Dan Douglas captures England’s oddities in Duke Smoochem 3D
Douglas started out simple, recreating the office wherehealth secretary Matt Hancock broke Covid restrictions while cheating on his wife. From there, he has recreated more and more aspects and events of English culture, scattering across them one big level now known as Duke Smoochem 3D. He has a great eye for the mundanities as well as the bits which feel surreal even if you witnessed at the time. He’s made a Greggs complete with a version ofthe controversial sauage roll nativity, for one.
recreated Greggs' controversial “sausage roll nativity”, in Duke Nukem 3Dpic.twitter.com/JscDZ0AvqP
He’s recreated Conversative minister Michael Gove’salleged dance-off and rap battlewith BBC journalist Laura Kuenssberg.
Laura Kuenssberg partying with Michael Gove, in Duke Nukem 3Dpic.twitter.com/czBuIBDyA0
He’s… I’m just going to drop bits and pieces in here. I cannot imagine what any of this means to people who don’t know England.
going for the ultimate gathering of the lads. please send more iconic lads my waypic.twitter.com/91mW0yvC7z
Theresa May’s racist van is inpic.twitter.com/Gv66VOesUX
the Gipsy Hill cat is inpic.twitter.com/8iiCS91P9b
Allegra Stratton using the Downing Street press briefing room Henry to dry her tears, in Duke Nukem 3Dpic.twitter.com/7rHrA07KYD
The Great British Bake Off tent, in Duke Nukem 3D#GBBOpic.twitter.com/uxQOiBCR7F
heroic mum rams two-tonne SUV into eco-mob, in Duke Nukem 3Dpic.twitter.com/jp2B3inIVS
Duke Smoochem 3D is going to be action-packed, but you’ll still have time to check out some treasured memories in Snappy Snapspic.twitter.com/8EHfgWmd9v
a pretty deep cut: the boyband member who wore all his clothes at once to avoid an excess baggage charge and collapsed after overheating on a flight from London to Glasgow, in Duke Nukem 3Dpic.twitter.com/Wq27GGrBqi
And today he posted work onMarble Arch and its crap Mound, this impressive effort on a stupid thing finally pushing me to post about this.
finished my Duke Nukem 3D Marble Arch. just the mound to go!pic.twitter.com/JKHhZEpRmT
He’s made so much more than I’ve included here. I strongly recommend just scrolling throughthe Twitter threadwhere he posts progress. An absolute joy and weird reminder of just how daft England is.
You have to understand: this is one of the most English Englands I’ve seen in video games. It has a clear curatorial slant and silly satirical presentation, no doubt, but this sort of stuff is vital to understanding what England actually is. Dan Douglas is catching the weirdness while it whizzes past at breakneck pace, preserving modern England for posterity.
At some point, he will release this as a Duke Nukem 3D level we can actually play. Until then, yes, do follow Dan and that thread. What a joy to have it pop up in my feed with a recreation of some new bloody stupid English thing I’d already forgotten about despite it happening six seconds ago.
