Chex Quest 20th Anniversary Megawad: Galactic Conflict

[JohnnyTheWolf]

In SLADE, I tried adding the line "music D_E1M1" under the E4M1 section in MAPINFO, but I still cannot hear any music.

What am I doing wrong?

[Tifosi 92]

By popular demand, I've updated the wad to include music for each level. All songs on the game are from the CQ3 IWAD. The links are below and also updated in the OP.

Chex Quest: Galactic Conflict (bundled with ZDoom 2.8.1)
Chex Quest: Galactic Conflict (bundled with 32-bit GZDoom 2.1.1)
Chex Quest: Galactic Conflict (bundled with 64-bit GZDoom 2.1.1)
Chex Quest: Galactic Conflict (bundled with Zandronum 3.0 alpha)
Chex Quest: Galactic Conflict (.wad file only)

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Thanks, but... "popular demand"? Only two of us complained about the lack of music.

Anyway, still much appreciated!

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Some feedback regarding E4M2:

The door to the large elevator takes a while to open, so this initially led me to think the switch activated something else. Since it is not immediately obvious that there is even an elevator behind the door, I just assume I had to backtrack. Not a big problem, but kind of annoying.

Also, how exactly do you get the secret under the floor in the hexagonal room?

[Tifosi 92]

Some feedback regarding E4M2:

The door to the large elevator takes a while to open, so this initially led me to think the switch activated something else. Since it is not immediately obvious that there is even an elevator behind the door, I just assume I had to backtrack. Not a big problem, but kind of annoying.

Also, how exactly do you get the secret under the floor in the hexagonal room?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Try pressing the use button on the room's central pillar.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Oh, right! And I have completely forgotten about the "secret" command console...

Still, I am in E4M3 now, and even with the clue, I cannot figure out the last secret. I guess I have to lower the pillar near the end in order to reveal the secret teleporter, but I do not know how to do that.

Anyway, more observations:

How am I supposed to get this glass of water?

Also, small texture problem: the lockers on both sides look they have two doors!

[Tifosi 92]

Oh, right! And I have completely forgotten about the "secret" command console...

Still, I am in E4M3 now, and even with the clue, I cannot figure out the last secret. I guess I have to lower the pillar near the end in order to reveal the secret teleporter, but I do not know how to do that.

Anyway, more observations:

How am I supposed to get this glass of water?

I need wawa.jpg

Also, small texture problem: the lockers on both sides look they have two doors!

The Odd Locker.jpg

The Other Odd Locker.jpg

I love the names of the jpegs, lol.

The last secret is located on the only area of the level that isn't relevant to its progression. There are two paths through the level, and on each one, every room has either a key or a forcefield deactivator. Only one teleport destination on the level has no purpose other than housing a secret area--knowing this should make it a little easier to find, because if you've been everywhere there's one teleport destination that's very short.

The glass of water should be obtainable if you lean up against the desks from the inside of that counter (go beneath the curtains and sneak around).

Thanks for pointing out the texture glitches. There are about five instances of misaligned or incorrect textures throughout the whole game that I've found since I released it. If I have an update containing new features/critical bug fixes, I'll patch the textures. Otherwise, they'll have to stay as is for now because I'm way too busy to devote a lot of time to it.

Thanks for the continuing feedback! I hope you're enjoying the game.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

The last secret is located on the only area of the level that isn't relevant to its progression. There are two paths through the level, and on each one, every room has either a key or a forcefield deactivator. Only one teleport destination on the level has no purpose other than housing a secret area--knowing this should make it a little easier to find, because if you've been everywhere there's one teleport destination that's very short.

Not really helpful: I know there is a secret area, but I cannot get to the teleporter that leads to it because of said pillar.

Can't you just tell me what I have to do?

The glass of water should be obtainable if you lean up against the desks from the inside of that counter (go beneath the curtains and sneak around).

I thought about that myself, but a stool is preventing me from doing so.

[Tifosi 92]

Not really helpful: I know there is a secret area, but I cannot get to the teleporter that leads to it because of said pillar.

Said pillar.jpg

Can't you just tell me what I have to do?

---

Go to Teleport Station C, and enter the teleport in the corner. It should take you to a dead-end room with a massive stack of crates. The secret area is in this section of the map. If you don't want to try to find it yourself from here:

---

There's a light fixture missing on a wall in the hallway. Hit 'use' on this to open a secret door revealing a switch that will activate the teleport that you're having trouble accessing.

The glass of water should be obtainable if you lean up against the desks from the inside of that counter (go beneath the curtains and sneak around).

I thought about that myself, but a stool is preventing me from doing so.

