The Gospel According to JDoom, Ch. 1 (Crendowing's Early Years)

[Crendowing]

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JDOOM, CH. 1 (CRENDOWING'S EARLY YEARS)


It was a time of despair; no good games were made, and even those that had been blockbusters were out of style to the average gamer. Sprites were now a thing of the past, and any who played a game that contained them was shunned and derided. These conformists lost individuality in the world of gaming, and those left behind for whatever reason (too poor to upgrade, not interested in modern games, etc.) numbered to the very few. Most of these old time gamers time was spent in front of the computer playing the classic game of DOOM. When the new religion of 3D gaming spread, however, all was lost for those who failed to keep up with the rest of the world of gaming.

The few nonconformists left to the old games started to leave the cyber world and move on with a typical life. Maturity had reached its peak and left the impression of gaming as just a vague memory of childhood and teenage years. Who would have thought that one lone soul remained tenacious of his beliefs and customs of gaming? This lonely outcast had a great many contributing factors as to why he never kept up with the rest: not much money, exposure to computers was too late for him, he was DOS illiterate, and he was a social outcast in the real world as well. How could such a soul bear to live a normal life within the household whilst he sat and did nothing, not even spend time outside of the house? My fellow listeners, this is the story of said person and how he discovered a way to live.

We will refer to this humble person, whose real name is unknown, as Crendowing. Crendowing had been brought up as brute militant son of grunt that could not so much as add two and two. This was his father. He had an interesting set of parents, though. His father, as just mentioned, had very little intelligence of the world around him and had the notion that the only way to succeed in life was to make a career in the military. His mother, on the other hand, came from the opposite side of the spectrum; college-educated, extremely wise and intelligent, and more open-minded than anyone can imagine. He also had a sister that is of no importance to this story. In a sense, he was a perfect child, the offspring of the combination of opposites.

Constant quarrels took place between his mother and father. Fifteen years into the marriage, when Crendowing was about twelve years old, his parents finally divorced. Had it not been for his mother's low financial status, he and his sister would have moved in with their mother wherever she went. Since she could not keep a job, however, she was forced to leave the children in the clutches of the father. For one year Crendowing lived alone with his father and older sister in what was one of the city's worst neighborhoods. Then his father married a woman whom both he and his former wife had known in the past. In this case, this other woman was a better match for Crendowing's father, for she was just as low-class as he was. About the only good to ever come out of the marriage of his father and this woman was that he was finally out of the hellish side of town that he lived in, though the new area would not be much better. The following two years were perhaps the darkest years of Crendowing's life to date.

His father and now stepmother were finally married after almost 4 months, during which Crendowing had been living in his new home. He started to fall into a trap of some kind; he held to his fathers ideals and even grew to be a closed-minded conservative. Once in a while, if time permitted, he was able to visit his mother. She moved into the best area of the city, a sanctuary to those that deserved to live there. But, as mentioned, Crendowing held to his father's beliefs and could not understand why a person would want to live in such a ritzy neighborhood in the first place.

Within the first few months of living at his stepmother's house, the light to Crendowing's gaming life was starting to glow. He, his sister, and his best friend (known to us as NightWatcher) spent a weekend at a secluded lakehouse that belonged to the family of his mother's roommate. NightWatcher brought along with him one of the various holy books (strategy guides) to the PC game known as DOOM. Crendowing had played DOOM before, but he never gave it much thought until now. Those words and maps to the mightiest and holiest PC game of all filled his mind with thoughts of becoming one the most elite gamers of all time. After all, he was a console video gamer at the time (this sin would later be forgiven).

An amazing discovery shocked Crendowing only a week after the weekend trip. On another visit to his mother's house, he became so bored that it was not even funny. He browsed one of the two computers in the office, and what should he discover other than The Ultimate DOOM itself? Now Crendowing had known about the original three episodes, but the fourth episode (Thy Flesh Consumed) amazed him. His 8th grade mind was astounded by the new levels created by the id Gods themselves. This was, in fact, not very long after the dissention between the Great God Carmack and the infidel Romero. To tell the truth, Crendowing discovered The Ultimate DOOM just after Romero had betrayed Carmack and left id. Romero, the ultimate evil, was one to be watched out for. If Crendwing knew much about the history of id, he might have fallen into the hands of the Romeroists, or Puritan DOOMers, too early and would never have been exposed to the greatness of DOOM's open-source.

Within the next six months, Crendowing not only beat The Ultimate DOOM over at his mother's house, but also managed to obtain the relic of DOOM II. He was extremely lucky to even play it, however, because the computer at his stepmother's house would make a paperweight seem top-of-the-line. The other members of the household could not understand why Crendowing played so much of that game day after day. This would later be the spark to light the argument that would unseemlingly rectify Crendowing's life.

Just one week before the big argument that would send Crendowing to his mother's house permanently, he recieved a new computer of his own. He would now be able to commit more time to paying his service to the id Gods and DOOM. Only one thing stood in the way of him and happiness...his stepmother.............


[TO BE CONTINUED]