Placing Id Software program’s basic first-person shooter Doom on surprising {hardware} is a real hacker’s custom, however gardening gear specialist Husqvarna goes a step additional — by releasing an official replace to run the sport on its robotic mowers.
“The legendary 1993 online game Doom will likely be playable on Husqvarna Automower NERA robotic lawnmower fashions from April this yr,” the corporate says in its announcement. “When the first-person shooter recreation DOOM was launched in 1993, it modified the gaming panorama perpetually. The extraordinary ambiance, 3D realism (for the time), the growls from demons approaching across the nook and the pulse-pounding expertise made DOOM a cultural phenomenon. And now, for the primary time in historical past, it’s attainable to mow down demons by yourself Husqvarna robotic garden mower.”
Described by the corporate as “one hell of an replace,” the discharge sees a port of the open-source Chocolate Doom introduced to chose fashions of Husqvarna Automower — playable utilizing the mowers’ on-board controls and built-in display screen. The mower is not going to, after all, be lively throughout gameplay — which means you may be mowing down pixels fairly than blades of grass. “Gamers navigate the sport through the use of the robotic lawnmower’s management knob to show left and proper,” the corporate explains. “Urgent the START button will make you run ahead. To fireside, gamers press the management knob.”
The discharge follows a promotional demo at DreamHack Winter 2023, wherein attendees had been capable of take part in time trials and deathmatches on NERA mowers, and can present all customers registering for the replace with a replica of Knee Deep within the Useless — the primary episode of Doom, launched by Id Software program as freely distributable shareware. It is a time-limited deal, although: the sport will change into lively on 9 April this yr after which disappear once more on 9 September when a compulsory replace removes it from the mowers.
The sport runs totally on-device, and is managed utilizing the mower’s on-board controls. (📷: Husqvarna)
Husqvarna is not the one one porting Doom to surprising units, although it is one of many solely main firms to deliver the sport to its personal non-gaming merchandise. In earlier years hackers have introduced Doom to all the pieces from in-car leisure techniques and thermostats to GPS receivers, seven-segment shows, microcontrollers just like the Raspberry Pi Pico, Teletext-capable TVs, and there is even one port that renders the in-game graphics totally as audio.
The mower replace is, sadly, region-restricted: on the time of writing Husqvarna had solely confirmed availability within the UK, Europe, Australia, with no phrase on whether or not the replace will likely be coming to the US or Canada. Those that need to strive registering can accomplish that on the Husqvarna web site.
