If you had to re-design the Doom demons

[baronofheck82]

...how would they look? I personally would make them all look horribly twisted, and uh, well, demonic. None of this cutesy shit. For an example, imagine a Cacodemon where it doesn't have an eye; instead of that it's a collection of eyes, all of them with cataracts and weeping pus. See where I'm going with this? I'd make them all EVIL and nightmare-inducing.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

Yeah, the classic horned-demon isn't scary anymore.

[TendaMonsta]

When I read this thread's title I thought you meant the way they behave/attack.

I'm disappointed.

Personally I like the way the Demons are right now since DOOM is an arcade-esque game, but I think I'd make them have darker tones than they do now with some receiving a color change.

[yakfak]

make every single one of them a muscle-bound flexing barbarian in a barely-there loincloth

[scifista42]

I like the demons as they are, I'm too familiar with them already. If I had to redesign them (and had the necessary skill and infinite time, which I both don't), I'd also make them as scary and terrifying as possible, even for modern age. Complete with immersive sounds, and perhaps a behaviour change to make even the lower-tier individuals to be possibly dangerous.

[DooM_RO]

I think Doom could use one or two extra clasic horned blood-red demon. I really like the silhouette of the imp but I don't think it looks demonic enough. I would make it bright red (like the blood texture) give it horns and make the body spikes bigger.

[Zed]

To make the pinky demons appropriately dangerous, it would have been cool if they were like the beheaded kamikaze in Serious Sam, exploding when close enough to the player. That would compensate for his disfunctional melee attack.

[DooM_RO]

Zed said:

To make the pinky demons appropriately dangerous, it would have been cool if they were like the beheaded kamikaze in Serious Sam, exploding when close enough to the player. That would compensate for his disfunctional melee attack.

I think exploding Lost Souls would be better (and fucking annoying)

[scifista42]

Zed said:

To make the pinky demons appropriately dangerous, it would have been cool if they were like the beheaded kamikaze in Serious Sam, exploding when close enough to the player. That would compensate for his disfunctional melee attack.

I'd better see them to attack like those Doom 3 pinkies, bite immediately after reaching the player. And also move faster. And of course, look scary.

[Coopersville]

I'd make the more gargoyle-looking demons appear more anatomically correct.

[Aaron Blain]

I think the character designs are good.

It's the character animations that are terrible.

[scifista42]

Macblain said:

I think the character designs are good.

It's the character animations that are terrible.

How do you think the sprites would possibly animate better?

[Aaron Blain]

By re-animating the characters as if they had more movable joints, and had weight which adjusted and re-balanced as they moved, and momentum. Then there are things like the way the zombieman holds his rifle. Yikes.

The designs are fine, but everyone moves very awkwardly. In good-looking pwads it's the characters that drag the game down visually.

I think in 1994 we were happy with the rudimentary models just because we had characters represented consistently in eight directions. But some of those poses are just awful.

I'd love to see a Doom engine game with either very skilfully hand-drawn characters, or highly-nuanced stop-motion characters, or perhaps rotoscoped characters.

The only character design I really dislike is the revenant. I think it would look much better if it were conceptually closer to the cyberdemon and mancubus, and looked less like a football player.

[TendaMonsta]

Macblain said:

and looked less like a football player.

This is going to be ingrained in my tiny brain for quite some time.

[Maes]

I once "redesigned" the sprites by accident, when still trying to get my port Mocha Doom to run. The results were disturbing, to say the least.

[Clonehunter]

Probably go for the D64 monsters, except for the Nobles.

I'd probably buff up the Baron, maybe give it a crest of horns, maybe something akin to this but with longer horns sticking out, and a clear nose. I liked how the D3 knights salivated, so that would be cool. Buff up the torso mainly, just to make it more intimidating.

The Hell Knights would be skinnier, not just a recolor. Maybe a smaller crest like the skull actually has, and make the head more goat like than lizard like. Thinner body, maybe a different color of plasma charge.

[Jaxxoon R]

Orfinal ideo ib donut steel

[Guest]

something something hell knight something cheap recolor something something.

