Alexo

Alex "Alexo" Bowes is a Doom player from Michigan, US. He is known for speedrunning Doom for home consoles ports made prior to 2003, and various machinima films.

In 2019, he became the first person to speedrun Doom for the Game Boy Advance Game Boy Advance in under 10 minutes.

On October 22th, 2021, he successfully played the first game of Doom GBA in under 8 minutes with a final time of 7:58. This is currently the only 7 minute speedrun of an official Doom port, without the use of cheat codes.

He later followed with a 9:49 played on the Nightmare difficulty on October 26th, 2021. This was the first Nightmare completion of a licensed version of Doom in under 10 minutes. This was also played on Doom GBA's 20th anniversary,

Internet presence
Alexo was a well established youtuber in the world of Machinima film making. In 2008, he created the first episodes of his most well known comedy, CNP. The show has short runs every year and a half, and has a large following in underground machinima.

In 2017, Alexo began speedrunning Various Games from his childhood, eventually playing the first version of Doom he had ever played, Doom on the Game Boy Advance.

GBA Developments and History
Alexo began speedrunning Doom for GBA in November of 2017. By December, he was the full game world record holder, and individual episodes record holder, on the easiest difficulty.

In December of 2017, a Tool Assisted Speedrunner named Icy, made the community of Doom GBA aware of out of bounds capabilities. Icy had discovered a glitch in the mid 2000's while playing a multiplayer match with a friend. Icy had conceptualized a route using out of bounds in E1M5, E1M6, E2M6, and later levels like LIMBO (E3M7 on PC). Alexo expanded on Icy's research in the years following this discovery.

This discovery created the category now called 'Any%'. The traditional routes, without out of bounds, were made into a category called 'Any% No Out of Bounds'. At this point, 'Nightmare' and 'Nightmare No Out of Bounds' were made distinct also. In January of 2018, Alexo had discovered the possibility of returning into levels from the out of bounds area. Gathering enough speed and momentum, allows Doomguy to pass through solid walls while out of bounds. This would bring Alexo to discover out of bounds completions in E1M7, E1M8, E2M1, and E3M4. Alexo would develop a new category for Doom GBA called God%, in Feburary 2018, allowing for god mode and all weapons codes. Allowing the player to freely run the game, without taking damage, and using glitches to the maximum advantage for speed.

Alexo is also credited with discovering the capabilities of Linedef deletions in the GBA port of Doom. Accomplishing a route of Diemos Labs in 22 seconds using heavy glitching while out of bounds. Walking into a particular spot out of bounds in the level, allows for walls to be placed in different positions, allowing for a completion of the level without any keys. Alexo would eventually become the first person to complete a version of Doom, without picking up any blue keys over the course of an entire game.

On June 8th, 2019, Alexo completed Doom for GBA 100 times, in under 24 hours. This would be the first attempt at such a high number of completions back to back, and clocked in at 23:34:24. He attempted a second GBA 100 completions run June 14th, 2020. The run had technical malfunctions 4 hours in when the timer froze. Physical limitations of being awake for over 30 hours, made the attempt impossible to complete with the time allotted.

On October 11th of 2020, Alexo successfully played Doom GBA in less then 9 minutes on a real cartridge. After 14,300+ resets over nearly 3 years of playing the game, he would achieve what was considered the 'Final Barrier' for how low the game could reach in total minutes.

October of 2020 lead Alexo to the discovery of the first half of a new glitch in Doom GBA, which was undocumented for over 19 years. During practice, it was discovered dying on the frame exiting a level, and then saving immediately after, would cause the game to get confused. Loading the save file would allow the player to spawn with zero health. The game loads the level assuming the player is dead, no enemies can see the player, and no items can be picked up in this death state.

In March of 2021, further testing with the Death state and frame perfect exits, uncovered the second, and final part of the glitch that would once again change the Any% speedrun for the game. Once the player achieved the death state, Alexo realized doors and lifts inside the level could be used to crush the player into the floors and ceiling. The crushing objects would in turn allow Doomguy to enter a state in which all barriers for out of bounds were eliminated, freely letting the player walk to the end of the level. This was called "Dead Man Walking", or "Zombie" state.

Alexo once again took on further times in the fall of 2021, lowering the Doom GBA Any% time to under 8 minutes, and the Nightmare time to under 10 minutes. Alexo has currently put Doom GBA away to keep from further being burned out, returning to the game at random in spans of 4 months or longer. He has only 2 world record times in 2022, which is his lowest amount of submissions for the game since 2017.

Other Doom Runs
Alexo is one of a few who have specialized in running Doom for inferior platforms from the 90's. He currently has the fastest time in Doom GBA, Doom 3DO (16:36 ), and Doom II GBA (42:35 ).

He was the former world record holder in SNES Doom Any%, Doom 32x (10:28 ), and Doom 1 on Sega Saturn. The only version he has never held a world record time for is Doom for Playstation 1.

He was one of many who had a tied 9 second run for UV difficulty on E1M1. His time was set before the first 8s speedrun was performed on the level in 2019. This would be the only PC Doom record Alexo has ever played currently.