Hello! A little background on myself: I was a part of team Chex Quest HD and worked on that project (released in May 2020). That in itself doesn't have much to do with id Tech 1 besides the Chex Quest ‘franchise’. Where the two converge is that while working on CQHD in 2019 and while chexquest.com still had CQ3 hosted, interest was show in updating it—mainly for CD movie playback. I was asked to find out if GZDoom could be made to play the movies or not (keep in mind this was before GZDoom picked up SMK support!).
While I was at it, fixing bugs and beautifying the levels, I wondered if it was possible to get Chex Quest 3 working on a non-ZDoom source port. As I always thought the online community getting together plays a big factor in keeping things going, I wanted to go for a client/server source port. It was also in the back of my mind that Odamex is the port of choice for QuakeCon.
That decision made the choice simple, which is why I here announce Chex Quest 3 for Odamex/ZDaemon. For Odamex, this can be used as a custom IWAD (spoofing Registered DOOM), but it will eventually work best as a PWAD on top of chex.wad. This is to take advantage of features Odamex adds when Chex Quest is the detected IWAD, like green damage tint and menu text translation. For ZDaemon, the only way it will properly is as a custom IWAD. This is because ZDaemon has no chex.exe support (1.10.20 tested) and treats chex.wad like Ultimate DOOM, making an unwanted fourth episode. It has to be forced with -iwad to load it since ZLauncher pretends it doesn't exist.
There's a token amount of compatibility with mainline Chex Quest 3. All of the DoomEd Nums, patches and textures overlap, so it's actually possible to make something like a map pack and keep modifications moderate. This is actually what made this entire endeavour appealing to begin with, and probably would have turned me off if not possible. If someone would *want* to make a cross-compatible map pack is another question entirely, but it's possible.
I realize that I'm probably slicing an already thin pie as it is in terms of getting an interested base. However, I also see it as a Catch-22 where Chex Quest (3) has never been an option so few here would be interested in something they couldn't play on their port of choice, but when Chex Quest is presented few are interested because it's never been available. However few or many are interested, though, this is a personal exercise I wanted to take, both to see if it was possible as well as to expand the fan base.
As much as to announce this mod and that it's coming soon, this is also to tip my hand to the devs here and coordinate with them to see if they have any input to offer or to check with how this new IWAD-as-PWAD might interact with this source port, sort out bugs/issues, etc.
A side note: Since this is a cross-compatible version between two source ports, I will inevitably as the situation calls incidentally refer to the other source port. Just to clarify, I'm neither officially with either Odamex or ZDaemon, nor do I intend to here compare the two or their communities. As Chex Quest has always been a solo port, and up to this point a ZDoom project, I see this as an opportunity for Chex Quest to reach out to both other communities in an olive branch-type manner. Think of this as a new Christmas toy you've gotta share with your brother. :)
Just to be clear, this is fully encouraged and supported by Charles Jacobi, an original artist of Chex Quest and primary author of Chex Quest 3. I'm a fan of Chex Quest, but this update is not a fan project as such. He's been keep up to date on my doings and progress. If you have questions about this, feel free to contact him about it.
For more information, check out:
www.chexquest3.comgithub.com/Acts19quiz/chex3gzdhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BQ7ZBQcLKUI'm currently in the process of planning a test within the Chex Quest community of the 'main line' version. A similar online test of the Odamex/ZDaemon version will be forthcoming.
