# Original Doom PC Game **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [May 16, 2018, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/original-doom-pc-game/814271 "2018-05-16T08:29:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/original-doom-pc-game/814271/61 "2018-05-18T16:28:00Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > To some extent. But much like indie films turn out Clerks but rarely Guardians of the Galaxy ; a handful of guys hammering on a video game in their spare time aren’t going to produce the kind of impressive graphics of AAA games like the new\* God of War\* or the least impressive _Assassin’s Creed_. That’s what I meant about being pragmatic: Don’t try to enter a genre which prioritizes stuff you can’t do, and turn your limitations into a style. Yes, it’s true that the graphical extravaganza game is unreachably difficult to produce for anyone who isn’t a big game studio, but those aren’t the only kind of games people play, and it’s possible for one or two people to make all the art involved in a 2D platformer. > [@](#): > > But even if we accept the premise that video games have become easier compared to the Nintendo Hard games (and I dare anyone, anywhere to say they have finished _Crocodile Dundee_ on the NES) I’m not sure to which extent this is a byproduct of the industry trying to mainstream itself rather than an evolution of gaming platforms themselves. This is a good point, and you can see it even if you restrict your examples to FPSes. It’s all about story: MIDI Maze, a game I knew as Faceball 2000, had no story. You, a 3D smiley face, explored a maze to shoot other 3D smiley faces. When you finished the maze, you got another maze until the game was over. The original Doom had barely more plot than that, but it did have a story told in text screens. Quake (with the exception of the deathmatch-only games) had barely more story than Doom, but the trend was clear: FPSes were going to have stories now, and you can’t tell someone a story if they keep dying in the first level. As per Graham Nelson, interactive fiction is a narrative at war with a crossword puzzle; well, FPSes were trending IF-ward, and the narrative was beginning to win. That pushed the difficulty down a bit. > [@](#): > > The hardest, most fuck-this-bullshit games on the NES or SNES - your _Ghouls & Ghosts_, your _Contras_, your _R-Types_ - were arcade ports or developed by teams that had worked for a long time on arcade games beforehand ; and arcade games generated money by getting you to Insert Coin To Continue. They _had_ to be punishingly hard while at the same time giving you the hope that if you got good enough you could play a long time for “free” - much like pinball, where a good player could make a quarter last a lot longer than a scrub. This is all true as well, and player expectations probably influenced that too: If your first exposure to a game (or style of game) was in an arcade, you’d expect other examples of that game (or genre) to be arcade-like and, therefore, quite hard. Throughout the 1990s, arcades began to die, and the arcade tropes were never learned by younger players who never imprinted on them. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/original-doom-pc-game/814271/62 "2018-05-18T19:59:25Z")
I’m not sure that the “interactive story” style is really all that new-- just how old is _Myst_ now? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/original-doom-pc-game/814271/63 "2018-05-18T20:11:00Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’m not sure that the “interactive story” style is really all that new-- just how old is _Myst_ now? _Myst_ was and remains an oddity, and it was preceded by approximately the entirety of Interactive Fiction anyway. My point is that FPSes gradually moved in an IF direction due to having plots, as opposed to merely rules. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/original-doom-pc-game/814271/64 "2018-05-18T20:13:11Z")
Myst was what, 1995? I still count that as one of my favorites. The golden day of single player games. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/original-doom-pc-game/814271/65 "2018-05-18T21:11:26Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > Myst was what, 1995? I still count that as one of my favorites. The golden day of single player games. 1993, right when I started college. The 25th anniversary (shit, has it really been 25 years?) is coming up in September. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2018, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/original-doom-pc-game/814271/66 "2018-05-18T22:17:55Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Right, _Bayou Billy_, that’s the one ! A true testament to the notion that difficulty and fun are separate axes :D. God, I hated every minute of playing that game. [Fun review of Bayou Billy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPlH1GGuLlw) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/original-doom-pc-game/814271.md?page=3)