WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN, "TEXTMODE QUAKE"?

It's just what it sounds like. Rather than those trendy colored pixels that are all the rage with the kids these days, Textmode Quake uses plain text characters for its rendering. The graphics-challenged need not feel left out any longer. Play Quake at a text terminal, in an xterm, or over a telnet session! Good lord, the world just got a little better.

THIS IS JUST PLAIN WRONG! WHOSE FAULT IS THIS?

I, Bob Zimbinski (bobz@mr.net), take no personal credit for this amazing technology. My role is merely to bring it to the people. Textmode Quake's cutting-edge character-mode renderer is powered by aalib, a character-based graphics library by Jan Hubicka (hubicka@paru.cas.cz) See http://horac.ta.jcu.cz/aa/index.html for more info on aalib. Greg Alexander (galexand@sietch.bloomington.in.us) wrote aavga, an aalib wrapper that handles svgalib function calls. Put em together, throw in a couple support libraries, and you've got Textmode Quake! Source for aalib and aavga is freely available, but not in this package. Get the sources from the AA Project homepage, listed above.

BUT WHY, DAMMIT? WHY?

If you have to ask why, you're not a member of the intended audience. Please go on about your business and accept my apologies for this distraction.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT TEXTMODE QUAKE

"people are starving to death in this world... and somebody had time for this....."

"This is the greatest *sniff* I'm too broken up...I can't believe how wonderful this is. I can't stop the tears streaming down my face. Oh the humanity!!"

"This is seriously, extremely perverse. I'm impressed."

"This is quite possibly the most inherently wrong thing in the world today."

"I can now die. This totally, totally, totally rules."

"I would need serious tylenol 3's after playing this for more than 2 seconds. My eyes are still hurting from looking at it!"

"Rarely do I see something on the web that makes me scream OUT LOUD, but I saw this page and yelled, "Oh Jesus God, NO!" like I had just seen Rosemary's Baby. I don't know what the contest was, but YOU WIN!"

YOU'RE A SICK SONOFABITCH. BUT UM, HOW CAN I TRY IT?

  1. Get Linux.
  2. Make Linux go.
  3. Get Quake.
  4. Make Quake go.
  5. Get Textmode Quake:
  6. Untar the ttyquake package in your Quake directory.
  7. Run the 'ttyquake' script from your Quake directory.
  8. Put your head between your legs and breathe deeply until the shock wears off.
  9. Rinse.
  10. Repeat.
It probably won't work if you run it as root. Textmode Quake looks best in a terminal (or terminal emulator) that can display boldface text. Textmodes higher than 80x25 are pretty too. Try rxvt -geometry 160x100 -fn 5x7 -e ./ttyquake for a truly grand vision. If that's a little too slow, try other factors of 320x200, like 160x50, or 80x50.

Oh, and you can edit the script and get rid of the -nosound option if you really do have sound.

IF YOU EMAIL ME AND ASK HOW TO MAKE IT WORK IN WIN95, I'LL DELETE YOUR MESSAGE AND TELL ALL MY FRIENDS WHAT A TARD YOU ARE. (Hint: It is not clever to ask about Win98/ME/NT/2000 while pointing out that you aren't asking about Win95. It is evidence that you are exactly the same as the thousands of turds who have smirkingly come before you. Go away.)

WHAT IF IT DOESN'T WORK FOR ME?

Well, don't come crying to me. Do you think I care if a useless, buggy hack for an unsupported port of a game on a free operating system doesn't work for you? Hah! Think again. Err, but if you, heh, fix anything I'd sure love to hear about it.

ATTENTION! ATTENTION! IMPORTANT INFORMATION THAT WILL PREVENT YOU FROM EMAILING ME WITH STUPID QUESTIONS!

I do not have the source code for Quake. I cannot email you a version of ttyquake for LinuxPPC or Linux Alpha or Windows NT because I don't have access to any of these platforms. I do not have the source code for Quake. I cannot email you a version of Quake or Quake II for LinuxPPC or Linux Alpha or Windows NT. I do not have the source code for Quake. I do not have the source code for Quake. Even if you promise not to give it away to anyone else, I still do not have the source code for Quake.

Update: The source for Quake has been released under the GNU Public License. Download it here and leave me the hell alone.

SCREENSHOTS

Paul Wilkins, who apparently has waaaay to much free time, has graciously donated two HTML "screenshots" of ttyquake which he created by hand. No, really. He typed in all those little characters while reading from jpeg screenshots I sent him. His mother must be so proud.
The Quake console just after startup
The start of a new game

JPEG versions of the screenshots

Is ttyquake just too 1999 for you? Looking for something a little more modern? Try Chunky Kibbles' Text Mode Unreal Tournament.
Bob Zimbinski
Last update: 27 December 1999