i've always wanted to see doom in EGA - there's a universe where id offered it as an alternate mode, I'm sure, and I think it would be pretty cool to see. unfortunately, it would require a ton of effort.
i've seen doom bitcrushed to 16 colors in post on youtube, and it was a fun novelty but not really playable. i found out how to load shaders in dosbox-x the other day though, and I also discovered it comes with EGA shaders. I was impressed at the result, but it was still just not satisfying. sure, what I was seeing would have been technically valid on an EGA card, but, it just wasn't authentic. Doom's graphics were not designed to look good in low color modes, and if you just convert them with an automated process, you end up with a bunch of lost detail, weird blotches of unnatural color, and low contrast areas.
then yesterday i was reminded that Fastdoom exists. I'd meant to look into it a week ago - it's a version of Doom that's been optimized for slower machines (as I was saying yesterday, Doom will not actually run on a 386 or low-end 486; this is supposed to make it more practical.) What I didn't realize is that it also has an EGA mode, which (I think?) genuinely works on EGA cards. Very cool, and it does a much better job than the shader.
Then I discovered that this was partly implemented using a PWAD that replaces the game palette with a 16-color variant. You can just run normal DOOM with -file MODE16.WAD, and you'll get Doom in EGA - pic 1 above is what that looks like. Cool, but still, look at those huge blotches of brown. Look at how the edge of the hand just disappears into the wall. Look at the big inexplicable green pools on the pistol. It's still not quite there!
I wanted to illustrate how this could look if it was done right, so I exported a wall texture and a pistol sprite and edited them. I'm no pixel artist, but this is a proof of concept, and I think it works because the changes I made only make sense in 16-color mode. The wall isn't great, but it makes more sense, you can imagine it looking like this on purpose. The gun on the other hand, I'm very proud of. It looks like it was drawn that way from the get go! Look how the black border on the hand makes it pop!
I do not have the patience or skill to redraw all of Doom in 16 colors... and I regret that, because I think it would be a very cool way to experience the game.
