Fairy Tale Spotlight: Going Down [Video Game Review]

Do any of you know a guy named Cyriak? His full name is Cyriak Harris, and he has been making music videos on YouTube for a very long time. These videos are very creepy and strange and often feature themes of cyclical repetition, fractal patterns, and mutations. They are intensely creepy and weird. He takes one theme or video and completely turns it into a terrifying nightmare set to some very discordant music that he makes himself. They are also often very humorous which contrasts pleasantly with the fact that they are terrifying. I have been a huge fan of his stuff for over a decade, and I always look forward to his new videos.

Well, recently I found a new Doom game called "Going Down" (released in 2014) that I downloaded completely at random. Honestly I was looking for a new game to blow off some steam on. I wasn't even going to finish it. The first thing I noticed was that I hated the music. It was discordant and silly and did not really sound like any music I had ever heard in the Doom games. I actually said to myself out loud, "This kind of sounds like Cyriak's stuff."

But then I had a sudden feeling of dread wash over me. I turned the game off and began searching information on the "Going Down" map pack. It was created by a user known only as "mouldy." And when I dug just a teeny bit deeper, I found out that the true name of mouldy was none other than Cyriak Harris. Well, I'll be damned. Cyriak made a Doom game.

And I figured he might have done a great job too since he was listed in the "featured mods" section of the Doom+DoomII Remaster. Anything in that category means that it is not just any Doom mod... it's considered one of the all time greats. And I then decided to play the whole thing through (all 32 maps) and see how much they stack up to Cyriak's body of work.

The whole concept of "Going Down" has to do with traveling from the top of a building and working your way down, killing everything you see along the way. This ultimately leads down into the basement areas... and eventually something that greatly resembles Hell.

Cyriak has perfected the concept of the "monster closet" by very strategically making a very empty room turn into a room full of enemies in seconds flat. One thing that is very particular to this map set is that, when enemies suddenly appear in front of you, they very often appear behind you as well. Cyriak loves trapping the player in between enemies very quickly. He's using a lot Doom voodoo to make it happen too. I have rarely seen so many tricks pulled in Doom in one map pack.

The map author also uses his sheer mastery of map editing to create situations where you can only use one weapon in a map, by either making all the other weapons less useful or just somehow taking the other weapons away. One mission had me only using the chainsaw and another just my fists. No matter what you are forced to use, a ton of enemies will be appearing regardless of if you feel it is fair or not... so just deal with it!

The main thing that happens so often in this map pack is that you can go from zero enemies to an absurd amount very quickly. I think this is his way to falling back to his music videos. In a strange way, it does sometimes feel like the monsters are repeating out in some absurd version of macro cellular mitosis.

There was also some witchcraft created by Cyriak that rather boggled my mind. In one situation, you are in an elevator, and when you take a few steps forward, the light go out and then, when they come back on, the whole room is covered in blood. That is not easy to accomplish in the classic Doom engine. He had to pull some very silly tricks to make that happen. He had to, in some crazy way, transfer the player seamlessly from one elevator to another just to make that happen.

The intermission scenes are silly. They have Doom Guy taking phone calls from his mother and mentioning that he is busy killing demons and such. His speech is very British. This is a bit off-putting, but it happened because Cyriak happens to be British.

The map pack had two secret levels which were very enjoyable and easy to find. The final mission had an original boss in it, and it was a very epic battle. It was followed by a epilogue mission where you are attacked in your own apartment complex. Very cool.

Without a doubt, I recommend "Going Down" as an absolutely must-play Doom map pack. If you have the Doom+DoomII Remastered available, it is free to download. Also check out Cyriak's music videos on YouTube! They are super creepy and fun to watch.

This blog was written on January 15, 2025.

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