Anyone else tired of the "DOOM runs on anything" meme?

[DuckReconMajor]

here's an old post @Maes made on the subject (sort of, the thread itself is a good discussion on what 'counts' as doom running)

 

 

Edited December 14, 2022 by DuckReconMajor

[TasAcri]

8 minutes ago, DuckReconMajor said:

here's an old post @Maes made on the subject (sort of, the thread itself is a good discussion on what 'counts' as doom running)

 

 

 

And that's my point as well since i completely agree with @Maes here.

And you can even see, in that same topic, how this kind of misinformation can spread and become the default. There was already someone in that topic posting "Even a frigging TI calculator can run it", despite that game having nothing to do with DOOM, other than the name and maybe the concept. But the meme did spread that misinformation and that poster accepted it as the default truth. Which he/she might also spread in other future topics about DOOM ports, etc. Which makes me dislike that stupid meme even more.

Edited December 14, 2022 by TasAcri

[Azuris]

No, i'll never be.

 

[OliveTree]

imo those """ports""" of doom which are just obscured demakes are kind of ....disappointing. but in the same way gba """ports""" of ps2 games were back in the day.

[Redneckerz]

On 12/12/2022 at 11:48 PM, Master O said:

Does Doom run on you?

Yes, it does.

 

[banjiepixel]

45 minutes ago, TasAcri said:

I highly doubt you would play a Wolfenstein 3D engine DOOM mod with DOOM's gameplay and monsters for more than a few minutes. You would quickly get bored of it. Same thing if someone made a DOOM wad with maps that are only orthogonal rooms with the same height like Wolfenstein. Popular wads don't get popular because they have DOOM's gameplay, most of them do by default anyway. They get popular because they have interesting maps to navigate/look. You could only do so much with Wolf's level design. But the possibilities are almost endless with DOOM.

 

I actually have been playing some Wolfenstein 3D recently and can definitely say that turning it to a Doom would just make it even more fun. There certain charm to the orthogonal rooms and general jankiness of Wolf 3D engine. It is kinda nice how simple game it is and just replacing human enemies with zombies and demons and adding fireball attacks would be a fun game to play. And while I like janky Doom wads, it's bit different to make orthogonal rooms in engine capable doing much more complex stuff than actually doing something like trying to convert Doom's levels layouts into something that works with orthogonal engine.

 

And if you are playing orthogonal map in Doom engine, like Doom 2 map 31, you are still playing Doom.

 

1 hour ago, TasAcri said:

DOOM RPG is a "DOOM game" as in it's a game in the DOOM franchise. It's a completely different game and completely different genre even. Doesn't even play like the original DOOM shooter, which seemed like a requirement to you just now (as you mentioned in the initial argument above) but now you change your mind and say a DOOM game with none of that gameplay is still DOOM for you?

 

It was you that said that Doom is not Doom anymore without the complexity of it's maps and Doom RPG is a official Doom game without that complexity in it's maps. I was using your definition of what a Doom game is, not my own.

 

1 hour ago, TasAcri said:

I see no point in this other than click-baiting i guess. Sure, you made an Elden Ring game but you didn't actually made the Elden ring game run on the NES. That's exactly what most of the memers do, they see a DOOM game (by name) but not the DOOM game and then claim it's the later because it would be impressive if the DOOM game was running instead.

 

How about something like the Bloodborne PSX, a pc demake of Bloodborne. It's the closest we have to actual port of Bloodborne for pc and while it is all filtered to be like a ps1 era game, all the most basic stuff of the original game are there, just like heavily cut down or just very bad port of game would have. I really doubt that you have even seen how far even actual official ports can stray from the source material, especially during the era of 8bit hardware. Just compare Double Dragon's arcade version to the NES port. And then compare that to the Atari 2600 port. Order to make hardware run Doom it doesn't need to run the Doom, it can totally be something more abstract as long as it is actual honest attempt.

[TasAcri]

1 hour ago, banjiepixel said:

It was you that said that Doom is not Doom anymore without the complexity of it's maps and Doom RPG is a official Doom game without that complexity in it's maps. I was using your definition of what a Doom game is, not my own.

 

Yes i said DOOM, as in the original shooter DOOM and it's very similar sequels (Episode 4, DOOM 2, etc) is not DOOM anymore if you remove that aspect. And i meant that game in particular (and it's sequels). I didn't mean to say DOOM RPG is not a DOOM game. I said it's not the DOOM game or a DOOM port. Its a different game, in the same franchise.

