Project: Tremor / Out Of Time

What’s it all about?

Well, after having a bit of a break from the trials and tribulations in both the real world and that of QuakeOne.com and seeking to make a few changes in direction I thought I would give NextGenQuake a fair chance and start my own thread. It was a little scary in some ways as you don’t know how people will react to you in a new community but, after being inspired by Arrrcee’s approach, I thought I would share a few thoughts and ideas I have been working on.

As some in the Quake community will know I have been a developer among other things for quite some years but had never been anywhere near the dark, murky world of Game Development. As I’m no spring chicken and one never knows how long one has got to do these things, I decided to at least try to do something constructive, fun, and maybe learn something (such as yet another programming language or two) along the way so I could grasp the rudiments of game dev.

But what direction should one go in? That’s a good question and in my case as I have got so much pleasure and experience from playing games like Quake 1 and Half Life 2 I decided to do something I was familiar with and had some interest in playing. The general idea was to try and take the best ideas of these games and then build on and incorporate them in to my little free to play FPS project using a modern engine in the hope that it may inspire others with more gifts and talents than I to go further. To be clear, I have zero artistic talent so if I ever finish this thing it won’t be pretty but it’s only a learning project for a bit of fun.

To help with testing and development I wanted a look and feel that I was comfortable with and so chose a mix of industrial and fantasy themes using freely available content from the web. Initially this includes QRP textures along with PBR and some hi-res images and I take no credit whatsoever for any textures.

As “an Easter egg” to the main game, and hopefully encourage people to play the original games, I am including a few reworked versions of some popular levels that are either shareware or freely downloadable.

Game Outline:
The idea behind the main game in the project is that it is a FPS style game with a temporal element to it requiring the player, a soldier with training in “special” forces, to go on missions as directed by “the elders” . The player will be challenged to identify powerful dark enemy forces already within the level who are intent on destruction and shutdown their operations before they are able to complete their mission and jeopardise the player’s very existence. The temporal missions will have a time limit so the player must get the job done or run the risk of being Out Of Time and fail that mission.
I have already added a couple of slightly reworked very “familiar” maps and would like to add a number of popular custom Quake maps for nostalgia’s sake including Cleaver, Aerowalk, Basewalk, Ultrav, and a few others assuming the original authors don’t object. Maybe a few of the Arcane Dimension maps if I can convert them. I hope to finish a fair selection of these before I move on to designing the levels for the main game.

Play Modes:
It will initially be single player but I would like to look at adding coop and multiplayer modes (if I can) further down the line.

Weapons:

For details on what weapons are being worked on please see the Weapons tab
Breakable objects are something I will be working on this coming weekend assuming all goes to plan.

Enemies:
TBC, but I hope to have a variety enemies ranging from the straightforward grunt like figures to beasts, to larger “Bosses”.  If possible these too will be varied according to the mission parameters and timeline so what you face in one mission is next necessarily what you will face in the next.Classes?
I’m no 3D artist but at some point I would like to provide a variety of simple player models to suit different tastes (e.g. female, male, black, white, Asian, older, younger, large and muscular to small, slim and lithe).  While I’m at it I’m tempted to look at classes too, so perhaps something along the lines of selectable player classes with extra stealth, speed, strength or targeting abilities.  Personally I’m not massively keen on class based systems but I’m told they are often popular with the younger player base.But this is for the future, something to look forward to 🙂

Current Commands:

2	Select Pistol
6	Select Grenade Launcher
7	Select Rocket Launcher
w	Move Forward
a	Move Left
s	Move Backwards
d	Move right
Shift (when moving forwards)	Run
SPACE	Jump
e	Use Item
f	Use Flashlight
q	Quit Game
r	Reload Weapon

Weapons:
The weapons the player will be provided with will change according to the mission parameters and timeline and will be “beamed in” so the player can hunt them out. Initially the following are under consideration as a starting point but more will be added as I think of them or people suggest them to me:

1. One of Knife / Axe / Crowbar (supplied by default)
2. Pistol (supplied by default)
3. Double Barrel Shotgun
4. Sniper Rifle
5. Machine Gun / Nail gun
6. Grenade Launcher
7. Rocket Launcher
8. Plasma Gun/bfg
9. Crossbow
10. Entrapment weapons (Tripwires, proximity grenades, smoke grenades, Det packs, autosentries, beartraps)
11. The ZPEG/GG (Maybe)
12. Grappling HookI also plan to add Powerups including Shields, Healing, Biotoxin antidote, Runes, Teleportation, Biosuits, and Homing Rockets.

To give you some illustration of what I’m trying to achieve I have included a few screenshots below. It needs to have the overall lighting turned down and then be rebaked but it should be enough for you to get the idea.. 🙂

Videos

A quick texture and effects demo of the Easter Egg Start Level using QRP Textures (to please the purists 🙂 )  running in Unity 2017.1

Credits: The Map was designed by John Romero and the textures provided courtesy of [Moon]Drunk and the Quake Retexturing Project.

Level Images

e1m67ish

Original Author: American McGee

Endish

Original Author: John Romero

Shub’s end is nigh

Custom Maps

Map Name: Aerowalk

Author: Preacher

Custom Maps – The Faults Within

My take on “The Faults Within” by the very talented MFX which in turn is a clever remix of E3M2 The Vaults Of Zin by American McGee

Custom Maps – ztndm3 – Blood Run

A test of one of the most popular Quake Maps  ztndm3 “Blood Run” by Sten “ztn” Uusvali.   Textures by Moon Dunk and the Quake Revitalisation Project team.

My thanks to One Mad Gypsy for providing backup copies of map images following the sad demise of nextgenquake.com.