Line #82 VideoGame/HalfQuake


1	[[quoteright:320:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hqamenttle.png]]
2	[[caption-width-right:320:Everybody is here to die.]]
3
4	-> ''You may ask yourself, why you're [[DeathCourse here]]. [[OntologicalMystery What went wrong, why you]]. Well, I'll tell you one thing: [[LoserProtagonist You]] have made [[NoodleIncident a mistake]] and [[KarmicDeath you have to pay for it]]. Even if you're innocent at the moment, the long fact that you are [[HumansAreBastards human]] is reasonable for us to make you and your eternal soul suffer. You can take the guns, not that it will help you, but... we just ask for [[SadistShow some entertainment]].''
5	->-- ''Muddasheep's voice'', intro to ''Half-Quake: Amen''
6
7	Some of you would expect some sort of crossover of ''VideoGame/HalfLife'' and ''VideoGame/{{Quake}}'' from the name alone.[[note]]And we're not talking about ''Deathmatch Classic'' here.[[/note]] The last time someone thought the same has been reduced into LudicrousGibs, far from the last person that would suffer such fate. Sounds harsh? Only for those uninitiated to how the bunch of Austrian mad men that run this Half-Quake facility roll.
8
9	Anyway, ''Half-Quake'' is a series of ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'' {{Game Mod}}s conceived by Philipp "[=MuddaSheep=]" Lehner and his friends that are designed to be [[TrialAndErrorGameplay as]] [[PlatformHell sadistic]] as the developers could think of. Each of them have the setup of your FeaturelessProtagonist showing up in [[OntologicalMystery a mysterious facility]], going through series of sadistic trials while being relentlessly mocked by said facility's owners.
10
11	The series consists of three mods:
12	* '''Half-Quake''', first released in 2001.
13	* '''Half-Quake: Amen''', first released in 2002.
14	* '''Half-Quake: Sunrise''', first released in 2010.
15
16	If you're up for some serious punishment (or just hate yourself that much) and either way own the original ''Half-Life'', you can get the mods [[https://www.halfquake.com/ there]]. The mod trilogy has also received an [[UpdatedRerelease Updated]] CompilationRerelease on Platform/{{Steam}}, combining all three installments into one package, which can be found [[https://store.steampowered.com/app/644320/Halfquake_Trilogy/ here]].
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19	!! Take these tropes if you want to delay your death:
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21	* ActionizedSequel: Inverted. ''Amen'' puts more emphasis on its devious puzzles, but it isn't without its fair share of combat encounters. ''Sunrise'', meanwhile, has no direct combat at all.
22	* AdvancingWallOfDoom: Each of the mods feature a section like that, with the first installment straight up cribbing the one from one of ''VideoGame/{{Quake I}}'s'' levels.
23	* ArcWords: '''Sadism'''. Keep that in mind by the time you'd get onto ''Amen's'' very first platforming puzzle in "Pestilence".
24	* ArmorIsUseless: Invoked when you pick up the HEV suit in the first installment.
25	--> ''This suit is made of plastic, it won't protect you from anything. It only makes you feel.... confident.''
26	* ArtShift: ''Half-Quake: Amen'' moves from ''[[VideoGame/HalfLife1 Half-Life's]]'' aesthetic for a more abstract direction with its environments. ''Sunrise'' also has a style of its own, that [[spoiler:eventually gets subverted when you'd stumble upon [[NostalgiaLevel locations from the previous mods]]]].
27	* ApocalypticLog: ''Amen'' has a few diary books you can stumble upon, written by another unwilling participant that came before you. [[spoiler:You would end up meeting up with the guy who wrote those entries in a minor boss fight, see UniqueEnemy below.]]
28	* AuthorAvatar: The leading developers have also cast themselves as the owners of the Half-Quake facility, the self-proclaimed "Masters of Sadism". They can be heard though the entire series, although only seen in person in ''Amen'', using edited scientist models.
29	* BattleThemeMusic: Somos in ''Amen'' comes with his own theme song, parts of which are played depending on [[SequentialBoss whenever you'd get to deactivate his shields or not]].
