Tag: emulation

Everything with a screen should run Doom.

Statement offered without qualification or disclaimer. On December 23rd, 1997, Christmas came early, as John Carmack released the source code for the original Doom engine, free for non-commercial use. The game assets (textures, sprites, levels) weren’t released into the public domain, but paired with a free-to-distribute copy of the shareware .WAD file, you can legally port the engine and play the first episode of Doom on any device your heart so desires. I feel strongly that should be every device on which it’s even remotely feasible to do so. I’m not alone – in the last 20-or-so years, besides the obvious choices like iPods and Nintendo DSes, ingenious individuals have made Doom run on printers, digital cameras, thermostats, ATM machines, toasters* – it’s truly a great time to be alive.

The “It runs Doom” demi-meme is well documented in other places, and I’m not looking to rehash all that, but I think it’s important to establish why, in 2007, it was so important to me that my Samsung SCH-A930 clamshell phone ran Doom (because A: everything with a screen should run Doom, and B: it had a screen).

Continue reading “Doom RPG”