Doom Player Finds Way to Play Classic Snake In-Game

Modders have tweaked the original Doom since it released way back in 1993, and they show no signs of stopping as they continue to delve into the inner workings of the classic FPS. Modders have officially taken the first Doom to new levels by giving players tons of new ways to enjoy the vintage title.

Players assume the role of an infamous space marine known affectionately as Doomguy in id Software's original Doom, but a modder called kgsws has officially made a playable version of the even older game known as Snake in Ultimate Doom. Kgsws recently made Snake in Ultimate Doom (1.9) publicly available through the modding community that utilizes an arbitrary execution exploit to create an overlay on the Doom demo that plays from the menu screen.

When playing Snake in Doom, players steer a string of skulls around the screen in order to collect more skulls to become the longest, most heavy metal snake of all time.  The Snake mod is able to create the overlay through custom save files which completely change how Doom modders will rework their favorite classic game in the future. Thanks to kgsws, other modders are already utilizing the same techniques to create unique changes to the game such as fog effects.

Kgsws has impressed several people in the modding community with his arbitrary code execution, earning the Machaward through Doom World. The Machaward is given to the most creative, unusual, or artistically compelling project of the year, and Kgsws has opened Doom up to a world of potential with his version of Snake in Ultimate Doom. While this modder has changed things in Doom's modding community for the better, it wouldn't have been possible if another community member called Revenant didn't realize earlier in 2020 that the Doom engine could be force-fed custom files to manipulate the buffering. These custom files mixed with the arbitrary code execution allowed kgsws to create this version of Snake in Doom Ultimate.

The entire Doom modding community is celebrating the new revelations from both Revenant and Kgsws, which open the game to a world of potential. Creating a playable version of Snake in Doom proves that multiple games could be emulated through exploits like this, creating hope for a Doom Pac-Man, Dig Dug, and Space Invaders. While emulating old games in Doom sounds fun, a modder known as Dosnostalgic has created a fog overlay that shows how modders can truly improve the original Doom experience through this combination of manipulating the Doom engine and utilizing arbitrary code execution.

Back in the 1990s, Doom was the pinnacle of PC graphical performance. With smooth-scrolling stages in a 3D world, it simply didn't get any better than that. These days, however, there's a whole sub-Reddit dedicated to running Doom on odd, low performance pieces of hardware, with the newest entry coming in the form of a player who has managed to get Doom running on, of all things, a digital camera.

The sub-Reddit is called ItRunsDoom and is dedicated to finding ways of playing Doom on unexpected hardware such as fridges or ATMs. Past entries of particular note include a player who got Doom running on a Pioneer DJ Turntable and another player who managed to get the 90s classic up and running on a modern Nintendo Game & Watch.