What are your memorable moments from playing DooM for the first time?

[IHave10Shells]

For me, it was the cyberdemon fight at E2M8. I did not know about the idclev cheat, so I turned God mode on and played through the whole 2nd episode. Then when I finally came to E2M8, and turned God mode off so I could fight the cyberdemon legitimately. I was using DOSBox (with keyboard controls) and so fighting the cyberdemon was a nightmare. It took me several attempts to finally beat it. Was pretty angry when I found out that I could have just typed in a few letters and saved myself many days of playing >:(

 

Plus, the laptop I was using was actual trash and could not handle being plugged out of power for too long, sometimes DOSBox would completly crash, and I would have to use Ctrl+Alt+Delete to open up the task manager and shut it down.

 

(Btw this wasn't too long ago, I'm not a veteran.)

Edited April 6, 2023 by IHave10Shells

[Fiber Wire]

I played the shareware for the first time on my registered Heretic disc. Actually played Heretic first. It got to the point I was playing the Doom shareware more than Heretic, so I bought Ultimate Doom and Doom 2 around the same time. It wasn’t until 2001 that I got to play TNT or Plutonia, though. 
 

I remember the game feeling a lot more scary than it is now at the time when I first played Doom. The music didn’t work for me on my PC, but the audio did. So it was a bit more scary in my opinion. The vibrant colors weren’t really out of the ordinary in my mind at the time either, and the CRT definitely made it look a bit different than the screens of today. 
 

Heretic was also a bit creepy without music, too, but Doom felt a bit more “real” since you weren’t an elf mage guy, you were just a lone marine. 

Edited April 6, 2023 by Fiber Wire

[RastaManGames]

"See Sound" of two Barons was really something when I heard it for the 1st time as kid...

Edited April 6, 2023 by RastaManGames

[EmperorGZT]

prob map 32 plutonia.
and the fact that the spider demon was so weak like he??? idk looked so strong but no died super quick lmao.
oh and watching ppl like zero master speed running the game on nightmare i could barely get past the 1st map but they just  yea that was crazy to me

[No-Man Baugh]

Getting lost in Mt. Erebus

 

I swear the secret exit is easier to spot than the actual exit (to the point where I thought it was the secret exit because of just how out of the way it was), didn't help that I hated going across damaging floors and considered anything across it to be just bonus

 

Despite (or maybe even because of) that I actually look back at that level quite fondly, with it's striking and diverse use of color and emphasis of hell to be the first thing I think of when I think DOOM

[Midnight_00]

The fact that the last room of Phobos Labs was scary and killed me at least once (I didn't know about the secret light visor), and the final fight in Central Processing also got me. I also remember that I played it with just the keyboard since I assumed that's how it was supposed to be played, and with OPL music. Beyond that, I remember my first playthrough of episode 3 pretty well since that's when I started to get hooked, but much of my first playthrough of episode 1 and 2 is hazy to me. 

[StarTanned]

Lots of moments I still remember with some clarity from my first playthroughs:

• impatiently trying several times to download the shareware KDitD release from a BBS over a 28.8 modem (or maybe 14.4)
• squinting at half-resolution mode until I got used to it (so I wasn't playing a slideshow or through a postage stamp-sized view)
• running around mildly confused in E1M2, stumbling across the outdoors area with the chaingun
• realizing the nukage floors hurt for the first time (a kid/dumbass "what's hitting me?" moment)
• being awed by the cool lighting effects in the dark maze area in E1M2
• figuring out how to get to the soulsphere in E1M3
• proudly noticing the rocketlauncher secret next to it (then promptly blowing myself up with the RL)
• panicking after I fell into an inescapable nukage pit as my soulsphere-boosted health drained
• going down the nukage tunnel in E1M4 leading to the early soulsphere, but missing the one-time lift up to it
• being confused on how I re-opened the doors in the octagonal room in E1M4
• being cornered by a pinky in E1M4's dark maze area
• the "scarier" song in E1M5 and watching the bridge/ledge inexplicably rise up from the nukage pool
• the frustration of the last dark room in E1M5
• impatiently waiting for school to end so I could go home and play more Doom
• E1M6's setpiece fight where the door closed behind me, and also its final fight
• seeing the lights flickering and glowing was so cool in various areas
• the first time I blew up a barrel next to a monster and saw it gib
• the first time I found the chainsaw
• the first time I found E1M9
• the first time I accidentally discovered the automap (during a fight, of course)
• the finale of the episode (yay! i think I beat Doom! I wonder where this teleporter will take me?)
• hearing what Doom sounded like on my friend's PC with a SoundBlaster instead of my lowly Adlib with PC squeaker noises
• begging my dad to get a 486 with a SoundBlaster

