YOU LET YOUR YOUNG KIDS PLAY DOOM?!!?!

[brick]

I started playing Doom the same year it came out, which happens to be the same year we watched Jurassic Park as a family in cinema. I remember being much more terrified of the scene in which the T-rex gobbles up the lawyer than of anything in Doom. Thing is, no matter how atmospheric or tense Doom could get, it was a game, *I* was in complete control (or if not me, my brother was if I was just watching), and I don't think many adults realize how much of a difference it makes to a child how scary something is, compared to being forced to passively watch something terrible happen on-screen without having any agency. Then of course there's the fact that, in both cases, I knew this was fiction. And fiction happening to a bunch of pixels is even easier to divorce from reality than violence happening to real actors. And again, with a game, if it gets too tense, or too scary... you just walk away from the game. Or turn on IDDQD.

 

I don't have kids, but if/when I do I'd definitely let them play Doom. I'd play it with them. How much I let them play it and at what age will of course depend on how well I see them handling it and understanding that it's not real, but that's something for case by case basis.

[Ar_e_en]

On 5/18/2022 at 10:08 PM, hobomaster22 said:

The funniest thing to me is she is very afraid of poison damage, which she calls 'green fire.' She has navigated the path in E1M1 a few times, but sometimes she plays and will refuse to go in. Sometimes she stands there and will take 20 points of damage from a monster, but taking damage from the 'green fire' is completely unacceptable.

 

That reminded me of a moment from my childhood playing HEXEN! 

 

I wasn't afraid of poisoned floors in DOOM, HERETIC or HEXEN at all. However, there was a room in the map "Darkmere" that terrified me. It's the room where you have to walk across the wavy green liquid floor. Poisoned floors didn't scare me and neither did the green liquid floors, but for some reason I was scared of the fact that that specific green water floor was wavy.
I think my childish mind made up a scenario where it thought that the reason why that water was wavy is because it was deep water that would drown you and mob you with those Stalker enemies! I stopped playing at that room for months, until I got an idea - clear the room of those Stalkers at a distance, save the game, close your eyes and walk into the water. I was expecting to open my eyes to my character being dead beneath the water, but instead - he was alive and swaying up and down on the waters surface.

[Cheesebone]

On 5/20/2022 at 9:55 PM, brick said:

 I remember being much more terrified of the scene in which the T-rex gobbles up the lawyer than of anything in Doom.

 

Dude as a kid I laughed at that part. It was the scene where the two kids were in the kitchen with the raptors that damn near made me shit myself right there in the theater. I think I was 11 at the time, lol.

[Cheesebone]

She brought me apicture of a room she wants to make today and it has three Sunshine Boys in it. Lol.

I will release the wad through the usual avenues when it's finished :)

 

-Dave

[YeOldeFellerNoob]

I don't have kids, but I was really into controversial games when I was little. Just the thought that a game like JFK assassination exists just boggles my mind and fascinates me, which is why I wish more people had the balls to make such outlandish games.

[Nevander]

Self plug of my kid friendly mod. Scroll down to Censor Doom!

 

 

[BlueThunder]

I would allow my 11 year old son play Doom,  however Fortnite seems to have his attention oh and there's Minecraft too.

[Kokoro Hane]

I don't have kids but I remember being about 8 years old when my dad let me play DOOM. To the original poster, I think it's cool how you mention she is mature enough to understand it's just a game, know fiction from reality, and what is right and wrong. That sounds like she is ready, and it means you've done your part in raising her and I think it is so wholesome. My dad always made sure to tell my brother and I the difference between video games and reality, he made it instilled in our heads, to know right from wrong, and let us play certain games when he felt we were old enough. Every game we played back then were games he had already played himself! I also think it is so cute your daughter drew a map of what she wanted her own wad to look like, that is just so darn cute! And lol "Sunshine Boys" nice name xD

[june gloom]

I was 11 years old when I first played Doom. I don't know that I'd let kids play Doom 2016/Eternal, but the lo-fi violence of a game from 1993 is probably okay for the average preteen whose emotional growth is on track (which, mine wasn't, but eh.)

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

This but Doom

 

[Gibbon]

My 8 year old played Doom for the first time about a month ago.  He completed Episode 1 in about an hour.

