Help demons come to terms with their crappy jobs in the Doom mod 'Mr. Friendly'

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One of my odd little videogame quirks is that I always try to wait for new enemies I encounter to take the first shot. As a child, I had this strange, faint idea that maybe if I didn't shoot, they wouldn't either—that maybe my restraint would lead me down some super-secret path to videogame glory that all the trigger-happy chumps out there (which is to say, everyone but me) were too dumb to figure out.

It never worked out that way, obviously, and 95 percent of my videogame problems continue to be solved at the end of a virtual gun. But a new Doom mod called Mr. Friendly, created by former 2K and Double Fine developer (and noted Doom fan) JP LeBreton, delivers that sort of fanciful outcome by converting one of the most notoriously violent FPSes in history into an opportunity to talk it out.

The titular Mr. Friendly—that's you—is a demon too, but one of the good guys: A Guardian Demon who talks with the other demons to help them chill out, and maybe work through their feelings a bit, after the Doomslayer has rampaged through the area. Instead of killing things, "the point is to chill out, do quests, interact with stuff, and more": One such quest involves catching a Dopefish for an imp named Hylozoist, who's looking for a low-maintenance first pet for his kid. (All the demons in the mod have names, and yes, you can go fishing.)

Switches, doors, and level exits work as they normally do, but there's also an inventory, crafting, a "to do" list that tracks quests, and a walk/fly toggle that doesn't require an "IDsomethingsomething" cheat code. It's almost a total conversion, and it will work with any Doom Iwad and "a majority of user-created vanilla Doom levels."

Mr. Friendly is a "playable alpha" and so there's still some placeholder art and a few known bugs and missing bits. LeBreton said on Twitter that there are roughly 10,000 "joyful, goofy, densely referential" works of dialog in the mod, and the "known issues" page promises "tons of writing" to come, including "variations for quest briefings, monster names, item descriptions, [and] monster small talk." It requires GZDoom 3.3 or later to operate, and can be had for free from Itch.io.

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.