Chex Quest HD!

[Chukker]

Hello Chex fans! I've dropped by to deliver some great news.  Obviously this year we're celebrating the 20th anniversary of the release of Chex Quest. I've gotten so many requests to make something for the occasion, but a full-time job and family make finding time hard. However I have been quietly recruiting a few volunteers to help out with something I have pondered doing for a while now... creating a modern remake of the original Chex Quest! I'm pleased to say that it might actually happen! Here's some WiP screens of what we're calling Chex Quest HD:




We're building this in Unreal Engine 4, which is quite an amazing toolset. We don't have much to show yet, but we make little bits of progress each week. There are a few things that we could use the community's help with, since in some ways you know the original game better than we do.

- We would like to get a breakdown of how the sounds are used. If we could get a list of each sound by its Doom name (etc. DSBGACT) and what it is used for, that would be super helpful since we have to recreate all of the audio logic in Unreal.

- We would like to get some sort of technical writeup of the stats of all the various weapons, enemies and items if possible. Also any information about the underlying logic of how things like the pain chance and armor systems behave would also be useful. We may not stick to this precisely, but it will give us a great place to start from.

- If there are any download mirrors of my Chex Quest 3D models out there, please take them down and remove them from other projects. These are being used in Chex Quest HD and I'd rather not have them appearing elsewhere in the unfinished state that I released them in a while back.

I'll be checking the forums off and on, but must apologize if I can't respond to posts or messages. I'm actually finalling a game at work right now, making the next couple of months even busier than normal.

[matthias720]

This looks incredible so far, Chukker! Can't wait to see a beta of some sort. :whale

[Boingo the Clown]

Wow! Neato!

It is nice to see you back Chukker.

Is there any other help we can give you to help the project along?

[xbolt]

I'm afraid I have to sue you now for the damages incurred from my head exploding.

[TrueDude]

I just posted this on Doomworld, since those people are very knowledgeable in the inner workings of the doom engine. Give it time and I'm sure you'll find the answers you seek.yt?

EDIT: I also had a few questions! Is there going to be any kind of multiplayer for this? Do you eventually plan to finish the trilogy in this remake?  Are you going to expand past the original levels at all? And should this get popular enough, would you consider a spiritual successor for kickstarter?

[TrueDude]

I just posted this on Doomworld, since those people are very knowledgeable in the inner workings of the doom engine. Give it time and I'm sure you'll find the answers you seek.

EDIT: I also had a few questions! Is there going to be any kind of multiplayer for this? Do you eventually plan to finish the trilogy in this remake?  Are you going to expand past the original levels at all? And should this get popular enough, would you consider a spiritual successor for kickstarter?

[TrueDude]

EDIT: thanks mobile

[75]

- We would like to get a breakdown of how the sounds are used. If we could get a list of each sound by its Doom name (etc. DSBGACT) and what it is used for, that would be super helpful since we have to recreate all of the audio logic in Unreal.

Is this what you're looking for? https://github.com/rheit/zdoom/blob/master/wadsrc/static/filter/game-doomchex/sndinfo.txt

- We would like to get some sort of technical writeup of the stats of all the various weapons....

Hopefully this quick list will get you started, I'll try to verify some of this over the weekend for you, let me know if you need the rate of fire of these weapons.

Fist: does between 2 and 20 damage

Pistol: does 5, 10, or 15 damage, remember that the first shot is perfectly accurate, every shot after that has a horizontal spread of about 8 degrees

Shotgun shoots 7 puffs, does 5, 10, or 15 damage per puff , with a spread of about 8 degrees

Chaingun Exactly the same as the pistol, except it fires faster and only shoots in 2 round bursts

Rocket Launcher See link

Plasma Gun Ball does 5 to 40 points of damage

BFG 9000: See link, remember: it's not just a an exploding projectile like the rocket or plasma ball is.

Also any information about the underlying logic of how things like the pain chance...

Each time an enemy is damaged, the engine picks a random number between 0 and 255.

If the random number is LESS than an enemy's painchance, the enemy enters their pain state.

So lower painchances mean that it's less likely that the enemy will be damaged.

For example: the imp's painchance is 200, so that means that there's a 200 out of 255 chance (78.4 percent) that it will enter its pain state on a given hit.

...and armor systems behave would also be useful.

Green armor (standard chex armor) absorbs 33% of damage

Blue armor (super chex armor) absorbs 50% of damage

Armor bonuses absorb 33% of damage

Let me know if you need more information, and good luck with the project!

[Awesomedude249]

DIHKJSPGIGODGIHJFHCHUKKER'SBACKWTF
^ my reaction when I saw this

[Chukker]

Thanks, 75, that will help a lot.

In response to some of the other questions:
Multiplayer - This won't be done initially. It requires a bunch of extra code for network play and programming is an area where we are in short supply.
Chex 2 & 3 - I probably won't consider this until the first is finished. Just getting Chex 1 done will be a lengthy undertaking given the small team.
Expanding beyond the original levels - No, the plan is to only include the original 5 levels. They all will however be re-designed. Most will end up being longer to play as a result.
Spiritual successor / kickstarter - Probably not, pursuing funding for game development would violate my non-compete agreement with my current employer.
Other help - I'll think about that. Doom/Chex Quest research and documentation are our biggest needs right now. Testing and bug tracking will be important later down the road. I'm not completely against anyone attempting to model and texture out some props for us, but I will be very selective about anything that goes into the game. It's important to our team that we maintain a minimal level of professional presentation to this project.

[Awesomedude249]

Is there going to be new music and/or flemoids for this like CQ3?

[Chukker]

Is there going to be new music and/or flemoids for this like CQ3?

No, but the plan is to remaster the music and maybe the sounds.

[Awesomedude249]

Is there going to be new music and/or flemoids for this like CQ3?

No, but the plan is to remaster the music and maybe the sounds.

Who is working on the music? Is it Andrew Benson like last time?

[TrueDude]

By the way, if you need any beta testers, I'd be able to put some time out of the week aside for this. I just got a new gaming rig and would love to have some games to try it out with.

[Awesomedude249]

I'd like to test too, this looks awesome.