Doom's Latest, and Possibly Smallest, Playable Version on Thumby
The classic 3D First-Person Shooter video game, Doom, is a hallmark long-running inside joke and challenge for gamers, makers, and computer tinkerers alike to be able to run the game Doom on any computer based system with a screen, even spurning a subreddit titled 'Will it Run Doom?' cataloging all of the technology that programmers and hardware gurus have been able to run Doom on, either directly or with technical workarounds sometimes taking months to complete. This ongoing challenge with Doom was all made possible by the original Doom 1993 being released under the GNU General Public License 2.0 or later.
Doom's original release in 1993 brings the game series to 30 years old in 2023! The series has seen many sequels over the years, such as Doom 2, Doom 3, and its most recent title, Doom Eternal. Doom slayers (fans) through all the years have seen almost as many re-releases of the original chapters for different gaming platforms such as the Xbox, PC, and Nintendo Switch. You can play Doom on any mainstream gaming device, but, does Thumby run Doom?
While the Thumby screen is too small to run a precise copy of Doom, the community patiently waited on someone to step forward and work on a demake version that would be visually understandable and playable - a significant challenge for Thumby, towing a 72 by 40 pixel monochrome OLED screen with 6 tiny buttons (a d-pad and two action buttons).
Twitter user @SunnyChowTheGuy was able to repurpose code from @3DSage's demo 3D game with some of their own updated art, and use a title screen art contribution by @AyreGuitar to make a playable rendition of Doom - a wonderful community collaboration from the TinyCircuits Discord!
The Thumby version of Doom, lovingly called Thoom by the community, is finally available on Thumby! View @SunnyChowTheGuy's twitter post illustrating Thoom gameplay:
Thoom - The #Thumby demake of #Doom
— SunnyChow (@SunnyChowTheGuy) January 28, 2023
Rip and Tear#screenshotsaturday #fps #RETROGAMING #gamedev #indiedev #ゲーム開発 #遊戲開發 pic.twitter.com/YOachqTblA
The Thoom game is currently a single level with a boss fight to illustrate a proof of concept and the maker @SunnyChowTheGuy has expressed that the code and project are open for anyone else's contributions, whether it be added features or more levels. Is this the smallest demake of Thumby the Doom series has seen?
Play and Emulate Thumby's Doom, Thoom, now on the Thumby Arcade!