Edited April 6, 2023 by StarTanned

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

The very first memory I have is by cousin's place, he had some unofficial mapset, and I remember starting in a curved hall which lead into a boxy outdoors area so big we couldn't make out what was enemies and what was decorative trees in the distance. We could go straight ahead into a building or right and down the stairs into a dark 64-wide maze with pinkies and specters in it. That's where we always got lost and died. One day I'd like to find out what it was and play it again.

[Wad overdose]

the battle with the cyberdemon in final of the shores of hell, on ultra-violence on keyboard only for me was hard Because lost souls and not very convenient to dodge maybe i'm have low skill?, but probably from 6 try I beat him, I also memored his theme "nobody told me about id".

Edited April 6, 2023 by Wad overdose

[INfront95]

What i remember when in late 90s my dad brought doom, that he said be careful its a scary game. When i played it i was confused what so scary about it. Its colorful, you can run and shoot from "eyes perspective". My child brain didn't comprehend the concept of gore or satanic imagery so this game was perceived equally as mario in terms of visuals. OH and white bars to the left in the Underhalls. I was bugging me that i loosing my mind when i play now and there is no bars. Only a video explaining that they patched it calmed me. Oh, and because i didn't know english and didn't know how to set up sound. Instead of listening doom music, we listened Boney-M, and now 90s doom permanently tied up with them. Must say, playing TNT, or Plutonia while "Rivers of Babylon" or "Daddy cool" blasting on background is an Experience.

[TheMightyWhoosh]

E1M3 on my neighbours computer during the mid-90s. I was absolutely mesmerised by the Soulsphere on the platform with the pulsating light along with the sombre music. 

[Captain Ventris]

My first Doomsperience was actually Chex Quest. I was 4 years old and my brother was starting up the CD we got out of the cereal box. We read the entire digital manual together (the original disc came with a launcher), then started up the game.

 

The screen smeared, the game came up, the music played, and I realized I was watching the coolest shit in the universe.

[enigma101]

These are all about my first playthrough of Doom 2, as by the time I played Ultimate Doom I largely knew how to play the game, and so a lot of these issues happened less or not at all.

- I didn't know what strafing was, and so I'd constantly back myself into a corner to avoid imp/baron/hell knight missiles. Predictably, I died a lot, but after a while I found out what it was, and started dying slightly less.

- I also didn't know how to sprint, or if sprinting was even possible, so on MAP02 I spent a solid 10 minutes trying to get across that gap into the building with the red key card in it and thinking "This is impossible, there's no way to get across this". It wasn't impossible, I was just dumb.

- I hated MAP06 because of the part where you have to jump to that ledge with the imps on it, but I did eventually.

- I also remember the first time I made my own map and thought it was the coolest thing that I could imagine these detailed environments then make and put them into the game.

- Also, definitely not related to my first playthrough, but playing deathmatch with bots at 5am was quite fun, even if it was with bots that killed me a ton.

[Garlichead]

I remember the first time I played doom with my uncle. It was probably around 95 or 96. My dad used to have a monochrome MS-DOS machine and I used to have a NES. Doom graphics were impressive for me and made me feel very scared. My uncle let me play whenever I visited with the condition I did not tell my mom. 

 

I remember bitching about the "bruiser brothers" and how they should be introduced one by one instead of simultaneously. There was a kid at school who said if you survived the black room at the end of episode 1 you would start episode 2 with a BFG. I tried countless of times to do it with my cousins.

 

I remember when I got my psx around 98 or 99. Doom was bundled with it and I felt proud about no longer being scared of it (resident evil and silent hill were another story). 

