Doom's been ported to everything from toasters to refrigerators, seemingly leaving little room for truly novel platforms. However, a high school student has achieved the seemingly impossible: running Doom within a PDF file viewable in a browser.
While features like text and sound are absent, the ability to play E1M1 while procrastinating on taxes is undeniably appealing.
Github user ading2210, inspired by the TetrisPDF project, leveraged Javascript within a browser's PDF reader to accomplish this feat. Browser security limitations restrict the full potential of PDF scripting, but sufficient functionality remained to port Doom.
Using a six-color ASCII grid for sprites and graphics, ading2210 created a surprisingly readable Doom experience, albeit with an 80ms per-frame rendering delay. While not a replacement for a PS5, the accomplishment of running Doom within a PDF file is remarkable.
TetrisPDF creator Thomas Rinsma commented on Hacker News, praising ading2210's version for its superior neatness.
Although not ideal for a first-time Doom experience, the ongoing trend of running Doom on unusual devices and file formats (including, famously, gut bacteria) remains endlessly entertaining.
