Wake Up To Hell: Someone Got Doom Running On Nintendo's Alarm Clock

Image: id Software / Nintendo / Kotaku

Once again, someone has taken a device that was never intended to play Doom and, with some tinkering, gotten it to do exactly that. This time around, someone has got Id Software’s classic and forever popular FPS running on a Nintendo Alarmo, providing us with possibly one of the worst ways to play the shooter.

Over the last 25 years or so, getting Doom to run on weird devices that were never intended to play games has become a popular hobby among modders and fans of the classic ‘90s shooter. Throughout that time, people have got Doom running on tractors, ATMs, pregnancy tests, and even on Twitter via tweets. All these wacky ports to hundreds of weird devices come courtesy of Id Software releasing Doom’s source code in 1997—just four years after the game’s explosive debut. Since then, fans have spent the past 20+ years creating “source ports” of the shooter that both extend the game in countless ways and let you play it on practically anything. And that includes a Nintendo alarm clock, apparently.

On November 2, as spotted by Gamespot, modder and hardware hacker GaryOderNichts uploaded a video of himself playing Doom on Nintendo’s Alarmo. It’s definitely not the best way to play the classic shooter, but it runs surprisingly well considering the device it’s being played on is a fancy alarm clock never intended to run games.

Previously, GaryOderNichts had figured out a way to get images of cats on the Alarmo. The modder also has shared steps for how to run customized code via USB on Nintendo’s Alarmo. This is how he was able to get a version of Chocolate Doom (a stripped-down source port of the classic FPS) running on Alarmo. The modder shouted out Twitter user Spinda for “figuring out the Alarmo SWD pads and being the first to dump the eMMC contents.” GaryOderNichts added: “I’m not sure if I would’ve been able to do this without her!

So now we can add a weird Nintendo alarm clock to the ever-growing list of “Shit You Can Install Doom On.” I doubt this will be the last time I write about someone playing Doom on something weird. And that’s fine by me.

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