CAPTCHAs are those little tests of skill that websites use to make sure you’re human and not a bot. Sometimes they ask you to re-enter some blurry text displayed on screen, other times they show you nine images and want you to click on the images that include, say, a boat. There are a bunch of different varieties of CAPTCHA out there, but they all share at least one characteristic: they suck.
But what if we lived in a world where CAPTCHAs didn’t suck? Developer Miquel Camps Orteza is presumably the only developer to ask themselves that question, and through doing so, has created an imp-shooting CAPTCHA that actually feels fun to solve.
It’s called DOOM CAPTCHA, and it involves shooting three Doom imps within a short (almost too short) period of time. Weirdly, the imp exists in the Wolfenstein universe, but that inconsistency doesn’t matter because no matter where they are, shooting imps is fun.
Camps Orteza writes on the CAPTCHA’s Github page that they "had the idea this Friday, developed the first version on Saturday morning, published that night and went live here on Sunday.” It’s also noted that it’d be pretty easy to “break the security” of the CAPTCHA, and that the project is mainly for fun. In keeping with the theme, if you type IDDQD while the CAPTCHA is live, you can skip it entirely.
It does make you think, though, of an alternative world where CAPTCHAs are not gruelling, confusing, sometimes mind-boggling pests. If you want to try it out, head over to Camps Orteza’s Github page.
Cheers, PC Mag.