Wow, you're right! I must've put that there for scenery purposes. That map was made a long time ago, lol. Sorry about that.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Holy crap! I would have never found the last secret without your help.

Thanks a lot.

[peewee_RotA]

This looked amazing the moment I saw it. I'm really sorry for missing it when it was first posted. LOOOVE chex quest!


I loaded it up last night and it's really fun, you did a great job and captured the feel of the original very well.

My big criticism is the pillars on the teleporters. It's really obscure and it seems like a secret. In fact I think I removed one on level 3 but there's really no good way to know. I spend a long time looking all over maps to remove them and have yet to do so and be aware that it happened. I strongly recommend just removing them altogether, even if they are an important part of a secret or a later puzzle that I haven't hit yet. Most players don't have my kind of patience and determination and are likely to either give up on the wad altogether, or stop caring about secrets. And as this community should be painfully aware, losing interest in exploring is one of the top 5 problems with video games today. We should be rewarded for exploring, not punished or disappointed.

Obscure secrets are totally fine too. Everybody loves to come back to something in the future and find something they missed, but make obscure things less obvious so that they remain obscure, not frustrating.


I also want to point out that there are too many sections that force progression without the opportunity to go back and explore. Notable example is on the first level, the end level switch just looks like a way to open one of the two dozen doors that haven't opened yet. Think of Doom64. An otherwise amazing game, that punished you if you didn't spend hours and hours looking for every single secret before hitting the next room. Lots and lots of forced progression that didn't give you an opportunity to go back and find the important stuff that you missed.

*edit*
I went back through and tried this on a harder difficulty to see if it would be more fun if I didn't want to look for secrets, and it's quite possibly the most stingy game I've ever played. There are more coins in Mario 1 than there is ammo. There's not enough ammo on level 1 by a factor of roughly 8. I think that about an hour of my life this morning was spent using the spoon simply because there are tons of areas that can't be progressed through without killing almost every monster and there's an insultingly low amount of supplies.

So I'll try to be constructive, but I don't think there is a way to make this sound nice. First, do not use titles like "20th Anniversary" to imply it being official or being a loving remake unless you can back it up with something absolutely mind blowing. Second, get testers and feedback, it's obvious that 90% of this map pack is intended to be played by the creator and not an outside person looking in. Lastly, mapping is an art. Do things that "feel fun", never do things that seem clever. Every mapping contest on the planet is wrong. The subjective value "Fun" is the most important part of any content experienced in any game. Judging maps should look like this:

Textures X/10
Originality X/10
Music X/10
Architecture X/10
Fun and Gameplay X/10,000

Fun is a category that should be weighted to override everything else, and everything else should really serve as a tie breaker. People will play things that are fun but look like garbage, but they will not tolerate things that look amazing but play like garbage. So my advice to all mappers is to make your project as if it's being judged on the above scale. Gameplay first, visuals second. Or in the words of an expert:

[JohnnyTheWolf]

I am disappointed there has yet to be a proper video walkthrough for this megawad on Youtube. I gave up on it because some secrets were really too obscure or downright frustrating for my taste.

But yes, ammo scarcity is a real bummer as well.

[Tifosi 92]

This looked amazing the moment I saw it. I'm really sorry for missing it when it was first posted. LOOOVE chex quest!


I loaded it up last night and it's really fun, you did a great job and captured the feel of the original very well.

My big criticism is the pillars on the teleporters. It's really obscure and it seems like a secret. In fact I think I removed one on level 3 but there's really no good way to know. I spend a long time looking all over maps to remove them and have yet to do so and be aware that it happened. I strongly recommend just removing them altogether, even if they are an important part of a secret or a later puzzle that I haven't hit yet. Most players don't have my kind of patience and determination and are likely to either give up on the wad altogether, or stop caring about secrets. And as this community should be painfully aware, losing interest in exploring is one of the top 5 problems with video games today. We should be rewarded for exploring, not punished or disappointed.

Hi there!

I thought I'd set the board to notify me when replies to this topic were posted, but I never received any such e-mail. Nothing in my junk folders either, so oh well. First, a sincere thanks for playing through my wad! Not sure how much of this you finished, but I'm grateful when anyone bothers to check it out and take a look.

My goal was to capture the feel of the original–something that became my goal once it was apparent my mapping skills couldn't ascend the learning curve necessary to develop truly awesome maps given the amount of free time I had. As it stands, I probably poured over two or three thousand hours into this thing, including the time spent testing it. Giving up any more than that was out of the question, unfortunately, so I set my sights on something attainable, and that was emulating the feel of the original.

