Play WADs on Your iOS Device

[nathaniel7775]

Newly-released Gameception, based on Doom Classic and including the Freedoom IWAD by default, lets you play any PrBoom-compatible WAD on your iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch. That includes Doom, Doom II, Plutonia, TNT, etc. You just have to transfer over your IWAD/PWAD files using Dropbox or iTunes File Sharing, or download free WADs (e.g. Chex Quest) with Gameception's web browser.

[Archy]

I'm getting this before it's removed like DOSBox...

[sgtcrispy]

Interesting. It doesn't like the skies in tnt or plutonia but they work. nifty.

[Archy]

I wish you could change complevels and record/play back LMPs...

[printz]

Was the 'Gameception' title chosen to avoid the Doom trademark?

[40oz]

oh fuck does this mean they're gonna port editors to the iOS's too?

[SyntherAugustus]

Hell yeah. Now I don't have to jailbreak to play pwads, let alone doom2.

[Siggi]

For only 0.99USD!

[lnxr0x]

Well I can't get download .wads from Dropbox because I get the error: only a limited set of users can receive access tokens while this app is in development mode

WTF ??
So I just paid .99 for Freedoom !!

Any ideas Doom fans ?

I've contacted the dev "Nate" asking for a resolution.

Normally when you open a file within the Dropbox app on iOS it give you an option to export the file (in this case a .wad) to an app you have installed. I assumed that's how it would link to Dropbox, not sure why the dev didn't just do it that way !?

I'll keep you posted ..

[nathaniel7775]

printz: Yes.

lnxr0x: Sorry about that: this should be fixed very soon (EDIT: fixed!)

In the meantime, you can still transfer over files from your computer using iTunes File Sharing (this link should explain how: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4094?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US). And/or download WADs from online (DOOM shareware, Chex Quest, Hacx, and Requiem are among the easily available WADs online).

[lnxr0x]

Thanks for the quick reply, glad to know it's being worked on :) I'll wait, unfortunately I can't use iTunes as I run Debian Linux. Although Gameception is cool enough I may have to wrangle with Windows in a VM or try and get iTunes to work with WINE. ;)

[Xaser]

Can you transfer the original Doom IWADs and use them as well? That'd be the first thing I'd do because playing Freedoom with PWads would trip me out.

Not sure why I'm asking, though. I don't own an iOS-based anything.

[SyntherAugustus]

Doom IWads work just fine. Example, copying doom2.wad and scythe2.wad and then highlighting them both would lead to doom2.wad as iwad/scythe2 .wad as pwad. Works excellent.

[Archy]

I just wrote a review:
"This is a really great app, playing Hell Reveled and Alien Vendetta on the iPhone is amazing. This could be better though, first off, there's no way to change -complevels which for some WADs can be problematic, and second, there's no way to record or play back LMPs - one of the essential parts of Doom and PRBoom. Another thing I'd like to see is the ability to change soundfonts because some of the midi music sounded really dreadful. That last request's a bit of a long shot but I think the first two should seriously be implemented, but besides that, perfect!"

[printz]

Well, WADs count as data files, I don't see how they can break the rules. If they ever become for ZDoom and have ACS scripts, they would be contained in the mod -- we would owe Graf Zahl and Randy thanks for not allowing ACS any access to the system.

[lnxr0x]

Nate came through faster than a speedrun and fixed the Dropbox issue !! Currently blasting through Alien Vendetta on my ipod touch !!

Outstanding !!

[Archy]

Just noticed something, on Doom 2, you can only play levels 1-32, but some WADs have levels 33 and 34 (I think 35 is also possible but I don't know).

That's a bit of a disappointment but it should be easy to fix.

[Blastfrog]

Hey, Nate. A new version of Freedoom might be coming out at some point in the near future, any plans of updating the included default Freedoom with the new one? Or in the mean time maybe using the latest nightly build with the recent string fixes/new resources?

By the way, great job on this! I downloaded it and played it, it's pretty cool. I always wished there was a way to play PWADs in the iOS version of Doom, and now I can.

One issue though, it doesn't seem to have custom colormap capabilities, making the brown fog not work in MAP01.

[Archy]

I know I must sound like a real pest by now but could you by any chance add the -respawn, -nomonsters and -fast parameters as well as skill 5 [Nightmare!]?

Thanks!

[nathaniel7775]

Archy: I don't have any WADs with >32 levels handy, but you may be able to idclev to the >32 levels? And for nightmare mode, you can turn it on (for now), by going to the new game screen, touching four fingers to the screen and typing "skill 4" and hitting return. None of the skill level buttons will be highlighted after that but if you pick a level you'll be playing in nightmare mode. And, I'll look into adding command line parameters as well as better ways to play >32 levels and nightmare mode.

[nathaniel7775]

Sodaholic: Glad you like it! I'll probably wait til Freedoom releases their official version to update, but I certainly will then. And, I'll look into adding custom colormap capabilities.

[Archy]

Thanks, Skill 5 now works fine. Idclev33 doesn't do anything though. I tried using idclev33 on PrBoom-Plus for Windows and it didn't do anything either. -warp 33 was the only solution, but that doesn't work on the iPhone. Plutonia 2 is a 33 level WAD.

Another thing I'd like to see in the manager, create a way to load the wads in a certain order. For example, check-marking doom2.wad, then plutonia.wad, then pl2.wad and then pressing new game will start plutoina.wad as if this was the command line:

xxx.exe -file doom2.wad pl2.wad plutonia.wad

but I want:

xxx.exe -file doom2.wad plutonia.wad pl2.wad

Make it so that so can check mark a WAD with 1 (first wad loaded,) then 2 (second wad loaded) then three (third wad loaded).

Example.
1. doom2.wad
2. REQUIEM.wad
3. rq21fix.wad
4. REQMUS.wad

would do this:

xxx.exe -file doom2.wad REQUIEM.wad rq21fix.wad REQMUS.wad

and this:
1. doom2.wad
2. REQUIEM.wad
3. REQMUS.wad
4. rq21fix.wad

would do this:

xxx.exe -file doom2.wad REQUIEM.wad REQMUS.wad rq21fix.wad

The order matters sometimes so that's why this is important.

Sorry for all the criticism, this is a really great app, I'm just very accustomed to PC PRBoom.

[esselfortium]

The colormap issue mentioned by Sodaholic is because John Carmack eliminated the Transfer Heights functionality in his iOS port of the PrBoom code. From what I recall him posting about it somewhere, it was eliminated due to significant performance problems.

[Phml]

Having trouble beating the first few levels on HNTR on my phone, I am truly amazed at anyone good enough to play HR and AV and Nightmare! on such devices.

[printz]

Wasn't there a Doom for iOS released by John Carmack?

[Gez]

Yep, but limited to playing doom.wad with no other files. This port lets you play Doom II and various PWADs.

[printz]

Carmack did say he was going to put PWAD support for later. I guess he didn't finish it.

[Blastfrog]

Think it's possible to consider adding the software renderer to this?

[Melon]

Sodaholic said:

Think it's possible to consider adding the software renderer to this?

Not possible. See http://fabiensanglard.net/doomIphone/index.php

Just like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom was rendering a screenframe pixel per pixel. The only way to do this on iPhone with an acceptable framerate would be to use CoreSurface/CoreSurface.h framework. But it is unfortunatly restricted and using it would prevent distribution on the AppStore.

[Blastfrog]

Damn, that sucks.