The strangest things gamers have played Doom on
A piano
A few years ago, a cabal of indie developers mounted a computer inside a piano, and attached keyboard encoders to the ivories, andthus Doom Piano was born. Each of the piano keys is mapped to a specific action: forward, shoot, interact, etc.
Granted, the sounds you make with it won’t be particularly melodic, if the above video is anything to go by, but that seems a small price to pay to playDoomon a piano.Every implementation on this list is creative, but this is one of those that I look at and say, “Huh, I never would have thought of that.”
A pregnancy test
Ireeeeallywant to know the thought process behind this one. While I’ve long since grown accustomed to the idea that people look at everything with a screen and say, “Yeah, I bet I can makeDoomrun on that,” pregnancy tests barely have a screen to begin with. But apparently the single-color display of the pregnancy test was enough of a screen to support the gameplay, because a programmer made it happen.
Note that this looks so improbable that several of the people who first saw it didn’t believe it could be real. And to be clear, programmer Foone Turing had to gut and replace most of the tech inside the pregnancy test. But still, the fact that it was made to supportDoomat all, and the fact that it’s still recognizablyDoomon that little screen, is doubly impressive.
The MacBook touch bar
If it’s a screen, it can support games — that might as well be the tagline of this article. The Touch Bar on the MacBook Pro isn’t much of a screen, but it’ll do — andDoomisn’t the only game it can run. Avery small version ofPac-Manhas been made to run on the Touch Bar. That’s great and all, but here’sDoomsmushed into this strip of a screen.
Now, you’d think the Touch Bar would be perfect for holding, say, a game HUD. And that is one of the things developer Adam Bell also did, as you can see fromBryan’s original article. That is substantially less squashed and more useful. But the fact that you can still squash the entirety of the game into this screen and still be able to play it is surely a testament to just how well we all knowDoomby now.
A keyboard key
If you thought the Touch Bar was too small of a screen to conceivably runDoom, you ain’t seen nothing yet — and unless you squint really hard at this next entry, you ain’t gonna see nothing at all. The screen this time is in the Optimus Maximus keyboard, the keys of which are tiny little displays that can be adapted to show different keyboard layouts. It’s not exactly a common item, but by now you know what to say: if it has a screen, it must be made to runDoom.
I hope you didn’t need to have your eyes checked. I’m all for puttingDoomon any screen, but at 48×48 pixels, this is about as small a screen as you’ll probably be able to find that can still recognizably showDoom. It’s not exactly optimized either, and looks pretty rough to play, but damn it, it can be done, it has been done, and that’s all that matters.
Minecraft
This one is cool just by virtue of what it took to make it happen: this mod essentially lets you build a functioning VirtualBox PC withinMinecraft. It makes sense that one of the first things someone would do with this technology is runDoomon it. I mean, at this point, I would be disappointed if that wasn’t the first impulse —but it was.
It’s so odd that, out of all the entries on this list, this one is the one in which the entire game is actually visible and easy to play. No banging on discordant ivories, no squinting at miniscule keyboard keys — just looking at a screen within a screen onMinecraft. Now I need to see if someone can getMinecraftto run onMinecraft, and then see someone playingDoomon that.
Have you ever seen something weirder runningDoom? Let me know, because I’m sure there’s something out there that can top what I’ve seen. If you’re curious to see what else can runDoom, check out theIt Runs DoomTumblr, and theIt Runs Doom subreddit,both of which were very helpful when I was falling down theDoomrabbit ho– I mean, working on this article.
Story byRachel Kaser
Rachel is a writer and former game critic from Central Texas. She enjoys gaming, writing mystery stories, streaming on Twitch, and horseback(show all)Rachel is a writer and former game critic from Central Texas. She enjoys gaming, writing mystery stories, streaming on Twitch, and horseback riding. Check her Twitter for curmudgeonly criticisms.
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