Move Over Toasters: Doom Is Now Playable Inside a PDF

Doom, the iconic game that has been adapted to run on everything from toasters to fridges, has now been pushed to an even more unusual frontier: a PDF file. A high school student, known on GitHub as ading2210, has ingeniously ported Doom to a PDF that can be run within your browser. While this version of Doom lacks traditional features like text and sound, it offers a unique way to enjoy the game's first level, E1M1, perhaps while procrastinating on those overdue taxes.

Inspired by the TetrisPDF project, ading2210 leveraged the JavaScript capabilities within PDF readers to bring Doom to life in this unconventional format. Despite security restrictions in browsers that limit the full potential of PDF scripting, the student successfully used a six-color ASCII grid to render Doom's sprites and graphics. The result is a playable version of Doom, albeit with a response time of 80ms per frame, which might not compete with modern gaming consoles but showcases a remarkable achievement in software ingenuity.

Thomas Rinsma, the creator of TetrisPDF, acknowledged ading2210's work on Hacker News, noting that while he had also developed his own PDF version of Doom, he found ading2210's implementation to be "neater in many ways." While this PDF version of Doom may not be the ideal introduction to the game for newcomers, the sheer novelty of running Doom on such an unexpected platform, not to mention the creativity involved, continues to captivate the gaming community. From devices to files, and even living gut bacteria, Doom's adaptability never ceases to entertain and amaze.