“I’ve had many experiences in this gallery space, and to me it’s always felt like a vague form of superficial hell.” Doom: Gallery Experiencespeaks to me
“I work as an assistant in the art world and create sculptures and such. So I’m pretty familiar with the process of opening a gallery and the kind of nightmare you experience going into a gallery and having a classy glass of wine and saying big things to each other (some people).”
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So when the opportunity arose to recreate those environments from Id Software’s 1993 shooter for a school project, he decided to go for it.
“The idea I had was that Doom goes to hell and kills demons, and part of going to the gallery opening is fighting the demonic nightmares of all these people blowing the smoke out of other people. It’s the backend,” explains Meozzi.
“I approached Liam (Stone, programmer and artist on Doom: The Gallery Experience). We’ve been building things together for the past few years. We created a game for a game jam about six months ago and it was quite successful as well. We have a very good cooperation relationship. So he was my other half in terms of making sure that this vision came to fruition and that the project got to a state that we were all really happy with, especially on the technical side.”
The pair set to work, “rebuilding an entire level of E1M1 from scratch.” The goal was for the game to be playable through the browser so people could access it and send it easily. Stone recalls: “We tried to use the engine no matter what we ended up doing, and that became pretty (early) Doom,” he recalls. “I think we need more than just finding a way to bring Doom online as a mod. Because we often click on pictures and open links. We needed something that allowed us to iterate quickly and see everything we needed right away.”
While acknowledging that Doom’s wealth of mods, like Thatcher’s Techbase, proved “quite a bit of infrastructure for development,” Meozzi says the pair still thought creating The Gallery Experience was “kind of a challenge.”
“Adapting it (game creation software) Construct 3 to a platform that had never really been made for” was a big task for them, but the director certainly feels they nailed the “atmosphere and feel” they wanted.
The galleries you wander through in the game are not designed to directly reflect any specific real-world location. Instead, Meozzi says it’s designed to be a kind of everything gallery. “Practically any gallery you go to will always have the same format: wooden or concrete floors, white walls, gray ceilings,” he explains. “It’s always painted the same. They always feel the same way. “It is always a square, boxy, nightmarishly lit room, regardless of the art within it.”
So the duo set about decorating. “We took the layout from the map, painted the walls white, put in a nice new floor, some new ceilings, moved some of the furniture around a bit and re-adapted it to the space.” Meozzi added that he was proud of how he was able to capture “the oppressive feeling that the gallery imposes on you.”
One thing the pair ended up sticking with in Doom was the inclusion of several secret areas for players to find, although there was originally “a bit of a split” over whether to do so or not. Two of these are in the exact same locations they were in the original game, and Stone believes that leaving the original courtyard section open and then having the developers do some things for players to enter the area will help TGE feel more appealing about the area. He explained that he thought it would work. A guy more interested in stupid Doom revamps than the art.
Spoiler alert: one of the areas you’ll find contains beer and is the lair of a strange character named Galaktor. I asked the developers who their weird drink gift friends were that had their own territory (and their own cold brew), and they responded with wry smiles: “Galaktor has been a bit of a mascot for us over the years,” Meozzi said. “We’ve included him in most of the projects we’ve done in some form or another… It’s like an Easter egg for each other.” Why does he have beer? Well, you can get it sometimes at gallery openings, but it’s not as common as wine. of course. I guess that’s why it’s hidden away with Mr. Galaktor.
Going back to the art itself, it all comes from one place: the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The museum has a collection of free, open-source exhibition images for two people to use, and links to pages on the museum’s website so players can learn more about the painting or sculpture they’re reviewing with one click.
Regarding the gallery layout, Meozzi said the duo knew what they wanted to put in each section, “the types of styles and eras they wanted to cover,” adding, “We found quite a few things that we thought were pretty fun, but didn’t.” There really isn’t much information about them.” One of them is the Ancient Egyptian Toilet, a copy of which can be purchased in the gift shop in Doom: TGE. I purchased it while playing, so I would definitely recommend purchasing it.
Aside from that, Meozzi says his personal favorite piece of art included in Doom is the Diana statue in TGE’s courtyard, while Stone quite likes the colorful sculptures in the Egypt section.
I ask the pair which of the pieces of art on display they think would make Doomguy himself feel the best, or if they think he’s just there to get a free snack. Citing the religious elements of the Doom games, Meozzi chose from the Renaissance section a painting of the Madonna and Her Child, Returning from a Hunt. “I think he gets this kind of mental forging from his affinity for sacred images,” he reasons. His exploration of hell”.
There’s a lot to be said about what the developers behind Doom: The Gallery Experience are getting out of the experience, which has given their game surprising traction relative to their expectations. First of all, Meozzi says the pair appreciate everyone’s support in terms of “seeing it as just a parody and not such a strict imitation of our early experiences, which is where we wanted to go.”
He added: “It’s always good to encourage people to go and experience art.” “Most major cities around the world have museums. Whether you have a ticket or not and you’re a student, you can find your way there and access it. I think being able to see what people create in a very artistic sense is an important part of experiencing how things develop. One of the most important things is that I consider video games to be a form of art, and many people in the art field do not consider this to be the case. But I think it’s important to see almost anything anyone can do as some kind of artistic contribution. oh my god.”
Meozzi and Stone plan to continue making games together as part of their contribution to the world. This experience rejuvenated them a bit. Even if two people had told me, Stone adds, they probably still would have continued to do so. Their future projects are likely to have “similar weirdness” to theirs.
They’ll also be open to creating a real-life version of Doom, the TGE Gallery, in a hypothetical scenario where New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art reaches out to them and offers them the opportunity. “I think this will be the most complete circle completion for the thinking child,” Meozzi says.
“Making this ironic experience real would be incredibly meta and absurd. I don’t know how to put it into words. “It’s going to be really bizarre and fantastic.”
