There is this joke in the gaming community that you should be able to run the classic FPS DOOM on pretty much anything these days. You can play it using potato batteries, you can play it on McDonald's cash registers, and you can even play DOOM Eternal on your fridge. But never ever did I think I'd be able to see DOOM played via cross-stitch.
Yeah, you know cross-stitching? The very cottage-core, arts and crafts, sewing thing that has had a revived interest during lockdown? Someone has managed to make a cross-stitch machine that uses patterns to play out DOOM, and it's wild.
This video from Alastair Low shows what happens when you program a machine to sew a version of DOOM on a bit of material, and upon seeing this original video, I was so confused. How, how do you make something like this? How can something be unpicking the string so new patterns can appear? Well, it's actually not exactly cross-stitching in action here, it's loops of material, half black, half white that are being turned. Turn them back and forth and it gives the amazing illusion of the machine being sewn in real-time. Clever huh? And that trick makes the project all the more impressive.
Hook enough Arduinos together with hundreds of pieces of string and you can make a cross-stitch version of DOOM. It's incredible and hilarious. Granted it's not as if this is going to be the best gaming experience you've ever had - there aren't any sound effects and of course, the process is slow and noisy. If you want to play DOOM for real, you're probably better off playing the original game - but here is a great example yet again of DOOM getting 'played' in a way we would have said was impossible before seeing Low's good work.