The thrills of gibbing demons and sitting still watching numbers go up combine in Idle Doom, a mod turning id Software’s seminal face-paced FPS into an idle game where you watch a machine kill monsters so you can upgrade to a bigger monster-killing machine. It is exactly what it sounds like: a Doom idle game. It’s just the ticket for people who want to feel like they still strafe rough and frag hard but, really, they’re quite tired so it would be grand if they could put their feet up with a cuppa and let someone else handle things for a bit and oh please turn the light off on your way out, ta.

It’s simple. Demons are teleported from Hell into an courtyard, where gun turrets automatically fire at them. Their deaths get you money, which you can spend on upgrading to stronger and faster weapons. You can also upgrade the enemy types and spawn rate, because killing more and stronger enemies naturally gives you more money. We’re simply standing in a control room overlooking the courtyard, controlling the deathmachine by bopping buttons and watching everyone die.

Actually, Idle Doom does something few commercial idle games do: gives a clear sense of where to focus upgrades. If enemies are dying as quickly as they’re spawning, you’re doing all right. If this gets out of whack as you upgrade weapons and enemy types, it’s easy to figure out how to correct it.

If this sounds ludicrous to you, if you suspect it’s some sort of ‘joke’ for comical effect, some tomfoolery and monkeyshines you cannot stand, don’t worry: Idle Doom’s readme file tells a serious story.

Doomguy was relaxing after a busy day. He was playing some games on Firefox 829. Suddenly, he had an idea. He phoned his friend at UAC, John Science. John: Hello, Doomguy! How are you?

Doomguy: Unf! Urgh grunt!

John: An idea to effortlessly destroy all of Hell? We run a teleporter to Hell, pull them in one by one and a we fire half a dozen BFGs at what comes through? Sounds good! Can’t see that going wrong!

Doomguy: Ungh oomph!

John: I’ll talk to my boss tomorrow, see if he thinks we can do it. Pass by the lab when you got the time. The next day… Doomguy: Yeaargh!

John: Hey there, bud! I talked to my boss and I got some bad news. UAC cut our funding on Hell-related matters. Screaming something about “more rendering servers to the megatexture gods!,” whatever that means.

Doomguy: Urgh…

John: Don’t worry, it wasn’t a flat out no. We got a pistol and a small teleporter.

Doomguy: Go f*** yourself!

John: Easy buddy, no need to get brutal. We show them that the idea works by killing demons and he gets us funding to upgrade the system. We’ll build your dream killing machine. Let me show you the prototype…

And yes, it does have an actual ending.

Released back in May, Idle Doom is made by ‘Albertoni’ with ‘Negrostrike’.

Albertoni notes in the readme, “If it doesn’t make someone ask ‘why?’, it’s not a map worth making.” I approve of this design philosophy.

You can download Idle Doom from /idgames mirrors, as listed on Doomworld. You’ll need Doom II and I recommend GZDoom for an updated engine (always remember to turn OpenGL texture filtering off). Once everything’s download and installed, you’ll be able to simply drag the Idle Doom file onto the GZDoom executable to launch it.

Happy fragging! You’ve earned a quiet cuppa today.