Chex Quest HD!

[josepharaoh99]

Oh wow! I am stoked about when the game finally comes out. I can barely wait!! 

[drooben]

Hey There,

I wanted to give you guys some background on my inspiration for the new music mixes.

When we did the original back in the 90's, I used two sound cards -- a crappy cheap one and a nicer one that had a built in synthesizer -- that I used to monitor the music to make sure it was acceptable on a range of hardware. That said, the music through the sound cards never sounded as good as the sounds I had access to in my studio with actual synths.

Fast forward to this winter when I started doing the remixes. I actually started going for a more orchestral, movie soundtrack vibe. It sounded pretty good. But I had this flashback to my old synths and wondered what it would sound like if I used more retro sounds. In other words, what if I tried to achieve what I was never able to with the sound cards of the 90s?

I also made a rule for the remixes: I couldn't add any notes, I could only take notes and parts away. The original songs were dense with percussion and other rapid fire movement. I really stripped the songs down to their essence using high quality retro synth sounds and better sound quality overall.

I totally get it if some people are hungry for a more movie soundtrack feel for the music. So many modern games do that really well and that's where I started too. But thinking about the CQ gameplay, the quirkiness of the sounds and music, and the original inspiration for the music, which was more 80s/90s synth-based, got me to what you'll hear in the game.

To me, CQ music is both funny and serious at the same time. Just like the idea of saving the world with a b***** cereal warrior. I was searching for the essence of that in the remixes.

I hope you enjoy it!

Andrew

[Awesomedude249]

Hey There,

I wanted to give you guys some background on my inspiration for the new music mixes.

When we did the original back in the 90's, I used two sound cards -- a crappy cheap one and a nicer one that had a built in synthesizer -- that I used to monitor the music to make sure it was acceptable on a range of hardware. That said, the music through the sound cards never sounded as good as the sounds I had access to in my studio with actual synths.

Fast forward to this winter when I started doing the remixes. I actually started going for a more orchestral, movie soundtrack vibe. It sounded pretty good. But I had this flashback to my old synths and wondered what it would sound like if I used more retro sounds. In other words, what if I tried to achieve what I was never able to with the sound cards of the 90s?

I also made a rule for the remixes: I couldn't add any notes, I could only take notes and parts away. The original songs were dense with percussion and other rapid fire movement. I really stripped the songs down to their essence using high quality retro synth sounds and better sound quality overall.

I totally get it if some people are hungry for a more movie soundtrack feel for the music. So many modern games do that really well and that's where I started too. But thinking about the CQ gameplay, the quirkiness of the sounds and music, and the original inspiration for the music, which was more 80s/90s synth-based, got me to what you'll hear in the game.

To me, CQ music is both funny and serious at the same time. Just like the idea of saving the world with a b***** cereal warrior. I was searching for the essence of that in the remixes.

I hope you enjoy it!

Andrew

Ah, I see. I was actually thinking about making some orchestral versions of the Chex Quest music myself, would you mind if I did this?

[Nomekop]

I might as well mention it here: I'm kinda... saddened by the quality of the Zorch effects. I mean, it looks more as if the Flemoid is being vaporized than them being teleported away. Like, how much more difficult would it be to mimic the original zorch effects? You even had it functioning in 3D with the original Chex Quest Intro, so It seems possible... unless it can't be pulled off with the combination of shaders and particle effects you can work with. I don't know how unreal works. Plus the sparks from the zorcher hitting seem a bit to big, but that might not be needs at all if the classic zorch effect is recreated.

Another thing that kinda gets to me, is the moving zorch balls on the small zorcher. They didn't move in the original, and the Large Zorcher doesn't have them, so they are honestly kinda confusing. Either way, the scaling seems kinda off with all of the zorchers.

Something someone else brought up was that the rotation of the flemoids moving in a new direction was too sudden, and that it seemed as if the movement just copied the original monster movement code. I can see this, but to me, it honestly doesn't seem like a huge issue. Might want to look at that anyway, though.

[Atariangamer]

To me, CQ music is both funny and serious at the same time. Just like the idea of saving the world with a b***** cereal warrior. I was searching for the essence of that in the remixes.

I hope you enjoy it!

