Doom Insanity

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Doom Insanity, officially cased as DOOM iNsAnItY and stylistically represented in ASCII art as *-D-*-*-O-*-*-O-*-*-M-* I N S A N I T Y, is a sister document to the Official Doom FAQ, and began as an originally small section of that document which gradually took on a life of its own. Like the FAQ, it was also authored by Hank Leukart as a collection of humorous emails and postings to various Usenet groups in the wake of the massive online excitement over the upcoming release of Doom.

Contents[edit]

A word from Douglas J. Bottoms[edit]

A tongue-in-cheek suggestion that id Software should appease Usenet posters disappointed over the apparent delay of Doom for a few months by instead making a game where angry players would take on the employees of id Software.

DOOM: The Real Thing[edit]

A strictly humorous suggestion that impatient players who cannot wait for Doom's release should organize a real-life deathmatch in an abandoned warehouse.

"We could throw some shotgun shells and ammo boxes randomly around the place, along with some first-aid kits (fine for light grazes from perhaps a .22 calibre round but not much good for a 12 gauge belly wound :) )..."
― gills

Beta-Tester's Joystick Sliced Off While Sleeping at Computer![edit]

An email forwarded by John Romero from one Douglas Howell, a beta tester who had been dismissed along with the entire current group of testers, which makes light of the incident by use of double entendre for "joystick." Such jokes were quite common in 1993 after the John and Lorena Bobbitt incident. This humorous email evidently earned its author reinstatement as a beta tester.

"The severed joystick was later found by police on a street corner. Apparently id had fled the scene with the sliced piece still in hand and tossed it out a car window."
― Douglas Howell

The Night Before DOOM[edit]

A poem by Hank Leukart written as a parody of the holiday traditional, The Night Before Christmas, appropriate due to Doom's December release date. It is also included in the FAQ.

You know you have been playing DOOM too long when...[edit]

A list of increasingly unlikely circumstances and occurrences which should indicate to anyone that they have played too much Doom.

DOOM: Opening a door to hell[edit]

A play about Doom written in the style of an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, where a marine, an imp and a baron of Hell riff sarcastically on a (likely fictional) Usenet post which claims that playing Doom makes one susceptible to demonic influence.

Top Ten Lists[edit]

Several top ten lists are included, these having become popular due to the 1992 debut of the Late Show with David Letterman, where this remained a regular feature of the nightly stand-up routine until Letterman's departure in 2015.

  • Top Ten Things to Do While Waiting for DOOM
  • Top Ten Things To Do Until DOOM Arrives
  • Top Ten Things Being Removed From DOOM During Delay
  • Top Ten Reasons DOOM Was Delayed
  • Top Twenty Comments Made After DOOM's Release

DOOM R.E.M.[edit]

A section about people reporting the phenomenon of Doom-related dreams.

  • Pixelated Demons - A dream about shooting pixelated demons with a shotgun.
  • The Mythical Beta Releases - A dream about finding a beta release of Doom on the Internet, the holy grail of the community at the time spurred on by consistent rumors of such being leaked by one or more of the testers.
  • You Don't Take Mastercard?! - A dream that Doom was released to retail stores, but the dreamer could not buy it due to the store not accepting his credit card.
"When I opened my wallet, it was empty. And they wouldn't accept credit or personal checks... I spent the rest of the night trying to scrounge up the cash to buy it. It was not a pretty sight!"
― Christopher Johnson

External links[edit]