As I deepened my experimentation with disassembling game engines and reassembling them with new and different experiences, I made several versions of Quake, notably taking the idea of applying classic game mechanics to more immersive gaming engines, and simplifying how the user played the game by taking them away from the sense of reality the original game offered.

By the late nineties, games were becoming increasingly realistic, powered by better, faster 3D engines, becoming more complex in terms of narrative, and were moving away from simpler platformers, often to the detriment of actual gameplay. I publicly presented some thoughts on this idea in the form of a talk entitled ‘From Kindergarten to Total Carnage’ at the ISEA98 conference in Liverpool, and at the Stichting de Geuzen in Amsterdam.

I also shared a more comprehensive overview of the current state of game development from a design and user experience perspective for Eye Magazine entitled ‘Live. Die. Eat. Cheat.’ in the Winter 1998 issue (also included in the same issue was my review of Quakeadelica, a London-based multiplayer Quake tournament). With a nod to how I’d eventually start thinking about product development, the notion was ‘how might we apply the gameplay and user experience from a simpler gaming era to modern games in a way which allows users to focus on the challenges, instead of the immersion?’

Quake Radius displayed a fixed, flat base of color around the user, out around them for a specified radius of space during the game. So as you moved through the environment, you could only experience it in terms of the pure, flattened gameplay in your immediate vicinity.