The first time I ever made a Doom map I simply created a few rooms and hallways, then added a couple of enemies and some ammo. But Ben Mansell created something a little more complex with his first Doom map. After 300 hours and over a year spent on it, Mansell is ready to unleash Four Site into the
Living in the Northeast of the United States, David Szymanski grew up surrounded by the eerie woods and old buildings that dot the landscape in that part of the country. This is an area of the U.S. where you can find what Lovecraftian scholar S.T. Joshi calls “The Miskatonic Region,” the setting for
I’ve never met JP LeBreton but I know him because he knows the original Doom series. He wrote what is probably the most insightful design analysis of the game back in 2010; before he became a level designer for BioShock (2007) he learned the craft with Doom‘s level editor (and then demade his BioSho
The first time Black Phillip, a perfectly normal-looking goat, appears in Robert Eggers’ 2015 horror film The Witch, the viewer is struck with a sense of unease. This isn’t any fault of Phillip’s. If anything, he should be the most reassuring aspect inthe gloomy story of a 17th century family’s exil
Here’s something you probably know: Doom II (1994) and Seinfeld (1989-1998) are both pieces of popular culture released in the 1990s. They both had huge audiences and now two decades later, they are still as well known as they were when Bill Clinton was in office. In fact, this year’s Doom was relea
DOOM is a game of many secrets. The fast-paced shooter is filled to the brim with nostalgia-laden easter eggs to discover, catering well to its demographic. It’s no surprise that its soundtrack is bursting with secrets as well, this time of the spectrogram variety, according to eagle-eyed fan TomBut
In the Abrahamic religions—and the texts that have grown out of them—Satan is a fallen angel, cast out of heaven for daring to rebel against God. Though his name is synonymous with fear and evil, it’s Satan’s tireless, implacable need to oppose everything God wills that truly characterizes him. He’s
This article is part of a collaboration with iQ by Intel. A premier first-person shooter, Doom (1993) still inspires programmers, modders and digital artists to adapt the game in unexpected ways. Excitement over the release of Doom 2016 is proof the beloved 24-year-old game series is a pop-culture m
Beginning in the 20th century, modern design started being dominated by the saying “form follows function.” The idea was that when creating a building, car, or piece of software, pragmatism should come first, and style should be secondary. In Adult Swim’s upcoming game DESYNC, however, style is the
This article was funded with support from Longreads members. * * * No one wore stripes that spring and summer in Leavenworth. Stripes were for rule breakers, and no one was breaking the rules. “Baseball As A Corrective” read the front page of the New York Times that May. It was 1912 and “the magic o
One of the more common pieces of advice given to aspiring writers is to “kill your darlings.” It simply means that writers should be willing to remove passages or ideas from their work that they might personally enjoy in service of the reader. Over the course of developing his game Null Operator, An
DOOM (1993) is known for its hellish bravura and the legacy that followed. On the surface, we tend to think of big pink demon muscles, gnashing jaws, and bloodied grimaces. It’s a stern-faced brute that would be quicker to punch you in the mouth than hold a conversation. Somehow, that aura surrounds
To play Devil Daggers is to die again and again. Anguish is constant. It’s never clear what the player has done to be locked in this eternal struggle. Every playthrough opens with a darkened room except for a single source of light, a floating blade. Touching it is apparently a damning offense, and
This article is part of a series called Shut Up, Videogames, in which critic Ed Smith invites games old and new to pipe down, or otherwise. In this edition, he looks at the most recent addition to the legendary first-person-shooter series, DOOM. I know DOOM has a contingent of fans and critics who e
Mark Johns is chasing a ghost. This is what he tells me. It’s not quite the truth. The spectral quality of this “ghost” isn’t immateriality; interfacing with it isn’t a problem, Johns has done that thousands of times. The hard bit, and the bit he’s after, is understanding it. The ghost is actually S
If you’re not busy snapping chest bones in Doom 4 once it’s out you can snap together your own maps and game modes. And let’s be clear: “snap” is apparently the keyword here. It alludes to the apparent accessibility of the game’s SnapMap feature. The boast from Doom 4‘s executive producer Marty Stra
All images taken from the WADbot Tumblr. /// The virtual world of Doom is so big these days as to be intimidating. Since 1994, modders have been creating their own Doom levels with the tools that the game’s creator id Software released, as well as those they’ve made for themselves. All of these user
Doomdream is more of a description than a title. It’s an attempt by its creator, Ian MacLarty, to conjure up an “impression of [his] dreams after [he’s] been playing Doom all day.” That’s Doom, the 1993 hell-romping shooter, which mostly everyone is familiar with. If you’re not, all you need to know
