It Runs Doom: Now Inside a SQL Database

A Shooter Where the Database Does the Shooting

In October 2026, people in certain corners of the internet started passing around a strange sentence: someone had gotten Doom running inside a SQL database. Not stored in one. Running in one, as queries^1,2.

The project is called SQLDoom, built by the team at CedarDB, a database company that evidently has a sense of humor about its own product. CedarDB published the work on September 22, 2026, and described it with a very specific, very strict set of rules: the game data had to live inside the database, SQL had to implement the actual game logic and rendering, and the output had to be a table of exact RGB pixel values, not some clever workaround².

That last constraint matters, because it rules out the easy cheat. You could, in theory, have a database just launch the real Doom executable and call it a day. SQLDoom instead modeled the entire game, world geometry, enemy positions, raycasting, visibility, framebuffer, as relational data and SQL transformations^1,2.

The numbers involved are almost comically specific for something built in a query language. The implementation runs to roughly 1,300 lines of SQL, spread across 89 common table expressions, and it produces about 35 full-color frames per second at 640x480 resolution¹. For comparison, that is visually recognizable as the original Doom, not some pixelated abstraction of it.

What actually sits outside the database is small: a Python program using the psycopg2 PostgreSQL client library and pygame for display. It handles keystrokes, pings the database, manages timing, and draws whatever frame comes back. All the heavy lifting, world state, collision, rendering, happens in SQL queries fired at CedarDB Community Edition^1,2. CedarDB also noted that anyone wanting to run it needs to supply their own copy of Doom's game data (the IWAD file), since the copyrighted assets couldn't be redistributed with the project².

An earlier, cruder database-Doom experiment reportedly rendered the game in grayscale ASCII with a boxier, more Wolfenstein-3D-like look. SQLDoom's full-color 640x480 output represents a genuine jump in fidelity and, frankly, in the amount of punishment someone was willing to inflict on a query planner¹.

Why This Is a Meme and Not Just a Stunt

To understand why anyone would do this, you have to go back to 1993, when id Software released Doom to critical and commercial success, built on a 3D engine from lead programmer John Carmack³. The game's technical reputation outlived its genre-defining gameplay: its engine turned out to be surprisingly portable, and that portability became an invitation.

Id released Doom's source code under a non-commercial license in 1997, then under the GNU General Public License in 1999⁴. That second release in particular lowered the barrier for anyone who wanted to take the game apart and rebuild it somewhere it was never meant to go^4,5.

What followed is now known as the "It runs Doom" meme: an ongoing, informal competition to get Doom working on devices and software environments that have nothing to do with gaming^4,5,6. Early milestones included a TI-82 calculator port uploaded to ticalc.org on April 12, 1998⁷, and the tradition kept widening from there, eventually reaching printers, thermostats, pregnancy tests, and farm tractors, according to various retrospectives^5,8.

The meme became more organized as an online phenomenon in the 2010s. The Tumblr blog It Runs Doom! launched in October 2013 to document unusual ports, and Reddit's r/itrunsdoom followed in 2016 as a dedicated community for showing off the latest absurd hardware conquest^5,7. The appeal, as the blog's curator put it in one interview, is partly about seeing a platform's quirks and limitations exposed through the compromises needed to get Doom running on it⁷. SQLDoom fits squarely into that lineage, just with the hardware swapped for a query language.

Who's Involved

• CedarDB: the database company that built and published SQLDoom in September 2026, describing it as a port of Doom's original game logic and renderer into SQL².
• id Software: the studio that created and released Doom in 1993 and later released its source code, the event that made the entire porting culture possible^3,4.
• John Carmack: id Software's lead programmer, who built the original 3D engine that made Doom technically influential and, eventually, portable³.
• Dave Taylor: an id Software programmer credited with creating the Linux port whose code contributed to the later source release, according to historical accounts⁴.
• Rick: the pseudonymous curator of the It Runs Doom! Tumblr blog, who has tracked and showcased unusual Doom ports since 2013⁷.

The Figures That Matter

• 1993: year id Software released the original Doom^3,4.
• 1997: Doom's source code released under a non-commercial license⁴.
• 1999: full GPL release of the source code⁴.
• April 12, 1998: upload date of an early TI-82 calculator Doom port⁷.
• October 2013: launch of the It Runs Doom! Tumblr blog^5,7.
• 2016: creation of Reddit's r/itrunsdoom^5,7.
• September 22, 2026: CedarDB publishes SQLDoom².
• 1,300: approximate lines of SQL in the SQLDoom implementation¹.
• 89: common table expressions used in that SQL¹.
• 35: frames per second SQLDoom reportedly renders¹.
• 640x480: resolution of SQLDoom's full-color output^1,2.

What's Solid and What's Still Fuzzy

The core technical claims about SQLDoom come mainly from CedarDB's own project writeup and from Ars Technica's report, both of which agree on the broad architecture: SQL handles game logic and rendering, a small Python and pygame client handles input and display^1,2. That much is well corroborated across independent sources.

Less clear is exactly who on CedarDB's team wrote which parts of the project. The available material describes SQLDoom as a team effort rather than crediting a single named developer, and nothing in the sourcing supports attributing it to one specific individual^9,2. Any version of the story that names a lone genius programmer should be treated with suspicion unless the project's own repository says otherwise.

There's also some looseness in comparing SQLDoom to earlier, simpler attempts at running Doom-like logic inside databases, including a reported grayscale ASCII raycasting version. The sourcing is thin on exactly who built that earlier version or when, beyond noting it existed and looked more like Wolfenstein 3D than Doom¹. Treat it as a predecessor mentioned in passing, not a fully documented project in its own right.

Timeline

1. 1993id Software releases Doom.
2. 1997Doom's source code is released under a non-commercial license.
3. April 12, 1998An early TI-82 calculator port of Doom is uploaded to ticalc.org.
4. 1999Doom's source code is released under the GNU General Public License.
5. October 2013The It Runs Doom! Tumblr blog launches, cataloguing unusual ports.
6. 2016Reddit's r/itrunsdoom community is created.
7. September 22, 2026CedarDB publishes SQLDoom, running Doom's logic and renderer inside SQL.
8. October 3, 2026SQLDoom is widely reported as the best-documented SQL-based Doom project.

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