Now We’re Demon-Slaying In Style. The Other Attempts Were Just Practice Runs.
It’s often said that you can run the original 1993 version of Doom on basically anything. People have gone to great lengths to play their favorite game on basically any piece of hardware. A smart fridge, a calculator, a pregnancy test… and now, in the wonderful world of Twitter dot com.
The @Tweet2Doom account has a description that’s wonderfully simple: “Reply to this bot to play Doom. See instructions in the pinned tweet.” If you remember TwitchPlaysPokemon, you know how this goes: users input a set of actions, and hopefully maybe they line up into something resembling gameplay. Progress has been made, but, well…
Just see for yourself.
? Random plays
Description: 10 randomly selected @tweet2doom nodes rendered in a single video
Framerate: 60 fps pic.twitter.com/PEPbo3uUDb— Tweet2Doom (@tweet2doom) October 14, 2021
It’s a fascinating dance to watch, between the comical deaths and the somehow-successful kills. Twitter has yet to complete the beloved 1993 classic, but they’re a powerful platform. Surely a website capable of “cancelling” powerful celebrities can stop a little demon invasion, right? …right?
Now, to be clear, this isn’t exactly like TwitchPlaysPokemon. It’s a bit more controlled – each “run” of the game follows a specific set of inputs, generated by a single user. The bot merely does some digitized wizardry and transforms a command string into a viewable Doom run. There’s a Github archive of the game’s various attempts, most getting a lot further than the others. Users can also build upon previous runs by replying to the bot’s post with more commands, generating a collaborative run.
It’s a unique experience for sure, even if it’s not the most intuitive. But that novelty also gives it an unmatched charm, one that makes this story more than worth following. And considering how accessible Twitter is, joining in on the fun is easier than ever. If you can see this post, you can probably run doom through someone else’s computer. Isn’t cloud gaming wonderful?