[Doomkid]

Maes said:

I once "redesigned" the sprites by accident, when still trying to get my port Mocha Doom to run. The results were disturbing, to say the least.

Oh my goid... What happened to that poor baron's legs?!

[kaleb.]

Jaxxoon R said:

Orfinal ideo ib donut steel

this is objecct le d'art. how much money do i need to give you to hang it in my living room?

[Jaxxoon R]

no monies it is open source like carmakc does wit his game code's

[Wagi]

Doom was never a horror game for me. Even when I was a little kid it wasn't scary. I don't get the appeal of making any of the monsters "nightmare inducing", because IMO it would end up just making the game more drab than anything else. The enemies are supposed to look a little cartoony, especially from a gameplay perspective because colorful targets are easier to pick out.

[40oz]

Yeah, unfortunately people's perception of what Demons and Aliens look like has evolved quite a lot. Now we see Demons with veiny skeletal appearances with tattered wings and leathery skin with curly goat horns. And Aliens now have bubbly oily growths on their skin, abstract shapes, tons of eyes OR no eyes and drooling sharp teeth.

These aren't necessarily bad but I really like how Doom portrayed monsters like the Hell Baron and the Cyberdemon, doubly so for cacodemons and lost souls. If not for the fiery infernal attack, the Archvile probably represents the least interesting monster design IMO.

[dew]

Imps = clowns. Lost souls = charity workers. Archviles = lawyers. Horrifying demons of the humankind.

[Avoozl]

What about mimes?

[Gez]

baronofheck82 said:

...how would they look? I personally would make them all look horribly twisted, and uh, well, demonic. None of this cutesy shit. For an example, imagine a Cacodemon where it doesn't have an eye; instead of that it's a collection of eyes, all of them with cataracts and weeping pus. See where I'm going with this? I'd make them all EVIL and nightmare-inducing.

At Doom's resolution you don't have the pixel budget for something like this.

[plums]

* Former humans are mostly fine, perhaps it could be more evident that the blood splats on their uniforms is actually blood - I know for a long time I thought it was just part of a camo pattern.

* I thought imps were supposed to be furry (though maybe I'm wrong -- I can't find this written anywhere right now?), but they've got too much muscle definition. I suspect this is do add some detail to their midsection without it just being plain brown, but I think they could do without the six-pack. Also, pointier teeth, they look like they've got a fresh set of dentures in.

* I've never been thrilled with the pinky demon design. I imagine the way Doom does hitboxes plays into their look -- monsters need to be roughly the same size from any angle, so a beast thing that walks on all fours doesn't really work. Their features seem to change size depending on the angle though, look at their arms from the front vs. the side, or their horns when they attack from the back.

* Cacodemons are fine, I guess they could've done with another animation frame for moving somehow, but eh.

* Barons, lost souls, cyberdemon, and spiderdemon are all great.

* Hell knight could look a little different from the barons, shorter horns maybe (or perhaps the barons needed longer horns), maybe less muscle definition too.

* Revenants look like football players as many have noted. The Doom 3 design is a little better at least. Also change either the hitbox height or the sprite height so that they match.

* I agree with 40oz that the arch-vile is not all that interesting of a design. Don't really know what I'd do to fix it though. Maybe make him smouldering/burning slightly?

* Pain elemental is pretty good, could do with some tentacle things hanging from it maybe, to give it more of a difference from the caco and add some more animation frames.

* Arachnotrons' eyes lighting up is a bit silly, good otherwise.

* Mancubus is cool.

* SS Nazi should've been redone in a more classic doom style.

Basically I think there's some room for improvement in many of the monsters but what's there right now is pretty good, especially given the constraints of 8-bit colour and low resolution. I definitely think they shouldn't be redone all twisted/nightmarish/"dark & edgy"/etc.

[joepallai]

I always thought the Archviles should silent teleport towards the player every other step; that would be freaky.

[Hambourgeois]

I would re-design them in the moe style, OP

[fraggle]

General Rainbow Bacon said:

Yeah, the classic horned-demon isn't scary anymore.

What if they had metal teeth?