Move Over Toasters: Doom Is Now Playable Inside a PDF

Doom's been ported to everything from toasters to refrigerators, seemingly leaving little room for truly novel achievements. However, a high school student has accomplished the seemingly impossible: porting Doom to a PDF file playable within a browser.

While lacking sound and text (minor details, right?), imagine playing E1M1 while procrastinating on your taxes!

Github user "ading2210," inspired by the TetrisPDF project, leveraged Javascript within a browser's PDF reader to achieve this feat. Browser security limitations restrict the full potential of PDF scripting, but it proved sufficient.

Using a six-color ASCII grid for visuals, ading2210 created a surprisingly playable, albeit slow (80ms per frame), version of Doom.

Although it won't replace your PS5, the accomplishment of running Doom within a PDF file is remarkable, especially given its legibility.

TetrisPDF's creator, Thomas Rinsma, acknowledged ading2210's superior implementation on Hacker News.

While not ideal for a first-time Doom experience, the ongoing trend of running Doom on unusual platforms—from devices to files, even gut bacteria—remains endlessly amusing.