30	* {{Bizarrchitecture}}: ''Half-Quake'' at first starts out in a sort of grounded setting until it suddenly puts you in a void with plenty of spiked platforms, and things only get weirder as the series progresses.
31	* BizarrePuzzleGame: The series verges into this at times, especially ''Sunrise''.
32	* BlackComedy: Features most prominently in ''Amen''.
33	* {{Blackground}}: ''Amen'' has a lot of walls that are just pure black, to the point it's not uncommon to start a level that at first seems like there's nothing there until you look around.
34	* ChessMotifs: ''Sunrise'' features one Chess-themed puzzle.
35	* TheChewToy: Pretty much every single unwilling participant in the Half-Quake project, [[PlayerCharacter yourself]] very much included.
36	* CompilationRerelease: The ''Half-Quake Trilogy'' released on Platform/{{Steam}} collects each of the installments into one big mega-mod, complete with ''VideoGame/QuakeI''-inspired HubLevel at the start that lets you start up any of the three installments. [[UpdatedRerelease It also brings a few updates within the installments themselves]], including achievements and replacing instances of copyrighted music with more of Muddasheep's own soundtrack.
37	* CreativeClosingCredits: ''Sunrise'' has names rise up from a pile of rubble like smoke.
38	* DamnYouMuscleMemory: There are a few cases in ''Amen'' when you'd get to have more than a single weapon at once, but because of the lack of HEV suit, the normal weapon selection keys is inactive and you would have to rely on the "switch to last used weapon" key to switch between the crossbow, mp5, and/or Sword of Sadism in the rare instances you own at least two of these at once.
39	* DarkerAndEdgier: ''Sunrise'' manages to be quite bleaker than the rest of the series, with very little BlackComedy elements sprinkled in comparison due to how often you're simply alone in that installment.
40	* DeadlyGame: Half-Quake is stated to be this, particularly in a cut-scene from the "Essence" chapter of ''Amen'' where it is presented as a sadistic TV show.
41	* DeathCourse: In the first installment, Half-Quake is stated to be an institution and reasonably looks a bit like the deathtrap dungeon would. It gets harder to tell by later installments with the more surreal environments. [[spoiler:And then ''Sunrise'' has you slip into locations from the previous installments that confirm that the entire array of weird locations all resided in a single facility.]]
42	* DeathTrap: Examples abound in the entire series, tending to get more creative as the series progresses.
43	* DemBones: The ''Audience'' section in ''Amen'' features one talking skeleton. That is in fact the same rat-eating cogwheel-obsessed security guard from the previous installment. He can't do much aside from just talk and even gets a cube dropped onto his bones.
44	* DeliberatelyMonochrome: ''Amen'' is entirely in black and white aside of splashes of green (discounting splashes of blood) and ''Sunrise'' is all grayscale aside of splashes of light blue, [[spoiler:locations [[NostalgiaLevel from past installments]] showing up in the later stretches of the mod aside]].
45	* DrowningPit: The very first DeathTrap in the first installment involves a corridor being suddenly flooded by water, draining down just before you'd almost drown to death.
46	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The first installment is the only one with the art-style closely resembling [[VideoGame/HalfLife1 the base game it's a mod for]][[note]]before the ''Trilogy'' re-release makes the installments share a few assets with each other[[/note]], and also the only one to ever give the player the HEV suit (the other installments are almost completely HUD-less, discounting the occasional chapter texts and the damage indicators).
47	* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: Whenever the player character is ever referred to by any name, it's usually "Victim".
48	* EverythingTryingToKillYou: If Muddasheep would be able to program a main menu that would kill you, he absolutely would.
49	* FakeLongevity: Pretty much the whole point of the ''Patience'' chapter in ''Amen''.
50	* FanSequel: The series being {{Game Mod}}s aside, ''Half-Quake: Amen'' has received a fan sequel of its own, in the form of ''The Present''.
