So you just got a Raspberry Pi device, and you want to christen it by recreating the meme: run Doom on that tiny computer. Luckily for you, you can start blasting demons with just a few commands in the Raspberry Pi terminal.
Before going through this process with my Raspberry Pi 3 B, I was worried I’d have to do complex tasks like adding third-party repositories, installing and configuring an emulator, and carefully placing game files gathered from shady websites. It turns out none of that is necessary. You just need to know what engine package to install and, if you have one, how to direct the engine to the specific Doom game file you want to play.
- Size
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3.74 x 2.95 x 1.1 inches
- PSU
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3.5A USB-C (UL Listed)
This official Raspberry Pi 4 kit comes with multiple RAM options. It’s got everything you need to get started.
What You’ll Need
Before we get started, let’s take a look at what I’m assuming you have for this project:
- Any Raspberry Pi with Raspberry Pi OS installed and an internet connection
- Monitor compatible with your Raspberry Pi
- USB keyboard
- USB mouse
You will also need a copy of the original DOS version of Doom—if you want to play that. You’ll be able to play a free clone of Doom right out of the box without buying anything, but if you want to play “Vanilla Doom” or any Doom mod, you’ll need its files on hand.
Personally, I bought DOOM I + DOOM II on Good Old Games to test this out with. After installing it on my main PC, I copied its files to a flash drive I could connect to my Raspberry Pi.
- Released
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December 10, 1993
- ESRB
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M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language
- Developer(s)
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id Software
- Publisher(s)
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id Software
First, Install Chocolate Doom
The first thing you need to do is install Chocolate Doom, which is a source port of the original Doom engine. It lets you run the original Doom as well as many of its fan-made variations.
First, update your repositories to make sure you get the latest available version.
sudo apt update
Then install it with this command:
sudo apt install chocolate-doom -y
The -y flag at the end will cause the prompt to confirm installation once the package has been found automatically. Just sit back and wait for the automatic installation process to do its work.
After the installation is complete, you can immediately start playing Doom—well, a version of Doom.
The Chocolate Doom package for Raspberry Pi includes the complete FreeDoom 1 and FreeDoom 2 games, which are fan-made, copyright-free recreations of the first and second Doom games. They’re designed to give you a full and faithful Doom experience but without any of the licensed assets.
You can launch the games by clicking the Raspberry Pi logo at the top-left of your desktop, hovering over the Games directory, and clicking either Freedoom 1 or Freedoom 2 to launch it. Easy as Pi!
You can also launch the game via the terminal if you prefer.
freedoom1
Or for Freedoom 2:
freedoom2
How to Play Vanilla Doom or Doom Mods
Alright, so FreeDoom may not be what you were hoping to play. Don’t worry! The Chocolate Doom engine can also play the original Doom games for DOS, often called “Vanilla Doom,” in addition to fan-made variants you can find all over the internet. You just need to have that version’s WAD file and tell Chocolate Doom where to find it. It contains all the game assets that the Chocolate Doom engine needs to run a complete game.
My goal was to play the original Doom game on my Raspberry Pi. I did that by first installing my DRM-free copy of Doom I bought from GoG onto my PC. I opened up the game directory and found a file called DOOM.WAD. If you’re not sure where to find that file, try searching File Explorer for it.
After getting the WAD file, I copied it onto a flash drive and plugged it into my Raspberry Pi. I opened Raspberry Pi OS’ file browser and created a directory in my home folder called “Games” and then a subdirectory called “DOOM1”.
I copied the DOOM.WAD file from the flash drive into the DOOM1 folder. This is easy to do if you’re using the graphical file browser, but if you’re working in the terminal, you can use the cp command like this:
cp /media/$USER/MyFlashDrive/path/to/DOOM.WAD ~/Games/DOOM1
Before running that command, make sure you edit the paths to match your file’s location and your target location. If you’re not confident, look up how to copy files in the Linux terminal, and it might help to know how to mount storage drives in Linux too.
With the WAD file in place, I opened the Raspberry Pi OS terminal and ran this command:
chocolate-doom -iwad ~/Games/DOOM1/DOOM.WAD
The chocolate-doom command launches the Chocolate Doom engine, and the -iwad flag tells it you want to play with a specific WAD file, and the directory path that follows it tells Chocolate Doom where to find the WAD file.
With that command executed, I was playing the original Doom game on my Raspberry Pi computer.
How to Tweak Your Doom Experience
While Chocolate Doom comes preconfigured to emulate the original experience, you can make several tweaks to it using Chocolate configuration tool. Either run chocolate-setup in the terminal or look for “Chocolate Setup” in your application menu.
Both will launch an MS DOS-style text-based menu with options to configure the display, sound, keyboard controls, and more.
You can also use this to find and host online multiplayer matches. There you can configure your multiplayer experience with your player name and chat macros too. I haven’t tried the online experience myself yet. Still, there’s clearly a whole world of Doom fun to be had thanks to Chocolate Doom and related projects, and it’s all totally accessible with your Raspberry Pi.