The secret areas are a little harsh, but they also come with clues–did you try typing the 'SECRET' command into the console? Some players have frowned on needing to use this, but I like the 'scavenger hunt' feel it gives, it's definitely different from other mods, and it reminds me of old-school games like Banjo-Kazooie where you could get cryptic hints that weren't a dead giveaway and still made you feel like you accomplished something. About midway through development I was considering making the secrets a little easier to find, but then stumbled upon the console command in the wiki and built them around that instead. I'm sorry if some of them are still a little difficult; my brother was my chief play tester (other than me) and he managed to find over half of them without any help or hints, so I figured they were fine.

The lack of ammo was one of the few ways I'd found to build difficulty into a game that lacked hitscanning enemies. That is intentional, and I tested all of the levels on Super Slimey! several times to ensure that there was enough ammo to get through if the Bootspoon is used on every Commonus/Bipedicus except in some cases where there are large groups. Finding the secrets makes ammo saving much easier. When testing, I was able to finish every level (save the last one) without saves on Super Slimey! and thus concluded the balance was about right. It's the toughest difficulty–it's supposed to be challenging. Gobs of Goo should match up with the level of difficulty found in Super Slimey! on the other episodes; if you haven't played through it all yet I'd recommend trying it on that. Additionally, finding the Super Bootspork in the third level makes saving ammo very easy on higher difficulties–you can find it in a secret area discussed earlier in the thread.

I don't mean any disrespect by saying it's a 20th anniversary wad. I was definitely banking on 'fun' over graphics, so I'm really sorry if I failed you on that. Maybe try finishing it on a lower difficulty first, then trying it again on a harder one?

To Johnny's point about a walkthrough as well: I actually had recorded demos for the first eight levels but they were rendered obsolete as new versions of ZDoom became available during development, and alas I couldn't remember which version they were recorded with, so I deleted them. I'd love to record walkthroughs if someone could give me an easier way to do it than the demo system; my skills aren't what they used to be so I don't think I'd be able to beat the levels Super Slimey! without saving again.

Thanks for your comments. It's really cool to me that anyone here is playing it. Hopefully this helps; if you have specific problems other than the ammo issues, let me know.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

So I started replaying the mapset with the intent of finishing it this time. However, I have found myself stuck in E1M2 and I seem unable to progress further.

In the area where you get the Red Key, more specifically on the level below the one where it is located, I cannot go through the door, as it is partially blocked by green canisters.

I do not remember how I got past that part the first time, let alone if I did it without noclipping.

[Tifosi 92]

Hopefully this won't be considered a worthless bump!

It was pointed out to me by members of another forum that my download links for this project had gone down. Upon receiving an e-mail about it, and of course having nothing better to do in quarantine, I spent some time playing through these levels again, and realized that they were far more difficult than I remember. So, given I've had a bit of free time on my hands as of late, I am proud to announce Version 1.2 of Chex Quest: Galactic Conflict! The primary change here is that many of the levels have been edited extensively in the name of making them more easily playable without using more saves than a TAS. A complete list of changes is noted below:

• Fixed typos in MAPINFO and updated MAPINFO to reflect changes.
• Fixed missing thing flags for 'Easy Does It' and 'Not So Sticky' items in secret areas for E4B1 and E4M8.
• Game-wide difficulty adjustments made for ammo and health pickups in both single-player and co-op; several maps should now be easier on all levels of difficulty, particularly "Super Slimey!".
• Made secret areas in E4M2 Sector 35 and E4M3 Sector 639 more obvious.
• Added text signifying an elevator has been activated for the long elevator ride to the communications array in E4M2.
• Made E4M2 Sector 197 a secret area, and moved the yellow key to a more obvious location.
• Altered the level progression of E4M2 so that the red and yellow key can be collected in any order.
• Added text warnings before the stealth segments of E4M4.
• Adjusted enemy locations and ammo pickups in E4M7 to emphasize use of the Beam Zorcher.
• Adjusted bots' favorite weapons.

The download links can be found below:

Chex Quest: Galactic Conflict Version 1.2 (bundled with ZDoom 2.8.1)
Chex Quest: Galactic Conflict Version 1.2 (bundled with 32-bit LZDoom 3.86a)
Chex Quest: Galactic Conflict Version 1.2 (bundled with 64-bit GZDoom 4.4.2)
Chex Quest: Galactic Conflict Version 1.2 (bundled with Zandronum 3.0 installer)
Chex Quest: Galactic Conflict Version 1.2 (.wad file only)

If you gave these levels a look four years ago and gave up due to the lack of ammo sapping your enjoyment, I implore you to give them a second shot (which you'll actually have enough ammo to do this time). Thanks for looking, and apologies to the mods if I made more work for you.