When people talk about the lack of a DOOM being the doom Commodore home computers, they aren’t talking about the C64, which was deep into obsolescence when demon-slaying suddenly became the minimal requirement for all computing devices. That didn’t stop [Kamil Wolnikowski] and [Piotr Kózka] from hacking together Grey a ray-cast first-person shooter for the Commodore 64.
Grey bares more than a passing resemblance to id-software’s most-ported project. It apparently runs at 16 frames per second on a vanilla C64 — no super CPU required. The secret to the speedy game play is the engine’s clever use of the system’s color mapping functionality: updating color maps is faster than redrawing the screen. Yeah, that makes for rather “blockier” graphics than DOOM, but this is running on a Commodore 64, not a 386 with 4 MB of RAM. Allowances must be made. Come to think of it, we don’t recall DOOM running this smooth on the minimum required hardware — check out the demo video below and let us know what you think.
The four-level demo currently available is about 175 kB, which certainly seems within the realms of possibility for disk games using the trusty 1541. Of course nowadays we do have easier ways to get games onto our vintage computers.
If you’re thinking about Commodore’s other home computer, it did eventually get a DOOM-clone.
Thanks to [Stephen Walters] for the tip.
“Commodore’s Most Popular Computer Gets DOOM-style Shooter”
That is a clickbait title – leave enough information missing to make people click the link to see “what on earth are they talking about?”.
I’m curious what you think is missing. We didn’t explicitly name the C-64, true, but it’s pretty common knowledge how popular it was in these circles. Likewise, the game DOOM is, uh, not exactly unknown.
If there’s information missing it’s because of the assumption that target audience will fill in the blanks, and not a deliberate attempt at click-baiting.
“Most popular” – that begs the question, what was Commodore’s most popular computer? It plays on the assumption that you know it was the C64 and since it isn’t named outright, you start to doubt yourself. Was there another computer?
Fair enough.
Don’t feed the troll, i guess…
If you want an actual troll comment:
Autistic people have difficulties of intuiting what other people know or understand, so they tend to assume everyone else knows what they know and feel by default, so when other people don’t, the person tends to deem them as dumb or intentionally malicious – i.e. trolls.
Basically, instead of saying the obvious, you substitute it with something that causes the reader to do a double take.
Example, “There’s one ingredient in candies that makes people fat.”
Article: “It’s sugar”.
The answer is obvious, but omitting a direct reference makes you doubt you already know it. You might reveal the information in the abstract/lead-in but that doesn’t make the title any less click-baity.
Well, since the C64 was the most popular computer ever, it also has to be Commodore’s most popular. And here’s your source – https://web.archive.org/web/20250408103212/https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/72695-most-computer-sales
You’re right, and your logic is valid, but the faster way to confirm what was meant by the title is to just click the link and read what they really meant.
Which is the point of clickbait.
The Commodore 64 was(is?) THE most popular computer. It has an unfair advantage, because computers, including branded PC clones, differentiated their products as part of a successful marketing strategy afterwards. So it’s a little like describing the Burj Khalifa as Dubai’s tallest building. Saying it that way implies there might be a taller building somewhere else; basically it raises expectations and curiosity. Then, reading the theoretical article, one reads that the Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world, misleadingly calling it “Dubia’s tallest,” makes it clickbait. “World’s Most Popular Computer” might be cheesy, even obvious, but not misleading or clickbait. The English language can be quite subtle, I’m sure there wasn’t any malicious intent. But yeah, you went over the line when it comes to clickbait, imho.
Right. The C64 was the Windows PC of the 80s.
its primary purpose was a games console. the c64 sold 17million yet the playstation 2 sold 160million and supported mouse keyboard and hdd.
Generally true, since ordinary people had a limited horizon about what they could do with a computer, I suppose.
And playing games was something their simple minds could comprehend.
On other hand, the C64 also was the people’s computer.
It became part of the household, became something familiar.
Ordinary people learnt to program on that thing or to use it for automation or use it as a terminal.
There were many mailboxes (BBSes) for Commodore users,
there had been robot arms and computer interfaces for construction kits etc.
In amateur radio, the C64 was used as a RTTY and packet radio terminal.
Other hams used it for running a log book software,
calculate orbits of OSCAR satellites (Quiktrack etc),
calculate antennas and filters etc.
Professional users had a CP/M or DOS computer, of course, rather than a toy computer/educational computer (vtech used to make home computers before switching to make educational computers for kids – using former home computer tech).
Seems like an entirely reasonable headline to me… what would you have them write? The entire article in the headline???!
Commodore 64 gets doom style shooter.
Leave these people alone and start your own blog, if you don’t like the headlines. Everyone knows what “most popular computer” meant, and it was a much more interesting headline than your proposed.
I wasn’t sure I knew, which is why I made the comment.
“Everyone knows what “most popular computer” meant”
Amiga?
Djeez, is this about the ‘most popular computer’…?
I thought everyone was griping about that this is a Wolfenstein style shooter and not a Doom style shooter…
But come on, who DOESN’T know that the C64 was Commodore’s most popular computer?
I wasn’t sure, so I got caught by the bait and clicked the link to confirm.
