Doom: The Gallery Experience

Doom: The Gallery Experience is a unique first-person game that reimagines the classic Doom’s E1M1 level as an art gallery. Instead of battling demons, players explore a serene museum setting, sipping wine, collecting hors d’oeuvres, and admiring famous artworks like Francesco Francia’s Madonna and Child. The game blends the familiar Doom engine with a relaxed, high-culture atmosphere, offering an unexpected twist on the original shooter.

Doom: The Gallery Experience – A Masterful Subversion of Gaming and High Art

Introduction: When Hell Meets High Culture

Few games in history have left as indelible a mark on the medium as Doom (1993). A brutal, fast-paced shooter that defined the first-person genre, it was a game about survival, aggression, and the catharsis of mowing down demonic hordes. Now, over three decades later, Doom: The Gallery Experience (2024) takes that same foundational level—E1M1—and transforms it into something entirely unexpected: a satirical, meditative art gallery simulator.

Developed by Filippo Meozzi and Liam Stone under the banner of Scum Dog Games, The Gallery Experience is not just a mod or a joke—it’s a sharp, self-aware commentary on both the pretensions of high art and the absurdity of gaming culture. By replacing shotguns with wine glasses and imps with hors d’oeuvres, the game forces players to reconsider the spaces they inhabit, the rituals they perform, and the unexpected intersections between violence and aesthetics.

This review will dissect Doom: The Gallery Experience in exhaustive detail, exploring its development, narrative subversion, gameplay mechanics, artistic direction, and cultural significance. Is it a brilliant parody, an educational tool, or a surreal experiment in game design? The answer, much like the game itself, is all of the above.

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Development History & Context: From Hell to the Met

The Birth of an Absurd Idea

Doom: The Gallery Experience emerged from a place of personal and professional frustration. Filippo Meozzi, the game’s director and producer, works in the art industry as an artist’s assistant, a role that has given him firsthand experience with the often-absurd world of gallery openings. In an interview with VG247, Meozzi described these spaces as a “vague form of superficial hell”—a phrase that perfectly encapsulates the game’s tone.

“I’ve had a lot of experience in these gallery spaces, and it always felt like this vague form of superficial hell to me… You’re fighting the demonic nightmare of all these people blowing smoke up everyone else’s back end.”

This sentiment became the core of The Gallery Experience. The game was originally conceived as a school project, but it quickly evolved into a full-fledged parody. Meozzi and Stone, who had previously collaborated on other projects, decided to use Doom’s E1M1 level as their canvas—not just for its iconic status, but for its structural familiarity. The hangar’s labyrinthine layout, when stripped of its industrial grit and repainted in sterile white, became the perfect stand-in for the oppressive, boxy rooms of a modern art gallery.

Technical Challenges & Creative Solutions

The development process was not without its hurdles. The team used Construct 3, a game engine not originally designed for Doom-style mods, which required significant adaptation. As Stone explained:

“We rebuilt the whole level of E1M1 from the ground up… We needed something that we could quickly iterate on and have everything we need at a moment’s notice.”

This technical constraint actually worked in their favor. By reconstructing the level rather than simply reskinning it, they were able to introduce interactive elements that wouldn’t have been possible in the original Doom engine—most notably, the ability to click on paintings to pull up real-world information from The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Open Access Collection.

The Gaming Landscape in 2024: Why This Game Matters

Doom: The Gallery Experience arrived at a fascinating cultural moment. The Doom franchise itself had just seen a resurgence with Doom Eternal (2020) and the announcement of Doom: The Dark Ages (2025), proving that the series’ legacy was as strong as ever. Meanwhile, the indie game scene was flourishing with experimental, narrative-driven experiences that played with player expectations—games like The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe and Inscryption had already demonstrated the power of subversive design.

Yet The Gallery Experience stands apart because of its dual identity:
– For Doom fans, it’s a hilarious inversion of the franchise’s core mechanics.
– For art enthusiasts, it’s a surprisingly earnest (if satirical) celebration of museum culture.

The game’s release on December 17, 2024, via itch.io (for free) and as a browser experience, ensured maximum accessibility—a deliberate choice, given Meozzi’s desire to “promote people to go and experience art.”

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Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive: The Unspoken Story of a Silent Protagonist

The Absence of Plot as a Narrative Device

Doom: The Gallery Experience has no traditional story. There is no demonic invasion, no UAC conspiracy, no final boss. Instead, the “narrative” emerges from the player’s interaction with the space and the art within it.

