Quake (1996) and some related programs, including TyrQuake and LibreQuake


     1. QUAKE
     2. TYRQUAKE
     3. LIBREQUAKE
     4. NWRECKDUM
     5. REPSTRING


1. QUAKE

Quake, released in 1996, was a techdemo for 3D computer graphics, which was
initially sold as a video game. The program involved the 3D rendering of a
landscape and some movement (a little like walking) through it. A very annoying
feature was the fact that the landscapes often contained some ugly animated
characters, which looked like they wanted to harm you. It is possible to
remove them, but the method, although simple (see program "repstring" below),
was not documented. The technique used for 3D rendering did have some things
worth appreciating, however, like binary space partitioning (a method developed
in the context of 3D computer graphics in 1969) and some optimisations for the
Intel Pentium CPUs available in 1996. The landscapes mentioned above are stored
in files called "*.bsp", where the extension ".bsp" comes from "binary space
partitioning". Also worth mentioning is probably the QuakeC language (see file
"WikipediaQuakeC.txt" here).

Currently:

https://github.com/id-Software/Quake

"The code is all licensed under the terms of the GPL (gnu public license). You
should read the entire license, but the gist of it is that you can do anything
you want with the code, including sell your new version. The catch is that if
you distribute new binary versions, you are required to make the entire source
code available for free to everyone.
[...]
All of the Quake data files remain copyrighted and licensed under the original
terms, so you cannot redistribute data from the original game, but if you do a
true total conversion, you can create a standalone game based on this code."

TyrQuake is a version of the source code which adds support for new hardware
and operating systems. LibreQuake is a free "standalone game based on this
code".


2. TYRQUAKE

https://disenchant.net/tyrquake/

https://disenchant.net/files/engine/

Versions 0.61 and 0.71 are available in directory "tyrquake", without
modifications. From file "tyrquake/tyrquake-0.71/readme.txt":

"I want this to be a version of Quake that basically looks like the Quake of
old, but one that works on current operating systems."

Version 0.71 supports SDL2 (see file "SDL.txt") and X11. Version 0.61 requires
X11. File "tyr-quake.exe" is a 32-bit executable, which should also work with
64-bit versions of wInd0w$. I took it from archive "tyrquake-0.71-win32.zip"
available at the address above. To compile for GNU/Linux see "README.txt" in
directory "tyrquake". File "tyr-quake" here was compiled by me, for SDL2. To
start:

./tyr-quake

./tyr-quake -game a3 +skill 0 +map a2

or if you use wind0w$, click on tyr-quake.exe or on MSDOS.bat and type:

tyr-quake.exe -game a3 +skill 0 +map a2

Option "-game a3" specifies that the data found in directory "a3" will be used.
All the maps ("*.bsp" files) must be in directory "maps", and all the files and
directories around here must have their names written in lowercase, i.e.
"pak0.pak", not "PAK0.PAK", for instance.

After starting "tyr-quake", a text-based user interface can be accessed by
pressing "~". Commands like "skill 0" and "map a2" can be typed in it. Some
other commands:

maplist

map lq_e0m2

r_wateralpha 0.5

god

fly

noclip


3. LIBREQUAKE

As mentioned above, LibreQuake is a recently developed free "standalone game"
based on the free source code of Quake, so everything about Quake was solved.

https://github.com/lavenderdotpet/LibreQuake/releases

https://github.com/lavenderdotpet/LibreQuake/tags

The files I downloaded from there are in directory "id1", where I put the maps
from version "Lite" (file "lite.zip"). More details in directory "id1/docs".
I obviously fixed all the maps (see "repstring below") and besides LibreQuake,
file "a3/maps/a2.bsp" is also available, which I downloaded from

https://www.quaddicted.com/db/v2/

and obviously also fixed it (and renamed to "a2.bsp"). Details in directory
"a3" (file "A3.TXT" - "The Journey Home"). To start:

./tyr-qa3

or in wInD0W$, click on "tyr-qa3.bat".

This map is broken though, i.e. I couldn't access it properly when I removed
all the animated characters, so I just replaced them all with dogs, but the
problem is that I still have to point and click on them to get access to all
the map. More details in directory "tools/repstring".


4. NWRECKDUM

There are many landscapes for Quake that can be downloaded from site
https://www.quaddicted.com, but one problem is that in the archives available
there (usually "*.zip" files), maps are often combined in some larger files
called "pak*.pak" (usually "pak0.pak"), so you can't access the files "*.bsp"
to edit them. Program "nwreckdum" solves this.

https://github.com/danfe/nwreckdum

Details in directory "tools/nwreckdum".


5. REPSTRING

Programs provided for eliminating the annoying animated characters from the
maps, details in directory "tools/repstring" (see file "README.txt" there).