 

Finally, I remember rediscovering doom during college. We used to hang out at our friend house who used to live with his gf and some of her friends, there were usually around 4 people at least at any time at their house. We spent a lot of time there playing Doom and Open Arena with them. Some very cool memories from that time

 

Edited April 7, 2023 by Garlichead

[heliumlamb]

when i finally got to play episode 2 on the xbox, made it to e2m2 and got crushed by a ceiling for the very first time... i had made it thru e1 in doomsday and doom95 dozens of times at that point (dosbox, back then, on that machine would give me like 5fps in doom), often with 00's buttrock radio going off. but e1, as refined as it is, never struck a chord with me in the same way as the first time playing most of of the hall/sandy maps, even when hall/sandy were at their least devious. i didn't really get to appreciate doom 2 in the same way until years later, as i played it for the first time in zdoom with iddqd, idkfa and jumping

Edited April 7, 2023 by heliumlamb

[continuum.mid]

The Bruiser Brothers in E1M8. I really thought I couldn't beat them the first time they appeared. But then I did, and it was quite satisfying. Also that level looked very striking by the standards of Knee Deep in the Dead. Especially on the Doomsday Engine, where I first beat it.

[Grotski]

doom 64 revving the chainsaw and ripping up demons in a crate maze. also playing ctf in our clan tournament being scared as heck.

[IHave10Shells]

6 hours ago, TheMightyWhoosh said:

E1M3 on my neighbours computer during the mid-90s. I was absolutely mesmerised by the Soulsphere on the platform with the pulsating light along with the sombre music. 

Yeah, me too. When I first started playing DooM I thought that the windows areas were textures. So, when I first saw the soulsphere, I thought it was just a creepy face staring at me. E1M3 was also the maximum I played before forgetting about the game for a couple of months.

[IHave10Shells]

8 hours ago, No-Man Baugh said:

Getting lost in Mt. Erebus

 

I swear the secret exit is easier to spot than the actual exit (to the point where I thought it was the secret exit because of just how out of the way it was), didn't help that I hated going across damaging floors and considered anything across it to be just bonus

 

Despite (or maybe even because of) that I actually look back at that level quite fondly, with it's striking and diverse use of color and emphasis of hell to be the first thing I think of when I think DOOM

I swear, I could never get to that secret exit with keyboard. I always use mouse or idclev## to get to E3M9

[No-Man Baugh]

9 minutes ago, IHave10Shells said:

I swear, I could never get to that secret exit with keyboard. I always use mouse or idclev## to get to E3M9

Oh, I ain't saying I ever actually GOT to the secret exit as a kid, I'm just saying that it was more readable

[bofu]

I want to say that my shareware version was 1.2, maybe 1.1, but despite using a Sound Blaster soundcard, I had to set Doom to use PC Speaker or else it would crash any time a sound played. Oh, and it crashed every time I exited to DOS, too.

 

I remember not seeing the chainsaw in E1M2 and thinking that my friend was making it up when he said it was there. I then remember finding it and using it to kill everything in the rest of E1, including those two Barons. That took forever.

 

I was just a kid and played with God Mode, but when I got to the end of E1M8 and ended up in the death exit area, I got frustrated and quit before I lost all of my health because I didn't realize what was happening.

 

Oh, and I didn't play the registered version of Doom until after I got Doom II. It was Ultimate Doom, and I remember being amazed when I got all those shovelware WAD compilations that nobody ever bothered replacing that fourth episode.

[ＤΞＬＴΛ]

E1M1... Need I say more?

[joepallai]

Panicking the first time time I heard the hiss of a cacodemon 

[MFG38]

Alien Vendetta, one of the early maps. MAP06, if I remember correctly.

 

Quicksaved at 6 health right before a Rev rocket hit my face.

[Naarok0fkor]

I played for well over 24hrs...

[Maximum Matt]

On 4/7/2023 at 5:56 AM, StarTanned said:

going down the nukage tunnel in E1M4 leading to the early soulsphere, but missing the one-time lift up to it

I think everybody who ever played Doom did that the first time

[openroadracer]

So I started with FreeDOOM rather than id DooM; but the thing I remember most about the first few times I tried it was just how fast the gameplay is. It blew me away how quickly I could move, and the fact that I'm such a late comer(didn't start with DooM until 2015) meant that this speed really drove me into the "DooM is a power fantasy" camp straight away.

[StarTanned]

5 minutes ago, Maximum Matt said:

I think everybody who ever played Doom did that the first time

 

Especially since strafing wasn't second nature to a lot of us when we were kids and FPSes were still a relatively new thing.

[Eurisko]

Picking up and using the chaingun in E1-M2

 

 

[D0M0]

My greatest memory was when I played E3M8 and just instantly killed the spider mastermind with the BFG.

I was so confused since I thought the boss was going to be tough, but it ended up being a complete pushover.

Edited April 22, 2023 by D0M0
my bad grammar