An ambitious new demake is coming to the Commodore 64 as Kweepa aims to bring the iconic 3D shooter Quake to the Commodore 64 under the title Quake64. Completing a trilogy of id Software ports for the system, this project requires significant compromises to fit within the hardware's strict limitations. While it will never have the graphics of the classic game, it will feature a true 3D wireframe perspective, rendering environments one room at a time in a style reminiscent of the classic game Mercenary. Enemies are being transformed into animated stick-figure skeletons using a vertex binding technique, while the game's weaponry is generated as wireframe-style sprites by merging weapon geometry into quads and processing them through Z-buffer and face ID buffers.
Progress on Quake for Commodore 64: enemies can move and attack and you can hurt and kill them (enemy state machines borrowed from Wolf64). Code is here if you want to follow along: https://t.co/Uqk4O79Cdm https://t.co/Q2PALqSKfE pic.twitter.com/9t5kLdKXsA
— Steve 🇺🇦 McCrea (@Kweepa) August 20, 2026
Development is currently focused on fine-tuning enemy and weapon behaviours by adapting code from previous Wolf64 and Doom64 projects to match Quake's specific gameplay needs. The most time-consuming part of the process remains level design, with roughly two-thirds of the first map, E1M1, completed using a custom-built level editor. As the developer puts it "This is the long pole of the development". While the engine is currently limited to basic cuboid spaces, future updates may introduce more complex L-shaped and T-shaped rooms. To manage the computer's limited audio capabilities, music might only play in rooms without enemies. This choice frees up the SID chip's audio channels to dedicate individual voices to player actions, enemy sound effects, and ambient environmental noises like doors or lifts.
- AI Disclosure AI Assisted, Code
Links :1) Source ( Release TBA )
Hmm it looks promising but not seeing adjecent rooms from the room you're in, or enemies, takes a way a *lot* here. This way there will never be real dynamic fights and encounters, and no cover at all. It'll basically remain a "room to room" kinda Quake. I really *love* the Wolfenstein 3D port, and I have hopes for DOOM, as they both have more geometry that can get between you and the baddies. Here it feels like ... square room = pang pang, enter next square room. Mhm. But I'll have to see more before I think Quake like this is not feasable. Was hoping it'd be a bit smoother too. This one might actually be a candidate for Turbo-enabled C64U users even more than Wolfenstein ever would be. Wolf3D is just fine without.
ReplyDeleteYou are correct, i wonder if it could be that it still render the closest sectors full speed while it justs move the already rendered far sectors and rerender them with a smaller framerate like 3-5 fps, so cache everything farther and "just" move them as the player walks and turn like separate layers using sprite, rendering only the closest sectors even if the sectors remains rectangles that way you can introduce a corridor with doors and obstacles wich even moved in correct perpective way related to the background. Scaling cached sectors (moving forward) is harder, but rendering a sector with 4 overlapped sprites and starting to move them farther from the perspective center makes them bigger for cheap in a blocky world, but sprites cover a small area if no trick used there, maybe still enough for an obstacle.
DeleteMmmmh... Mostruoso in tutti i sensi !! Quake 64 ? incredible !!!!!
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