Gameplay Edit

Quake gameplay In Quake's single-player mode, players explore and navigate to the exit of each Gothic and dark level, facing monsters and finding secret areas along the way. Usually there are switches to activate or keys to collect in order to open doors before the exit can be reached. Reaching the exit takes the player to the next level. Before accessing an episode, there is a set of three pathways with easy, medium, and hard skill levels. The fourth skill level, "Nightmare", was "so bad that it was hidden, so people won't wander in by accident";[3] the player must drop through water before the episode four entrance and go into a secret passage to access it. Quake's single-player campaign is organized into four individual episodes with seven to eight levels in each (including one secret level per episode, one of which is a "low gravity" level that challenges the player's abilities in a different way). As items are collected, they are carried to the next level, each usually more challenging than the last. If the player's character dies, he must restart at the beginning of the level. The game may be saved at any time. Upon completing an episode, the player is returned to the hub "START" level, where another episode can be chosen. Each episode starts the player from scratch, without any previously collected items. Episode one (which formed the shareware or downloadable demo version of Quake) has the most traditional ideology of a boss in the last level. The ultimate objective at the end of each episode is to recover a magic rune. After all of the runes are collected, the floor of the hub level opens up to reveal an entrance to the "END" level which contains the final boss of the game. Multiplayer Edit In multiplayer mode, players on several computers connect to a server (which may be a dedicated machine or on one of the player's computers), where they can either play the single-player campaign together in co-op mode, or play against each other in multiplayer. When players die in multiplayer mode, they can immediately respawn, but will lose any items that were collected. Similarly, items that have been picked up previously respawn after some time, and may be picked up again. The most popular multiplayer modes are all forms of deathmatch. Deathmatch modes typically consist of either free-for-all (no organization or teams involved), one-on-one duels, or organized teamplay with two or more players per team (or clan). Teamplay is also frequently played with one or another mod. Monsters are not normally present in teamplay, as they serve no purpose other than to get in the way and reveal the positions of the players. The gameplay in Quake was considered unique for its time because of the different ways the player can maneuver through the game.[citation needed] For example: bunny hopping or strafe jumping can be used to move faster than normal, while rocket jumping enables the player to reach otherwise-inaccessible areas at the cost of some self-damage. The player can start and stop moving suddenly, jump unnaturally high, and change direction while moving through the air. Many of these non-realistic behaviors contribute to Quake's appeal. Multiplayer Quake was one of the first games singled out as a form of electronic sport.[citation needed] A notable participant was Dennis Fong who won John Carmack's Ferrari 328 at the Microsoft-sponsored Red Annihilation tournament in 1997.

Plot Edit

In the single-player game, the player takes the role of the protagonist known as Ranger (voiced by Trent Reznor)[4] who was sent into a portal in order to stop an enemy code-named "Quake". The government had been experimenting with teleportation technology and developed a working prototype called a "Slipgate"; the mysterious Quake compromised the Slipgate by connecting it with its own teleportation system, using it to send death squads to the "Human" dimension in order to test the martial capabilities of humanity. The sole surviving protagonist in "Operation Counterstrike" is Ranger, who must advance, starting each of the four episodes from an overrun human military base, before fighting his way into other dimensions, reaching them via the Slipgate or their otherworld equivalent. After passing through the Slipgate, Ranger's main objective is to collect four magic runes from four dimensions of Quake; these are the key to stopping the enemy later discovered as Shub-Niggurath and ending the invasion of Earth. The single-player campaign consists of 30 separate levels, or "maps", divided into four episodes (with a total of 26 regular maps and four secret ones), as well as a hub level to select a difficulty setting and episode, and the game's final boss level. Each episode represents individual dimensions that the player can access through magical portals (as opposed to the technological Slipgate) that are discovered over the course of the game. The various realms consist of a number of gothic, medieval, and lava-filled caves and dungeons, with a recurring theme of hellish and satanic imagery reminiscent of Doom (such as pentagrams and images of demons on the walls). The latter is inspired by several dark fantasy influences, most notably that of H. P. Lovecraft. Dimensional Shamblers appear as enemies, the "Spawn" enemies are called "Formless Spawn of Tsathoggua" in the manual, the boss of the first episode is named Chthon, and the main villain is named Shub-Niggurath (though actually resembling a Dark Young). Some levels have Lovecraftian names, such as the Vaults of Zin and The Nameless City. In addition, six levels exclusively designed for multiplayer deathmatch are also included. Originally, the game was supposed to include more Lovecraftian bosses, but this concept was scrapped due to time constraints.

Development Edit

Reception Edit

Speedruns Edit

Main articles: Speedrun and Quake done Quick As an example of the dedication that Quake has inspired in its fan community, a group of expert players recorded speedrun demos (replayable recordings of the player's movement) of Quake levels completed in record time on the "Nightmare" skill level. The footage was edited into a continuous 19 minutes, 49 seconds demo called Quake done Quick and released on June 10, 1997. Owners of Quake could replay this demo in the game engine, watching the run unfold as if they were playing it themselves. This involved a number of players recording run-throughs of individual levels, using every trick and shortcut they could discover in order to minimize the time it took to complete, usually to a degree that even the original level designers found difficult to comprehend, and in a manner that often bypassed large areas of the level. Stitching a series of the fastest runs together into a coherent whole created a demonstration of the entire game. Recamming is also used with speedruns in order to make the experience more movie-like, with arbitrary control of camera angles, editing, and sound that can be applied with editing software after the runs are first recorded. However, the fastest possible time for a given level will not necessarily result in the fastest time used to contribute to "running" the entire game. One example is acquiring the grenade launcher in an early level, an act that slows down the time for that level over the best possible, but speeds up the overall game time by allowing the runner to bypass a big area in a later level that they could not otherwise do. A second attempt, Quake done Quicker, reduced the completion time to 16 minutes, 35 seconds (a reduction of 3 minutes, 14 seconds). Quake done Quicker was released on September 13, 1997. One of the levels included was the result of an online competition to see who could get the fastest time. The culmination of this process of improvement was Quake done Quick with a Vengeance. Released three years to the day after Quake done Quicker, this pared down the time taken to complete all four episodes, on Nightmare (hardest) difficulty, to 12 minutes, 23 seconds (a further reduction of 4 minutes, 12 seconds), partly by using techniques that had formerly been shunned in such films as being less aesthetically pleasing. This run was recorded as an in-game demo, but interest was such that an .avi video clip was created to allow those without the game to see the run. Most full-game speedruns are a collaborative effort by a number of runners (though some have been done by single runners on their own). Although each particular level is credited to one runner, the ideas and techniques used are iterative and collaborative in nature, with each runner picking up tips and ideas from the others, so that speeds keep improving beyond what was thought possible as the runs are further optimized and new tricks or routes are discovered. Further time improvements of the continuous whole game run were achieved into the 21st century. In addition, many thousands of individual level runs are kept at Speed Demos Archive's Quake section, including many on custom maps. Speedrunning is a counterpart to multiplayer modes in making Quake one of the first games promoted as a virtual sport.

Legacy Edit

Expansions Edit

See also Edit

Diary of a Camper, a short film made in Quake

Notes Edit