[f1000]

iDoom for iPod Nano: Silent, But Deadly Cool

Tired of parachutes, brick and solitaire? Two Swedes have the answer. They have successfully ported Doom to the iPod family and are proud to announce the arrival of the iPod Nano version in all its full-colour gory.

iDoom 1.1 is the classic FPS you downloaded eons ago, ported to the Nano from the John Carmac’s original source code. Better than earlier versions, one drawback remains: no sound. But who cares, you’ve got your entire iPod library to choose your soundtrack from. Gameplay is loyal to the original, complete with status HUD and features configurable controls.

Add to that Nano’s scratchy screen and you’ve got yourself one heck of a frightening doom experience.

A word of warning though, installing iDoom on your iPod Nano will void your warrantee. Of course you could always reformat, but you didn’t hear that from me.

Downloads are free at the iDoom site but you will need ipodlinux which also happens to free.

Can an Apple PDA be too far around the corner? An iPod + cell phone + PDA would probably blow the socks off a Treo.

[chris_h]

god bless those wacky swedes.

also, I offer up for discussion the contention that this, nor ipod linux, voids your warranty.

[Eriamjh]

Doesn't it run at like 1 frame per second, though?

[willed]

How the hell would you play Doom using only a click wheel? This must be BS. Notice they don't actually show it playing on an iPod...

[f1000]

Looks to be a lot faster than 1 fps,

http://www.acc.umu.se/~hyarion/highbw/iDoom_nano.mov

http://idoom.hyarion.com/

Originally Posted by Eriamjh

Doesn't it run at like 1 frame per second, though?

[andreas_g4]

How stupid.*




*I respect the work that had to be made, but c'mon, DOOM on an iPod nano?

[cleanup]

Hahaha, that's brilliant. Just shows what the iPod is capable of. Apple should release some new games. They could even sell them on the iTunes Store, as like an updater package, and you plug the iPod in and it installs the game.

[westrock]

Definently above Mrs Pac Man on Windows Excell....but very close

[Pendergast]

Yep. I tried it and I thought it was cool. Curious about the development of this; sound etc.

[The Godfather]

It shows what Linux is capable of.

[toffe]

Nothing is impossible

[f1000]

Originally Posted by andreas_g4

How stupid.*

*I respect the work that had to be made, but c'mon, DOOM on an iPod nano?

I'm not interested in the game per se (I haven't played a computer game in years), but I am interested in the latent computing power built into the Nanos. It seems clear to me that Nanos will go video as well, and they're the ultimate form-factor for a cell-phone PDA.

I'd ditch my Moto in a heartbeat if Apple would put out an iPhone as compelling as the Nano; with built-in iTunes of course.

[cleanup]

Originally Posted by f1000

I'm not interested in the game per se (I haven't played a computer game in years), but I am interested in the latent computing power built into the Nanos. It seems clear to me that Nanos will go video as well, and they're the ultimate form-factor for a cell-phone PDA.

I'd ditch my Moto in a heartbeat if Apple would put out an iPhone as compelling as the Nano; with built-in iTunes of course.

If the nano can view photo slideshows and photo scrubs, run Linux and play DOOM, its processor should be able to handle phone calls. It already has a contacts and calendar function.

But would the iPhone be usable around the world? I live in Shanghai, and there are really only two major cellphone companies, and they support pretty much every single GSM phone on the market, so I don't think there should be a problem.

Cell phone service in China is brilliant. It costs 0.15 RMB per outgoing minute, and 0.50 RMB for a text message. That's $0.02 and $0.06 USD respectively. No contracts either, it's all pay as you go, and you just add credit with little phone cards you can buy on any street corner.

[Eriamjh]

The current features are:

Scaled to your iPod's native resulution.
Full color version (256 colors as in original Doom)
Nicely dithered graphics for grayscale iPod
10-20 FPS
Ability to use different WAD-files
Configurable controls via config-file

I sit corrected.

[ghporter]

FPS means "first person shooter" sometimes... Where did the "one frame per second" idea come from on this thread?

[Eriamjh]

Originally Posted by ghporter

FPS means "first person shooter" sometimes... Where did the "one frame per second" idea come from on this thread?

10-20 Frames Per Second.

1 FPS came from me. According to their FAQ, the first version on Doon on an iPod was slow as sh*t. It took some inspiration, time, and a rewriting of the display code to speed it up for the iPod.

Hence, my sitting correctedness.

[ghporter]

I see...While I thought the screen shot was impressive, I didn't really read the whole article. Thanks for clearing up my fog.