You Can Play Doom On Twitter Now

@Tweet2Doom is a new bot that allows people to play the original DOOM (1993) on none other than, you guessed it, Twitter. How @Tweet2Doom works is similar to cloud gaming technology: You enter commands to control your character and then a video feed showing you what happens on-screen is sent back to you.

Thanks to the new bot Tweet2Doom, Twitter users can reply to tweets with various commands to control Doom Guy and receive a video clip of the results.

That means the game can either be played collectively, by replying to others as more of a turn-based affair, or a whole sequence of inputs as a speed run.

The pinned tweet on the account explains it all. Letters denote various action inputs, and numbers denote the number of frames those actions last for. The bot will then spit back the last 10 seconds of gameplay as a video.

⠀
ROOT node for Doom Shareware 1.9
Read the instructions in the images below.
⠀ pic.twitter.com/YszpiKnXEE

— Tweet2Doom (@tweet2doom) October 2, 2021

Tweet2Doom is the creation of Georgi Gerganov, a Bulgarian scientist with a company called ViewRay. He gives some interesting data about how the bot works, including the longest “game” to have taken place so far. According to Gerganov, the longest tweet chain comprises 172 nodes, which equates to 11,973 in-game frames. Doom runs at 35 frames per second, giving this chain alone about six minutes worth of play-time. PC speedrunners have completed the game’s first level, Hangar, in just 8 seconds, so this is ample time to make a dent in the shooter.

It’s also worth taking the time to visit Tweet2Doom’s Github page. All of the bot’s nodes are visually represented there and clicking on each takes viewers through to the tweet containing the gameplay generated by each particular message. Zooming out also gives a chaotic overview of what the bot’s Twitter interaction has been like so far.