Download and install prerequisites - ranguli/quake-jam-2024 GitHub Wiki

Install Quake source port

There are very (very) many source ports to choose from. Pick whichever you like. If you have no preference you can try:

Note for macOS: You may want to use vkQuake.

Install Trenchbroom

  • Cop from the releases page on GitHub or the Flatpak. Note: sometimes Flatpaks will fuck you over with paths and filesystem access so maybe don't use the Flatpak unless you have to.

Note for macOS: TrenchBroom has a macOS build, it should work on an M1, but please report your experiences.

Install map compilation tools

  • Think of Trenchbroom like your code editor and ericw-tools as your compiler.
  • Download a release of ericw-tools from the releases page for your platform. You can save them anywhere you want, you'll just need to tell TrenchBroom where they are later.

Note for macOS: These also have a macOS build but again, please share your experience.

Obtain Quake game files

The source-port you downloaded is the game, but not the content. They are two separate entities. The source-port is open-source and free, whereas the game files are not free and technically copyrighted but are basically considered abandonware and are available for free on Archive.org (piracy is a serious crime).

There also exists a shareware version of the game files, but don't bother - it's missing all the cool stuff.

Note: If you buy Quake on Steam and then use the Ironwail sourceport, it should just work:tm: and require no mucking about, but buying the game is not necessary.

Your source port will expect your ill-gotten gains to be in a particular directory and will automatically load them on startup. You can look up the documentation for your source-port and determine what paths it will search for on start-up to find game files, and stuff them there.

Alternatively, you can create a directory for all of your Quake stuff like ~/quake/ with an id1 subdirectory, and stuff your game files (pak0.pak and pak1.pak) there. Start Quake from a command line and use -basedir ~/quake to tell Quake where to load the game files from.

Download Quake Textures

In addition to the original Quake game files, you will need textures which can be found here. The textures are contained in a .wad file. The downloaded BASE.WAD file just contains the original Quake 1 map textures. You will need these later to get map textures working in TrenchBroom.

You can place your BASE.WAD anywhere, but for convenience you might as well put it in the same place as everything else (i.e ~/quake)