Doom Ported to PDF: A Gaming First

Summary

• A high school student has successfully ported Doom (1993) to a PDF file, offering a slow but playable experience.
• Doom's compact size allows players to run it on unconventional devices, like the Nintendo Alarmo and within other video games.
• Players continue to explore endless possibilities to run Doom, highlighting its lasting legacy and ongoing relevance.

One dedicated high school student managed to port the highly influential game Doom (1993) to a PDF file. This surprising development adds to the many other unexpected devices on which Doom has been played in the past.

Developed by id Software, Doom is widely considered one of the most influential video games ever, especially in the FPS genre. In fact, the very existence of Doom inspired the term "FPS," and for many years, games of this kind were simply regarded as “Doom copies.” Over the past few years, a trend has gained popularity, with different programmers and video game enthusiasts attempting to run Doom on the most unexpected devices. These range from fridges, alarm clocks, and car stereos to almost anything with a little bit of technology in it. This humorous yet impressive trend has now reached new heights.

High school student and GitHub user ading2210 has ported the classic Doom into a PDF file. As they explained, the PDF format supports JavaScript, enabling functions like 3D rendering, making HTTP requests, and detecting users’ monitors. Most interactive PDFs utilize small text boxes as pixels, but Doom's 320x200 resolution requires thousands for each frame, which isn't practical. That’s why, in this version, ading2210 uses one text box per screen row, making the game slow but playable. As seen in a video shared by the creator, the game lacks color, sound, and text, and it has an 80ms per frame response time.

High School Student Ports Doom (1993) to a PDF

One of the reasons this feat is possible is the compact size of Doom (2.39 megabytes). Not long ago, in November, a programmer managed to make Doom playable on the Nintendo Alarmo, using the dials on the top to move the character and the side buttons to navigate the game’s menu. But fans haven’t limited themselves to devices alone, as another creative player managed to make Doom run in Balandro. In this port, players can experience the classic FPS across Balandro’s spread cards, though there are some obvious performance issues, much like the PDF version.

The point of these projects isn’t necessarily to play Doom smoothly on these unconventional platforms. Instead, it highlights the endless possibilities creative players can find to run it. The fact that, more than 30 years later, Doom continues to be relevant is just further proof of its enduring legacy. As players keep experimenting, it’s likely Doom will be ported to even more unusual devices in the future.