Someone just got DOOM running inside RollerCoaster Tycoon using an exploit, because of course they did

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I’m always impressed by people getting the classic 1993 video game Doom to run on unexpected devices. This groundbreaking first-person shooter, which inspired many modern games like Doom: The Dark Ages, remains popular today, often as a way to showcase creative modifications.

As an analyst, I’ve been following some fascinating trends in game modding. Recently, before its official release, modders managed to get Doom running *within* Hytale – pretty impressive! This reminded me of something similar that happened in 2025, where a modder actually built a fully functional PC running Windows 95 *inside* Minecraft. And, naturally, the first game they booted up on that virtual system was, you guessed it, Doom. It’s a recurring theme, apparently!

Okay, so I just saw something amazing – Doom is now running on RollerCoaster Tycoon! And this isn’t some modern version, it’s the original from 1999, created by Chris Sawyer. That game was HUGE back in the day. Seriously, where else could you build a massive theme park and design your own crazy roller coasters to *thrill* all your visitors? It’s so cool to see this!

Security researcher Rick de Jager managed to get the game Doom running *inside* RollerCoaster Tycoon as part of a challenge at the Districtcon “Junkyard” competition. He did this by exploiting a flaw in the game’s code: when loading, RollerCoaster Tycoon tries to display a gate, and this triggers a bug that allows the game to be redirected to run Doom instead.

When you run the program with a specially altered RollerCoaster Tycoon save file that includes the Doom WAD file, the Doom game appears and runs right inside the RollerCoaster Tycoon window. It’s surprisingly playable, with the Tycoon game still visible in the background.

I don’t fully understand the technical details of how this was done, but you can find a complete explanation of the exploit on de Jager’s GitHub page.

A key point from de Jager’s RCECoaster Junkyard 2026 talk was the risk of downloading modifications (‘mods’) for games or other programs. While modifying software can be enjoyable, it’s important to remember you might not know exactly what the modifications are doing to your device.

De Jager and Shiloh Smiles (@artic0x78) won the ‘Best Meme Target’ award at the Junkyard competition for being popular subjects of memes.

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2026-01-27 19:09