I plopped this in expecting it to be like the Shareware Doom with all the levels available, same audio, music, and gameplay. Then the title screen came on...

 

That chilling title screen into, with the Doom logo slowly rising out of the flames with a pure black ground. As a twelve year old at the time, this sent chills down my spine, like never before.

 

I started the game on the classic E1M1. Before I even pressed Up to walk forward Im already in a slight panic state. The creepy lighting and the omonus ambient music made me feel like I wasnt in a base, eager to kill some scary monsters, I was trapped in a building being watched and followed. The monster's sounds echoing through the hallways as they discovered me made me feel like I was hunted, underpowrered, and at the mercy of these demons and zombies.

[Taurus Daggerknight]

Doom has always had a creepy side to it. To an extent, the original was very much trying to be a horror experiance, as much as it focused on fast paced action. There are explicit scenes of torture (House of Pain I think, is the one with that whole chamber in it), and much of it is not comedic. That's not even counting PSX Doom, Doom 64 or heck, Doom 3. 

 

At the end of the day, the most maddening thing about the franchise is that it can be either stark, serious horror, or tongue-in-cheek, Hellsing levels of nonsense. Both work, but it's basically impossible to find any one angle and say "yeah, this is the Doom that EVERYONE knows and loves". 

 

...well, okay, the qualities that I guess everyone can agree on are demons and portals. Personally, I'd go further and say cyborg demons, but I suppose there have been enough forays into the Doom-verse without those.

[Havoc Crow]

I remember that, as a kid, I was terrified of one thing in Doom: the pinky Demons. They were so unnervingly fast, and they looked so... unnatural with their hunched posture. None of the other monsters scared me, but I greatly dreaded running into even one Demon.

[Mk7_Centipede]

doom 1 was kinda scary.  and obviously doom 3.  but 2 was more action packed imo.  you are cutting down waves of chaingunners only a few maps in.  o of death is pretty action packed.  bloodfalls and monster condo do feel like nightmares though.  freddy kruger's dream world, tbh.  i know a lot of people want hell to have more voidmap, but honing in on suburbia and tangible but surreal environments can provide a certain element of fright and unease.

[Flesh420]

Doom was certainly scary at the time.  I don't think ID factored most of the player base using mice/run (I'm assuming) which is why the first three episodes are so easy.  When my dad brought home the shareware from a computer store the game was terrifying.  Seeing a pinky for the first time I jumped away from the keyboard.  I had not seen anything like it, nor had my dad.  And back then there was no autorun so it's clear the levels weren't designed to be blazed through the way we make them today.

I only ran back then to cross gaps or when shit hit the fan, but I never held down shift.  It was about survival.  When you were low on health your butt cheeks were tight. 

 

Once I got older and source ports became a thing autorun changed the whole game, so much so I'd venture a guess that newer members here don't know that the game wasn't originally designed with autorun in mind—one of the reasons newer people think Doom is supposed to be fast, etc.  I'm only focusing on autorun because it changed the game so much, back then it was vastly slower and you played it more cautiously.  And to me as little boy it was scary as hell, my dad as well.

 

Everything from the way the manual (I read front to back hundreds of times) was written to advertisements gave us no notions of being a badass.  Only trying to survive the demonic invasion.  It was glorious.

Edited December 18, 2019 by Flesh420

[Super ShotGun Specialist]

Well @TheLostJoJo there was a really promising wad that mix’s the atmospheric horror of silent hill and the style of Doom’s game play engine together to make a actually scary game, still I won’t deny that doom would be terrifying for a young kid mainly because of the Demons sounds and look.

[Super ShotGun Specialist]

On 12/16/2019 at 1:18 PM, Taurus Daggerknight said:

Doom has always had a creepy side to it. To an extent, the original was very much trying to be a horror experiance, as much as it focused on fast paced action. There are explicit scenes of torture (House of Pain I think, is the one with that whole chamber in it), and much of it is not comedic. That's not even counting PSX Doom, Doom 64 or heck, Doom 3. 

 

At the end of the day, the most maddening thing about the franchise is that it can be either stark, serious horror, or tongue-in-cheek, Hellsing levels of nonsense. Both work, but it's basically impossible to find any one angle and say "yeah, this is the Doom that EVERYONE knows and loves". 

 

...well, okay, the qualities that I guess everyone can agree on are demons and portals. Personally, I'd go further and say cyborg demons, but I suppose there have been enough forays into the Doom-verse without those.

Cyber.

[Toilet_Wine_Connoisseur]

I enjoy the scarier aspects of doom and find myself enjoying it more when it leans into the horror aspects. I enjoyed Doom3 more than other entry for that reason and Doom 64 an otherworldly horror aspect perfectly. 

[Maser]

I've never felt that Doom has a sense of a scary environment like say the Silent Hill games have, but Doom does have it's moments especially when you accidentally run into an enemy closet that you forgot about and you hear like 30 monsters being alerted at the same time.  That shit is loud as fuck on a good sound system. 

[TheLostJoJo]

On 12/18/2019 at 12:53 AM, Super ShotGun Specialist said:

Well @TheLostJoJo there was a really promising wad that mix’s the atmospheric horror of silent hill and the style of Doom’s game play engine together to make a actually scary game, still I won’t deny that doom would be terrifying for a young kid mainly because of the Demons sounds and look.

 

Oh dude if you find the name of that one let me know. If it works with Brutal Doom I wanna try it