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Show HN: I Turned DOOM into a Transformer (github.com)

3 points by falperc ↗ HN
Instead of trying to run DOOM on things, I have instead decided to use DOOM (many, many, many doom games actually) to create a transformer. For a lot of the math required I essentially had to use DOOM game mechanics and voodoo dolls (DOOM is turing complete btw) and exchange them with the actual operations, essentially creating an alternative to NumPy (a 65000x slower one). Thus, I am proud to present DOOMFORMER. Here are a list of things DOOMFORMER can do :

It can classify MNIST digits, even if you write these digits on the map!

It can talk(kinda)

You can use it to make decisions, so, it can play DOOM. Yes! You can play DOOM with thousands of DOOM games now! The marine's mind can be controlled by DOOM, playing on a map generated by DOOMFORMER. Truly, the possibilities are endless, and even larger-scale training of DOOMFORMER could be done on a measly T4.

If anyone would like to help me scale this up and make crazier things, I'd love to work together.

37 comments

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saucesaft
now everything can run on DOOM ?
falperc
you can theoretically build fable on doom
slowin
This is absolutely incredible. I feel like this could help visualize a neural network, but you have to know a lot about DOOM to really understand it.
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stmonty
Self-plug I have a very similar blog post title but a very different approach. Honestly, I like your idea more than my own idea. https://nostalgia.dev/posts/running-doom-inside-a-transforme...
falperc
what if you run doom on doomformer?

I havent fully recursed but what I have done with this is use a DOOMformer to generate a level, have python compile it, have DOOMformer generate the name of the level, and use a DOOMformer brain to complete said level. I have also trained said DOOMformer (you can see the levels "weights" updating as it trains) to aim better lol

andai
Awesome

>a handwritten digit takes 163 seconds of real-time DOOM in one map at the default schedule and 8 seconds at --opt 3.

What does this refer to? What does schedule mean here, and what are these opt levels?

Edit: oh sweet Jesus

https://github.com/mottopanikeiku/doomformer/blob/main/docs/...

fwip
Oh, it's AI word-vomit.
falperc
theres no pleasing you people do you expect me to write all my docs and disclaimers by hand
fwip
It just means there's no sense trying to read the docs.
falperc
That’s entirely fair. I’ll certainly work on editing the docs and making them more legible over time.
jacquesm
You won't like the answer to that question ;)
tnms
Yes. Don't be lazy.
nnnnico
The code is human written?
MarsZebra
I pity the AI agent that had to work on this
autoexec
Does that mean the title should have been "AI Turned DOOM into a Transformer"?
falperc
It helped me write my docs!
Sharlin
There’s no use in writing docs at all if they contain near-zero density of information that can actually be deciphered. LLM word salad is not documentation, it’s only useful if all you care about is checking the box "[ ] write documentation".
mattmcal
I think it might be more interesting to target Boom/Boom-compatible, if possible, rather than ZDoom. ZDoom already has so many advanced features, you could implement the entire thing trivially in ACS. At least a table of required engine features would be nice to see; some are likely already supported in other source ports.
falperc
the backbone implementation using ZDoom certainly wasnt difficult, but some aspects of scaling up were tricky. I definitely want to make it at least Boom compatible eventually
bjconlan
came here for the "doomformer" based snow lyric puns... Left with a feeling my people are on slashdot.
tnms
More AI slop. No thank you.
kuberwastaken
As a fellow doom-weird-places-fitter, this is art. Congratulations :)
mg794613
Was there even a human involved at all, or was this a "no mistakes" prompt outcome?

Nothing on this page looks made by a human, its _all_ generated, not a tiny bit of it, _all_ of it.

Guess having the word "doom" and "transformer"in your publication is enough today.

jordigh
God, I can't even with the two-eyed cacodemons, what sort of abomination is this.
ReptileMan
Next step - take the cpu implemented in transformers implement it here and make it play doom. The compute needed still won't be able run Crysis well though.
falperc
oh my god i thought the crysis thing was a Turkish joke i didnt know it was international
nnevatie
> I turned ...

You mean Claude turned?

nullify88
If Claude wrote the readme, technically its correct.
whycombilater
Just how clever can an infinite recursion of someone disappearing up their own backside be?
frankling_
I wonder what the implementation actually adds over the idea itself. At least part of the appeal of these kinds of projects used to be "wow, someone was actually crazy/eccentric/obsessive enough to go through the effort to do this".

If the idea is clearly feasible, and it's just a question of putting in the work, then what is the point of having an LLM actually do it?

I feel it ends up being no better than a post saying "imagine if...", to the mild amusement of the reader, so essentially it ends up as an instance of "just show me the prompt".