Ask HN: What makes the game Doom that special in a Software Engineering context?
E.g. What groundbreaking logic it had implemented?
E.g. Why it is ported to various platforms and always used as a test game to run in the next (fascinating) engine? * walls at angles besides 90 degrees * floor and ceiling textures * multiple kinds of ammunition * lighting It was the first famous 3d game and the renderer was so easy to adapt to any other system.
We consider a lot of what it introduced as "just videogames" nowadays, so it can be hard to spot. Comparing can help - consider Doom (1993) versus Wolfenstein 3D from the previous year: What groundbreaking logic it had implemented?
It was open-sourced in 1999, so it's partly about availability. I suspect it's also because it's _possible_ to port to lots of things; it benefits from specialized hardware for graphics acceleration but doesn't require it. Why it is ported to various platforms