Hence why I made the comment.
It’s not like C64 has had pretty good exposure here in recent weeks, or anything. For the last few years, even. I have no idea what planet he’s on.
On a planet where paying attention to such things is of secondary importance.
That’s my gripe with a lot of “gets doom”, “created doom in excel”, they’re just Wolfenstein. Doom has textured floors and the player can move up and down.
“We call all raycasters Doom because people don’t know Wolfenstein” yah, because compared to Doom it’s mediocre.
About 99.99% or more of the world’s population. Your point?
Advertising completely flat grid environments as “just like DOOM” has always been a pet-peeve of mine
I believe Doom was a “2.5D” game where the map was essentially flat, but you could define the height of the floor and the ceiling to create the illusion of a 3D space.
Yes, that seems right. The characters are flat, too.
SRB2 used same Doom principle, too if memory serves.
It’s not an illusion, Doom is 3D – there’s XYZ coordinate system.
The characters are “sprites”, though. Not 3D models. And the walls are flat, too.
There are no shadows and light sources, either.
Yes, that’s a rendering side. But sprites have 3D (XYZ) location in the map.
Renderer is quite simple and can only handle perspective correct projection for YAW angles … and purely horizontal or vertical planes. But it is still projecting 3D stuff to 2D screen.
And then there are collisions. Yes, not all are in 3D, but, for example, you can over-shoot or under-shoot stuff. And that uses Z axis for checks.
Definitely more like “Wolfenstein 3D”
more like Catacombs 3D, Wolfenstein 3D atleast had 256 colours
Thank you, I was hoping someone had already pointed this out. People neeed to f’n stop calling every raycaster a “DOOM clone” or even mentioning DOOM at all. If it’s a raycaster, it’s at best a Wolfenstein 3D clone.
DOOM supported non-axis-aligned alls, floor and height differences, as well as walls with open midsections in order to create windows. Wolfenstein 3D – along with the vast majority of what the HaD editors breathlessly call “DOOM clones” – did not.
Is a little bit of accuracy a lot to ask?
+10
Oh my, Doom! That game needs a CRT filter so badly!
The worst type of household color TV from the Atari 2600 era might do.
Something that blurs and masks the low-res graphics so hard in a way it looks natural. IMHO.
Still, it’s impressive for a children’s computer, I think. 🙂
I thought the topic of this post was the development of a videogame, but went fair away from that at the very first comment! I mean who cares! the game is awesome and the sounds is like the first kiss for a gamer , stay focused guys!
Cool! I am not a first person shooter person, but this looks like fun. No blood, gore, human killing humans, … and runs on an old C64. Simple graphics. No need for fancy graphic cards. Love it. Good job.
I agree. A 3D Monster Maze kind of game would be even more thrilling, perhaps.
But that’s already available on another home computer, the ZX81.
Or let’s take an “Alien” type of game, such as Xenomorph.
Something that plays on an eerie starship such as the Nostromo.
There are so many possibilities for an interesting setting.
The engine surely can be adapted in an required way.
Amazing achievement.
C64 gets Wolfenstein3D like shooter. Finito.
There is an opportunity for a dual joystick control scheme here somewhere !
I think the title should read “COMMODORE’S MOST POPULAR COMPUTER GETS WOLF3D-STYLE SHOOTER”
Hm. Then, wouldn’t readers also assume a Hitler reference sort of ? 🤔
I mean, that’s what Castle Wolfenstein was all about – shooting in the Hitler bunker.
Here in Germany, Wolf3D was well known in the 90s.
As a popular game among teenangers and for being on the index of forbidden media (because of the symbols used, not the plot of the story btw).
Cool, seriously, but let us not forget that this isn’t a first in many ways. Although the game as mentioned in the article uses textured walls, making a good looking detailed texture isn’t easy on such a limited platform.
Escape from PETSCII castle is also a quite recent very similar approach:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-ZvNt31PWw
Which originated from an earlier version written for the Commodore PET (hence its name)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_CMY1SOflg
But a f few years ago there was a demo that blew my mind, it was called red serpent, see the video below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5my0FFhMTCY (fast forward to 1:20)
But alllllllll the way back in 1984, there was the game “way out”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tc0OOkQ_Rk (fast forward to 3:56)
Which spawned from “capture the flag” on the VIC20 (1983)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ekBQL4W4VQ
Although that game certainly looked better on the Atari
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i59yy4S5Go
If I knew about “wayout” and “capture the flag” in those days, my life could have been much different, but we’ll never know.
PS: I’m still mentally processing the demo: WhirlyBirds – C64 / Plus/4 3D Engine Demo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNUZaGnRTtI
PPS: But what’s really open terrain in the C64 demo scene is something like voxelspace based flight simulation. The limited number of colors and memory (to store the maps) would make it a real challenge to make it look good or playable. For inspiration regarding the algorithm: https://github.com/s-macke/VoxelSpace/
All of the comments here about an allegedly click-bait-ish title made me come here because from the comment count I thought there must be an interesting conversation about the actual subject. So, by commenting about click-baiting you’ve baited clicks, mine at least.