I remember emailing you a few years back, asking about what the music sounded like when you made it. Your response was exactly this: Make it sound good with the simplest and cheapest equipment you had. While I do miss the crazy drums, It sounds really good! The other thing that will help is having everything come together. This should sound fantastic in the background while running through the levels.

Thanks to you and Chukker for all your work so far!

[Replica]

I am just blown away by how awesome you gentlemen are! I personally think the music remix is perfect. It really does give an epic space adventure feeling. Amazing work Drooben! Thanks for taking the time to make this!


Awesomedude, Nomekop... remember this is made in their free time, for fans, for free. Try to show some appreciation please? We don't want to scare them away. Also remember that it's still in production. He'll be adding polish to the game until it's done. I personally think it's amazing the way it is, and will almost certainly like it if he changes it too.

[Chukker]

Honest critique is welcomed, not discouraged. Having ideas on how to improve the game by those who will be the ones who play it is usually more helpful then lots of praise at this stage of development. I did experiment with creating more of the shrinking bubble to wink-out as the sprites appear, but it was hard to recreate with a single visual effect that worked from all possible vantage points, including potentially above and below the enemies. The zorch energy being over the top I agree with, it's something I'm not happy with and already have a second iteration of this effect in the works. Regarding the weapons, I didn't want to 100% completely copy the visual design of everything in the game. So embellishments have been added in a number of areas so things feel new but yet familiar. The flemoids having no actual turn animations... yeah . Animation blueprints / character controllers are not my area of expertise in Unreal. I've looked at lot of examples online about how to elegantly get pawns to rotate like modern games. It's certainly possible, but will require a lot of new code which I don't have a ton of confidence I can implement without creating new bugs. For example my first attempt at this resulted in flemoids that once you got close to them, just strafing around them would result in them never getting an opportunity to fire at you because they were constantly in a rotation readjust state. It felt like an exploit. So I reverted to them to immediately facing you and playing their attack once in range. Visually inferior but better for gameplay.
Good notes. I encourage anyone with things that they find annoying to mention them. We won't address everything because we can't make everyone happy all the time obviously and we are limited by team size and skills.

[Felix]

I'm blown away by the progress you've made on this, and your eagerness to please the fans and put forth the best product possible, all in your spare time and for free. I know I'm deeply grateful for it, and I'm beyond pleased with both the trailer and the first remix. I think both have managed to capture the heart of the original game while updating it with a fresh modern "high definition" polish. Which was I think the point all along. This is just a high definition remake, not an entirely new Chex game, so I think the decisions made, such as the animation point mentioned above, are not really major issues worth losing sleep over.

Great work and I'm looking forward to seeing more soon!

[diablo291]

Oh my lord dude, I'm totally excited for this. I'm very grateful for you making this.
The trailer looks great btw.

[Yoshimitsu]

Hello All! I've never seen this forum before today but I was looking for more info on Chex Quest HD and stumbled in. A quick introduction: For most of my life I've been a huge fan of gaming and there are 3 that were my holy trinity when I first began at a young age; Descent 2, Tekken 3, and Chex Quest.

Descent has been maintained through community mods & source ports. In recent years its genre has been experiencing a renaissance and many of the original team are making a spiritual successor called Overload (it's awesome)!

Tekken never went away. I still love the modern incarnations of Yoshimitsu.

Now Chex Quest is getting a remake! The screenshots and trailer look amazing and I can't wait to play it when it's ready. I always loved the game's mix of funny and serious (although when I was 7 it was actually pretty scary), and it looks like CQ HD has all the elements and the same attitude that I enjoyed so much in the original. When I found out about the project my response was to tell everyone around me about it and start making flemoid noises! Luckily my friends and family and coworkers already know I'm a bit crazy. Thank you Chukker, Drooben, and the rest of your valiant team, you've made me feel like a little excited kid again!

[drooben]

Hey Yoshmitsu, thanks for playing Chex Quest! Glad your flemoid noises didn't scare your friends away. :lolwut

drooben

[Ether Bot]

I'd just like to say this is rad. Always surprised by this community to be honest.

[Mrdzone]

When will we expect the game to come out?

[xbolt]

When will we expect the game to come out?

[Awesomedude249]

When will we expect the game to come out?

Early to mid 2018 is my guess, but I could be completely wrong.