Released back in 1993, few could have imagined the heights to whichDoomwould rise, making it one of the most successful PC games of its time. TodayDoomcontinues to thrive across an expanse of films, tabletop games, novels, and comics, but chief among them is the rebooted series of games for next-gen consoles with the latest entryDoom: Eternal.It might be strange to learn then that even in spite of these recent games, the originalDoomcontinues to be ported by players, and stranger still ported to all manner of gadgets and devices that were objectively not designed to play the infamous FPS.
Examples ofDoomports range from the weird to the downright bizarre, including the likes of high-end Apple Watches tooutdated photocopiers and scanners.Understanding how this is possible is a first step to determining why players might want to continue to port this cult classic on toy chainsaws or grand pianos, and it could further help explain why avid programmers would go out of their way to create such unusual and creative ports. Whether it has become its own absurdist art form or if it’s just a committed fan base keeping a formative game alive and well is anybody’s guess, but there’s no denying the trend has been hugely popular and shows no signs of faltering.
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How Did The Trend Start
The reason whyDoomis ported so readily is due to various factors behind its development and distribution. First and foremost,Doombroke tradition from other games of its time by being made publicly available as open-source and originally released as shareware byid Software.A Linux version ofDoom’scode was made available in 1997, but it didn’t take long for programmers to reverse engineer its original 1993 version.
Moreover, without delving too deep into the technicalities, what helped programmers code withDoomwas that it was written in C, renowned at the time for being far easier to port than other forms of code. Today C has backward compatibility with other languages such as C++ and a host of compilers for almost any platform. This also had the added bonus of only needing low hardware specifications in terms of processing power thanks to its efficient programming, meaning thatDoomcould run on even the lowest-performing PC.
It might seem incredibly strange to make the game so readily available without the outright need to purchase it, but it was thanks to these decisions by id Software that securedDoom’slegacy as one the most formative games of the 90s and beyond. Huge modding communities had their beginnings withDoom, and thanks to theDoomengine, several other games series were born as well, including prominent examples such asWolfensteinandQuake. It became a cultural phenomenon among players, leading to a swathe of similarDoomclonesand changing even the language players had around gaming, gifting the industry terms such as “deathmatch” and “frag.” Any gamer will have at least heard ofDoomat some point, even if it’s not their sort of game, as it is often revered as the grandfather of the FPS genre.
All these factors together helped bring about the perfect storm forDoomand itscommunity, allowing it to outlive most other franchises of its time. InitialDoomports may well have simply just been keeping the game alive even as the gaming scene moved on to greener pastures, but asDoom’slongevity took root and the ports continued to grow, all it would need is one creative spark to generate a new kind of movement. The trend of unusual and weirdDoomports has become so prevalent and renowned that there are entire subreddits and Twitter pages dedicated to the cataloging and showcasing of all the weird and wonderful things players can playDoomon. There even exists collatedlists of excellent examples of the wildestDoomports, giving just a brief insight into how bizarre some of these ports can actually be.
Why Trend Is So Popular And Weird
Acknowledging that there are those creating ports to preserveDoomfor posterity, there has been a significant divergence of programmers getting inventive with their ports doesn’t align with this idea. Instead, their ports could be seen instead as either an expression of creativity or a testament to their own or the game’s capabilities. For instance, though there is obviously no demand for such a port, programmers were able to get a fully functioning version ofDoomto work on a Honeywell Prestige thermostat. From the aforementioned scanner totext-based terminals, it seems that so long as it has a screen of some kind and runs on a platform thatDoom’s code can be compiled to, just about anything can playDoom.
Just the existence of this fact alone could also be spurring the community on, whereby they could acquire some prestige by joining the ranks of many other programmers in developing the most sensational port imaginable. Excellent examples of these include the likes of ports existing on pregnancy tests, karaoke machines, digital cameras, and more. But the most extreme examples come from the likes of YouTuber Equalo who set out to find out how many potato batteries it would take to playDoom, ultimately settling to play it on a TI-84 graphing calculator after the initial plans to use a port on a Raspberry Pi fell through, and more distressingly the potatoes began to get moldy. Even in spite of this though the port was still functional, and Equalo was able toplayDoomon the calculator, demonstrating not just the ingenuity of these ports to the absolute absurdity behind them.
Ultimately, some programmers may be portingDoomfor their own simple pleasure, to preserve the game and maybe even enjoy reliving old memories. Others, however, might be attempting to aspire to internet fame akin to Equalo’s potato-poweredDoom, finding the most abstract and bizarre means possible to play a port ofDoom, whether it’s on aLEGO brickor a piano. It’s these sorts of people who will continue to grab headlines as they push the envelope on what’s possible to playDoomon, as the community has already established that really there’s very little that couldn’t do when they put their minds to it.
Regardless of which portsDoomfansmight prefer, the still strong popularity of the trend is still a demonstration of the continuing legacy ofDoom, not just for its technological achievements in programming but also for the cultural impact it made.
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