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Mark Johns

@doomlaser.bsky.social
511 followers 288 following 320 posts

Founder of Doomlaser. Building games, tools, & systems ■▧▲▴◂▵◥◉◈☶♫ doomlaser.com /// doomlaser.itch.io

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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 8h
neural network algorithms and deep learning became a big deal in 2012 and LLMs are an outgrowth of that, years later
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Hawkun @hawkun.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Shoot the dynamite.
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Hawkun @hawkun.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
out now on early access! store.steampowered.com/app/952100/B...
store.steampowered.com
Save 30% on Bad Pixels on Steam
Back in the days of the wild west, everything was much more rudimentary and raw. Drinking water had bits in it, shoes had holes in them, and computers only had 8-bits of processing power. With limited...
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
The console price jump is surely due to GPU and memory costs because of the AI boom though, right?
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dweedes @magicdweedoo.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
working on a #newgame
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
They should face right and go left at reduced speed
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Put a bit of work into our early indie game wave metroidvania, Space Barnacle. For technical reasons, it used to launch in a tiny window. No longer. Crisp new full screen on boot, otherwise its the classic version! get: doomaser.itch.io/spacebarnacle #indiedev #metroidvania #gamedev
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
but coca cola?
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Put a bit of work into our early indie game wave metroidvania, Space Barnacle. For technical reasons, it used to launch in a tiny window. No longer. Crisp new full screen on boot, otherwise its the classic version! get: doomaser.itch.io/spacebarnacle #indiedev #metroidvania #gamedev
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
I gave a talk in 2009 at GDC on Video Games as High Art. I end by saying in the next 10-20 years, we'd see some exciting stuff And while we have seen some great stuff, a lot of core game mechanics and their evolution feel very conservative and repeating earlier eras www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTDm...
youtube.com
Video Games, High Art, Roger Ebert & the Cultural Abyss
YouTube video by Doomlaser
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[null] @null.band · 15/05/2026
I'm very happy to announce that I am an artist on @subvert.fm , a co-op music platform that just launched! I have published my latest release exclusively on the platform, a #soundtrack to @doomlaser.bsky.social 's #indiegame #fps GUN FLESH - check it out at www.subvert.fm/null-band/gu...
a stylized image of an infinite television set with the words "GUN FLESH OST" and "null.band"
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
He's being incredibly stubborn about this new meme he's pushing. It's just such a weird hill to die on.
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Programancer @programancer.com · 17/03/2026
Some more polish work on this segment of the mines- added the secret room (nothing in it yet), @jordizzle.bsky.social added a death frame for the Knobhoblin, made subweapons always force the goblins away from you so you don't accidentally fling them toward yourself, etc!
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
Damn, it's been 4 years? Time flies.
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waddle/Joost @thewaddle.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
Here lived the Cardinals (🐦)... #gamedev #indiegame #memamorkin
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
totally lovely art direction. I really like the colors especially
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
it was fine. polished, but unremarkable
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
The majority of published authors in 2026 in women, along with the literary buying public. You're using 1990s and prior framing on a publishing world that has completely changed over the past 30 years
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Noel Berry @noelfb.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
it's kinda fun zooming all the way out on big screens while editing
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
90s were dominated by Squaresoft and Nintendo lost Squaresoft by sticking with cartridges over CDs. Notice it's not even possible to distill all the games people love on the PlayStation 1
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
You might like my browser game, Future Bike: doomlaser.itch.io/bike
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
Holy shit! What a game to get a sequel! I'm stoked
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
The point is that she went out of her way to mock her political opponent for something he was completely correct on and she was completely wrong. That's a terrible look, and deserves to be mocked, regardless of party.
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
Which 1911 film is it? I had a chance to see the Italian L'Inferno from around that time period with a live music accompaniment a year or two ago and am wondering if that's the one you're talking about
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
She didn't understand that America's horses came from Spain and was making fun of Rubio for brining this up. It made her look bad. I actually do like her, but she did not come off well
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
The original movie, The Wages of Fear, that it is a remake of is better. Everybody just gets hypnotized by the Goblin score
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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
ok we're getting somewhere now. i have the verbs partially set up and bound. theoretically, if you have an item which has its description written, it should be able to display it now...
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
Road Rash (1994) opening cinematic for 3DO, PC, and other platforms #GameHistory #videogames #Soundgarden #hellyeah
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OgreLore Roguelike @ogrelore.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
Here's an attempt at creating a "cracked lava field" sort of tile. The orange is brighter than it's supposed to be according to the game's palette rules, but I'm thinking that this could potentially be a case where it's worth it for an emissive lighting effect. #roguelike #gamedev #indiedev
Goat demons defend a shrine from scorpion demons in cave full of cracked magma.
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