This is a deliberate subversion of Doom’s usual structure. In the original game, the player is the Doomguy—a silent, hyper-violent force of nature. Here, the player is still silent, but their role is inverted: instead of destroying, they observe. Instead of moving forward with urgency, they linger. The only “objectives” are:
– Collecting wine glasses (a replacement for health pickups).
– Gathering hors d’oeuvres (the new “ammo”).
– Clicking on paintings to learn about them.

This shift transforms the player from a warrior into a flâneur—a wanderer in a curated space, absorbing rather than acting.

Themes: Satire, Alienation, and the Rituals of High Culture

The game’s themes are layered and often contradictory, much like the art world it parodies.

1. The Absurdity of Pretension

   • The gallery is a place where people perform sophistication, often without genuine engagement. The game exaggerates this by making the player’s actions (sipping wine, nodding at sculptures) feel mechanical, almost like a Doom player going through the motions of a speedrun.
   • The inclusion of Galaktor, a hidden character who gifts the player beer in a backroom, is a wink at the idea that even in these “highbrow” spaces, people are just looking for a good time.

2. The Oppressiveness of White Walls

   • Meozzi has spoken about how galleries, despite their varied contents, all feel the same: “They’re always square, boxy, nightmarishly lit rooms, regardless of the art that’s in them.”
   • The game’s level design reinforces this—E1M1, once a claustrophobic military base, is now a sterile, maze-like gallery where the player is both observer and observed.

3. Art as a Weapon (or a Shield)

   • The original Doom is about survival through violence. The Gallery Experience suggests that art, too, can be a form of survival—a way to arm oneself against the banality of modern life.
   • The fact that the paintings link to real Met Museum pages adds a layer of authenticity, turning the game into an unexpected educational tool.

4. The Doomguy as an Art Critic

   • In a VG247 interview, Meozzi speculated on which artworks the Doomguy would appreciate, settling on religious Renaissance pieces like Madonna and Child:
     > “I feel like he would sort of gain this forging of spirit from the affinity for holy images… That would be his most motivational section to bring back with him to his expeditions to hell.”
   • This is a brilliant inversion: the same character who once tore through hellish cathedrals in Doom II is now quietly contemplating sacred art.

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Gameplay Mechanics & Systems: The Anti-Doom

Core Gameplay Loop: Observation Over Annihilation

At its heart, Doom: The Gallery Experience is a walking simulator, but one with a twist—it retains the structure of Doom while stripping away its violence.

Original Doom Mechanic	Gallery Experience Equivalent
Shooting demons	Clicking on paintings
Collecting health packs	Picking up wine glasses
Gathering ammo	Taking hors d’oeuvres
Finding secret areas	Discovering hidden rooms (e.g., Galaktor’s beer stash)
Final boss battle	Purchasing a $14 “poop jar” from the gift shop

This table highlights how the game recontextualizes familiar actions into something absurd yet oddly satisfying.

Interactivity & Player Agency

The game’s most innovative mechanic is its interactive art system. When the player approaches a painting, they can click to pull up:
– The artwork’s title and artist.
– A link to its Met Museum page for deeper reading.
– Occasionally, humorous or obscure trivia (e.g., the Ancient Egyptian Toilet Jar).

This turns the game into a self-guided art history lesson, but one that never feels didactic. The player is free to engage as much or as little as they want—much like in a real gallery.

Secrets & Easter Eggs: A Nod to Doom’s Legacy

Despite its radical departure from the source material, The Gallery Experience retains Doom’s love of hidden secrets. Two of the original E1M1 secret areas are preserved:
1. The Courtyard – Now a sculpture garden featuring Diana, Meozzi’s favorite piece.
2. Galaktor’s Hideout – A backroom where the player can find beer, a nod to the idea that even in high art, people crave the unpretentious.

These secrets serve a dual purpose:
– For Doom veterans, they’re a nostalgic callback.
– For new players, they’re a reward for exploration, reinforcing the idea that galleries, too, have hidden depths.

The Gift Shop: Capitalism as the Final Boss

The game’s “ending” is not a climactic battle but a visit to the gift shop, where the player can spend collected cash on absurd souvenirs, including:
– A $14 “poop jar” (based on a real Ancient Egyptian artifact).
– Replicas of the sculptures seen in-game.

This is a brilliant satire of how museums monetize art, turning cultural appreciation into consumerism. It’s also the closest thing the game has to a “boss fight”—the final challenge is deciding whether to buy into the system.

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World-Building, Art & Sound: Crafting the Illusion of High Culture

Visual Design: From Industrial Hell to Sterile Heaven

The most striking aspect of The Gallery Experience is its visual transformation of E1M1.

• Original Doom E1M1: Dark, gritty, filled with crates, bloodstains, and flickering lights.
• Gallery Version: Pristine white walls, polished floors, soft lighting, and carefully placed sculptures.

