Nods to Mods Interview: The Punishment Due

Welcome back to another Quake edition of Nods to Mods, where we sit down with community creators to get a closer look at their process!

We’re so excited to be featuring our most modern Add-on yet: Originally released just last year on community hubs, The Punishment Due is now available as a free 5 level Add-on that uses the Copper gameplay mod for the re-release of Quake.

For those out there who may have missed it – check out our Nods to Mods interview with Copper mod authors Lunaran & Scampie, alongside their map release, Underdark Overbright – both of which are available to download today.

Without further ado, let’s give a warm welcome our Nods to Mods newcomers, Juzley & Fairweather!

SC: Time for introductions! Tell us a little about yourselves

Juzley: My name's Julian, I'm a late 30s’ software engineer living on the outskirts of London, England.

Fairweather: My name's Lain, I'm in my early 20s’ living in New South Wales, Australia. Mostly spending all my free time doing Quake modding and collecting cute sheep pics.

SC: How long have you both been making Quake mods/levels?

Juzley: I played a lot of Quake when it came out but never made anything for it, but then I got very involved in the Quake 3 modding and mapping scene back in the early 2000s’. It wasn't until early 2020, when I happened to notice that some of the people I remembered from the Quake 3 mapping community were still making Quake maps, that I got drawn into making stuff for the original Quake. So about two years at this point.

Fairweather: I started in early 2019 after watching a bunch of videos from Custom Gamer on Youtube, who spoke very passionately about the level design of these amazing looking maps for some old game called 'Quake'. Been obsessed with it and its community ever since.

SC: We’re psyched to feature such a modern Add-on that you originally released in 2021! Can you tell us a bit about the modern Quake modding scene?

Juzley: To be honest, with two young kids and a busy job, I don't have as much time to participate in the community as I'd like, but there's a lot going on. Of course, there's the Quake Mapping Discord, which has frequent map jams, but there's quite a few smaller Discords focused on Quake content that have sprung up around particular streamers or mods. It's also really cool that there's places like the Terrafusion (née #terrafusion on IRC) and func_msgboard, that have been going for 20+ years.

SC: What was your main inspiration for this new episode Add-on?

Juzley: The main inspiration was Underdark Overbright, which for me really strikes the perfect balance between feeling like traditional Quake while still being innovative. I tried to find the same balance: nothing that would feel too out of place alongside an old-school Quake level, but with some original encounter design and layouts.

SC: What are your individual approaches to level design?

Juzley: It's pretty chaotic! I rarely have a plan, except maybe an idea of a mechanic I want to use, or a specific encounter or bit of layout. I just start building an area, add stuff around it, and then keep moving things around until I'm happy with it.

Fairweather: I'm quite like Juzley in the sense that I don't go in with much of an idea; I simply build out an area, piece by piece, until it forms a greater whole. For this episode, though, I had made around five-ish setpiece arena designs and then Juzley did the dirty work of putting the connective tissue between them all.

SC: Tell us about why you chose to use the Copper mod in this project, and if you had to modify it if at all to accomplish your vision?

Juzley: I like how "clean" it is from a mapper's point-of-view; there's all the tools you need and nothing more. I didn't make any changes to the Copper gameplay but I did come across a couple of bugs, which Lunaran kindly fixed for me.

SC: What tools did you use to create this Add-on?

Juzley: Just Trenchbroom and ericw-tools for the maps. I used FL Studio for the music.

SC: Tell us about the custom music and sounds used throughout the Add-on…

Juzley: I don't have much experience with digital music creation, so it was really just a case of twiddling dials in VSTs until I got something that sounded vaguely Quake-like. I could have certainly spent a bit longer polishing the music and adding a bit more variation to some of the tracks - I was a bit burnt out on writing music by the time it came to make the start map, and I'm very grateful to Alekswithak for lending his considerable musical talents for the music there. There aren't many custom sounds - I borrowed a few from MarkieMusic's sound pack, mainly for a bit of extra ambiance in places.

SC: Who’s your favorite modder or team of modders in the Quake community and what’s your favorite thing they’ve done?

Juzley: It's going to sound like a broken record if I say Copper and Underdark Overbright again! Outside of that, it gets harder to pick, but I'm really a sucker for a good base map, so I'm a big fan of the Alkaline mod. HardcoreMazu's maps for Alkaline in particular stand out to me, they're so much fun.

Fairweather: I'd have to go for the SMEJ team and their mods SMEJ and SMEJ2, representing the large Finnish community with their large, brutal levels and nonconformist design.

SC: Wanna give any other shoutouts? No time like the present…

Juzley: Shout out to the Dwell team for help with playtesting the mod, and shout out to all the people who said nice things about The Punishment Due on Quaddicted ;)

Fairweather: Shout out my mates behind the Dwell mod, wouldn't still be mapping without y'all!