Help with Bootleg Chex Quest 3 (and maybe other mods?).

[brekfst]

Hey guys, new person here. Call me brekfst

I'm looking to play the russian bootleg and having an issue with what the hell I'm supposed to do after running the batch file and running commands in command prompt, as nothing seems to be working. Tried downloading GZDoom from advice from google AI but I think that was a mistake. I know it's not an official chex game, but I remember my dad finding it when I was a youngling and at the time, we thought it was the actual third installment. It's been awesome to play the original trilogy again.

If anyone can help me with what I'm supposed to do, it would be awesome. Sorry if I'm being a newbie.
Also, if anyone has any recommendations for other mods/bootlegs for chex, would greatly appreciate it! It's been a fun throwback to my childhood. I remember a mod I found that had a lot of doom sprites in it in later levels, but I can't seem to find that anywhere I look (probably because it's frowned upon lol).


EDIT: I renamed my chex file and it worked! Certainly not as good as the true chex 3 of course (the maps left a lot to be desired), but it was worth the trip down memory lane. I would still be curious if anyone had knowledge of other mods or playworthy bootlegs.

EDIT2: I have downloaded the Penultimate Breakfast and The Ultimate Chex Quest. TPB is okay, few really fun levels, but a couple are just basically lazy slaughter map designs that don't work as intended often enough. What I'm actually writing is how there seems to be a bug in my version of TUCQ: I'm fairly certain this is supposed to be a bad guy, but it's not loading. Can someone share what it should be and how to fix it? Pic for context. Thank you!

TUCQ ! thing

[Replica]

Hi Brekfst, welcome to the forums. As you've no doubt noticed, this place has become quite the ghost town. I've heard that we have a discord server that's more lively but, I've not joined it so I'm too certain of that. You can find it at the bottom of this forum's main page.

I'm glad you got the old ChexQuest3 mod working. You where having trouble because it was meant to be played on the original Chex Quest game engine with old outdated Windows. In case you want to know, Chex Quest is basically a reskin of doom, so it can use source ports (Game engines ported to modern hardware) like GZDoom. If you want a more authentic feel, you can also try Chocolate Doom. Although, I haven't tried it in over a decade, so it might not work. It also will only run mods without extra features (Chex Quest 1/2, and the Bootleg CQ3). Most mods will need GZDoom.

That is just the engine however, to get it running you need the game assets in the port's install folder as well. Gzdoom runs many Doom based games using files called "Wad"s. An Iwad is a wad file that GZDoom recognizes as an official game. If you have the original ChexQuest game, in it's install folder there will be a file called Chex.wad. Make a copy of that, and place it into your GZDoom install folder. GZdoom will recognize it by its name as ChexQuest. That's probably why you had trouble with running the "bootleg" chexquest 3. There's an official Chex Quest 3 game, and GZDoom probably thought it was that. Now any mod you have will also be a "wad" file. We call them "pwads". They're more like patch files that need the original game wad (iwad) to run. Place the mod's wad file you want to play in the gzdoom folder, then drag and drop it over GZDoom.exe, and it will play it. Renaming the Bootleg CQ3 probably made GZDoom recognize it as a pwad, and ran it properly. Do this for The Ultimate Chex Quest, and it should run.

The Ultimate Chex Quest is only the five maps in ChexQuest1 and 2. They're labeled as episodes when you start a new game. It's unfinished past the first five maps of each episode. If you're still getting an error, TUCQ might just be broken. Its last release was 12 years ago. The only other solution I can think of is getting an older version of GZDoom. One from late 2013/early 2014. https://zdoom.org/files/gzdoom/bin/

The later Doom sprites mod isn't really a mod. It's a wad file that you can find if you have a copy of the original CD. (You can probably find a download of that CD with google). If you rummage through its folders, you might find it somewhere. It was probably was added accidentally when the game was released.

If you haven't heard, Chukker (the original artist for Chex Quest), made an official Chex Quest 3. It's worth playing. You can get it at Xbolt's Chex Quest Gallery. I've got no idea what ChexQuest3v2 is, but you can try it here: https://www.chexquest3.com/. There's also an official ChexQuest HD on Steam!

As for other mods you should play, it's difficult to say. Most mods were made around 2010. The source ports they're made for (Legacy, Zdoom, GZDoom, etc) have either died, or been updated so much that they might not run any of the old mods. From the mod's I can recall, Arch's "the lost quest" was the best in my opinion. Which you can get here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/ko4tlg1s9sp7prl/CQTLQ+v21.1.zip. It seems to still work, but I haven't played more than a minute of it. The chex quest gallery hosts a giant list of old mods you can try. http://gallery.xboltz.net/downloads/ Can't say anything about quality of them though. Most are unfinished, and again, will probably be broken. Getting an early copy of GZdoom as mentioned above would probably solve it.

[brekfst]

Thank you so much for the response! I will be joining that discord right after I finish this post!
I did manage to figure out some of the zdoom stuff you mentioned, but still having that error. I will look at older versions of the launcher, maybe that will help.

I should admit that I have played the official episode 3, "Invasion!", and that's how I was launching most of these mods, haha! But thank you!

I have played New Maps and Nitro, both were a lot of fun! My favorite mod by far, is The Lost Quest. The upgrade flemoids really proposed a solid challenge, and while some of the jump maneuvering was tricky for me, I still fell in love with the simple puzzles. So much creativity with level design! I had to leave a post to tell Arch not just how I was impressed, but he'll never know how truly splendid it was for me to rekindle my love for this silly game!