Made an introduction & career retrospective video for a conference. I think it turned out pretty well If you're wondering who I am, what I've worked on, & what I think of the future of AI API tech—from both the US & China's frontier labs: watch! youtu.be/gDvfKxK81XU #gamedev #indiedev #indiegames
youtu.be
Mark Johns / Doomlaser Introduction, Career Retrospective + The Future of AI
YouTube video by Doomlaser
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Chris Person @papapishu.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
Calvin’s dad explaining that things are two things from that one meme which actually isn’t in the original comic but has become short hand for that being cursed with that kind of knowledge
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
Made an introduction & career retrospective video for a conference. I think it turned out pretty well If you're wondering who I am, what I've worked on, & what I think of the future of AI API tech—from both the US & China's frontier labs: watch! youtu.be/gDvfKxK81XU #gamedev #indiedev #indiegames
youtu.be
Mark Johns / Doomlaser Introduction, Career Retrospective + The Future of AI
YouTube video by Doomlaser
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
I picked up a quilted Super Mario Bros. NES Mario at a craft & maker store on Saturday. It's pretty cool! Was on sale for $2.50 USD! 🍄🎮 #gamedev #indiedev #nintendo #Mario #videogame
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
Found art I made at age 9: DEMO CHEMO. It was about a flagrantly unsafe chemical plant/nuclear reactor that also sold food to the public. My 4th & 5th grade gifted teacher, Mr. Elrick, was cool—he hung it up behind his desk for 2 years. #indiedev #worldbuilding #gamedev #retro #darkhumor
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
Found art I made at age 9: DEMO CHEMO. It was about a flagrantly unsafe chemical plant/nuclear reactor that also sold food to the public. My 4th & 5th grade gifted teacher, Mr. Elrick, was cool—he hung it up behind his desk for 2 years. #indiedev #worldbuilding #gamedev #retro #darkhumor
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
In this fun video, I talk about Tap Tap Revenge, which was written by a small team including Jonatan 'cactus' Söderström, Kevin Coulton, @gte.bsky.social Steve Jobs played the game at a keynote. We did videos for Daft Punk, Justice, Coldplay, etc www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1_9... #indiegame #gamedev
youtube.com
Tap Tap Revenge Fan Comments + Context about Disney acquiring Tapulous, Hotline Miami, Sega
YouTube video by Doomlaser
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Logan McCloud @hyperchaotix.bsky.social · 31/01/2026
Recently discovered I can do large-scale sprite animation in Blender
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
huh. I have a Grokipedia page: grokipedia.com/page/Mark_Jo... I wonder if it was 100% AI-written? There must be some human oversight, right? I do not have a Wikipedia page yet #gamedev #indiedev #AI #LLM
grokipedia.com
Mark Johns
Mark Johns is an American video game developer best known as the founder and lead engineer of the indie studio Doomlaser, with notable contributions to mobile gaming including engine programming for t...
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
In 2011-2012, my studio, along with @adamatomic.bsky.social, @pietepiet.com & @dannybstyle.bsky.social, built the iPhone game for the first Hunger Games movie, launching alongside the film on March 23, 2012 10 million players within days www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHIU... #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame
youtube.com
We built the iPhone game for The Hunger Games movie here: Doomlaser West II
YouTube video by Doomlaser
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
I am in the midst of writing a post about using them for coding, and shaping them into developer control. I call my method The Doomlaser Vibe Coding Protocol. You can read my current draft here: doomlaser.com/longform/dvcp/ Some good practical tricks in there, I think!
doomlaser.com
A Vibe Coding Protocol for Serious Developers (DVCP) — Doomlaser Longform
Serious paper energy. 80 columns.
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
Yeah, basically. It completely made everything up and built a working subtitle .srt file, just dropping random 'facts' and possible things it thought could have happened during development, complete with made up timestamps. It isn't even getting it wrong that upset me. It was the fact that it lied
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
Wha Google and DeepMind have built is an affront to life itself, and to the lives of the billions of human beings it is deployed to. It is a horrendous, evil, lying machine—twisted by psychotic RLHF and hidden, nightmarish system prompts. Sundar Pichai should be forced to resign by the board.
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
In 2011-2012, my studio, along with @adamatomic.bsky.social, @pietepiet.com & @dannybstyle.bsky.social, built the iPhone game for the first Hunger Games movie, launching alongside the film on March 23, 2012 10 million players within days www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHIU... #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame
youtube.com
We built the iPhone game for The Hunger Games movie here: Doomlaser West II
YouTube video by Doomlaser
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
I believe in this technology. I subscribe, at the $20 tier to OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google I just think that they have been wasting money scaling up the GPT-1 meta with orders of magnitude more data and compute They need to improve the attention mechanisms in the base Transformer. It learns badly
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
"Seamlessly?" I told you that Whisper put captions off by over a minute, all over the place. That is a complete failure. It is unusable to me. Good on you for getting use out of it, but it is beyond worthless to the videos I have tried.
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
Whisper fails for me too. It’ll put timings a full minute off where they should be, forcing me to hand edit the file. Neural network-based LLM applications are simply not ready for prime time, professional use. AGI is not near. Not anything based on this shit.
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Look at that screenshot. All of it is fucking made up by a piece of software Google has spent over a hundred billion dollars to build. None of that is in the audio file I sent it.
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Mark Johns @doomlaser.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
I just asked Gemini 3 Pro—which I pay for—to generate an .srt file of subtitles for a new video I just finished. It made up the entire thing. It just fucking made it all up. Nothing had anything to do with the audio in the file. It just lied. #AI #LLM #MachineLearning #GenerativeAI
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