Is it possable to make Doom into a top down shooter?

How difficult would it be to do such a thing? How could I help make that a thing?

I suppose you want it in the form of a source port that can play any custom wad there is? I imagine it as theoretically possible, but hard, because somebody would have to write not only a new renderer, but also new sprites for all of the monsters from top-down perspective. Also not sure how the loss of information about Z height would affect playability.

Eschdoom (the author of Doom 2 Reloaded) once made a source port that rendered Doom maps in isometric view in real time while playing them, but he only ever released a video of it, not the port itself, and his website (with the video) is now gone and he's not active anymore, unfortunately.

See also this thread.

scifista42 said:

Also not sure how the loss of information about Z height would affect playability.

I suppose it could work like Mageslayer/Take No Prisoners. Although there's no doubt that relatively flat levels would be better for this.

There's Bloodmasters, which uses the Doom Hexen map format for its maps.

In zdoom can't you just attach a camera thing that follows the player and looks down?

I know you you can make a really hacky acs script with GetActorX/Y. If figure how to make a thing follow another thing script should become lot less hacky.

To make it truly top-down, you'd need GZDoom, not ZDoom. The software renderer isn't going to work with vertical renders.

And of course you'd need new sprites for everything from a top-down perspective.

Personally, I'd hack the auto-map.

You'd lose on depth, though.

I can't imagine a top down shooter with more than two planes on the Z axis working well at all. I'd say it would be best to create new maps with top-down perspective in mind if anyone ends up making this. It's a cool idea though, at first I envisioned the auto map from Duke Nukem 3D, but just having a floating camera above doom guy's head would be far better as it would that nice immersive 3D view.

Doomkid said:

a top down shooter with more than two planes on the Z axis

Like 3D floors stacked over each other? Or just floors of different height levels merely next to each other, not over each other? Or are you referring to "floor and ceiling" when you say "two planes"?

Doomkid said:

I can't imagine a top down shooter with more than two planes on the Z axis working well at all. I'd say it would be best to create new maps with top-down perspective in mind if anyone ends up making this. It's a cool idea though, at first I envisioned the auto map from Duke Nukem 3D, but just having a floating camera above doom guy's head would be far better as it would that nice immersive 3D view.

The original top down GTA games had you going up and down varying levels, bridges, rooftops and other structures, the map was anything but flat in those games. The camera just zoomed in or out the higher or lower you got. And to go over gaps, it would just be a jumping sprite...jumping didn't elevate you, just let you pass over (through) vehicles and gaps.

And if you went under a tunnel, or bridge an arrow would be displayed where you are, facing where you face so you could still see yourself.

Maybe this could be done here? Probably not in the standard maps, but in any map with 3D floors it might. The automap idea is nice though.

boris said:

There's Bloodmasters, which uses the Doom Hexen map format for its maps.

Last time I tried to play there was zero players, sadly. Does anyone still play this? :)

Yes, this is very much a possibility! Though I can only state this for ZDoom and ZDoom derivatives.

I'm working on a 2D platformer in GZDoom myself recently, and with some ACS scripting you can easily have a camera entity follow the player's position. The angle doesn't really matter. You have to make good use out of the GetActorX, Y and Z functions, and use a SetActorPosition in a while loop to follow the specific coordinates of the player.

And voila! :)

I guess that is what they tried with Rampage M, but development has stalled.

Kappes Buur said:

I guess that is what they tried with Rampage M, but development has stalled.

That doesn't run on Doom though. :o

@Agentbromsnor, hell ya man, can't wait to see what you come up with. It would be great to see something like that in the doom engine.