Doom in a simple text file: it may not be playable, but the result is impressive all the same.
by Marco Pedrani
Doom now runs in a simple .txt text file: not playable, of course, but impressive nonetheless. Limitations? There are none when it comes to video games!
Doom and the challenge for programmers
Doom remains something of a test case for programming enthusiasts. The iconic 1990s shooter has become a symbol of a curious global challenge: getting it to run on the most unlikely devices and in the most unlikely formats.
The final frontier? A simple text file (.txt), a format that by definition should contain only characters and no graphics.
A challenge that seemed impossible. But one programmer overcame with an ingenious visual conversion system.
A successful experiment
The experiment, carried out by a user known as HughMann, marks a new milestone in the community of enthusiasts who have been challenging themselves for years to bring Doom to increasingly unlikely platforms. This is not an actual port of the game, but rather a real-time conversion system that turns every frame of the original experience into ASCII characters.
The result is surprisingly recognisable, despite the extreme limitations imposed by the textual format: no colours, no textures, just letters, numbers and symbols strategically arranged to create the illusion of hellish corridors and the demons that inhabit them. A tribute to ASCII art, which in the past was one of the first attempts at computer graphics.
A sophisticated mechanism behind the scenes
Although HughMann did not reveal the full code of his creation, he did reveal the working principle behind the experiment. The system continuously captures screenshots of the game running on DOSBox, converts each image to ASCII characters, and then writes these ‘text frames’ to a .txt file.
To visualise the movement, the programmer used the command ‘tail -f’, which, in a Unix environment, allows the updating of a file to be monitored in real time. This process of constantly rewriting the text document inevitably causes a drop in frame rate compared to the original experience, making the action more choppy, but still playable… If you can figure it out.
HughMann has shared his experience in a YouTube video which you can find at this link.
A tradition of experimentation and innovation
This text version of Doom adds to the impressive list of creative experiments carried out around id Software’s game. In the past, enthusiasts have managed to run the game on devices such as calculators, digital watches, smart fridges and even inside Word and PDF documents, demonstrating how the flexibility of the original code allows for surprising adaptations.
The peculiarity of this ASCII version is that, as its creator jokingly noted, it does not require a dedicated graphics card to run – an advantage over the 1993 original, which required dedicated hardware at the time. This paradox illustrates how, three decades later, technology has made it possible to emulate graphical experiences using systems very different from those originally intended.
Getting creative hacking
Behind these seemingly bizarre experiments lies a form of technical creativity that pushes the boundaries of what we think is possible with technology. This is not just nostalgia for a classic game, but an exercise in ingenuity that tests programming skills and a deep understanding of computer systems.
The community dedicated to these challenges represents a particular subset of hacker culture, where the goal is not to compromise systems, but to explore unexpected technical possibilities, often with surprising results that challenge conventions of what a given format or device can or cannot do.
At a time when video games require ever more powerful and sophisticated hardware, there is something truly fascinating about seeing an iconic title reduced to its most minimalist essence, capable of functioning with the most limited of means – even a simple text file.