51	* FeaturelessProtagonist: The Third Person camera sections of the original mod depicts the player as a green robot-like figure (taken from one of ''VideoGame/{{Half Life 1}}'s'' multiplayer skins), and beyond that there's nothing describing how the victim looks underneath [[ArmorIsUseless that plastic suit]]. The victim(s) in ''Amen'' and ''Sunrise'', meanwhile… all we know of them is that they are male, out of them being referred to as "Mr. Victim" by other characters, as well as their fall damage voices (voiced by different people in either of the installments).
52	* FetchQuest: The "Sapience" section in ''Amen'' is comprised of these, in an environment that resembles a village in a RolePlayingGame.
53	* FinalBoss: Somos — whose name stands for [[OverlordJr Son of Masters of Sadism]] — is the recurring one in the series, showing up in the final sections of each of the installments.
54	* GuideDangIt: ''Amen'' has a hint guide text file included in the files. You might end up reaching to it a few times.
55	** Outright enforced in one of the sections of the above installment — the one in the white room with Blackjack's inverted face with glasses — that outright tells you to turn the game off and look up a certain file.
56	* HilariousOuttakes: The ''Ambience'' section in ''Amen'' has two buttons which play these.
57	* HopeSpot: [[spoiler:One of the doors in the final section of ''Amen'' is this.]]
58	--> ''THIS! is the only room, where [[BlatantLies you will survive!]] [[spoiler:[[SincerityMode .....for ten seconds.]]]]'' [[spoiler:player gets gibbed ''not even 10 seconds in'']]
59	* HubLevel: The Steam release of The Trilogy features a ''VideoGame/QuakeI''-like starting level with entrances to each of the trilogy's installments, alongside their tutorials.
60	* IdiosyncraticDifficultyLevels: The easy -> medium -> hard difficulties have been renamed into fast -> slow -> sadistic. It matters more towards some of the combat encounters and much less when dealing with the variety of {{One Hit Kill}}ing {{Death Trap}}s.
61	* IdiosyncraticMenuLabels: The series go really far with the sadistic theming of their menus. The notable examples are:
62	--> New Game: Die
63	--> Load Game: Die On
64	--> Save Game: Life Insurance
65	--> Join Multiplayer Game: Multisadism
66	--> Options: See Your Blood
67	--> Quit Game: Amen
68	* IfYoureSoEvilEatThisKitten: ''Sunrise'' plays with this with "Morality Intersection", with a "hard" way and an "easy" way, both of which lead to the same place at the end. The "hard" route involves some platforming, while the "easy" route just involves a boat ride, a song, and [[spoiler:constant choking and screaming sounds throrough the ride]].
69	* InfinityMinusOneSword: ''Amen'' has the Sword of Sadism — first obtained in the ''Ambience'' section — which replaces the Crowbar in that installment and deals around a whopping ''999 damage'', which is capable of one-shotting most enemies.
70	* IShallTauntYou: Somos does this to you repeatedly during each encounter with him.
71	* KaizoTrap: The mods in general feature plenty of this trope, ''Sunrise'' being quite more prevalent in that compared to the rest of the series. (What part of "[[PlatformHell Masters]] [[SadistShow of]] [[{{Sadist}} Sadism]]" did you not understand by now?)
72	* KilledMidSentence: In the original ''Half-Quake'', you meet up with a wounded security guard who survived by eating ''rats'' and tells you to find the missing cogwheel and a way to escape. He ends up getting crushed by a rock.
73	* LargeHam: Somos gained a new voice in ''Sunrise'', and he definitely must have had taken chops from [[Franchise/{{Castlevania}} Dracula]].
74	* LoadsAndLoadsOfLoading: Parodied with one room of ''Sunrise'' with a door that takes quite a while to "load" before opening, complete with [[Music/RodStewart a song]].
75	* MalevolentArchitecture: Well, yeah, most of the Half-Quake facility is designed to be one big DeathTrap.
76	* ManOnFire: Downplayed example. One of the quests in the "Sapience" chapter of ''Amen'' has you help a guy try to blow up a chest with a stick of dynamite. To do this, you'd have to reach a fireplace within the level and ''light your own right arm with fire'' (which curiously doesn't seem to affect your health) in order to light up the dynamite.
77	* TheMaze: The ''Audience'' section in ''Amen'' features one. ''Sunrise'' also has a handful of smaller but no less lethal ones.
