Quake Advent Calendar 2013 - Part 3

Welcome to a Quake-themed Advent Calendar. On 24 days 24 people will showcase something about Quake. Something old, something new, something obscure, something you should check out. Monitor the list on the frontpage to see new posts every day. This is part 3 for the 13th to 18th December. See quake_advent_calendar_2013 for the previous posts.

14th December - negke

Of the huge number of available Quake mods, there are several impressive total conversions that shift Quake from a first-person shooter to an entirely different genre. One that for certain reasons stands out for me as a good example is Lunkin's Journey, released in 2005 by ajay.

Lunkin's Journey is a third-person platformer with 16 small levels. The player controls Lunkin, a feisty little goblin who is shunned by the other goblins in the village. One day, he decides to leave his old home behind to search for a new place to live which ultimately leads to the adventure of his lifetime. For the most part, the gameplay consists of finding one's way through hazardous environments and jumping over death pits while fighting enemies with a small variety of attacks (e.g. farts, lightning bolts and frog bombs) that increase in power the more experience points are acquired. Occasionally, the player also has to explore areas for special items, and there even is a racing challenge. It is fairly difficult initially, but it becomes easier as the attack powers level up.

The reason Lunkin's Journey stuck with me is not because of technical merits. In fact, it is not a very polished experience on the surface - the code and gameplay can be dodgy, even buggy in parts, the levels are very crude, and there are compatibility issues with several engine ports. Neither is it one of the great releases of the early years, nor one that showcases the fullest extent of possibilites concerning the overhaul of every single core mechanic and content of the original game. Yet, this mod has a quirky charm and it feels to me like an ideal, one could say an archetypal example of the potential for creative work and what can be done in Quake. Possibly no game before (and few after) offered such an easily-accessible, yet powerful modding environment that enables people to create their own little custom games, even or especially as one-man projects with no professional background. In this sense, it is not so much about perfection, but dedication and the joy of creating something new. This is what LJ is about for me.

For anyone who has not heard of Lunkin's Journey before, I recommend giving it a try. Perhaps it can be considered as an entry point for exploring the world of Quake mods in general, and total conversions in particular.

PS. Incidentally, there is a Christmas-themed Lunkin mini mod as well!

13th December - CocoT

Believe it or not, when I first stumbled upon Coffee's AI Cafe, I was actually looking for information on bot coding in the hope to develop my own Hexen2 bot. At the time, bots were the rage and, as Hexen2 coding tutorials were few and far between, it made sense to use Quake tutorials to get a sense of QuakeC/HexenC's workings. Long story short, I never wrote a single line of Hexen2 bot code and got sucked in, thanks to Coffee's AI Cafe and the wonderful community I found there, into the world of Quake modding.

In the world of Quake bots, Coffee's bot holds a special place in my heart because of its extreme user-friendliness and because of the way, week after week, Coffee learned, together with his readers, about how to make it better and he shared his discoveries in the form of tutorials, which you can still read here. In all likelihood, there will never be a new coding tutorial written by Coffee for Quake. However, more than a decade later, I still believe these tutorials are a great way to start coding for Quake. They are humorous and highly informative. They teach you the basics (and then some), without ever sounding condescending or too complicated. I would advise, however, not to burn through them too quickly, but enjoy them one by one, slowly. Experiment with them in creative ways before moving on to the next – they are the chocolate and wine (or fancy bratwurst and beer, if you prefer) of a beginner's Quake modding life.

Coffee's Bot is a worthy Quake opponent, and its plugability – at a time when Frikbot was in the making – meant it appeared in several Quake mods (including some of my own). It was also a direct influence on FrikaC's famous FrikBot, which of course says a lot about it. Coffee released, next to his bot, numerous mods. The most striking to me was released at the end of his Quake modding career, when, and after a long absence, Coffee surprised us all by releasing for QExpo 2003 the fantastic Team Fortress Bots (read all about it here). It remains, to this day, the best, most stable and enjoyable teamplay modification for this father of all Quake mods.