Graphical game selection and task bar UI

The Doomsday Engine is a greatly enhanced DOOM source port available for Windows, macOS, Ubuntu and most other Unix platforms (source code is provided).

Doomsday supports many games including the classic first-person shooters DOOM, Heretic and Hexen.

We aim to retain the original feel of the games yet leverage modern techniques and technologies, including hardware accelerated 3D graphics and client/server networking. A lot of emphasis is placed on good-looking graphics.

Features

Graphics

Resources

Audio

Note: Not all audio features are supported by all audio drivers

Networking

  • TCP-based client/server networking
  • Automatical discovery of servers running on the local network
  • Central master server for discovery of servers across the world
  • Standalone lightweight server (a daemon process)
  • Standalone Doomsday Shell tool for server management (both local and remote)

Multiplayer

  • Clients can join games in progress
  • In-game chat and server management (shell-login)
  • Up to 15 player games
  • Player movement prediction/smoothing

User Interface

Other

Technology

Our modular architecture separates game logic from the renderer, audio, network and other subsystems, allowing a common engine to be used with game logic modules (plugins). Originally based on the id Tech 1 engine (by id Software).

The ultimate goal of the project is the realization of a modular game engine capable of supporting all classic 2.5d first-person shooters.

History

The Doomsday Engine and the associated game logic ports of DOOM, Heretic and Hexen have been under development since May 1999, when the project was started by Jaakko Keränen (skyjake). The first version of the engine, called JHexen at the time, was released on November 1st, 1999. Ports of Heretic and DOOM followed in early 2000.

Marking the tenth anniversary Deng Team examined the successes (and failures) of the project in a "Decade of Doomsday" retrospective.