
			Kadoom - KDE Desktop front end for Doom game engines
			General Information Game Engine Support Screenshots	FAQ Version History Downloads

General Information

Kadoom is a KDE desktop application to configure and control a Doom game engine, released under the GNU GPL.

The classic game Doom™ was first released in 1993 and set the standard for a new genre of first person shooter games. Due to the generosity of ID Software in later releasing their original game software as open source, a number of game engines are currently available for Linux and other systems. These offer various options for graphics, sound, gameplay and compatibility.

One of the main reasons for Doom's popularity was the open WAD file format, which meant that huge numbers of extra levels, enhanced graphics and playing themes became available. These are still available today for free download or on CD. However, using a game engine on Linux or another UNIX® system usually involves a complicated command line, with any extra levels or other addons having to be downloaded first and possibly extracted from an archive. Kadoom automates all of that, so you can select addons from an Internet site or Zip archive by browsing or dragging them in the usual KDE way. The files are automatically downloaded and extracted before starting the engine, saving you all of the tedious work in doing that. It also provides configuration dialogues for some of the useful engine options.

With Kadoom on your desktop, the best Doom action is just a couple of clicks away!

Game Engine Support

Currently Kadoom supports the following game engines:

PrBoom - prboom.sourceforge.net
Doomsday, sometimes known as JDoom - www.doomsdayhq.com
EDGE - edge.sourceforge.net

You will need at least one of these engines installed in order to play Doom. The engines all vary in system and hardware support, game performance, graphics/sound, and their ability to use some addon files and demo formats. Your choice will depend on your Doom experience and expectations, as well as availability for your hardware and operating system. See the engines' home pages above for more information.

Kadoom makes it easy to choose or switch between engines, via a simple wizard interface. Settings and files are saved separately for each engine, so you can use multiple engines with your preferred settings for each.

Screenshots

Click on any of the images for a full-size view. These just show the Kadoom desktop front end; see the engine web sites above for screenshots of the game in action.

The main window - set up to run a Doom 2 demo (fetched using HTTP) with an additional PWAD file (in a Zip file fetched via FTP)
Dialogue - Display Options	Dialogue - Sound Options
	Dialogue - Enemies Options


The game engine selection wizard - 5 simple steps to locate and set up a new game engine

FAQ Questions and Answers

Where can I get a Doom game engine?
See the list of engines in the "Game Engine Support" section above, or the game engine selection wizard. Each of these will have a link to their home and download pages; a package may be available for the Linux distro that you are running, or you may need to download and install the engine yourself.
Which game engine should I use?
This will depend on the hardware and operating system that you have, your Doom experience and playing expectations, and compatibility with any Doom files that you have already. See the engines' home pages as above, which will describe their features and capabilities and any specific system requirements.
Where can I get the base WAD files?
From a purchased or otherwise copy of Doom; simply copy the appropriate file to a suitable place on your system. You can also download and use the free FreeDoom WAD files. If you do not have any of these available, you can use the demo WAD (containing the first episode of Doom 1 only) from the Doom 95 demo version.
Where can I get extra levels and other addons?
From the ID Games Archive at www.doomworld.com/idgames. Lots of great demos can also be found at the COMPET-N pages at www.doom2.net/~compet-n, and at the DOOM Honorific Titles pages at www.gamers.org.
I'd like to use the engine option '-ultracarnage', but Kadoom doesn't support it
Enter the option, along with any filenames or other information, in the "Settings - Advanced" dialogue box. Then please contact me to let me know about this option; if possible I will try to incorporate support for it in a future release of Kadoom. Or, in the true free software tradition, implement the option and send me a patch.

Release and Version History

This is the first release of Kadoom. The home and download page is www.keelhaul.me.uk/linux/kadoom (you're looking at it now!).

For detailed and up-to-date change information subsequent to version 1.00, see the latest ChangeLog file in the distribution archive.

Some of my ideas for future additions and features are in the TODO file in the distribution archive. In the true free software tradition, if you have any further ideas or would like to implement any of these then please feel free to do so; if you send me any changes or patches then I will try to incorporate them into future versions. Please also let me know, of course, if you find or fix any problems, if there are engine options that you think need to be supported, or if your favourite Doom engine is not supported at all!

Downloads

These are source downloads. Precompiled versions for some Linux distributions may be available from the application page at kde-apps.org or other KDE download sites.

The applications are compiled and installed in the same way as any other standard KDE or GNU application. If you're not familiar with this process, see the INSTALL file within the distribution archives for more information.


Latest version

The download includes source code for Kadoom, and KDE desktop integration. A game player engine needs to be installed separately in order to play.		Download Kadoom Application (version 1.00) 683Kb Compressed Tar archive

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Page by Jonathan Marten
Last modified: Mon Mar 16 08:58:14 GMT 2009