Doom, the legendary first-person shooter, has been ported to an astonishing array of devices, from toasters to fridges, leaving little room for surprise. Yet, a high school student has pushed the boundaries further by porting Doom into a PDF file that you can run in your browser. Sure, it lacks minor details like "text" and "sound," but who needs those when you can play E1M1 while procrastinating on your taxes?

Github user and high school student ading2210 drew inspiration from TetrisPDF, a recent port of Tetris to PDF format, and decided to make one of the world's most iconic shooters playable in a Chromium-based browser. Utilizing Javascript within the browser's PDF reader, ading2210 managed to bring Doom to life in a .PDF file, despite the limitations imposed by browser security on PDF scripting.

The Javascript capabilities in PDF specifications allowed ading2210 to perform complex computations, resulting in a visually impressive port. Using a six-color ASCII grid to depict sprites and graphics, the student achieved a legible version of Doom, albeit with a response time of 80ms per frame. While it may not replace your PS5, the achievement of running Doom inside a .PDF file is undeniably remarkable.

Thomas Rinsma, the creator of TetrisPDF, acknowledged ading2210's work on Hacker News, noting that the student's version was "neater in many ways." While this PDF version of Doom might not be the ideal way to experience the game for the first time, the sheer novelty of running Doom on everything from unusual devices to files—and even living gut bacteria—continues to captivate and entertain.