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Uh oh! It's time to get creepin'. This is serious business, guys.
Spoiler: In the pasta variety.
The Adventures of 3D Square - A ZDoom Nightmare
I was casually browsing my unsorted wads folder looking for something to play. Cluttered with .bak files left behind from various personal edits, I noticed something peculiar. square3d.pk3.bak
No square3d.pk3 to be found, I became curious. I had no memory of ever downloading, let alone editing anything 3D Square related. I had to see what it was.
I quickly dragged the file to ZDL and ran it on Doom2 with GZDoom. The moment it booted I felt something was awry. Some vague, primal feeling. Telling me to go back. Foolishly, I ignored it.
The regular Square intro music started playing over a black screen. Well, not quite black. It was... empty. Like I was seeing nothing at all. No color, no anything. Not really something I can explain.
Perplexed, I had to touch my screen to make sure I wasn't dreaming. I could feel it against my fingers no problem. Had I taken some drug and forgotten about it? Nope. I sat there thinking for a while with my hand on the monitor. Suddenly the music kicks in again and I pull my hand off the screen with a jump. Only, my fingers had attached to the nothingness. As I moved my hand, it was as if I was pulling the world towards me. I was literally moving planet Earth around freely with my hand. Quite a funky feeling. I didn't quite have time to react to this madness before I pulled back strongly in shock. The music suddenly surrounded me. I had fallen into the world of 3D Square!
The main menu showed up before me in the most horrifying display of 3D I had ever witnessed. It was as if I had slipped into some hyper realistic dimension somehow. Everything super sharp. Way better than what the human eye can interpret.
I'd become completely dazed, thinking that yes, this must be a dream. But I could feel things. See things. New things! Frightening things. The nothingness engulfing me made me feel incredibly uneasy. Nothing was as it should be.
"THE ADVENTURES OF 3D SQUARE"
- Play your game
- Load a life
- Save your life
This was all the menu showed. I don't know how long I looked at these words. It was as if time wasn't moving although I could follow the playing music. My thoughts were jumbled, uncontrolled.
Then, from the nothingness engulfing me, a certain Square figure unfolded. (I have no better way of explaining these events.) Just a face on a square. But something wasn't right. Not 3D, not just a sprite... the face shocked me with the stare it provided. This, backed by the background emptiness, sent me into a panic. What the hell was going on?! What had happened? How did I get here?
"NMA SEODNT EBLNOG REEH" the shape said. I felt empty. Like I was just along for a ride, to record the events I was seeing. Yes, I was scared stiff. The music was starting to grind against my poor, sobbing mind. How many loops now? It was as if it had no beginning or end.
Then I saw it. Square wasn't smoking. No cigar in sight. As I realized this, he morphed and changed. Swelling up to the point of bursting, veins all over the place. Then he deflates, spewing worms out of his eyes and mouth. Some hellish words followed and in a panic, I somehow selected a menu option. I have no idea which.
GONE. All went silent. Just for a moment. Limbo. Then, the world of 3D Square burned into my retinas with a flash. The colorful world I was in didn't matter. I knew a new world had been created around me but all I could do was gasp in panic and disbelief. I could feel myself swelling. My eyes bulging way beyond the zone of comfort. Acid in my veins, a dark mess growing inside me. I felt myself cracking, splitting up. I couldn't take it. The pain was unbearable. I couldn't breathe, couldn't scream, couldn't move.
It let up. I deflated while the darkness that had been growing in me didn't shrink at all. I fell, looking down at the ground. I saw myself for a moment through the lingering pain. Square. I was Square! The darkness was still growing. My veins still filled with poison. I had to get it out. I had to get that, whatever it was, out of me. Retching, gagging... something let loose. My body let out an ungodly wheezing sounds. Dark, abyssal. The darkness kept growing.
Suddenly I felt the dark egg in me burst. I could do nothing to delay what was about to happen. Pain. So much pain. Before I could scream I felt my throat fill up with something vile. Gurgling, insects and worms flowed out of me. I could feel them in my body. In my blood, in my flesh! They were eating me alive from the inside out. Such unholy pain. Yet, I could not pass out or even try to escape. All I could do was spew and be eaten. Chunks started falling off my body, vermin and slime pouring out of every new hole.
If you're around there and then, come check us out! Myself, my brother (Baratus, the voice for Square), Matt "MTrop" Tropiano (the voice of the circles), and Jerry "jmickle" Mickle (our PR guy) will be showcasing the game over this period.
darn.. I am in London in April but not March but glad to see Doom engine is still alive and new games (yes games not mods) are being created using the code!