Rats Play Doom
40 comments
·December 12, 2025shmeeed
>We reached the point of rat habituation but didn’t start training. Our rats (Todd, Kojima, Gabe) aged out before full testing. The setup works, but behavioral validation is pending.
Ah man, what a pity. That VR rig is awesome, but it doesn't really seem to me they are planning to continue these experiments, or do they?
ginkoleaf
For those afraid to click: This does not appear to hurt the rats or involve doing any surgery on them.
escapecharacter
Is it ethical to turn rats into gamers?
chinabot
It was tested on humans first
autoexec
We've been putting rats in skinner boxes for a lot longer than we've been subjecting human gamers to them. I'd be more worried about the health effects of all that sugar water.
stephenlf
10 microliter doses though. Pretty teeny tiny. But it is a valid concern.
apgwoz
I think it might be _unethical_ to not spread the joy of playing Doom for the first time? Though, I’m not entirely sure there’s been enough research done about the effects of violent video games in rat gamer populations.
duskwuff
I mean-- how do you think they made gaming mice? :)
ginkoleaf
Gamers: no, hot-tub streamers: yes
actionfromafar
I first read doing any sugary to them. Well, that's nice.
apgwoz
I was very happy to see this. I’m fairly against live animal testing, but giving rats the joy of playing Doom??? I think I _may_ have to be OK with this.
quasarj
How can he not include a video of it working? D:
raldi
camtarn
That's the previous setup from four years ago, where the rats just run down a straight corridor.
why_at
In the results section it looks like there's supposed to be an image of it but the link "placeholder_rat_playing.png" returns a 404 :(
purplecats
i think its just people being out of touch with reality. perhaps engineering minds not thinking enough product. its too commonplace for me to even complain about. someone builds something primarily visual - a robot, a GUI application, etc. and links to their github/etc but they ensure that there are no visuals included.
delegate
I wonder if the team at id considered this when they released Doom: In 30 years rats will be forced to play it in exchange for sugar water.
shmeeed
I don't think they considered it, but I'm positive they would have found it absolutely hilarious
stephenlf
Doom aside (very impressive), I love the concept of putting rats on a roller ball instead of in a wheel for exercise. It would be better on their backs.
gpderetta
Well, the most cyberpunk thing I have read today. No video of rats killing Daemons though, only a promising but broken link.
k0ba
bUt liNk wOrks On mY cOmpUteR (seriously its not broken) ..but if so, check out this thread, tldr of the whole rodent VR setup: https://x.com/yolorun_capital/status/1996632980903620886?s=2...
Bengalilol
Incoming site: Can It Play Doom?
neilv
Treat those rats well, now that you've trained them for combat.
takira
I did not expect this to be as thoughtful as it is. Kudos to the thought put into the setup and training. Building custom hardware for the rat is amazing.. I need something like this for my own setup.
chickenhun
Good news: Here's a cute video of Todd being habituated to the setup: https://x.com/yolorun_capital/status/1999598643339227564 Bad news: no video of them playing on this setup, just on the previous version. We iterated on v2 too long, our pet rats grew old and couldn't be trained. We open-sourced the hardware and software so others can build upon it. You can TLDR the whole thing in this thread: https://x.com/yolorun_capital/status/1996632980903620886?s=2... ...Also, here's my personal X, dm me if you have any questions, or would want to build it for a lab or for yourself: https://x.com/viktor_thoth
observationist
I was worried this was going to be one of the petri dish of neurons type things, but the reality of it was awesome. More gaming rigs for rats need to be developed - it looked like Todd was actually enjoying it, and you toned down the potentially scary bits in a good way.
Kudos for the experiment and giving your pet an awesome enriching environment!
k0ba
<<< just to verify, yes, he is The Rat Coach. Reach him out if you want to build something cool. (first post we made on the project: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46151150 )
The year is 2034. Countless attempts at re-producing the sophisticated wetware of the brain have failed. Modeling research has proved unfruitful, with the curse of dimensionality afflicting every attempt at breaking the walls of general intelligence. With only a few million of capital left, and facing bankruptcy, they knew that only one option remained.
"Bring me the rats."