[TheShep]

My dad assisted with installing assets into doom using DEUSF I believe (back in 94 probably). Some of these assets included: The Bill Clinton cacodemon, the Barney the dinosaur pinkies, the Energizer bunny sargeants, the shoulder-mounted Chicken Launcher... I think those are the big ones I remember. I don't recall downloading megawads back then.. I think after about 95 I stopped playing until I was more mature, sometime around middle school I think, so probably 99-00 I got back into FPSs.

Not to say I didn't play Quake / Quake II, and Quake III when they came out. Quake 4 I played much later and it was not good (a $2 buy at Big Lots).

Those are my earliest forays.

[Apprentice]

Occasionally I play Doom with my 9-year old, either cooperative or in deathmatch. One of the few games that the laptop can run good, all other games either run crappy (GTAV) or not at all (Fortnite) . . .

[Dusty_Rhodes]

1 hour ago, Gibbon said:

My 8 year old played Doom for the first time about a month ago.  He completed Episode 1 in about an hour.

Bringing him up right. He beat episode 1 faster than I did the first time. :p

[spacepirate]

My son likes to watch GTA 5 mod videos. Those weird ones where a car crashes into a huge spiderman statue or something. No idea what this is.

My daughter shows no interest in any form of videogames. I asked my son does he wants to play but he is like nah rather watch. So I think they will never play any, but you never know.

 

Would be nice to do a 1v1 with my kids on Doom 2 map01 in the future.

[Gibbon]

1 hour ago, spacepirate said:

My son likes to watch GTA 5 mod videos. Those weird ones where a car crashes into a huge spiderman statue or something. No idea what this is.

My daughter shows no interest in any form of videogames. I asked my son does he wants to play but he is like nah rather watch. So I think they will never play any, but you never know.

 

Would be nice to do a 1v1 with my kids on Doom 2 map01 in the future.

Oh yeah I love those.  Watch out for Cursed Thomas and Siren Head..  shit gets real then 

[Zero Master's Clone]

kids and their parents playing DOOM and DOOM 2

 

now that is truly bonding :,)

Edited May 26, 2022 by Zero Master's Clone

[Ricky D]

I first played Doom with my dad when I was 6, back in 1994. I thought the monsters were hilarious (I didn't fully process what the gore was), and the violence cartoony. I remember thinking the Imps were mutant dogs and the Pinkies were huge pigs. The gibbed marine at the start of E1M1 looked like a Flinstones brontosaurus rib to me! I remember thinking it was a health item lmao. Now, when Doom 2 came out, I was genuinely scared of the Mancubus and the Archvile, and the new twitching gibs. I never finished it until years later, unlike Doom 1....

[Unregistered User]

On 5/26/2022 at 9:23 AM, spacepirate said:

I asked my son does he wants to play but he is like nah rather watch. So I think they will never play any, but you never know.

 

       I was around four, five or six when I watched my dad play Doom 95. I was so scared to die that he seldom offered to let me play, because when he asked if I'd like to, I always said no. But, I often asked him to play, because from the safety of his lap, no game was more enthralling to watch, save Quake. He was quite skilled. He had no difficulty facing Cyberdemons in close range. I would often pay most attention to the HUD and react to Doomguy's portrait or the colorful, changing status numbers.

       I would not touch the game until a decade and a half later. It has since always had a place on my hard drive. If I had a child, I would think it best for them too to wonder at Doom. Per my father's example, I would be present in the moment so that they would know they are safe; though I had no adverse reaction to the game, it is, after all, a game unrestrained in it's depictions most sinister.  

 

[ClumsyDoomer]

My parents introduced me to Doom at age ~3 (that would be year ~2003 for reference). Results:
 

- I learned to use the computer very early
- I developed the habit of always keeping a vocabulary nearby while using it, thus I learned English all by myself, while the childish curiosity still allowed for a smooth process. And since the curiosity was always sated, it's still alive in me
- It was a game that could entertain my parents as well, so we were playing together. It's not like the modern ridiculous toys that look like they're supposed to scare off adults, so we could approach one level there

There was Plutonia and TNT at that time as well. There was no sound and no mouse input, and my father finished Plutonia keyboard-only on UV, that's quite an achievement. It was way easier to enjoy the weirder levels of TNT as a kid, the cryptic progression of some levels seemed playful rather than irritating. I think it scared me sometimes but can't remember. Also there was Neverhood, Duke Nukem 3D and many other cool games.