Summary
- A high school student has successfully ported Doom (1993) to a PDF file, making it playable, albeit slowly.
- Doom's small file size enables its operation on unconventional devices, such as the Nintendo Alarmo and within other video games like Balandro.
- The continuous efforts to run Doom on various platforms underscore its lasting legacy and relevance in the gaming world.
The iconic video game Doom, originally released in 1993 by id Software, has been remarkably ported to a PDF file by a high school student known on GitHub as ading2210. This inventive port adds to the long list of unconventional devices on which Doom has been played, showcasing the game's incredible versatility and enduring appeal.
Doom is celebrated as a cornerstone of the first-person shooter (FPS) genre, to such an extent that the term "FPS" was largely inspired by it. For many years, similar games were simply dubbed "Doom clones." The trend of running Doom on unexpected devices has gained traction over recent years, with enthusiasts and programmers pushing the boundaries by executing the game on everything from fridges and alarm clocks to car stereos. This playful yet impressive phenomenon continues to evolve, reaching new and creative heights.
The high school student, ading2210, leveraged the PDF format's support for JavaScript to port Doom into a PDF. JavaScript within PDFs allows for functionalities such as 3D rendering, HTTP requests, and monitor detection. Typically, interactive PDFs use small text boxes as pixels, but rendering Doom's 320x200 resolution this way would be impractical due to the thousands of boxes required per frame. Instead, ading2210 used one text box per screen row, resulting in a slower but playable version of the game. A video demonstration by the creator shows the game running without color, sound, or text, with a response time of 80ms per frame.
High School Student Ports Doom (1993) to a PDF
One of the reasons behind this remarkable feat is Doom's compact size, which is only 2.39 megabytes. This small footprint facilitated another recent port to the Nintendo Alarmo, where players used the device's dials to control movement and the side buttons to navigate the game's menu. Additionally, a creative player managed to run Doom within Balandro, allowing users to experience the classic FPS across the game's spread cards, although with noticeable performance limitations similar to those seen in the PDF version.
These projects are not primarily aimed at providing a smooth gaming experience on unconventional platforms. Rather, they highlight the boundless creativity and possibilities that exist for running Doom. More than three decades after its release, Doom remains highly relevant, a testament to its enduring legacy. As enthusiasts continue to experiment, it's likely that Doom will be adapted to even more unusual devices in the future.
