You can find all my previous posts in this project here if you are interested or need to catch up for some reason.

“I won’t take no prisoners, won’t spare no lives
…
I got my bell, I’m gonna take you to hell” Hells Bells, AC/DC

I have no bell but I do have a gatling gun, shotgun, and rocket launcher. They will have to do.

The Shores of Hell

Finally I start the middle setting of the three that make up the original Doom.

After the way Knee-Deep in the Dead finished I’m frankly shocked to be standing.

E2M1 Deimos Anomaly

There’s no exposition as to how I got out of that sticky wicket. All I know is I’m back taking on the forces of hell with just my fists and a pistol.

It feels right from the go that the stakes are higher.

I’m teleporting around the level. Cacodemons are being thrown at me. There’s something satisfying when they melt to the ground after taking that final shotgun blast.

This level is a rarity for me. It’s 100% across the board when I complete it. Yep kills, items, and secret rooms!

“And I’m goin’ down
All the way
I’m on the highway to hell” Highway to Hell, AC/DC

E2M2 Containment Area

I love this level. It’s mainly because I’m running round at one point what is obviously a warehouse, slash storage area of some kind picking off imps hidden amongst the crates.

For me there is something satisfying clearing the area of threats, getting on top of crates, finding hidden areas.

The level design is superb. I picked out the above couple of examples. But all of the levels so far are text book examples in good level design.

One last surprise on this level is the appearance of the Lost Souls. These flaming skulls like the Cacodemon are classic. I just love the look of these two enemies.

E2M3 Refinery

Caged Cacodemons in front of me, imps, demons, and marines to the left and pouring in from the front. Fire, dodge, fire, dodge, is the order of the day until it goes all silent.

There have been two board games based on Doom. Both from FFG. The first came out in 2004 and had an expansion released for it in 2005. An updated second edition came out in 2016.

To be fair and I’m laying the blame for this series of posts squarely at the feet of Marcin. These posts and the replay of Doom would not have happened if Marcin had not been selling his 2004 edition of the Doom board game.

A couple of months back now I saw some-one local was selling a copy of Doom on the Facebook marketplace. So I messaged them that I was interested. It turned out to be Marcin selling it.

After Marcin checked that I knew it was the 2004 edition he was selling and not the 2016 one. Which was perfect as that was the edition that I wanted. We exchanged money for cardboard and plastic the next time we saw each other.

I wasn’t worried about the 2016 edition as that seemed easily available.

Harder to find was the 2005 expansion.

There is a copy of the base game and expansion, both in shrink, on eBay where the seller is looking for £1000! Yes you read that right.

So I offered them what I thought was a reasonable offer of £60 for the expansion only. Not surprisingly that offer was turned down.

In the meantime my search turned up a second hand copy of the game with the expansion on bgg for a much more reasonable price of 99 of the Kings coin.

So I went back to the eBay seller and made my case for an improved offer of 80 quid. More than fair I thought.

However the reply was very aggressive threatening to report me to eBay if I contacted them again. Honestly I was taken aback by the reply that seemed a tad of an overreaction.

The following couple of weeks since, I got more than one email from eBay encouraging me to make another offer!

I am now the proud owner of a second copy of the 2004 Doom with the expansion, because yes I did buy the bgg one.

Which means I have two copies of the core game. I’m keeping both. No wait hear me out. It means I can play just the core game or with the expansion without having to unsort or add the expansion. I just have to grab the right box.

So I got Doom (2004) the board game to the table for a full four player game.

I enjoy one vs many style games, add in that I like dungeon crawls and Doom was ticking a lot of boxes for me.

Usually I’m the one playing on the side of the forces of evil. So it was refreshing that this time Dave kindly took on that role.

We were playing the first scenario of the five that the game has called Knee Deep In The Dead. Each of the scenarios is named after one of the ones in the video game.

We had a blast despite the eventual demise of our marines.

Diego and Gavin left me with the chainsaw as my weapon as they grabbed the shotgun and machine gun. I felt cheated.

But as they ran out of the scarce ammo I was cutting away all before me. I even lobbed the odd grenade that I picked up to great effect once or twice.

After a very deceiving start to the level things started to get tougher. More, bigger, tougher opponents started entering the battlefield.

However it went totally wrong when the blue key we found was broken. Unable to open the door we had to double back through a horde of monsters.

That was the start of the end. Ammo was almost out, we were clearing a slow path through the bodies but at a great cost.

In the end it was too much. We were overwhelmed by the hordes of hell.

The big question did it feel like we were playing a physical game of Doom?

Yes it did to some extent. Especially the scarce amount of ammo. The running out of ammo, having to resort to using fists. Then there is the respawning after dying. Although it’s not quiet like the video game as you keep all your stuff!

As for the wave after wave of monsters to kill as we worked our way through the level map. Not knowing what was waiting round the corner or on the other side of the door. Yeah that was captured very well.

I can’t wait to play more scenarios from the game, and to throw in the expansion as well.

I’ve waded through pools, no rivers of acid. Fought off the horrors hidden in the maze by the strobing lights. Somehow I’ve made it to the exit.

I push the button and the screen melts away.