Quake

About This Game

Gameplay

In Quake's single-player mode, players explore levels, facing monsters and finding secret areas before reaching an exit. Switches or keys open doors, and reaching the exit takes the player to the next level. Before accessing an episode, there is a set of three pathways with easy, medium, and hard skill levels. The fourth skill level, "Nightmare", was described by the game manual to be "so bad that the entry is hidden, so people won't wander in by accident". Quake's single-player campaign is organized into four individual episodes with seven to eight levels in each (including one secret level per episode, one of which is a "low gravity" level that challenges the player's abilities in a different way). If the player's character dies, they must restart at the beginning of that level. The game may be saved at any time in the PC versions and between levels in the console versions. Upon completing an episode, the player is returned to the hub "START" level, where another episode can be chosen. Each episode starts the player from scratch, without any previously collected items.

History

In the early 1990s, the staff at id Software had a private Dungeons & Dragons game, which would go on to inspire a number of elements in their titles over the following years. With John Carmack as DM, the campaign featured a group of adventurers named the Silver Shadow Band. The group were named for the silver dragon on which they flew, and each represented one of the core stats of the game. Among them was a powerful character named Quake, representing strength, who fought with a magic hammer capable of destroying buildings. Quake was accompanied by a floating magic artefact named the Hellgate Cube which attacked his foes with lightning bolts. John Romero described fighting alongside Quake as the most fun they had playing D&D.