The 24 Hour Speedmodding event has ended and the winner has been decided!

We received entries from Asaki, FrikaC, and LordHavoc. While some thought the theme was a little too limiting, I'm very pleased with the results - they're very new and fresh and are still quite different from each other. What we have is perhaps three of the more frightening gaming experiences these days.

Click here to download the entries.



Asaki - 'The Beast in the Cave'
In this mod, the lights are out, and the player only has a small lamp with which to see. Spawned randomly around the level are shamblers and one mystical Guide, searching for you - the person you must find to have safety. Recalling the fear of the Grue in years past, these shamblers have never been so frightening - you might hear one right near you and still be unsure as of where it is exactly.

The mod comes off as very Lovecraftian - and not just because of the Lovecraft quote in the readme. The strange Guide that you must reunite with is masterfully done. I also felt when played without music, the Quake ambient sounds add a huge touch. This mod is definitely the most right-out frightening of the bunch, but some may see the pitch-dark as cliche, although I certainly didn't while I was playing it. You'll probably benefit a lot from knowing the levels beforehand, meaning you won't get completely lost in the dark.





FrikaC - 'Booga Booga Ha!'
This mod comes with a vague readme which gives no hint as to what you are about to experience. I recommend that you play it before reading what I have to say about it, because it is an incredibly creepy experience if you're not prepared.

When you enter a level, all the lights are out - like Asaki's mod - but you have a flashlight, which offers better illumination than Asaki's short-range lamp. When you use it to examine the level, you'll see that all the monsters appear to be dead, and creepy sounds invade your ears from all directions. Then, you might get shot in the back, and whip around to see nothing, until you start to notice dark shapes at the corners of your vision. The ghosts of the dead monsters feed on the dark, and when not illuminated by your flashlight, are free to haunt or attack you.

While Asaki's mod wins in the horror category, this mod is insurmountably creepy. The effect of the ghosts appearing at the edge of your vision is pulled off to perfection and the flashlight in the dark works very well. I'll admit with guilt that the ghosts going away when you look at them reminded me of Mario, but it's truly a creepy effect here. My only gripes would be the moaning sound - it sounds a little too Halloweeny to me, and the fact that you can destroy the corpses to kill the ghosts. I think it would have been creepier if the ghosts remained, at least for a while, although that might degrade the mod into a speedrun.




LordHavoc - Ghostly
Ghostly is quite simple - the monsters are translucent and ghostly, and solidify at random intervals to attack the player. This is the only mod of the three that leaves the lights on - and it almost seems to bad. It lacks the creepiness of the other mods, but one thing it does do that the others don't is keep you running. I found myself running at full flight the entire time, often turning around and backtracking when I saw a ghostly shambler.

My favourite part of this mod was how the monsters silently break into a run shortly before they materialize to attack you. I don't know if this was intentional or just a byproduct of the Quake AI, but I loved it. Unfortunately, the monsters seem too odd and random and you might find yourself standing around, waiting for one to materialize so you can kill it. This mod could have used a few extra hours of work, I think.

An added touch is the insane schools of floating rotfish that stream out of the level exit to attack the player. I thought they were quite well done although the usually brightly lit Quake maps degraded the effect a bit.

Download the speedmods!

And the winner?
After careful deliberation, the verdict was issued. FrikaC will walk home with a Quake rune for his 'Booga Booga Ha!' The decision between Asaki's and FrikaC's mods was very tough, but in the end FrikaC's won out. Asaki's, while it had the edge of supreme Lovecraftiness, was a little to simple to overtake FrikaC's speedmod.

One thing's for sure. These mods now have a permanent residence on my hard drive. I would love to see something come out of these ideas - all three, if combined, could create perhaps a creepy experience of frightening proportions!

Thanks to all for participating!