Of all the games ever produced, I imagine to many, Doom may well be the most familiar. An absolute behemoth of a game that was and remains intensely popular and a foundation for one of the most popular genres of game, and also immensely well understood on a technical and development level, with endless interviews and whole books on it's development and its technical restrictions. It is also - and this isn't a criticsm - quite a restricted in terms of gameplay elements and scenarios. Countless doom maps are powered by it's handful of enemy types and weapons, and creating interesting combat encounters with them and different environments - and whilst I am not too big on the Doom gameplay personally it's clear this is a massive component to it's longevity.
And so, for both the average consumer and especially the doom nut on forums, the game, in it's own way, is Home. Familiar, comfortable, and despite its ostensibly horrific tone - safe.
The corruption of that is what I think makes My House tick. I can take or leave the myriad references and pouring through google docs that comes with the files, as well as the general game structure with all it's item searching. But the way My House twists the comfotable, known quantity of Doom into somethng else legitimately freaks me out a bit, and is paced really well. Cute house mod devloving into "huh that's a cute trick" into "this is impossible to do in Doom" is such a good trick, and it keeps on going to point where it did - for moments, at least - feel like I was playing some cursed copy of doom found in a creepypasta.
Breaking down that feeling of familiarity and safety in a horror experience is tough - done wrong, it can feel very cheap. But at it's best it's the perfect kind of cruel, that gets under your skin and nags at you even once you're outside the experience itself. And whilst im not huge on basically anything else the game does (but im not a big Doom fan, so that's not neccessarily a "problem" considering who this is really for), I think it does that so, so well.
And so, for both the average consumer and especially the doom nut on forums, the game, in it's own way, is Home. Familiar, comfortable, and despite its ostensibly horrific tone - safe.
The corruption of that is what I think makes My House tick. I can take or leave the myriad references and pouring through google docs that comes with the files, as well as the general game structure with all it's item searching. But the way My House twists the comfotable, known quantity of Doom into somethng else legitimately freaks me out a bit, and is paced really well. Cute house mod devloving into "huh that's a cute trick" into "this is impossible to do in Doom" is such a good trick, and it keeps on going to point where it did - for moments, at least - feel like I was playing some cursed copy of doom found in a creepypasta.
Breaking down that feeling of familiarity and safety in a horror experience is tough - done wrong, it can feel very cheap. But at it's best it's the perfect kind of cruel, that gets under your skin and nags at you even once you're outside the experience itself. And whilst im not huge on basically anything else the game does (but im not a big Doom fan, so that's not neccessarily a "problem" considering who this is really for), I think it does that so, so well.