A smart high school student did something I never thought possible: They did it Doom runs in a PDF file. Seriously. And strangely enough, it works better than you might expect!
Over the last two decades, I've been getting id Software's 1993 FPS classic Doom Running on devices that were never intended to play games has become a popular hobby among modders and tinkerers. In the last few years alone we have seen Doom ported to Tractors, ATMs, pregnancy testsAnd even on Twitter via tweets. And now you can add PDF files to the list “Things you can play Doom To.”
As discovered by IGNGithub user and self-described “high school student” Ading2210, has created a small website where you can play a PDF version of Doom. Click here to play Doom in a PDF. (Note that it only works in Chromium browsers.)
Here is a video of this new PDF port from Doom in action:
How is this possible, you may ask? Aren't PDF files just static images or text? Surprisingly, that's not entirely true. According to Ading2210, PDF files support JavaScript, and this is what most modern browsers use to display PDFs. Adding2210 took advantage of this and used ASCII characters to create the visuals you see while playing Doom's PDF port. You can read the full description of how this was all achieved on the Github page. It's very impressive.
Now you may be asking yourself: Why? Doom so easy to port? Well, that's because ID software released DoomSource code from 1997– just four years after the game’s explosive debut. Since then, fans have spent more than 25 years creating “source ports” of the shooter, expanding the game in countless ways and allowing it to be played on virtually anything.
Can you imagine in 2025 a video game company releasing the source code of a hugely popular game a few years after release? It's wild to think about. But thanks to the release of the source code decades ago, fans were able to port it Doom basically everything. I can't wait to see the next weird port Doom looks like.
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