Doom, is undoubtedly one of the most iconic video games of all time. It established the First Person Shooter (FPS) genre and spawned several clones for years to come. The game's strong fan base longing for nostalgia and fun has a track record for porting the classic shooter on a variety of unassuming gadgets such as a wireless printer, an Apple Watch, a calculator, a DSLR camera, and even a DJ controller. It is of a little surprise then, someone made it work on a holographic display.
When Doom is ported on any peculiar hardware, the focus is never on enhancing the gameplay. The majority of times, it is an exercise in demonstrating an outlandish idea. However, the latest attempt from Jan Kaiser stands out as it adds a whole new dimension to the classic shooter developed by id software.
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As the technology expert revealed in a short Twitter video, this new version of Doom allows players to look around corners by simply peeking like you do in real life or by rotating the display. Going by the video, rotating the screen may reveal the enemies lurking around the corner, but it also exposes the missing wall textures that are not supposed to be viewed by the players. Yet, it is fascinating to see how smoothly this new addition works on a game that's almost three decades old.
The hardware making this possible is a personal holographic display dubbed Looking Glass Portrait. Developed by Brooklyn-based start-up Looking Glass Factory, this product is a result of a successful Kickstarter campaign. As per the official product page, the Looking Glass Portrait has a built-in Raspberry Pi 400 computer for independent operations. The product is scheduled to ship in July 2021 for $249. It features a 7.9-inch LCD screen with 1536 x 2048 pixels.
The company claims the product utilizes a light field technology, which generates between 45 to 100 views simultaneously to emulate 3D perspective on the screen. Each viewer gets to see the combination of views based on the angle as shown in the image below.
Doom was developed by id software, founded by legendary John Carmack and John Romero. The latest game in the franchise, Doom Eternal, is published by Bethesda Softworks, which is now under Microsoft's umbrella following the acquisition of Zenimax Media. In addition to comic books, mobile spin-offs, and tabletop games, the franchise also inspired a Hollywood movie Doom (2005) starring Dwayne Johnson followed by a direct-to-video film Doom: Annihilation (2019) a couple of years ago.