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PDF Doom: Retro Gaming Goes Portable

by Victoria Mar 14,2025

Doom has been ported to so many devices—toasters, fridges, you name it—that finding a truly novel platform feels impossible. Yet, a high school student has achieved the seemingly impossible: porting Doom to a PDF file playable within a browser.

Sure, it lacks some features like text and sound, but who needs those when you can conquer E1M1 while procrastinating on your taxes?

GitHub user and high school student ading2210, inspired by the TetrisPDF project, tackled this challenge. Leveraging JavaScript within a browser's PDF reader, ading2210 overcame browser security limitations to make this happen.

Doom in a PDF? Why not? Image credit: YouTube / vk6.
The PDF's JavaScript capabilities allowed ading2210 to perform the necessary computations. Using a six-color ASCII grid for sprites and graphics, the result is surprisingly legible, despite a frame rate of approximately 80ms.

While it won't replace your PS5, the feat of running Doom within a PDF file is remarkable, especially considering its readability.

TetrisPDF creator Thomas Rinsma commented on Hacker News, praising ading2210's version as "neater in many ways."

This might not be the ideal way to experience Doom for the first time, but the sheer novelty of seeing it run on such unconventional platforms—from devices to files (and even gut bacteria!)—is undeniably entertaining.

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