Doom, the iconic first-person shooter that’s playable on seemingly any electronic device, finally makes the jump to the social media platform Twitter.
Doom is “playable” on Twitter now thanks to a bot called Tweet2Doom created by Georgi Gerganov. Here’s how it works: You send the bot a series of keyboard commands, and the bot spits out a video with corresponding Doom gameplay.
For example, you can start a new game by replying to the bot with the text, “/play x,,e,,e,,e,,50-,50-u,15-f.” That translates to getting past the main menu, waiting for 50 frames for the screen wipe to finish, walking forward for 50 frames, and shooting for 15 frames. For more information on keyboard inputs and how the bot works, check out Tweet2Doom’s pinned guide.
It should be possible, with a bit of trial and error, to fully complete a game of Doom simply by tweeting instructions at a bot on the internet. Some players have managed to complete entire stages, a few in record time. This isn’t as random as it may seem — Doom is an entirely predictable game, provided no mistakes are made at all.
To start a new game, users must reply-tweet “/play x,,e,,e,,e,,50-,50-u,15-f”.
As the bot converts each tweet into a gameplay video that’s sent back to the user, it’s slower than playing the game with real-time inputs, but each valid tweet can also be extended through further replies so that a gameplay session can be extended across tweet threads.
When the community isn’t finding different ways to run Doom, the modding scene remains heavily active. This includes a first-person version of Sega Mega Drive classic Golden Axe, and Thatcher’s Techbase, the mod that lets players kill former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.