What does Doom mean to you?

[Martin-CAI]

Reading other topics, this question came to my mind. We all love Doom, but each one likes the game in a certain way. What do you appreciate about it?

 

To me, nowadays, it means velocity, a fast paced game, battling against hordes of monsters. I love that combination, and with proper mods the experience becomes better. Also, I like that kind of premise that you're the only one there, fixing the situation all alone; for whatever reason.

It also brings me memories of my infance. It was the first game ever that I played in a computer, and the one that I played with my father hours and hours. So it has that special meaning for me.

So, what's the sense of the game for you? What makes you playing it over and over?

[DavidN]

It’s definitely a reminder of a time in my life I loved, as the shareware giants kept on pushing the PC more and more :) I also love how it inspired such creativity in everyone who played it - making things in game editors was one of my favourite things to do then, and it’s incredible that the community had kept that feeling going for two and a half decades :)

[Taurus Daggerknight]

Definately with @DavidN on the whole inspired front. While I've never made a Doom Wad myself (might get around to it this year...), it and its mod community have certainly been huge inspirations to me in my pursuit of game development in general. 

As for what makes Doom what it is to me, pretty simple: Cyborg Demons and Space Marines. It's a basic premise that can and has been adapted to so many takes. We have the classic Doom's that were kind-of-sort-of-not-really serious, the oppressive and dark Doom 64 and Doom 3, the RPG's (?!) for phones, and of course, the Metalocalypse-esque Doom 2016 and Eternal. That's not counting the novels and movies, like 'em or hate 'em. 

[Rainne]

For me, Doom in general has always been about the possibility of modding, and the relative accessibility of doing so. That's what first caught my attention many years ago (when the game was still fairly new) and has been definitive ever since.

 

The game itself is okay. But where it really stands out for me is the PlayStation version, with its overhauled soundtrack and sound effects. It inspires a feeling of solitude; that the world is small enough for you to matter in it. It's dark and cozy, almost melancholic, yet also brings a sense of clarity. All the bullshit of the world is gone, and it's easy to forget the things that don't matter. It's very... centering. Standard Doom is just another bleepy colorful 90s video game; PS1 Doom has magic to it. All that from the audio!

 

Meanwhile, I tend to prefer fantasy over sci-fi, generally; so Heretic and Hexen appeal to me as a best-of-both-worlds. Heretic is basically "Doom but fantasy"; Hexen takes that in its own direction and feels like a more grown-up version of cartoonish Heretic. Both feel more nature-oriented; I like the gray skies of Heretic E1, and the leaves that blow away from trees at the very start of Hexen, and the humid/foggy ambiance of Darkmere later on. Heretic and Hexen don't get nearly as much attention around here as Doom, so it's like I've discovered these hidden gems that I have mostly to myself; but non-hidden enough that I can still share it with others.

Edited January 25, 2020 by Rainne : linking to examples

[NoXion]

There's something that feels unique about the way Doom's engine produces environments. Natural areas tend toward caves, canyons, cliffs, and flat planes. Fitting for landscapes hostile to most Earthly forms of life. Clever mappers and/or those willing to make use of source ports that add slopes can mix this up, but rare is the sight of rolling green hills in the vast multiverse that is every WAD ever created. Meanwhile artificial structures in the traditional Techbase mold often exhibit a lumpenly Cubist form of Brutalism, starkly defiant of the merest notion of homely comforts. All doors are sliding, upwards. The lighting is often harshly bright or murky. Obviously the limitations of graphics have a hand in this, but I can't help but try to imagine what it would be like to live and work in such bases.

 

It's a perfect playground for throwing all that sci-fi firepower at demons. There's probably more WADs out there then I could hope to play, even just the good ones. When mappers go nuts and just throw demons at me, the shape of the space I'm in could mean the difference between some light crowd management, or a struggle not to die. Which I lose a lot if I'm in over my head. I like to think I'm getting better, and maybe I am, but then I look at how some people on YouTube play on Ultra-Violence with fast monsters enabled, and I realise the skill ceiling is much higher than first estimated.

I was too young to play Doom when it was first released. But the combination of its pixelated aesthetic and the similarities to the Build engine of Duke Nukem 3D, the very first ever FPS I ever played when I was aged 10, makes it nostalgic nonetheless.

