HN Distilled

Essential insights from Hacker News discussions

Building a DOOM-like multiplayer shooter in pure SQL

Original Article

Hacker News Discussion

Here's a summary of the themes expressed in the Hacker News discussion:

The Novelty and Technical Aspects of Running Doom in SQL

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around the technical feat of running Doom, or a Doom-like experience, within SQL. Users express surprise and admiration for the ingenuity of this concept, while also dissecting its technical underpinnings.

  • "This is a clever ad!" - esafak
  • "I had not heard of them so I looked up the technology behind it" - esafak
  • "unironically, this is such an elegant way to express ray marching" - halifaxbeard
  • "This is pretty neat. I was expecting a WAD file to get loaded, but this was still pretty neat, even better than Windows XP in JS." - IncRnd
  • "flykespice: The previous trend was about trying to run DOOM on as many constrained devices as possible, now it has evolved to trying to prove turing-completeness on the least places you'd expect it to be."

Comparison to Wolfenstein 3D and the "Doom-like" Classification

A recurring debate focuses on whether the project truly constitutes a "Doom-like" experience or if it's more accurately described as a Wolfenstein 3D clone, considering its visual and gameplay elements. The historical context of these early FPS games is also explored.

  • "It’s a very cool accomplishment. As a nerd of early shooters, I do wonder whether it’s fair to call it Doom-like. It’s clearly more untextured Wolfenstein 3d." - ant6n
  • "Are we sufficiently far from 1993 to just “round” it all to being Doom-like? certainly it’s better for eyeballs." - ant6n
  • "johnisgood: Yeah, it is definitely Wolfenstein 3D in my opinion. Many Doom-clones are." - johnisgood
  • "nemomarx: Wolfenstein came first, Doom followed from the same team." - nemomarx
  • "jandrese: Depends where you want to draw the line. You could trace the lineage all the way back to Rogue with its grid map where the player is fixed to the grid and moves in full block increments. Then you had those 3D maze games where you were still on the grid and stuck moving in cardinal directions, but you got a 3D representation of the area. Then Wolfenstein allowed the player to move freely on the same grid map. Finally Doom (finally!) dispensed with the grid and made the map out of vectors." - jandrese
  • "omoikane: Part of the brilliance of Doom has got to be this short one-syllable name, so all later games that did raycasting would call themselves "Doom-like" as opposed to "Wolfenstein-like". The latter is just too many syllables." - omoikane
  • "romperstomper: I'd say this is more like Wolfenstein 3D :)" - romperstomper
  • "gs17: For some reason it's really common to call this kind of project a "Doom clone" despite it not having the features that made Doom notable at the time. Honestly, it's impressive enough that it doesn't need to be tied to being a "[90s game] clone"." - gs17
  • "lvogel: That's just my age showing, I guess. For me, all 2.5D shooters are DOOMlikes." - lvogel

The Potential of SQL for Game Logic and Multiplayer

Beyond the novelty of running Doom, users discuss the broader implications of using SQL for game development, particularly for multiplayer functionalities and expressing game logic. The discussion touches upon existing projects and concepts in this space.

  • "zekrioca: Would this multiplayer work on Postgresql?" - zekrioca
  • "ChrisWint: Depends on what you mean by "works" I guess. The statements all look like PostgreSQL SQL and should, therefore, all work. That said, they are pretty heavy duty, especially the recursive Ray tracing, so I expect it to lag quite a bit." - ChrisWint
  • "valorzard: Feel like the logical extreme of this is a database built for multiplayer games, something like: https://github.com/clockworklabs/SpacetimeDB" - valorzard
  • "crooked-v: "Just build all the logic directly in the DB" is something I've thought about before for simple multiplayer online RPGs and the like, where quite a lot of things are effectively just a direct mapping from database to screen. But, using the general idea for 'twitch' gaming is really wild." - crooked-v
  • "lvogel: Yea, I actually thought of the viability of SQL for games while working on DOOMQL. It's just so easy to express a lot of game logic in SQL queries. As an avid OSRS player I was thinking about doing a simple MUD/MMO next." - lvogel
  • "pjot: Author of the mentioned DuckDB-DOOM here! This is awesome - multiplayer is a great addition. Really like the cone in the mini-map too" - pjot
  • "alexchantavy: Do it in Neo4j now lmao" - alexchantavy
  • "ForHackernews: There's also pg_doom that runs Doom as a Postgres extension https://github.com/DreamNik/pg_doom arguably less impressive because PG extensions can be normal(ish) C." - ForHackernews

The "Mad Scientist" Aspect and Pushing Theoretical Boundaries

Several comments highlight the extreme, almost "mad scientist" nature of these projects, where the goal seems to be proving theoretical limits and demonstrating capabilities in unconventional environments.

  • "a3w: THIS IS MADNESS." - a3w
  • "Krieger, is that you? You went too far with it." - a3w
  • "I am all for catgirl holograms, so good science by Archer's Krieger on that. But SQL should not run Doom. The limits of science have been pushed beyond madness!" - a3w
  • "Well okay, "does it run Doom" comes up here frequently. But why not solve "does it run catgirls" first, if you are a real-life mad scientist?" - a3w
  • "phoenixhaber: I once made a doom emulator with a bandsaw and a pile of toothpicks but unfortunately I had difficulties cross compiling to a dumpster fire of banana peels." - phoenixhaber
  • "paulryanrogers: I feel like these more extreme efforts barely qualify as running Doom. Technically I guess it's Doom in pure SQL, not running on it (since that suggests hardware). Other efforts such as Doom (like) CAPTCHA or Doom in TypeScript types are either so incomplete, unplayable, or so absurdly abstract that it strikes me as desperate cries for attention. That said, people have all kinds of weird interests, so to each their own. I'd just prefer these absurd efforts didn't take up so much attention that they distract from artistic efforts with more to say than "look what I can do"." - paulryanrogers

The Underlying Technology and Commercialization

Initial comments touch upon the specific database technology being used or inspired by the project, with one user identifying it as a commercialization of a research database and noting its closed-source nature and single-server architecture.

  • "FridgeSeal: IIUC its a commercialisation of a research DB called Umbra which has some pretty amazing performance characteristics." - FridgeSeal
  • "esafak: A Postgresql-compatible HTAP. It appears to be single server and closed source. Roadmap: https://cedardb.com/docs/roadmap/" - esafak

Appreciation and Inspiration

There's mutual appreciation between creators and users, with the project inspiring further exploration and development.

  • "lvogel: Love that you liked it! Your project was the inspiration and showed me the insanity was actually feasible :D" - lvogel
  • "pjot: Author of the mentioned DuckDB-DOOM here! This is awesome - multiplayer is a great addition. Really like the cone in the mini-map too" - pjot