Doom

Related articles
List of games
Gaming
Brutal Doom
From
Wikipedia
:
Doom is a first-person shooter game developed and published by id Software. Released on December 10, 1993, for DOS.
Following Doom's success, the source code for the Doom engine was released under GNU GPLv2 in 1997 by John Carmack (the original source code can be found at
https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM
). It now lives on in multiple ports, though you will still need to have a copy of the original game's data to play it and Doom 2 (also called the "IWAD").
Installation
Games/WADs
Also see
List of games#Shooters (FPS, third person)
for more Doom-related packages.
You can find WADs created by the community in the
IDGames archive
and other sites.
Freedoom
Freedoom
aims to be a completely free and open source reimagining of Doom. Its WADs are intended to function as drop-in replacements for the commercial files compatible with the entire back catalog of Doom mods, thus enabling users to access them without the need to purchase non-free software. Install
freedoom
AUR
.
Doom Shareware
The
doom1-wad
AUR
package supplies the original Doom shareware IWAD.
Engines
A
source port
is a game engine that can be used to play Doom.
Most Doom source ports support common
command-line options
. Below is a table that describes the most commonly used ones.
Command-line option
Description
-iwad doom2.wad
Use
doom2.wad
as the IWAD (Internal WAD) data-file.
-file scythe.wad
Load
scythe.wad
as the PWAD (Patch WAD). Use this option to load maps and mods created by the community.
-skill 4
Set the difficulty setting to
Ultra-violence
.
-playdemo demo1.lmp
Load user demo. Note that you need to have matching versions of WAD(s). You also need to set the correct game engine compatibility level setting.
The most widely used source ports include the following.
GZDoom
An updated version of ZDoom,
GZDoom
is the go-to standard for compatibility with the most mods and games based on the Doom engine. Install the
gzdoom
AUR
package to install it.
UZDoom
UZDoom
is a GZDoom fork with similar goals as GZDoom. Install
uzdoom-appimage
AUR
.
Chocolate Doom
Chocolate Doom
is a port that tries to be as historically-accurate to the original games as possible.
Install
chocolate-doom
AUR
.
DOOM Retro
DOOM Retro
is based off of Chocolate Doom, but tailored to the project author's taste. Install
doomretro
.
DSDA-Doom
DSDA-Doom
is a modern successor of PrBoom family of source ports. It is named after the
Doom Speed Demo Archive
and it includes features facilitating Doom speedrunning, among other improvements.
Install
dsda-doom
AUR
.
Zandronum
Zandronum is a source port in the ZDoom family.
Like its predecessor Skulltag, its main area of focus is on delivering great multiplayer support.
It's packaged on the AUR as
zandronum
AUR
package.
You can also install the Doomseeker tool to conveniently find multiplayer servers.
It's packaged as
doomseeker
AUR
on the AUR.
Editors
There exist a number of editors to manipulate the data in Doom WADs in order to create maps, weapons, and even whole games using the Doom engine.
SLADE
SLADE
is a WAD inspector, allowing users to see and modify the data lumps within, such as textures, sprites, scripts and info lumps. It also comes with a built-in map editor.
Install the
slade
AUR
package to install SLADE3.
Ultimate Doom Builder
Specifically a map editor,
Ultimate Doom Builder
is written in
.NET
, and is the de-facto standard for creating Doom maps. Install
ultimate-doom-builder-git
AUR
.
DoomTools
DoomTools
is a suite of utilities written in Java that assist in creating modifications for Doom engine games. Most notable are DoomMake, which allows building mods in CMake-like fashion, and DECOHack, which simplifies creating DeHackEd patches by using domain-specific language. DoomTools are available by installing
doomtools-bin
AUR
Eureka
Eureka is another map editor for Doom.
It's available from the AUR as
eureka
AUR
.
Node builders
Note
It's worth noting that as a player you don't need to worry about these, unless you are authoring your own WADs.
The original vanilla Doom engine as well as certain source ports require that custom WADs include a section (also known as
a lump
) that contains
nodes
.
However, ZDoom-based source ports (including GZDoom) can build them on demand and they don't require that a WAD comes with them pre-generated.
More information on nodes can be read at
Doom Wiki
and
ZDoom Wiki
.
As an example of a node builder is
zdbsp
AUR
, and it's available from the AUR.
However, several others exists as well.
Configuration
Most Doom maps and mods will require a Doom or Doom 2 IWAD to work. Many modern source ports will look for WAD files in
/usr/share/games/doom
. You may override this path by setting
DOOMWADDIR
environment variable.
GZDoom
The base GZDoom config file is located under
~/.config/gzdoom/gzdoom.ini
.
To add the directory containing your IWADs so that GZDoom can see it, add the following to the config file underneath
[IWADSearch.Directories]
:
Path=<path>
,
where
<path>
is the path to where your IWADs are.
Troubleshooting
A good resource for troubleshooting GZDoom is the
ZDoom Wiki
. It also has good resources on mapping, scripting, and other information when creating for Doom. You can find a lot of information on Doom games at the community
Doom Wiki
. You can also ask questions on the
Doom World forums
.