Doom v0.2

Doom 0.2 was the earliest known alpha version of Doom released to testers outside id. It was released February 4, 1993, when only two months of work had been done on the game.

The "technology preview" includes only one small level with no changes in elevation, no doors, and no items. Only three enemies are present—the imp, the demon, and the Baron of Hell—and their sprites and programming consist only of walking in place.

The only weapon, an early version of the shotgun, has no effect on the monsters. The texturing is scant, though a few textures and flats were modified and used in the final game. Floor, ceiling, and wall textures can be cycled individually by pressing the number keys 0-9. This may also change the ceiling height.

The heads-up display/status bar in this alpha is larger and more complex than those that followed. An automap, item list, and weapon stats are among the extra elements visible. However, at this point, all of the data shown on the HUD is purely decorative and doesn't change. There's two message areas. left message area has text "Chen: Ooh, I found cool stuff" (possibly meant to be a communications/message window; "Chen" refers to Lorelei Chen, a character from the original design document), while the right has "Captain's hand, Sandwich, Heart of Lothar" (possibly meant to be an inventory window; again, the items are from the original design document). According to programmer John Romero the items were meant to function as different types of keys. The automap shown does not correspond to the actual level layout at all.

Several of the keys on the keyboard allow various features of the engine to be controlled. One of these allows the textures on the floor, ceiling and walls to be changed. One selection for the floor and ceiling displays the words "TOM IS KING", while another selection displays "JULES SUCKS" on the walls. Jules, according to Doomworld's page of doom, refers to Adrian "Jules" Carmack. It is possible that "Tom" refers to Tom Hall.