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Fonze

Doom custom Wads on the phone

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Is there a Doom app to anyone's knowledge which runs on Android OS that allows the user to play custom maps?

I remember there being lots of sh*tty Doom apps on Android years ago, but touchscreen controls suck (I must be getting old because I need real buttons to mash) so I never got too into it and now I have no recollection of even any names of apps to search for. Searching for Doom, Doom ports, etc turns nothing up but a bunch of stuff that isn't "Doom," save one Heretic port which does not advertise custom wads (nor would it run the custom Doom wads that I need it to) and costs money, so the cost isn't worth finding out if it'd work for me (which the Doom/Heretic thing means it wouldn't anyway, but beside the point).

So basically I don't even know now if there are any Doom apps for Android or if they've just been swallowed up in search results by all the b/s that apparently has Doom as a keyword.

But if there are still Doom apps for Android out there, does anyone know if any also run custom maps? I'd like to be able to check out maps real quick while I'm on break at work.

As much as it kills me to say this; do any of these also allow for cheats? *ducks a tomato* Touchscreen controls suck so bad; retract your tomatoes; you know you agree. I don't really want to play Doom on the phone anyway, I just want it to check out new/recently updated maps on the go.

Thanks in advance!

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Strangely enough, that does not show up on Google Play for me. I even went to their webpage http://beloko.com/?page=support_install (install support page) and clicked the link to their app's page on the Google Play Store and this is what it turned up:



Guess that means I'm SOL for D-Touch. Which sucks because I see it has PrBoom included.

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Interesting, and thanks for the link! I wonder why Google Play took 'em down.

I downloaded the Doom and Heretic (cause why not) versions of the app, but now the damn thing won't work correctly. Trying to download FreeDoom off the app presents an error message with some number and says bad download link. No problem, though, I know where to get FreeDoom. So I got it, extracted it and put it in the right folder. It shows both FreeDooms 1 and 2. Attempting to start a game says that an update is required, which then leads to that same error message again (at this point I'm guessing that the program itself still thinks that it's on Google Play). So I fiddled some more and went into Chocolate Doom's port on D-Touch. If I attempt to start a multiplayer game. It brings me into the settings menu that looks like an old DOS settings menu (sweet). There was an option to just launch the thing, so I did and wound up in-game. However, after getting shot the screen flashes and stays full red until I close and re-launch the entire app. Needless to say this program is looking like a bust for me, at least until I can get in touch with its developer...

Does anyone know either anything about this or another app that I could try?

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Can someone explain the legal intricacies behind almost every port of Doom for Android being regularly taken down? For some reason this hasn't happened to e.g. the iOS ports or older ports for e.g. Symbian.

Is it something about Google Play, or simply it just happened that all the people behind those ports eventually did something which violated the app store's terms or whatever? I remember one of the first Android ports got redflagged almost immediately for distributing the IWADs..

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The Google Play store may be way too cautious, but the Windows Phone app store goes the opposite direction. Standalone emulations of the GBA ports are available for free.

The only true source port for the platform AFAIK, DoomGLES, comes with Freedoom bundled with Requiem...does that sound fishy to you?

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Maes said:

Can someone explain the legal intricacies behind almost every port of Doom for Android being regularly taken down? For some reason this hasn't happened to e.g. the iOS ports or older ports for e.g. Symbian.

Is it something about Google Play, or simply it just happened that all the people behind those ports eventually did something which violated the app store's terms or whatever? I remember one of the first Android ports got redflagged almost immediately for distributing the IWADs..

If I remember correctly, Beloko said that the reason Google Play gave for taking down all the Touch apps was "copyright infringement in app icon."

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Over the icon; seriously?

What a Hell of a way to have your hard work be thrown to the side over an icon. I wonder if they had a chance to correct it or if it was a no excuses type of thing.

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Could it be that the true "villain" behind every takedown is simply the current holder of Doom's copyright (Bethesda/Zenimax), regardless of what pretext they use for the takedowns?

Now that I think about it, does any mobile port of Doom have "the official seal of approval" besides the original Classic Doom for the iPhone?

We may have gotten used to the notion that since the source code is open, nobody at id gave a rat's ass about what people did with it, and source ports proliferated on the desktop unhindered, that the same conditions will apply in a "walled garden" software ecosystem.

However app stores are centralized and easier to control, and it would be wrong to assume that their approach might be as permissive as we've been used to. If the pointy-haireds and legal advisors behind the app store know that Bethesda makes money out of something called "Doom" and they see someone offering "Doom" for free (even if it's a legit source port), do you really think they'll "do their homework" rather than erring on the side of caution?

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Ok, this doesn't contribute to what this thread has turned into, but Hikari sent me an older version of D-Touch and hooked me right up; shit works! I started laughing so hard when it even played a demo for a custom wad with an additional custom resource pack. Needless to say, D-Touch is definitely where it's at, though I'll likely never legitimately play it on the touchscreen (though the controls were really nicely done), at least it does everything I need it to.

F*ck Google Play for taking such a great, non-illegal port down, as stuff like this can really only increase the fan base with newcomers on mobile devices and therefore increase sales of the actual iWads. Perhaps FreeDoom doesn't help stuff-like-this's case, but that's all the more reason that I'd like to know what the legal intricacies behind stuff like this is.

As for what Maes said, if I had to take a guess I'd say that hit the nail right on the head: them erring on the side of caution. I suspect it is very likely that the early apps that distributed the iWads (or was it just one? I couldn't imagine it only being one) paved the way for them all to be taken down like dominos, too.

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Maes said:

Now that I think about it, does any mobile port of Doom have "the official seal of approval" besides the original Classic Doom for the iPhone?


Doom 3 BFG on Android, which came out a couple weeks ago.

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Still, somehow we ended up in the paradoxical situation that Doom, the yardstick of portability "which runs on anything", is practically absent from the major mobile computing platforms, or at least severely underrepresented.

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Maes said:

Still, somehow we ended up in the paradoxical situation that Doom, the yardstick of portability "which runs on anything", is practically absent from the major mobile computing platforms, or at least severely underrepresented.


Underrepresented, maybe. Absent...no

iOS has the official Doom Classic app and the unofficial Gameception app, among others.

Android has the official Doom 3 BFG app and the unofficial D-Touch app, among others.

Windows Phone and Blackberry only have the unofficial DoomGLES app, but it's still something.

Most, if not all of the major smartphone operating systems have at least one Doom source port, so it can't be said that Doom is absent on them.

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