 

It's not that hard. Super Mario Bros and Super Mario Kart are both "Mario" games. But they are not both "Super Mario Kart" games. If you say to me that you made Super Mario Kart running on the NES, i'm expecting to see Super Mario Kart, not Super Mario Bros or an unrelated "Mario game". The click bait meme says "Doom runs on X" so i'm expecting the good old DOOM everyone knows. It doesn't say "A Doom game runs on X", which could be anything, so no problem, whatever.

Now, let me ask a question. Do you agree that the two games i posted in the OP (the Spectrum and TI games) are "real DOOM" games for you? In that, when someone says "I managed to make DOOM run on those machines" that specific result is something that actually reflects the statement made, in your opinion?

 

 

1 hour ago, banjiepixel said:

How about something like the Bloodborne PSX, a pc demake of Bloodborne. It's the closest we have to actual port of Bloodborne for pc and while it is all filtered to be like a ps1 era game, all the most basic stuff of the original game are there, just like heavily cut down or just very bad port of game would have. I really doubt that you have even seen how far even actual official ports can stray from the source material, especially during the era of 8bit hardware. Just compare Double Dragon's arcade version to the NES port. And then compare that to the Atari 2600 port. Order to make hardware run Doom it doesn't need to run the Doom, it can totally be something more abstract as long as it is actual honest attempt.

 

Many of these crappy ports and demakes are still legit attempts to port the original games, regardless the end result. And the expectations were also different back in the 8/16bit days. Something like DOOM on the SNES is heavily butchered but the intention is still to port the actual DOOM game and get the "DOOM experience". In the case of the DOOM runs on X memes though, some of them don't even have that intention.

 

The meme in modern times is not a comparable situation. The way it's presented in the mainstream creates certain expectations. It's presented as "Here's a very well known game that you wouldn't expect to run on a toaster but i actually made it possible, somehow". When i first discovered it my expectations were that someone takes the original DOOM code/engine (which is the first thing that comes in mind when someone mentions the DOOM game, without any other context) and ported it in such systems. Naturally i was expecting some sacrifices in the form of lower resolutions and color counts, etc. But i was still expecting the original "DOOM experience" nonetheless. Or something related to it (Ultimate DOOM, DOOM 2, Plutonia, whatever, you know what i mean). That was the point, that these systems can run DOOM, with it's complex levels and engine, not something unrelated and much simpler to render.

Now, some are indeed that original DOOM thing i was expecting and those are legit, no complains. But many others (mostly the ones where you see in sensationalist, click bait articles) are not, they aren't even close to what DOOM is doing.

Edited December 14, 2022 by TasAcri

[cybdmn]

On 12/12/2022 at 4:37 PM, TasAcri said:

Anyone else annoyed by this or is it just me not allowing any fun?

 

To be honest i am tired of all Doom 64 videos or topics, when anybody call the lasergun "unmaker", because it is not the unmaker. It works completely different than what was described in the doom bible, there are even some serious doubts that the guys at Midway even knew about the concept of the unmaker, or any of the other stuff described in the doom bible which never made it into the game.

[Dumpster_Kitty]

doesn't bother me even slightly. There are many things that bother people in life, this is a weird 1 to choose.

[Budoka]

I'll side with the thread author, this is a legitimate concern as it generates actual misconceptions. I remember seeing in the comments section of one of decino's playthrough videos (no clue which one, not like it matters) someone asking for help because they were having a hard time running a somewhat demanding custom map on their computer. Another user answered with something along the lines of "wth are you talking about, DOOM even runs on a calculator lol".

 

Only, well, just like TasAcri keeps saying, no, that's just not how these things work. A calculator can run a de-make of something that superficially resembles DOOM (at least in the eyes of people who don't actually play classic DOOM), sure. It cannot, however, run so much as downgraded versions of DOOM.EXE and DOOM2.EXE, much less Pr-Boom Plus and/or DSDA-Doom which that map would have required at the very minimum. 

 

But of course the person who posted the reply couldn't have known what any of that means, nor for that matter have any clue that they didn't know it in the first place. Similarly, I see a lot of replies in this thread defend the meme but not even attempt to address the presented counter-arguments, as if those people don't understand the main point the thread is making to begin with.

Edited December 14, 2022 by Budoka

[Quasar]

It became no longer interesting once everything doing it was just A. some kind of display hooked to a rasppi or B. something running Linux on an ARM or C. something running Linux on a custom SOC. It's like, OK, we get it. Doom runs on Linux. It's not exciting. I instantly disqualify anything from being interesting or notable once I hear "ARM" or "Linux". Doom was ported to Linux almost 30 years ago, all you did was compile it bro.

