‘Doomba’ is a Roomba That Can Create ‘Doom’ Levels

“Will it run Doom?” is an age-old question at this point, aimed at a variety of different devices out there.

Basically, if it has electricity someone, somewhere, eventually will get Doom running on it. We’ve seen this on a variety of strange ways, like picture-in-picture on the iPad, or even on the Touch Bar on a MacBook Pro. Doom is a game that will appear on refrigerators! So, maybe it was only a matter of time before it landed on a vacuum.

Game designer and developer Rich Whitehouse has figured out a way to get the game on a Roomba from iRobot. You know, the electronic vacuum that can make a map of your house and roam around on its own, cleaning as it goes. Well now it can create levels from digital Hell, thanks to Whitehouse creating what he calls “Doomba”. The idea is straightforward enough, courtesy of Whitehouse’s own “Neosis”, a tool that helps developers move digital assets from one platform to another.

And that’s what happened here, with the Roomba doing what it does normally as it creates the map of your home using its internal systems, but then converts them into Doom levels.

I’m just going to get out of the way here and let Whitehouse explain the “half-goat, half-script” creation:

“I soon realized that there was a clear opportunity to serve the Dark Lord by conceiving a plethora of unholy algorithms in service to one of the finest works ever created in his name. Simultaneously, I would be able to unleash a truly terrible pun to plague humankind. Now, the fruit of my labor is born. I bring forth DOOMBA, a half-goat, half-script creature, with native binary backing for the expensive parts, to be offered in place of my firstborn on this fine Christmas Eve.”

Whitehouse actually created a level himself, so you don’t need a Roomba to actually enjoy the fun of the Doomba and Neosis, along with instructions on how to implement the algorithms that help make the levels based on what you’re looking for. Whitehouse does say that it’s only been tested on a Roomba 980 Robotic Vacuum, though.

Oh, and one final note:

“I hope you get some fun out of this feature. Some will say that it’s pointless, but I have faith in my heart that the Dark Lord will wipe these people from the face of the earth and trap them in a dimension of eternal hellfire. Their suffering will be legendary.”

It is always entertaining to find out where Doom is going to pop up next. And the fact a Roomba can now create its own levels of Hell based on the game and your own house is pretty fantastic.

[via Polygon; Rich Whitehouse]

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