The developers achieved this by:
1. Repainting textures to remove all traces of the original setting.
2. Replacing enemies with art—where a demon once stood, there’s now a Renaissance painting.
3. Adjusting the lighting to feel more “gallery-like”—less harsh, more diffused.

The result is a space that feels uncanny, like a Doom level that’s been gentrified.

Sound Design: Classical Music and the Sound of Silence

The audio design is just as crucial to the experience:
– Ambient music: Soft classical pieces (sourced from PM Music) replace Doom’s heavy metal soundtrack.
– Footsteps: The player’s movement is quiet, emphasizing the hushed atmosphere of a gallery.
– Interaction sounds: The clink of a wine glass, the rustle of a hors d’oeuvre being picked up.

The absence of gunfire or demonic growls makes the experience feel eerily peaceful, which only heightens the satire—this is what Doom would sound like if it were a spa.

The Illusion of a “Real” Gallery

The game’s greatest strength is how faithfully it replicates the feeling of being in a gallery, down to:
– The awkward small talk (implied through the lack of dialogue).
– The performative appreciation (the player is “supposed” to care about the art, but there’s no penalty for ignoring it).
– The physical fatigue of standing too long (represented by the slow, deliberate movement speed).

It’s a perfect parody because it doesn’t just mock galleries—it understands them.

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Reception & Legacy: From Niche Experiment to Cultural Talking Point

Critical Reception: A Game That Defies Categories

As of early 2025, Doom: The Gallery Experience has not yet received widespread critical coverage, but the reactions from those who have played it are overwhelmingly positive.

• Art enthusiasts praise its educational value and clever use of the Met’s collection.
• Doom fans appreciate its subversive humor and respect for the original game’s design.
• Indie game critics highlight its bold reimagining of a classic.

The game’s free release on itch.io and as a browser experience has also made it highly accessible, ensuring that it reaches both gamers and non-gamers alike.

Cultural Impact: A Bridge Between Gaming and Art

Meozzi has stated that one of his goals was to challenge the art world’s perception of video games:

“I consider video games to be a form of art, and not many people in the art spheres consider that as well… It’s important to see almost everything that anyone’s capable of doing as some form of artistic contribution.”

In this sense, The Gallery Experience is meta-art—a game about art that itself makes an argument for games as art.

Potential Future: Could This Go Physical?

In a VG247 interview, Meozzi and Stone joked about the idea of turning the game into a real-life gallery exhibit:

“It would become just like an incredibly meta, hyper-absurd… It would just be bizarre and it would be fantastic.”

Given the game’s viral appeal, this isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds. Imagine walking into a museum, only to find a recreation of E1M1 as an art gallery, complete with wine, hors d’oeuvres, and a gift shop selling “poop jars.” It would be the ultimate blurring of digital and physical art spaces.

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Conclusion: A Masterpiece of Subversion

Doom: The Gallery Experience is one of the most brilliant, unexpected, and thought-provoking games of 2024. It takes a legendary FPS and strips it down to its structural bones, then rebuilds it into something entirely new—a satirical art walker that is equal parts hilarious, educational, and eerily immersive.

Final Verdict: 9/10 – A Must-Play for Gamers and Art Lovers Alike

Pros:
✅ Hilarious and clever subversion of Doom’s mechanics.
✅ Genuinely educational without being preachy.
✅ Perfectly captures the absurdity of gallery culture.
✅ Free and accessible to anyone with a browser.
✅ Respectful to both Doom fans and art enthusiasts.

Cons:
❌ Very short (can be completed in under 30 minutes).
❌ Lacks replayability beyond the initial experience.
❌ Some may find it “too niche” if they don’t engage with the satire.

Legacy: Where Does It Stand in Gaming History?

Doom: The Gallery Experience is not just a joke—it’s a statement. It proves that games can be:
– Satirical without being mean-spirited.
– Educational without being boring.
– Experimental without losing sight of fun.

In a world where Doom is synonymous with violence, this game asks: What if the real hell wasn’t demons, but small talk at an art opening?

And in doing so, it becomes something truly special—a game that will be remembered not just for its humor, but for its bold redefinition of what a Doom game can be.

Final Thought:
If Doom is about fighting your way out of hell, then Doom: The Gallery Experience is about fighting your way through the hell of social pretension. And in that battle, the player’s greatest weapon isn’t a shotgun—it’s irony.

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Play it for free: itch.io
Official Site: Newgrounds

Doom: The Gallery Experience is more than a game—it’s a cultural artifact, a love letter to art, and a middle finger to pretension, all wrapped in the skin of a 30-year-old classic. And that, in itself, is a masterpiece.