78	* MinimalistCast: Most prominent in ''Sunrise'', where it would take quite a while for the player to even meet anybody in person (discounting characters [[TheVoice that could be heard in voice only]]).
79	* MultipleEndings: Parodied by ''Amen's'' final section, which presents the player with twenty doors, [[spoiler:each coming with their own way to kill you before cutting to credits]].
80	* NintendoHard: Let's say that for the most part, the mods [[SadistShow live up to]] [[TakeThatAudience the hostile tone they have to the players]].
81	* NoGearLevel: Don't expect to be able to hold onto your weaponry at any moment within the first two installments. To say nothing of ''Sunrise'' never giving you any weapons, ever.
82	* NonIndicativeName: The "Half" part of the name may be [[VideoGame/HalfLife1 apt]] for at least the first two installments, but the series has nothing much to do with ''VideoGame/{{Quake}}'' at all, aside perhaps from the first Mod featuring teleporters similar to the ones in ''VideoGame/QuakeI'' — just with stars being replaced with the '''>)''' smileys — and cribbing the AdvancingWallOfDoom from ''The Door to Chthon'' level.
83	* NoodleIncident: It's never elaborated on what the "mistake" is that the protagonist(s) is being severely punished for. At most, the readme for the first mod mentions that the "mistake" in question is up there with robbery and rape.
84	* NostalgiaLevel: [[spoiler:''Sunrise'' has you slip into locations from the previous installments/locations at few parts.]]
85	* [[OnceMoreWithClarity Once More, With Extra Sadism!]]: The first ''Half-Quake'' has a section that gets [[RemixedLevel repeated a few times]] through its runtime, with adjustments to it being made to it each iteration. That "repeat" section even pops up — with the current art style — once in ''Amen''.
86	* OurDragonsAreDifferent: ''Amen'' features "Dragons"… [[spoiler:that are simply Headcrabs that vocally pretend to be dragons]].
87	* PayEvilUntoEvil: May as well be Half-Quake's modus operandi. They take people they believe to be beyond redemption and force them through sadistic {{Death Course}}s, with not much of a way to survive escaping them all.
88	* PlatformHell: The mod series is a prime example of a ''First Person Shooter Hell', all while predating [[VideoGame/KaizoMarioWorld a number]] [[VideoGame/IWannaBeTheGuy of well known examples]] of this by few years.
89	* PrankCall: One of the few activities you can do in the "Patience" section of ''Amen'' is answering the phone, and the calls all happen to be this.
90	* PrepareToDie: In fact, the "New Game" function in main menu is simply titled "Die".
91	* PuzzleBoss: Somos, each time he's encountered at the final chapters of each installment. Typically, you'd have to find a way to disable his shields before you can strike his weak point (''Half-Quake''), flip some more switches (''Amen''), or play a Cat and Mouse game with him involving destructible walls you'd have to lure him into shooting to escape through (''Sunrise'').
92	* RewardingInactivity: "Patience is called Patience because you'd need around 20 minutes of patience." By the time you get to the section in question — which happens to be a train station — you'll realize ''they were not kidding''.
93	* {{Sadist}}: Half-Quake's owners, The Masters of Sadism, duh.
94	* SaveScumming: You would more than likely need it. In fact, ''Sunrise's'' tutorial at one point tasks you with making a quick-save.
95	* ShaggyDogStory: You'll know things would not end well for you when even the ''tutorials'' of these mods kill you off at their conclusion. [[spoiler:The campaign of ''Sunrise'' just slightly bucks this trend.]]
96	* SigilSpam: The '''>)''' emote is plastered in a lot of places in the series, especially in the first installments when it could be even seen in medkits, weapon models, and even ''headcrabs''.
97	* ShmuckBait: Examples abound thorough the series. Particularly in ''Amen'' which among other things, has you regularly encounter a pair of booths, one of which is named "Life", which heals you, and the other is "death", for which you should get the idea by now. [[spoiler:Except in the "Audience" section, where it just falls apart.]]
