Video games and released the original DOOM in 1993, where it quickly cemented its place in gaming history as a pioneer of the budding FPS genre. It would spawn several sequels and countless imitators in the decades since it first blasted onto PCs, and the DOOM series itself continues to this day with 2020’s DOOM Eternal.
The DOOM franchise was also instrumental in building the PC modding community, with fans altering both the original game and 1994’s DOOM II in a variety of interesting ways. These include running the original DOOM in a profile (complete with an in-universe explanation for the change in perspective), reworking DOOM II into a third-person brawler, and even transforming the series's core premise from gunning down demons within the corridors of Mars to stealing NFTs in a DOOM II mod. There have also been several DOOM crossover mods, which reskin the game’s sprites as characters from other classic games like The Legend Of Zelda, insert Animal Crossing’s Isabelle as an indestructible companion, and even allow players to boot up a round of Mortal Kombat II within DOOM’s engine. Now, one skilled fan has combined DOOM with LEGO, though this latest mashup is more about how the game is displayed rather than its actual content.
Twitter and gaming modder a round of the original DOOM on it in front of a LEGO minifigure, though even he its it isn’t the most practical method of running the FPS classic. At a mere 72×40 resolution with less than 3,000 pixels, Brown’s LEGO monitor can only display extremely compressed monochrome images, and he notes that he used “adaptive histogram equalization” to get DOOM’s retro 3D graphics to fit on it at all. Still, while it may be difficult to make out what is going on with James Brown’s makeshift LEGO monitor, the fact that it works in the first place is an impressive technical feat in and of itself.
The question “will it run DOOM” is a popular meme among old-school gamers, and James Brown’s LEGO monitor is far from the only instance where a modder was able to play the original DOOM on an unorthodox device. Skilled technicians have run the iconic FPS on an Apple watch, an old-fashioned DOOM-capable rotary phone, a graphing calculator powered by 100 pounds of potatoes, an over-the-counter pregnancy test, iPods, cameras, printers, ATMs, and pretty much anything with a screen.
Having a screen to begin with might not even be a requirement to run the original DOOM, as James Brown has figured out how to display the game that helped spawn a gaming genre on a simple LEGO brick with little more than a mini circuit. While there is still a fair bit of work to be done before DOOM is truly playable on Brown’s LEGO monitor, it will at least provide some entertainment to any gaming-obsessed minifigures out there.
Source: James Brown/Twitter (via PCGamesN)
