Though the passing of MF DOOM rocked the hip-hop world, it appears that his legacy endures, as seen with one fan project for the Game Boy.
The game, titled MF DOOM: Special Herb Adventure, was unfortunately scrapped due to “obvious licensing issues”. It appears that the game was meant to be a Game Boy RPG in the vein of Pokémon or the Final Fantasy entries on that console.
Named after the Special Herb series of instrumental albums, the project references multiple parts of MF DOOM lore – real name Daniel Dumile – including his alter ego Viktor Vaughn, Madlib’s side project in Quasimoto, and even quoting One Beer.
In an interview with Kotaku’s Luke Plunkett, the creator Chafomon highlighted his love for the legendary underground rapper, stating:
“I’ve been a fan of DOOM since way back when he was still known as Zev Love X from KMD. Back in 1991… I went to a CD store here in Ecuador and bought the 3RD BASS ‘Derelicts of Dialect’ album. I must have listened to that album thousands of times. I dubbed it on cassette and had it on my Walkman to listen to on the bus ride to school every day.”
The game would have been based around getting the money to buy records, which would be sampled to make beats. These beats would then be sold to other MCs in the game world.
The graphics were mainly all drawn by me, but I did lift and modify some items from a few other GB RPG games (such as Pokemon). I never got around to making any sound for it either. I probably should have added a voice over here, but I'm not my most upbeat with DOOM having passed pic.twitter.com/PzLa48jk3W
— CHAFOMON (@chafomon) January 1, 2021
Unfortunately, it appears that this project would have been a Herculean task, as Chafomon admitted:
“Honestly, I put so much effort into for a while that I kind of burned myself out. I started realising that this was going to take me about a whole year to complete and if/when I ever did finish it, I would have obvious legal issues if I were to want to sell it.”
At the end of the day, Chafomon is a MF DOOM fan first and foremost ahead of his title as game developer. He said of his unfinished project:
“Right now I feel like it’s best to just let DOOM rest in peace. I’m flattered by all the praise though and believe me, if I were just a fan that happened to see that video, I’d wanna play the game too. Maybe one day.”
MF DOOM passed away on 31 October 2020 at the age of 49 years. His death was not publicly announced until 31 December later that year, with was announced by his wife, Jasmine Dumile. Tributes poured in from across the music world from the likes of Tyler, the Creator, Q-Tip, Danny Brown, Denzel Curry, Ghostface Killah, and Thom Yorke.
