Alex Pritchard (pritch)

Alexander John Pritchard, better known by the nickname "pritch", is an English Doomer who has been involved with the online Doom Community since 1999, and more actively since 2001.

Pritchard holds a first degree with second class honours in English Literature from UWE in Bristol. He is currently studying for a Masters in English and MPhil at the University of Exeter.

Like many community members Pritchard was about to enter his teens when Doom was released, and hence has been involved with the game for twelve years. Although he is not a keen mapper, Pritchard has done beta-testing for some important projects over the years, including Cyb's Massmouth, as well as many stand-alone WADs from talented mappers like archvile46. With plenty of online multiplayer experience in co-op, and deathmatch experience as a zdaemon player, he is always willing to help playtest a new map.

Pritchard's knowledge has enabled him to be a part-time newstuff chronicles reviewer on Doomworld. As part of the forums staff he usually does this to cover a week when regular reviewers are unable to contribute.

Pritchard has also written several fanfics based on Doom, and has helped write storylines for RTC-3057 and other projects.

Pritchard is something of a Doom gameplay purist, advocating the use of modern features in sourceports such as zdoom only as far as they enhance the original gameplay, which he believes merged the elements of arcade action with realism in a way that has been unsurpassed. For example, he approves of the added freelook and jump capabilities, that are realistic, but not excessive scripting, which is not. He cites Agentspork's Simplicity megawad as one of his favourite mapsets of 2005, specifically because it illustrates this point perfectly, albeit with some flaws of its own.

Pritchard can often be found on irc.oftc.net #zdoom with several other community members.