Latest Doom port runs inside a PDF document, but performance is limited [Video]

The big picture: Doom, the original first-person shooter for DOS by id Software, was released in 1993. Despite being over 30 years old, the game continues to inspire resourceful (and somewhat crazy) developers to run its code in some of the most unusual computing environments imaginable.

We can now add PDF documents to the ever-growing list of “things” that can run Doom. A high school student interested in programming and cybersecurity developed the DoomPDF project, providing yet another example of how killing cacodemons on Mars has become a truly universal pastime, no matter the technology used.

Developer “Ading2210” was able to create DoomPDF because the PDF standard supports JavaScript code. Adobe Acrobat implements the full specification of the PDF JS library, the programmer explained, allowing for some truly amazing feats, including 3D rendering, hardware detection, and more. However, DoomPDF …