[banjiepixel]

2 hours ago, TasAcri said:

Now, let me ask a question. Do you agree that the two games i posted in the OP (the Spectrum and TI games) are "real DOOM" games for you? In that, when someone says "I managed to make DOOM run on those machines" that specific result is something that actually reflects the statement made, in your opinion?

 

They are both pretty decent attempts at replicating original Doom gameplay on more limited hardware. As tech demos these are impressive and since Doom is basically just Wolfenstein 3d with demons and scifi elements, these have enough Doom DNA in them to be real Doom. I could easily see these being actual official ports. These are honest attempts at porting the basics of the Doom game to these platforms. You personally might not want to play them but many others would.

 

And I must ask, what are your feelings on VIC-20 Doom:

 

2 hours ago, TasAcri said:

And the expectations were also different back in the 8/16bit days. Something like DOOM on the SNES is heavily butchered but the intention is still to port the actual DOOM game and get the "DOOM experience". In the case of the DOOM runs on X memes though, some of them don't even have that intention.

 

Expectations were different back then because of hardware limitations. It was also not uncommon that a clone game was actually the better conversion of the original game than the official port. And how it is not the intention of ZX Spectrum and TI Dooms to port the actual DOOM game and get the "DOOM expecience" as close as it is possible on that limited hardware? These two ports are not doing it for the memes.

[Gez]

It's only really noteworthy if the port required actual work. Either because it's a different architecture, a different programming language and you didn't just run some automatic translator, or so underpowered that special optimizations and sacrifices had to be made.

[Gifty]

If it keeps Doom in the public memory and keeps new people discovering it I think the memes are a win

[TasAcri]

3 hours ago, banjiepixel said:

And how it is not the intention of ZX Spectrum and TI Dooms to port the actual DOOM game and get the "DOOM expecience" as close as it is possible on that limited hardware?

 

That's my point though. The memes and sensationalist click bait articles have no such context. They are always about "Someone made DOOM run on X device" not "Someone made a DOOM demake run on X device as close as they could". You may say, " but that's a given right"? But apparently it's not. A lot of people evidently have the wrong impression that THE DOOM game, in the form we all know, can run on a TI calculator or a pregnancy test.

 

 

3 hours ago, banjiepixel said:

These two ports are not doing it for the memes.

 

That's the only thing i agree with you. It's not an issue with the games themselves. I actually find all these attempts interesting, no matter how far they look from the original DOOM. It's the click bait / memes that spread misinformation without any context, that i have an issue with.

Edited December 14, 2022 by TasAcri

[Doomkid]

If only "It runs WOLF" was as catchy as "it runs DOOM", this whole problem could have been avoided.. That's a much lower bar for entry in terms of capturing the "soul" of the game, but even though it as popular in its own right, Wolf3D just never had the lasting cultural permeation that Doom had, so this misleading meme came to be. After reading Maes' old post, TasAcri's response to it, and Budoka's post, the frustration makes more sense to me. It's similar to how the "Doom isn't 3D" meme bothers me, lol.

 

I also agree with Quasar in that running Doom on a super powerful tiny computer and using the NES as a video output only and calling it "running Doom on NES" is really dumb. I've actually seen multiple homebrew NES engines that are Wolf3D-like, and they are awesome (but yet again some of them fall into the trap of being called Doom-based when they're really Wolf-based, further proving Tas' point, honestly)

 

I searched for the videos but YT's search is just awful these days, but I distinctly remember at least 3 different Wolf3D-like homebrew engines people had made for NES, one of them being really impressive.. Wish I could find it.

[IntellectualHomie]

Not really, but what I do find annoying is claiming something runs Doom. For example there was the pregnancy test with the small LCD screen, they claim it runs Doom but all the hardware is doing is using the test as a display output, still a pretty sick feat non the less but it doesn't run Doom

 

[prfunky]

3 hours ago, Doomkid said:

I searched for the videos but YT's search is just awful these days, but ...

You got that right! But they could make it worse if they replaced it with Google search...

[Dexiaz]

17 hours ago, Grassy chunks said:

the last time i saw this meme was from the post John romero said on Twitter linking to a video where doom runs on notepad. 

