vkQuake

Still Jammin’ To Quake

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Introduced a friend to the world of Quake this evening! We made it three episodes in before calling it a night, had a fun time blowing things up and finding secrets. We played the Remastered Version just so they could get a feel for the controls. One of these days I’ll have to see how well we can co-op with mods! Speaking of…

I finished up the 2018 Halloween Jam, so it only made sense to see what the 2019 Halloween Jam had to offer. It starts off very similarly to the 2018 version, but it has even more maps. I’ve only played a few of them so far. The level design is incredible, if not even better than the previous year.

My current favorite is The Outhouse. It features a shitter that takes you to another dimension. Traverse the void and interrupt a Satanic ritual, and eventually fight the outhouse after it transforms into a demon. Amazing what people can come up with for a game that was released decades ago.

Continued Jamming In Quake Tonight

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I’m glad I stumbled upon the Quake Halloween Jam! I finished The Black Procession tonight, a map that takes place at the Church of Quake (I’ve decided). Even with these old visuals there is still something beautiful about this digital hellscape, or maybe I just like the night sky,

I only have one map left to go through, then I might have to look into the other Halloween Jams! It’s a great way to keep an old game alive! As usual, if you want to see a couple more snaps I’ve posted them over on Mastodon.

Playing A Game From The 90’s With Mods From 2018

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A field of pumpkins, and a Quad Damage powerup in front of a scarecrow.

After venturing around for DOOM Halloween mods the other night I wanted to see what the Quake Community had to offer. I found the Quake Halloween Jam from 2018, which sports a total of nine spooky maps to play. So far I’m two levels through it, each level presenting a challenge even on Normal difficulty.

An image of a pumpkin patch on a wall that reads "Pumpkin Grind By Pinchy".
It’s like a world you can actually jump into.

When you load the Halloween Jam you start off underground in a coffin, but eventually make your way to a haunted house containing large portraits on the walls that you can leap into. I played Pumpkin Grind, which lives up to its name of having lots of pumpkins and being a grind (a FUN grind!).

Stone walls are lit by candles,
Mood lighting at its finest.

Then I ventured through The Four Incantations, where you have to fight off four wizards to open a seal to leave. That one also did a good job of throwing monsters at me. It gave me an excuse to download the latest vkQuake to check out. It was pretty easy to get up and running. I never really did much in the way of modding the old Quake. It was always DOOM and Quake III Arena that got my most modding attention as a kid. Better late than never I guess.

Goodbye glQuake, hello vkQuake!

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I remember Quake, excellent FPS of the time with excellent graphics of the time, then glQuake happened and it became even better. Now thanks to Novum we have vkQuake! A totally vulkanized version based off of the QuakeSpasm sourceport. Someone made a video showcasing the OpenGL (QuakeSpasm) version vs the Vulkan version.

The Vulkan version sports a nice performance increase (not that you really need it for Quake in this day and age, but still very nice. 😛 ) and it has a nice sharper look to it. I may have to retire Darkplaces and switch to this version, which can be downloaded here.