It's a game with hidden depths as well. Physics quirks, bugs, and all the subtleties of the interactions between player, the environment, and the enemies. Secret areas abound and occasionally there are secret secrets that if I remember correctly don't necessarily show up on the automap either.

[Loud Silence]

Original Doom (UDoom, Doom II, Final Doom) is the only FPS i need. With such amount of community WADs Doom will never end.

[RonnieJamesDiner]

I think a huge part of what keeps bringing me back is the movement. I'm not even really sure how to describe it, but the generalization of it just being "fast paced" has always felt a bit too specious. I can turn on a dime; I can go from standing still to a full sprint in a flash; there's no stamina meter to contend with; world interactions don't pull me into a "mini-cutscene interaction", meaning I can activate that switch at Mach 3, sideways, if I really need/want to; none of the weapons negatively impact my speed; it's like the game was just designed to let the movement be as responsive and fluid as humanly possible, and I love it. It's hard to find that kind of free and satisfying movement in games, especially first-person shooters.  

[Nnja]

Partly a distorted placement of nostalgia. I started playing PC games around 1994, I didn't play Doom until after Doom 3 brought my attention to the series, but the level design style, difficulty balance, and stripped back gameplay feels like a perfect mix of what I actually grew up playing.

 

The other part is that the engine is basic enough for me to understand the majority of the bugs and mechanics and I get a strange satisfaction out of knowing why certain things happen the way they do. Why I can't step off a ledge with a monster below me, how running diagonally is faster, why Pinkies who can't reach me randomly turn around and walk away for no apparent reason.

 

I also have a huge respect for the technical work arounds the team put into things, like the lighting being done manually rather than placing a light source in the level editor and letting the game engine calculate the effect. Knowing that enemies don't just teleport in on a script - they hear me through some hole in the wall and walk towards me from some other part of the map, walking across a teleporter which puts them in the room.

[Eurisko]

Nostalgia and a damn good time.

[Stocki]

Fun, nostalgia and about the only part of 90s pop culture I can relate to.

[Scorpius]

5% of my existence and life on this planet.

[BBQgiraffe]

f a s t, rip and tear, and the inspiration for thousands of games and the reason I got into programming

[seed]

Horror, fast action, being over-the-top, and lots of violence and guns + puzzles.

[cnidaria]

I love FPS. Just give me a crosshair and get out of the way, I don't want ironsights or sprinting or regenerating health. I often play doom as a warmup for other games. For me, gzdoom with mouselook is the purest FPS experience on the planet. Run, shoot, dodge

[Solmyr]

It means a life lesson, you can solve all your problems with overwhelming violence and humping walls. 

[seed]

12 minutes ago, Solmyr said:

It means a life lesson, you can solve all your problems with overwhelming violence and humping walls. 

 

Ha, and they say violence solves nothing!

[SilverMiner]

I dunno what does Doom mean to me, but when to my folks it means a Minecraft mod

[Asking4Id]

Well fps games have been top tier for me for a very long time, so that's what it means.

[Mr.S Retro]

I myself being a very creative person find doom to be the ultimate playground and I enjoy playing mods, learning how to make mods and just doom itself is like a infinitely large box with any and everything inside. The ability to make anything using just 1 exe file and a source port is incredible. I started playing on the gba and thought, this is crazy! Wait why is there no reload button? I'm going so fast! And then about a year later I got udoom on gog, got gzdoom and it blew my mind how large the modding scene was. Then I started watching decino on youtube and found out about the innerworkings of the game. A few months later I got delta touch and played inferno for the first time.

 

TL;DR doom is the ultimate playground

[HorrorMovieRei]

The setting is very versatile. It lends itself well to Horror, Action and Sci-fi. I think it's safe to say that fans of either of those genres can enjoy Doom, and it also offers versatility for modders. Many times have I seen mods that could convey completely different atmospheres using mostly stock assets.

 

The gameplay is simplistic but fun. Easy to pick up and play, hard to master, etc.

 

Modding scene is unprecedented. I have never seen another game with as many mods as Doom. You could probably go the rest of your life just playing doom mods and not run out of things to play.

 

The objective of the game. Just kill by the hundreds, or thousands depending on the wad. Just kill until you feel satisfied in your carnage, or until mom calls you down for spaghettiOs. Whatever the case, it's just fun!

[jazzmaster9]

Fast paced action, movement based combat, Varying enemy placement and the Shotgun. Those are what sticks out with Doom for me