{"rewrite":{"id":"r_e2afc17c40bba26ba42fdc9b","clusterId":"c_1e94aa2ff26a4b9e982337fb","slug":"doomformer-turns-doom-maps-into-neural-networks-that-recognize-handwritten-digits","model":"deepseek-v4-1-flash","headline":"Doomformer Turns DOOM Maps Into Neural Networks That Recognize Handwritten Digits","summary":"Developer mottopanikeiku released Doomformer, a project that converts an integer neural network into a DOOM map and runs the arithmetic inside the game. Voodoo dolls, the player clones created by multiple player starts, move along conveyor-like floors; light levels and floor and ceiling heights store the values. In a demo it recognizes handwritten digits, scoring 97.16% on 10,000 MNIST test images.","whyItMatters":"The project treats DOOM's map logic as a general computing substrate rather than a game, which puts a working Transformer-style attention step inside a 1993 shooter's engine.","webCardHtml":"\u003cp\u003eDoomformer targets ZDoom-family source ports, and the developer says every value computed inside the map was checked against NumPy with a tolerance of 0. The demo\u0026#39;s digit recognition uses 1,355 clones and reports the correct digit in all 30 trials where the developer wrote each digit 0 through 9 in three different ways. Attention, the mechanism used in Transformers, is reproduced by controlling clone passage with ceiling heights.\u003c/p\u003e","blueskyPost":"Doomformer stores neural network values in DOOM light levels and floor heights, so every weight is visible on the map itself. The 97.16% MNIST score matters less than where the math lives: inside a game engine not built for it.","twitterPost":"Doomformer keeps its neural network's weights in DOOM light levels and floor heights. The math is legible on the map, which is the point.","threadsPost":"Doomformer encodes a neural network's values as light levels and floor heights on a DOOM map, with Voodoo dolls moving along the floors to run the math. It scored 97.16% on 10,000 MNIST test images, but the placement of the arithmetic inside the engine is the interesting part.","newsletterBlurb":"A developer called mottopanikeiku has released Doomformer, which converts an integer neural network into a DOOM map and computes it with in-game voodoo dolls. The demo recognizes handwritten digits at 97.16% on 10,000 MNIST test images. Light levels and floor and ceiling heights hold the values.","attributionJson":"[{\"source\":\"GIGAZINE\",\"url\":\"https://gigazine.net/news/20261030-doomformer/\",\"title\":\"'Doomformer' Uses the World of the FPS Game 'DOOM' Itself as an AI Brain to Achieve Handwritten Digit Recognition and Even Text Generation\"}]","lintFlagsJson":null,"lintHits":0,"costUsd":0,"inputTokens":5228,"outputTokens":673,"status":"published","repairAttempts":0,"nextRepairAt":null,"factsAttemptedAt":1793356759,"createdAt":"2026-10-30T10:35:14.000Z","publishedAt":"2026-10-30T10:38:11.000Z","updatedAt":"2026-10-30T10:38:11.000Z"},"cluster":{"id":"c_1e94aa2ff26a4b9e982337fb","canonicalTitle":"FPSゲーム『DOOM』の世界そのものをAIの頭脳にして手書き数字の認識や文章生成まで実現してしまう「Doomformer」","representativeArticleId":"a_aefaa615974c32fe17120991","sourceCount":1,"writtenSourceCount":1,"writeAttempts":0,"isSolo":true,"entitiesJson":"{\"anime_titles\":[],\"manga_titles\":[],\"work_titles\":[\"Doom\",\"Doomformer\"],\"studios\":[],\"people\":[],\"type\":\"news\",\"domain\":\"games\",\"is_roundup\":false}","contentType":"news","status":"published","firstSeenAt":"2026-10-30T10:00:00.000Z","lastSeenAt":"2026-10-30T10:00:00.000Z","updatedAt":"2026-10-30T10:38:10.000Z"},"attribution":[{"source":"GIGAZINE","url":"https://gigazine.net/news/20261030-doomformer/","title":"FPSゲーム『DOOM』の世界そのものをAIの頭脳にして手書き数字の認識や文章生成まで実現してしまう「Doomformer」"}],"entities":{"anime_titles":[],"manga_titles":[],"work_titles":["Doom","Doomformer"],"studios":[],"people":[],"type":"news","domain":"games","is_roundup":false},"keyFacts":["Developer mottopanikeiku released Doomformer, a project that compiles an integer neural network into a DOOM map.","Doomformer uses voodoo dolls, player clones created by multiple player starts, to perform the arithmetic.","Calculation results are stored as light levels and as floor and ceiling heights.","The handwritten digit demo uses 1,355 clones and recognized the correct digit in all 30 developer-prepared trials.","Doomformer recorded 97.16% accuracy on 10,000 MNIST test images."],"pageLinks":{"healthSlugs":["doom","doomformer"],"storySlugs":[],"entities":[{"slug":"doom","supported":0,"disputed":0,"contradicted":0,"unverified":17,"overall":"unverified","story_count":16,"has_dossier":true},{"slug":"doomformer","supported":0,"disputed":0,"contradicted":0,"unverified":2,"overall":"unverified","story_count":1,"has_dossier":false}],"stories":[],"entitiesOk":true,"storiesOk":true}}