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Ask HN: What makes the game Doom that special in a Software Engineering context?

2 pointsby andygrunwald9 months ago
E.g. What groundbreaking logic it had implemented?<p>E.g. Why it is ported to various platforms and always used as a test game to run in the next (fascinating) engine?

2 comments

al2o3cr9 months ago
<p><pre><code> What groundbreaking logic it had implemented? </code></pre> We consider a lot of what it introduced as &quot;just videogames&quot; nowadays, so it can be hard to spot. Comparing can help - consider Doom (1993) versus Wolfenstein 3D from the previous year:<p>* walls at angles besides 90 degrees<p>* floor and ceiling textures<p>* multiple kinds of ammunition<p>* lighting<p><pre><code> Why it is ported to various platforms </code></pre> It was open-sourced in 1999, so it&#x27;s partly about availability. I suspect it&#x27;s also because it&#x27;s _possible_ to port to lots of things; it benefits from specialized hardware for graphics acceleration but doesn&#x27;t require it.
wingi9 months ago
It was the first famous 3d game and the renderer was so easy to adapt to any other system.