Home News Move Over Toasters: Doom Is Now Playable Inside a PDF

Move Over Toasters: Doom Is Now Playable Inside a PDF

Author : Nathan Feb 26,2025

Doom's been ported to everything from toasters to refrigerators, seemingly leaving little room for truly novel ports. 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 it proved sufficient for a Doom port.

Doom in a PDF? Why not? Image credit: YouTube / vk6.

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 anytime soon, the accomplishment of running Doom inside a PDF file is remarkable, especially given its readability.

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

While not ideal for a first-time Doom experience, the continued trend of running Doom on unconventional platforms, files, and even living organisms remains endlessly entertaining.

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