Intel / article

DOOMQL

Source: simonwillison.net
Author: Simon Willison
Date: Published Jul 13, 2026

Context

DOOMQL turns database queries into a playable first-person game. Its repository explains that SQLite calculates movement, collisions, combat and the screen image. For each frame, a query reads the player and map tables and produces rows containing pixel positions and colors. A second SQL view converts those rows into colored terminal text; Python supplies input and timing, then prints the result.

Because the image exists as queryable data, another interface can display the same game state. Simon Willison describes building a browser display from the pixel view while playing in the terminal. This is an original Doom-like experiment in making SQL perform simulation and rendering.

Key takeaways · AI-distilled

DOOMQL puts the game itself inside SQLite: SQL owns movement, collision, enemies, combat, progression, and the RGB value of every pixel on screen. The Python script is only the terminal shell around the database.
The renderer is one enormous SQL query — a full ray tracer written as a recursive CTE (common table expression), the construct that lets a query feed its own output back into itself.
Because game state lives in an ordinary SQLite file on disk, you can point Datasette at it mid-game and query the running game from a second process.
The Datasette Apps plugin lets you write HTML+JavaScript apps that run SQL inside Datasette. One prompt — display the frame_pixels view's x/y/r/g/b columns, refresh once a second — produced a live mirror of the screen; a follow-up added a minimap.

Key quotes

“DOOMQL started with a deliberately unreasonable question: what if SQLite were the game engine, not merely the place where a game stores data?”

“The result is a small, original Doom-like game in which SQL owns movement, collision, enemies, combat, progression and every RGB pixel on screen.”

Read the source simonwillison.net