But you can play them in a few different ways, and it can challenge you in different ways, and that's why it's a game worth talking about. It's like id got first-person level design so right the first time, that they instinctively got it, and every level is aced. And that is almost gutting, because how are these things so fucking good? It's sickening! But the levels really, really work.
#So you want to play some fucking doom software
You talk to people like (id Software co-founder and DOOM designer/programmer) John Romero, though, and he'll tell you that the team was knocking out a level a day, making DOOM. And to get two very different feeling games in the same game, just through the difficulty switch-up, something awesome is going on in there. Ramp it up just a notch and it goes from being this speed-running arcade thing to being really tense, this stop-start experience where you have to play incredibly cautiously. Yeah, and one of the amazing things about DOOM, and one of the major factors as to why it lasts, is that it changes quite a lot when you adjust the difficulty level. But it did feel futuristic, didn't it? Like nothing that'd come before it, even if the objectives were ones you already understood?
![so you want to play some fucking doom so you want to play some fucking doom](https://fnaf-gamejolt.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/chompers-2.jpg)
What you do in the game is ultimately very simple – you go from A to B and there's some stuff to kill along the way. So playing DOOM then wasn't a massive influence on me going into the games industry, but it's amazing how many people you meet in the industry who started as DOOM modders. I actually stopped playing games not long after graduation, because I couldn't afford a computer or a console. The buzz of being a gamer was in there, and that's a really important part of it, as a cultural landmark, as it closed the gap between gamers and game developers. You knew it was technically advanced, but you also felt like it was a game made by people like you, who were into the stuff that you were into. It's hard to underestimate just how special DOOM was. Now, I'm not very technical, so the idea that I could actually put together levels without needing to know about scripting or coding or anything like that, it was amazing. Really quickly from that local multiplayer scene, people got really into modding. There was a guy I used to work with in Portsmouth, and he lived opposite another guy who liked DOOM, and he gaffer-taped an Ethernet cable across the street and up the side of their houses. It took about a week, in the computer labs, for signs to start going up: "Anyone found on DOOM will be kicked off their account." Because we were having all-night sessions. So with id and Bethesda's new DOOM promising to deliver thrills on a level with the series' first game, I sat down with Dan at The Chinese Room's new offices in Brighton, cup of tea in hand and gaming memories set to ultra-violent. It's a game that's been copied ad infinitum, but that few titles have ever held a bloody stump doused in diesel and set alight to.
![so you want to play some fucking doom so you want to play some fucking doom](https://vmp-www.imgix.net/images/The_Legend_of_Zelda.original.png)
![so you want to play some fucking doom so you want to play some fucking doom](https://149351115.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Istock-developer-screen-e1604934019104.jpg)
Having spoken to Dan in the past about his own games, but seen our conversation change direction towards DOOM matters, I knew he'd be an ideal expert to explain the lasting significance of the 1993 classic. So yes, he's literally written the book on DOOM. And then there's the small matter of a book he wrote, called DOOM: Scarydarkfast, published by University of Michigan Press in 2013, 20 years after the first release of id Software's legendary shooter. While these titles might lack Big Fucking Guns and Gratuitous Explosions of Gore, Dan's adoration of all things DOOM-y is nevertheless to anyone who spends more than ten minutes in his company.