--- title: DOOM Using Regular Expressions | daily.dev description: Developer Artem Lytkin built a system that runs DOOM entirely through regular expressions. The implementation encodes a custom CPU's registers, RAM, a... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/doom-using-regular-expressions-uerbiyzd2 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: DOOM Using Regular Expressions | daily.dev og:description: Developer Artem Lytkin built a system that runs DOOM entirely through regular expressions. The implementation encodes a custom CPU's registers, RAM, a... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/doom-using-regular-expressions-uerbiyzd2 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/UErBIyZD2.png og:image:alt: DOOM Using Regular Expressions og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # DOOM Using Regular Expressions **[Hackaday](https://daily.dev/sources/hackaday)** · 1 min read · 69 upvotes · 13 comments ## Summary Developer Artem Lytkin built a system that runs DOOM entirely through regular expressions. The implementation encodes a custom CPU's registers, RAM, a framebuffer, the DOOM engine compiled to that CPU's instruction set, and the game's WAD file into a 96.6 MB text string. A C-based driver applies over ten thousand ordered find-and-replace regex rules to this string to produce each game frame. At roughly 80,000 substitutions per second, the result is a marginally playable framerate — a creative proof that regexes are Turing complete. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@symphonic15** · 3 upvotes > People love pain **@petermrozek** · 3 upvotes > Ah, another one. Good, good. Keep them coming. Doom running on everything is a running meme at this point and I like it. 🙂 > > Rule #666: If it exists, it can run Doom. **@ezpie** · 2 upvotes > no not again! What's next running DOOM using mars!? I say that because I hope nor NASA or elon makes it to mars in my life span... hopefully **@godblaze** · 2 upvotes > why. just why **@devmandan** · 1 upvotes > Stay tuned, I've almost got it running on my belly button. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Running DOOM On…a TrueType Font?](https://daily.dev/posts/running-doom-on-a-truetype-font--x1i7uo8ck) · Hackaday · 1 upvotes · 1 comments - [DOOM Runs \(slowly\) In A IBM PC-Compatible CSS Sheet](https://daily.dev/posts/doom-runs-slowly-in-a-ibm-pc-compatible-css-sheet-e0cpnccap) · Hackaday · 3 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#python](https://daily.dev/tags/python) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/doom-using-regular-expressions-uerbiyzd2) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"DOOM Using Regular Expressions","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/doom-using-regular-expressions-uerbiyzd2","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/doom-using-regular-expressions-uerbiyzd2"},"datePublished":"2026-07-29T05:12:08.813Z","dateModified":"2026-07-29T18:17:28.851Z","description":"Developer Artem Lytkin built a system that runs DOOM entirely through regular expressions. The implementation encodes a custom CPU's registers, RAM, a...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/56d3b7a4fedb33031333a0b02f037002?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/56d3b7a4fedb33031333a0b02f037002?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Hackaday","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Hackaday","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--JhDfhy70--/f_auto,q_auto/v1767541814/logos/hackaday","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/hackaday"},"commentCount":13,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/doom-using-regular-expressions-uerbiyzd2","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":69},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":13}],"keywords":"python","timeRequired":"PT1M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hackaday","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/hackaday"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"DOOM Using Regular Expressions"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/doom-using-regular-expressions-uerbiyzd2","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"People love pain","datePublished":"2026-07-29T17:31:13.667Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/UErBIyZD2#c-xipH2RrDd","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Andres Sanchez","url":"https://daily.dev/symphonic15","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--aTrkrrFL--/f_auto/v1785346403/avatars/avatar_iXrpwYKFxOVsR2OHMxQz2?_a=BAMAMicg0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":3}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Ah, another one. Good, good. Keep them coming. Doom running on everything is a running meme at this point and I like it. 🙂\nRule #666: If it exists, it can run Doom.","datePublished":"2026-07-30T13:47:10.847Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/UErBIyZD2#c-b5KWYQwof","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Peter Mrożek","url":"https://daily.dev/petermrozek","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--pBfYX68K--/f_auto/v1769247960/avatars/avatar_Qz65P1nVw3Bu6C5YwaZgA?_a=BAMAMiiu0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":3}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"no not again! What’s next running DOOM using mars!? I say that because I hope nor NASA or elon makes it to mars in my life span… hopefully","datePublished":"2026-07-29T14:01:10.212Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/UErBIyZD2#c-CfmuUJ6Ol","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Ezpie","url":"https://daily.dev/ezpie","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/104765117?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":2}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"why. just why","datePublished":"2026-07-29T15:12:42.092Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/UErBIyZD2#c-UqdGpbbzn","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Namith","url":"https://daily.dev/godblaze","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/92907249?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":2}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Stay tuned, I’ve almost got it running on my belly button.","datePublished":"2026-08-07T09:07:17.719Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/UErBIyZD2#c-XcbrlmAVT","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Daniel","url":"https://daily.dev/devmandan","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--ypn2TBF9--/f_auto/v1786619820/avatars/avatar_qDApMJOupymFKtjAmmtB4?_a=BAMAMicg0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1}}]} ```