Apr

DSQuake - Quake for the Nintendo DS

Written by Neil Galloway

I tried out DSQuake today and was very impressed. This is a homebrew application for the Nintendo DS that is a port of the original Quake for the PC back in the 90's.

Note: I am using the Pre-Release DSQuake version that I downloaded on March 15, 2007.

This is a discussion of my experience and how I got it working on my hardware. You can check out the homepage for DSQuake at the Official DSQuake Homepage.

Note: There is another project called QuakeDS which was neck in neck with this project until October 2007. QuakeDS has just released there next version and it is superior to this one at this time. Check out my article on getting QuakeDS to work as well.

How Well Does DSQuake Work?

Quite well in my opinion. The graphics look good, the frame rates are high, and the sounds are working too. The game has never crashed or frozen on me either. I can load it up and have an enjoyable playing experience for an hour if I want.

Also, multiplayer apparently works. I have not tried this yet, but he has a video of it working on his website.

What can be fixed or improved on it? There are a few improvements and bug fixes yet to come. I still think it is amazing so far, but these would be nice to see.

The graphics have glitches occasionally. I can see through a wall or my weapon disappears even though it is still there.
If a creature throws a grenade, the explosions cannot be seen.
No music.
Sound effects aren't very clear sounding.
There is no main menu to get things loaded.
Your health and ammo stats are on the bottom screen. It would be nice if health, armour, and the current weapon ammo count were shown on the top screen where the world view is.
I tried to pause DSQuake and I couldn't.

Getting DSQuake Working

My Hardware

I have a Nintendo DS Lite, SuperKey, and SuperCard DS Lite with a Kingston 1GB microSD card.

Procedure

There is seriously nothing to it.

Download the DSQuake_pre.zip file and save it to your computer.
Unzip the file. You will have one file inside...DSQuake_pre.ds.gba.
Rename the file to DSQuake_pre.nds.
Copy it onto your microSD card.
Try loading it on your NDS.

After it loads, it shows a few errors for me on the bottom screen and that is it. Then if you press up or down, it will display the different levels you can play. Just find the one you want or go to Start and press the Start key.

Controls are basic. Use the stylus on the bottom touchscreen to aim and look around. Up for forward, back to walk backwards, left and right will strafe, and the left trigger fires your weapon. If you double tap your stylus or you already have the stylus touching the screen and quickly lift and re-tap, you will jump. The right trigger will also jump and one of the punch buttons on the front swaps weapons, I can't remember which one though.

Seriously download it and load it up. An awesome game.

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Category: NintendoDS

4 Comments

ritzdank Says:
2008-05-28 12:39:00
is it possible to change textures and monsters for DSquake?

Dukeofzombies Says:
2008-08-16 20:01:21
i have DSQuake on my R4 but for sum reason (following all your steps) it wont load.

Leighton Phillips Says:
2009-07-26 21:15:01
I have DSQuake on my TTDS and when it is when up to half way of loading it stops the loading square keeps going. I've w8ed for 10mins and hasn't loading bar hasn't moved. Do you know what's wrong?

DUDE Says:
2009-09-14 17:40:27
cant... get... FILE!!!!