The Design & Psychology of Doom

Doom is a first person shooter game released on the 10th December 1993 for MS DOS on PC. Being a first-person shooter, Doom is experienced through the eyes of the main character. This character is not named throughout the game. The game uses music and sound ripped from rock bands such as Metalica to create a more dramatic feel to the game. One of the main things that makes video games good is music, and Doom’s music has a heavy influence on how a player sees and plays the game.The characters in Doom are mainly enemies and the character that you controlThe game is laid out so that it’s simple to understand for the player. It is in first person, the gun is directly in front of you in the middle of the screen and the enemies appear and they shoot back at you. The game was released on a PC platform meaning that the controls were set using just a basic keyboard for your computer. The controls were simple, you had to use the W A S D keys to move around while using the arrow keys to change the position your character is facing while using the Spacebar to shoot and do certain actions.

The game did not make use of the mouse at all, probably to keep the controls simple and the fact that computer mouses weren’t as good as they are today. The game did not take use of the Doom could educationally and also mentally improve your abilities as it sometimes requires you to have very fast reaction time and makes you think about your next decisions in a very fast manor. The game can also help you educationally through puzzle solving as you need to think about where you need to go and what you need to change to get to your final destination.I think that the game does not take the test of time as certain players could potentially get very bored of it quickly.

The game would appeal very much to people that love first person shooters and puzzle games but if you are a gamer that isn’t into that then you might not find the game as entertaining for a long period of time. The game doesn’t offer much educational value as it is mostly for entertainment purposes and gamers. One thing that the game might help you do is increase your reaction time and also could improve your puzzle solving skills. I think that the game does not require that much skill to play for the first time as it starts out pretty easy and gives you a chance to experiment and see how the game controls which is good for new players to get used to the controls and learn how the game works and controls.

As you go through the game, the levels gradually get harder and harder so it becomes more and more of a challenge as you play through. Doom has influenced and been a massive inspiration to many games. Some of these games are Marathon, System Shock, Mod Culture, Star Wars Dark Forces, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, The Elder scrolls 2: Daggerfall, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, Half Life and Halo: Combat Evolved. Doom has had influence on many games after its release as it was one of the first First person shooter games to come out and was the start of a new era for video games. The simple design and layout of the game made many other developers that were creating games after dooms release it let them develop from the original game and add their new ideas to it to make a brand new game that would attract the same gamer audience that DOOM did.