DOOM64 Is a Commodore 64 Demake of Doom, Not the Doom 64 You Think It Is

Developer Kweepa completes DOOM64, an authentic Commodore 64 demake running id Software's 1993 shareware episode with custom 3D renderer and SID soundtrack.

Kweepa has finished DOOM64, an ambitious Commodore 64 reinterpretation of id Software's 1993 Doom that deliberately should not be confused with Nintendo 64's completely different Doom 64. The project takes the original shareware episode and redesigns its technology around what Commodore's 8-bit machine can realistically do. Instead of attempting texture-mapped walls and arbitrary angles at an unusable frame rate, the C64 version makes calculated compromises while retaining recognisable level structure, elevation, lighting effects and the oppressive rhythm of moving through Doom's spaces.

The final version became available around the September 30/October 1 cutoff, with source code also published by developer Steve McCrea. The project is especially interesting because 'Doom on impossible hardware' has become practically a genre of its own, often producing technical demonstrations that prove a point for thirty seconds rather than games somebody might actually want to complete. DOOM64 aims considerably higher by including the full shareware episode and designing around the C64 rather than pretending it is a slow 486.

Commodore launched the machine in 1982, eleven years before Doom existed. Forty-four years later, apparently the correct response to that chronological inconvenience was simply to rewrite the problem.