 

I've made Doom running on school notebook

 

 

 

No, I never tired of this meme. Do you remember "Doom runs on piano" where you must press piano keys to play? Hell, I wanted to create a map for this Piano Doom which will require play some real music and get the proper Doom gameplay.

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

7 hours ago, Doomkid said:

I've actually seen multiple homebrew NES engines that are Wolf3D-like, and they are awesome (but yet again some of them fall into the trap of being called Doom-based when they're really Wolf-based, further proving Tas' point, honestly)

 

As a little tangent(perhaps i should make a new thread,) there are plenty raytracing engines (like wolf3d), some even go beyond the square tiles limitation. Devs perfected the formula for how to make them super efficient. I wonder if somebody remade Doom alike in this way. Taking a different, more efficient approach to achieve the same rendering style. Now, that would not necessarily be backwards compatible but it could run on many more things. Top-down approach to engine design, instead of bottom-up. 

[prfunky]

42 minutes ago, Dexiaz said:

 

I've made Doom running on school notebook

 

I looked at this still picture here of this video and the first thing I thought of was that A-ha song.
I click it and am rewarded with it... you fucker! Well played, Dexiaz, well played.

 

[Quasar]

I'll amend my earlier statement by clarifying that I still appreciate creative efforts; for example when that guy had Doom displaying on an oscilloscope, that was just interesting by itself. But it didn't need to be called "Doom running on an oscilloscope" to be interesting; to me that would imply it's executing on the hardware of one, which it certainly wasn't. As long as it's in fun and not actively misleading people then, indeed, whatever, meme on. I get more concerned when there's cases like the pregnancy test where the line is getting actively blurred and is decaying peoples' understanding of what's actually going on (it's being used as a mere display device, not executing the program code inside the stick).

[Azuris]

8 minutes ago, Quasar said:

I'll amend my earlier statement by clarifying that I still appreciate creative efforts; for example when that guy had Doom displaying on an oscilloscope, that was just interesting by itself. But it didn't need to be called "Doom running on an oscilloscope" to be interesting; to me that would imply it's executing on the hardware of one, which it certainly wasn't. As long as it's in fun and not actively misleading people then, indeed, whatever, meme on. I get more concerned when there's cases like the pregnancy test where the line is getting actively blurred and is decaying peoples' understanding of what's actually going on (it's being used as a mere display device, not executing the program code inside the stick).

 

I love it when People do unbelivable magic tricks, like Doom running within the Doom Engine.

 

[ZethXM]

Little known fact, you can actually run Doom on the human brain, with a little imagination.  Try it!

[Kute]

On 12/12/2022 at 9:50 AM, Thelokk said:

Nah, not really. I like pushing stuff to its limits for no reason whatsoever, wish people did it more in general - Doom and else.

It's all fake though. The pregnancy tests etc. can't run anything, people replace the hardware. It's a dumb meme

[mrthejoshmon]

lol posted in wrong thread,

 

uh, yeah, sux

 

I mean it's kind of amusing to see various stupid ways people pull out to one up eachother but it's not topping the Porsche.

Edited December 15, 2022 by mrthejoshmon

[Andromeda]

15 hours ago, prfunky said:

You got that right! But they could make it worse if they replaced it with Google search...

I mean Google search isn't as good as it used to be, but it's still miles better than YouTube search which is complete garbage.

[prfunky]

2 hours ago, Andromeda said:

I mean Google search isn't as good as it used to be, but it's still miles better than YouTube search which is complete garbage.

Actually... it depends. I've had some searches in Google that didn't turn up shit.

Type the same into YouTube and got results = actually what I was looking for!
I mean, Google's owned YouTube for what, a decade now? So, they could always

choose to make it worse. Like, I'll type in a Google search and get back a page of

results that says there's 12,768 results, right? I click on page 2 of the results and

there's only 4 items left! "Looks like you've reached the end of the Internet!" ~ I

paraphrase here, of course.

 

[SLPerrin]

On 12/15/2022 at 6:40 AM, Dexiaz said:

No, I never tired of this meme. Do you remember "Doom runs on piano" where you must press piano keys to play?

 

I got in contact with the fellas who made the Doom piano for research for my book.
They sent me a ton of info on how they made it and how it works. Loads of pictures of it being built, etc.

[Nate42]

I'm an engineer and in principle I love the idea of porting doom to anything and everything, even if it is grossly simplified to make it work. Pushing hardware to its limits or using for unintended purposes is cool. I have to admit though that things like the pregnancy test where it's really a monitor and isn't running anything make me irrationally angry.