YouTuber Gets DOOM running on Game & Watch

One of the great memes of the internet has been that if it has software, you could probably get 1993’s DOOM to run on it. The software has been modified to run on everything from pregnancy tests to the touch bar of the Macbook Pro.

YouTuber Stacksmashing has uploaded a video of him getting the iconic FPS to run on the recently re-released Game & Watch.

According to Stacksmashing, the goal was to be able to get the game to run on the re-release console only through software hacks, without needing to modify the hardware.

One of the big obstacles was the limited hardware of the Game & Watch. By modern standards, the original DOOM might seem underwhelming- all its files comes up to 4MB. While you may scoff at the small size now, the Game&Watch only comes with 1.1MB of storage, and it still needs to be able to store the code that runs it as well.

Due to the previous constraints of not wanting to modify the hardware, he gets around this by getting a minimalist-modded version of DOOM, reducing all the textures and fonts to dramatically reduce the file size to get it to run.

At Doom’s Gate

While the final version of the game runs on the Game & Watch, don’t expect to be spending that much time clearing all your levels. It runs really poorly, with a lot of frame slowdowns.

Add that to the fact its ugly as sin, due to the lack of textures or fonts making it look like a bad mobile clone.

It’s an impressive feat, though. DOOM becoming the community standard of being able to port onto devices is a great way to bring it together, since you can always compare the different ports to each other and see what had to be cut to get the shareware legend running.

Join Us!

Featured Video