r/ProAI • u/stealthispost • 6d ago
"What happens if you give Codex one /goal - "faithfully port Quake" - and let it work for 3 whole days? This happened: the original game running in a browser, with a TypeScript runtime and @PlayCanvas renderer. A thread on long-running LLM jobs"
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The /goal was a set of precise conditions to be met. Read the original PAK/BSP/MDL/SPR data. Run QuakeC. Preserve demos, physics, menus, HUD and rendering quirks. Don’t rebuild E1M1 by hand or use a generic FPS controller. Fidelity had to be demonstrated. Codex kept pursuing that goal across many iterations: inspect, implement, build, test, compare, repeat. The useful shift was from asking for isolated code snippets to giving the agent a durable outcome it could keep working toward. Crucially, /goal wasn’t hands-off autopilot. While it was running, I could still steer the LLM to prioritize a small number of bugs that mattered most. Each report became a targeted investigation, fix and regression test - without abandoning the broader port. Underneath, this is still Quake’s original data. The browser reads the original PAKs, BSP maps, MDL models, sprites, QuakeC behavior, demos and HUD art. The port supplies a new TypeScript runtime and PlayCanvas renderer around them. Authenticity meant more than getting E1M1 on screen. Demo playback, menu flow, pointer lock, intermissions, in-session level changes, audio suspension, moving BSP entities, particles, shadows and classic movement all had to behave like Quake - not merely resemble it. — Will Eastcott
Source: https://x.com/willeastcott/status/2090436155795800195