He Came From Beyond is a Doom 2 mod made out of post-it notes

Wondering what to do with a few dozen loose sticky notes in your desk drawer? How about using them to sketch up an entirely new take on Doom?

Modders have done some remarkable things with the limited palette of Id Software's early Doom games. Now, one creative artist has given their mod a sickly glow by doodling all the game's textures on yellow post-it notes.

First appearing on ModDB late last year, He Came From Beyond is a striking first-person adventure where every surface, sprite, and font was "hand-drawn on post-its". I only noticed it this weekend thanks to a new video, above, that shows this simple sketched style wrangled into a stunning forest scene.

"I had this crazy observation that post-it notes look like blank Doom textures," developer Szuran wrote. "So I started drawing on post-its and scanning them, and that's how the idea for this game was born."

It's an incredibly smart way to approach the engine's limitations, blending sky and texture background to remove the blocky geometry that defines the Doom engine aesthetic. But it's also wild how the faded yellow of sticky notes adds to the game's Lovecraftian vibes, giving off a pallid, unhealthy glow. 

Szuran hopes to have the game complete by late 2021, though you can keep up with progress over on the game's ModDB feed. But while He Came From Beyond stretches Doom 2's aesthetic within engine limitations, mods like 2018's Total Chaos shattered them to create games that look decades removed from their Id Software roots.

Natalie Clayton
Features Producer

20 years ago, Nat played Jet Set Radio Future for the first time, and she's not stopped thinking about games since. Joining PC Gamer in 2020, she comes from three years of freelance reporting at Rock Paper Shotgun, Waypoint, VG247 and more. Embedded in the European indie scene and a part-time game developer herself, Nat is always looking for a new curiosity to scream about—whether it's the next best indie darling, or simply someone modding a Scotmid into Black Mesa. She also unofficially appears in Apex Legends under the pseudonym Horizon.