98	** ''Sunrise'' has plenty of BottomlessPits thorough the mod that are [[{{Understatement}} nowhere near as honestly marked]] as The Drain from ''VideoGame/TheNeverhood''.
99	* SmurfettePrinciple: ''Amen'' and ''Sunrise'' have a single female voice each, with the former being the train station announcer. Each being just as hostile to you as almost everybody in the series.
100	* SongsInTheKeyOfLock: ''Sunrise'' has one musical puzzle that has you re-arrange the notes on the wall to play the {{Leitmotif}} of the series since ''Amen''. After the entrance opens up upon solving the puzzle, you'd still have to platform on top of these notes. And avoid ''[[EverythingTryingToKillYou the lethal music player]]''.
101	* SpookyPainting: The house you somehow end up in in the middle of ''Half-Quake's'' fourth chapter happens to have plenty of these.
102	* SubbingForSanta: One of the quests in the "Sapience" section of ''Amen'' tasks you with putting yourself in the Santa suit, then going outside to arrange the blocks so you would be able to enter the house through the chimney in order to [[ItMakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext exorcise a possessed talking Christmas Tree]].
103	* SurrealHorror: The series veers into this from ''Amen'' on, as it moved away from the ''VideoGame/HalfLife1''-esque setting to the more surreal hand-drawn worlds.
104	* TheStinger: ''Amen'' and ''Sunrise'' feature ''multiple'' audio ones after their credits, including a song in ''Amen's'' case.
105	* TakeThat: One of the many multiple doors you can go to at the very end of ''Amen'' involves [[spoiler:death by ''Music/BritneySpears'']].
106	* TrialAndErrorGameplay: By the end of it all, your quick-save and quick-load keys might end up having even bigger use than your attack key.
107	* TheManyDeathsOfYou: The series is pretty diverse in all of the ways it tries to kill you, most notably exemplified with [[spoiler:''Amen's'' MultipleEndings, above]].
108	* UnexpectedGameplayChange: The original has a few "jump and run" sections that suddenly switches from the first person perspective to a SurvivalHorror-esque cinematic perspective with you doing some platforming challenges in that sort of camera.
109	** ''Sunrise'' has a TowerDefense-like section and an InteractiveFiction-like section; quite a feat to pull that off in the [=GoldSrc=] engine.
110	* UniqueEnemy: ''Amen'' features a single re-skinned Marine — whose Diaries you've been reading up to this point — that is [[BossInMookClothing beefed up with insane amounts of health and kicking strength]], to the point you'd have to defeat him with the Sword of Sadism.
111	* YouSuck: Pretty much ''nobody in the series'' ever gives you any sort of respect. In fact, ''even the main menus'' has this air of hostility, with the usual "New Game" instead being written as "Die".
112	** One literal example is from one of the first voice mails from ''Sunrise'':
113	--> ''Heeey, Victim! I just wanted to let you know:''You Suck!'' Cheers.''
114	* VideoGameCrueltyPunishment: Part of you may have been tempted to try your newly acquired Sword of Sadism in ''Ambience'' on the Masters of Sadism. Doing so gets you killed. It's not a good idea to slash the friendly [=NPCs=] in the ''Sapience'' chapter either.
115	* WorldOfJerkass: The amount of characters in the series that ''don't'' want you dead can be counted with fingers.
116	* YankTheDogsChain: ''Half-Quake'' has you almost escape from a house somehow on top of the facility you've escaped from, [[spoiler:and then screen blacks out and types in "You cannot escape, idiot" before throwing you into the remixed early section]].
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119	-> ''Don't you think that [[JustForFun/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife you're wasting time?]] Won't it be better to [[SeenItAllSuicide leave this life?]]''
120	-> ''....Well, I see. You're one of [[{{Determinator}} those.... "tough" guys]], aren't you?''
121	-> ''So now, take a minute and think about it.... why the hell should we be having a train system, hmmmm? Well of course, because [[ForTheEvulz we want to torture you]], but.... we don't need any transport system, we are everywhere, anyway. So this was an example of [[LifeIsntFair how life really is]]: sadistic and [[{{Absurdism}} absolutely senseless.]]''

Context VideoGame / HalfQuake