- The new DoomScroll website is now live
- It offers an ‘endless’ selection of custom Doom maps to play in a browser
- It’s quite a trip through Doom history, and some of these maps were created by coders who went on to work for big game studios
Ever felt the urge for a nostalgic trip back to the shores of hell? It’s now possible to dip in and grab a brief burst of Doom right in your browser, with no installation of anything necessary – and immediate access to thousands of custom-made levels for the shooter.
PC Gamer reports that the DoomScroll website is now live, containing the classic 90s shooter in all its gory glory, allowing you to enjoy a raft of levels crammed with pixellated monsters to kill with all those trusty old weapons, including the infamous (original) BFG.
This is the work of software engineer James Baicoianu and Internet archivist Jason Scott, and you can visit the site to check it out yourself. Scroll down the list of available levels – some of which are whole episodes of multiple levels – pick one you like the look of and click on it.
You can then see more details about the map – click the image bottom-left to get a proper look at it – and then click the ‘Play’ button to load it and get going. Hit the laptop power button (top-right) to go back to the long list of levels, which is, according to Baicoianu’s post on Bluesky, ‘endless’ (well, very long anyway).
The creator tells us: “Introducing DoomScroll – an endless feed of thousands of user-made Doom WADs from the last 32 years, all playable right in your browser. Our goal was to make decades of work from one of the most creative communities in gaming history more accessible and visible to everyone.”
Analysis: Cacodemon versus chainsaw
This is an impressive website showcasing the rich history of custom Doom levels, some of which were made by folks who went on to work at big game studios. If you played Doom back in 1993 when it arrived – as I did, one versus one deathmatch on two PCs connected by a serial cable – you’ll surely appreciate it.
Baicoianu enthuses: “There’s so much stuff here – everything from simplistic maps made by kids just learning how game development works, all the way up through full total conversions with all-new music, textures, and sprites, made by volunteer teams that went on to become full-fledged game studios.”
Be warned, though, it’s quite a time sink. It’s also worth bearing in mind that some of these levels are, shall we say, a little on the tough side. You’ll need to be comfortable taking on a Cacodemon with a chainsaw behind the first door you open in a level, and don’t be surprised to be fleeing a horde of imps and shotgun guys, then suddenly running into a cyberdemon around a corner.
Another caveat here is that some maps don’t appear to work, as PC Gamer points out, and I ran into one such failure – but everything else I tried was fine.
One final point to note is that the mouse is pretty sensitive – or at least it was for me – so you can adjust that in the game’s options. Press Escape to get the main menu, and use the arrow keys on your keyboard to navigate to the options and tweak the mouse sensitivity down a bit in there, if needed.
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