Facebook developers in Tel Aviv have successfully ported the ever-classic first-person shooter Doom onto the Apple Watch and Apple TV.
Doom is not the most intricate video game: it runs on a pretty simple game engine, given that it launched way back in 1993. Fast-forward to today — porting Doom to other platforms, ranging from expected devices to unthinkable ones – such as an oscilloscope – has become a well-established small challenge for hackers.
Ask any gamer on the planet whether they've played the classic shooter or not — most of them would probably say yes. Some would even say they've played it on a calculator or a printer. Others might even say they've tried it on a virtual cabinet in Doom — yep, it's "Doomception."
This time, the game was ported to the Apple Watch and Apple TV — which doesn't seem such a ridiculous idea, considering other more unexpected devices.
Facebook developers Lior Tubi, Mehdi Mulani, Eitan Avihail, Gahl Saraf and Pieter De Baets pulled a 10-hour hackathon in their office, making the classic shooter playable on the Apple devices. Users can definitely play on the Apple TV — though it gets a bit difficult on the Apple Watch. Still, it's pretty neat to see Doom running on someone's wrist.
"So we had a 10-hour hackathon in our Facebook Tel-Aviv office, and the idea was to hack around iOS stuff. Apple has released beta versions for watchOS 2 that lets you run native apps on the watch and we thought it could be fun to port Doom over to it!" Tubi posted on his Facebook page.
On YouTube, Mulani demonstrates how to play Doom on Apple TV. Back on Facebook, Tubi demonstrates how difficult it is to play on the Apple Watch. Regardless of playability, Doom's soundtrack really brings back memories, doesn't it?
The trend of porting Doom to other devices seems far from coming to an end, as more and more developers will no doubt set the Doom-bar higher with even more ridiculous and/or clever ideas.
