- The up-to-date DoomScroll website is now available
- It offers an “infinite” selection of custom Doom maps that can be played in the browser
- It’s quite a journey through Doom’s history, and some of these maps were created by developers who later worked for major game studios
Have you ever felt like taking a nostalgic trip back to the shores of hell? Now you can play Doom right in your browser, without having to install anything necessary – and with instant access to thousands of custom levels for the shooter.
PC Player Reports that the DoomScroll site is already lively and contains files classic 90’s shooter in all its gory glory, allowing you to enjoy a series of levels filled with pixelated monsters that you can kill with all those ancient, trusty weapons, including the infamous (original) BFG.
It is the brainchild of software engineer James Baicoianu and web archivist Jason Scott. You can too visit the website to check it out for yourself. Scroll through the list of available levels – some of them are entire episodes with multiple levels – choose the one you like and click on it.
You can then see more details about the map – click on the image in the lower left corner to take a closer look at it – and then click the “Play” button to load it and start playing. Press the laptop’s power button (top right) to return to the long list of levels, which Baicoianu’s post on Bluesky says is “infinite” (well, very long anyway).
The developer tells us: “Introducing DoomScroll – an endless feed of thousands of user-created Doom WADs from the last 32 years, all playable directly in your browser. Our goal was to make decades of work from one of the most creative communities in gaming history more accessible and visible to everyone.”
Analysis: Cacodemon vs. Chainsaw
It’s an impressive website that showcases Doom’s luxurious history of custom levels, some of which were created by people who later worked at major game studios. If you played Doom back in 1993 when it came out – like I did, in a one-on-one deathmatch on two PCs connected by a serial cable – you’ll definitely appreciate it.
Baicoianu enthuses: “There’s a ton of stuff here – everything from simplified maps created by kids just learning how game development works, to full conversions with brand new music, textures and sprites, created by teams of volunteers that have become full-fledged game studios.”
However, we warn you that it is a time-waster. It’s also worth remembering that some of these levels are, shall we say, a little hard. You’ll need to be comfortable fighting a Cacodemon with a chainsaw behind the first door you open in a level, and don’t be surprised if you find yourself running away from a horde of pixies and guys with guns, only to suddenly run into a Cyberdemon around the corner.
Another caveat is that some maps seem to not work, as PC Gamer noted, and I encountered one such crash – but everything else I tried was fine.
Finally, it’s worth noting that the mouse is quite sensitive – at least in my case – so this can be adjusted in the game options. Press Escape to display the main menu and operate the arrow keys on your keyboard to navigate to options and reduce the mouse sensitivity a bit if necessary.
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