Doom is iconic, there is no arguing that point. The game is seminal in how it changed PC gaming, more so than Myst, another iconic, though repetitive, PC release around this time. Several years ago a dystopian idea came to life on the Internet, the Backrooms. About a year ago, someone over on itch.io decided to see what it would look like to combine the two. This is what they created.
The main idea of the Backrooms is familiarity. It feels like you know this place but cannot really place where you know it from. Things are familiar but alien, confusing, at the same time.
Combining the first level of Doom with the Pool Rooms is downright diabolically wild. It raises so many questions – where the demons for instance are. It feels like the first level of Doom because it is pretty much is, just now things are different.
The creator, Night Drive Interactive on itch.io created this using the Unity Engine. What they have created can be thought of as a fresh look at hell.
E1M1 Pool Rooms, as it is called, is unsettling. You expect to run in to demons around the corner, collect ammo behind this pillar, grab some armor over there. Yet, none of that stuff is here, none of it exists in this world, not that you know anyhow.
That is the unsettling part. Knowing there are enemies here somewhere almost takes on a NEED for enemies. If nothing else to just break up the tiled surroundings. Yet, you will not find any of them here. Just more and more tiles, more rooms to explore as you search for something more familiar.
Something you will never find.
Head over to itch.io to grab E1M1 Pool Rooms and give it a run through. Unity Engine is pretty good at scaling so you should be able to enjoy this one if your computer is running at least Windows 10.
