Chex Quest 3

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Chex Quest 3 E3M1

Chex Quest 3 is a 2008 computer game which runs on the ZDoom engine. It was developed by Charles Jacobi, who was the art director and lead artist for Digital Café and worked on the original Chex Quest. Charles credits Mark Quinn aka "Boingo the Clown" for giving him the motivation to work on Chex Quest again. The completion of this project by the original author, after failed fan-created attempts and a ten-year wait, was a huge surprise and Chex Quest 3 was well-received, earning one of the 2008 Cacowards.

Chex Quest 3 contains slightly updated versions of the maps from Chex Quest (episode 1) and Chex Quest 2 (episode 2), in addition to its new maps. However, it is not compatible with mods created for the original Chex Quest as it modifies several actors, including changes to their editor numbers.

New content include several textures and sprites, new monsters, as well as the five maps from Episode 3.

All maps are in the Hexen map format, and the WAD contains ZDoom-style lumps: DECORATE, MAPINFO, SNDINFO, ANIMDEFS, TEXTCOLO, LOCKDEFS, and LANGUAGE; therefore Chex Quest 3 can only be played on a ZDoom-compatible port. In 2019 the game was officially re-released online by Chex owner General Mills.[1]

Enemies[edit]

Chex Quest 3 includes the enemies of both previous episodes, with some slight tweaks, as well as new ones. While the new enemies in Chex Quest 2 were mere cosmetic replacements for their equivalent in Chex Quest, and therefore had the same statistics and behavior, Chex Quest 3 separates them fully as different actor types.

Flemoidus commonus
Returning from previous episodes, it is still the weakest enemy, the equivalent of a Doom zombieman with no ranged attack or drop.
Flemoidus bipedicus
Another veteran of the previous episodes, it is still the equivalent of a Doom shotgun guy with no ranged attack or drop.
Armored flemoidus bipedicus
The imp replacement in Chex Quest returns unchanged.
Flemoidus cycloptis
The demon replacement in Chex Quest now serves as a spectre replacement. It remains visible and otherwise unchanged.
The Flembrane
The guardian of Bazoik is still basically an immobile baron of Hell, but it now serves as a Hell knight replacement.
Flemoidus quadrumpus
The imp replacement in Chex Quest 2 is now given editor number 9057.
Flemoid larva
The demon replacement in Chex Quest 2 had its hit points reduced by a third, and has been given the editor number 9050.
Flemoidus maximus
The baron of Hell replacement in Chex Quest 2 can now move, instead of being stuck in place like the Flembrane.
Flemoidus stridicus
The new demon replacement. It is 50% tougher than the cycloptis, 60% faster, and hurts just as much.
Super cycloptis
The cacodemon replacement. While the regular cycloptis can only hover a short distance above the ground, this one actually flies. It also has a lot more health and a missile attack.
Flem mine
The lost soul replacement. This flying pests seeks to collide with you at high speed.
The Flembomination
The spiderdemon replacement. A huge mass slimy mass of eyes and snouts. Once it sees an enemy, it shoots large balls of slime continuously, only stopping when flinching from pain.
Lord Snotfolus
The leader of the flemoid invasion, Snotfolus is the cyberdemon replacement. It attacks by firing volleys of three balls of slime.

Levels[edit]

Episode 1: Rescue on Bazoik[edit]

Episode 2: Terror in Chex City[edit]

Episode 3: Invasion![edit]

Engine[edit]

Chex Quest 3 includes a separate executable, called CHEX3.EXE. This is a renamed build of ZDoom with a custom name and icon made by Aroenai, and contains, according to the Chex Quest 3 readme file, "appropriate changes to flemoids, projectiles, strings and more". The changes are however rather trivial in nature, with regular ZDoom officially supporting the game as an IWAD starting at version 2.3.0.

CHEX3.EXE itself is based on ZDoom version 2.3.1 (r1480) dated June 23, 2009.

Projects based off CHEX3.EXE[edit]

Despite being practically the same as regular ZDoom, the Chex Quest community created various projects requiring the official ZDoom based CHEX3.EXE:

  • Chex Quest 2.5 - A project to bring the unofficial Chex Quest 3 release (an illegal version based on Doom Legacy) to the official release, revamped and enhanced, and with the illegal elements replaced.
  • Community Quest - A mapset, made in the same vein as the Community Chest series.
  • The Stick Figure - A total conversion, where the player is a stick figure and needs to kill all enemies and the boss to save stickkind.

GZDoom version[edit]

The author of the Chex Quest 3 icon, Aroenai, made a semi-official replacement executable with the same CHEX3.EXE name. Unlike the official executable, Aroenai's version is actually more recent and is based off GZDoom. His version of CHEX3.EXE is based on GZDoom version 1.4.0 (r713M), corresponding with ZDoom 2.4.0 (r2096), dated January 5, 2010. It includes several enhancements over the official version:

  • Cheats fixed (done in the official v1.4)
  • All other tweaks made in the official chex3.exe
  • Player options screen has a green background instead of red
  • Player's skin is blue by default
  • Texture filtering disabled by default in OpenGL mode (no blurry sprites)
  • Demos play at the title screen
  • Tweaked the icon a bit
  • Dropped the 32 bit icons because they're identical to the 256 ones (GZDoom's icon doesn't have 32 bit icons either)
  • Smoothed out 48x48 a tiny bit
  • 16 color icons now match the original CQ1 and CQ2 icons

Vanilla version[edit]

An unofficial port of the game to the vanilla Doom engine using DeHackEd was created by Melodic Spaceship and announced in March 2024. A further port of the unofficial fourth episode Flemmed to the Core was announced by Vidyabatter in November 2024.

See also[edit]

External links[edit]

References[edit]

  1. Wilde, Tyler (23 May 2019). "Chex Quest 3 is now official General Mills canon." PC Gamer. Retrieved 17 November 2024.