Video Game / Arcane Dimensions

Arcane Dimensions is a Game Mod for Quake, developed by a team spearheaded by Simon "Sock" O'Callaghan and originally released in 2015, with several updates released in the following years.

Billed as "an alternative universe of Quake", the highly ambitious mod incorporates an incalculable variety of textures, monsters, weapons, and concepts from various earlier mods produced across multiple decades. Taking full advantage of the advances in technology seen in the years since the classic game made its debut, Arcane Dimensions massively expands upon the roster of enemies and crafts a collection of intricately detailed worlds, most of which would have probably fried gamers' computers had they actually tried to run them back in 1996.

The mod can be downloaded from here.

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Tropes shared with the original Quake can be found on that game's page. Tropes unique to Arcane Dimensions include:

• Animation Bump: Many items, monsters, and textures have been given touch-ups to show more detail, most notably the ammo boxes, Death Knight and Shambler, who have all been given entirely new models. They look excellent, but at the same time, they do stand out pretty obviously next to all of the ancient ‘96 models that are still in the game.
• Ascended Extra: Stone Knights and Stone Death Knights, who appeared in exactly one level of Quake Mission Pack 2: Dissolution of Eternity, now make regular appearances.
• Bag of Spilling: Since each level is standalone rather than part of a larger, sequential episode, you begin every single one with only the shotgun and axe (Shadow Axe only when playing on Evil skill), losing all of the weapons & ammo you’d collected previously.
• Bubblegloop Swamp: "Foggy Bogbottom" is set in a swamp environment. Its map file name is even "ad_swampy".
• Chekhov's Gun: "Firetop Mountain" includes an area with numerous small, empty rooms, each containing secret compartments that have nothing in them but a small pile of bones. Later on in the level, an alcove in one of the caves contains a stone gravestone, with onscreen text appearing that reads "Here lies the tomb of a legendary knight!". Both of these spots seem to be pointless, until you unlock the "Knight's Tale" sidequest, which these areas are key to completing the level in full.
• Die, Chair, Die!: Central to most levels is a new destructible object system, allowing parts of the level and items within it to be broken apart. Most commonly, destructible environmental features hide secrets or alternate passageways, and the ubiquitous Strogg crates of base levels can finally be busted open to get to the goodies inside.
• Elite Mook: A number of monsters appear that serve as tougher, nastier versions of the classic monsters:
  • Death Knights have Fury Knights - speedy, leaping warriors carrying dual scimitars and able to shoot very fast projectiles - and Blue Mace Knights, who wield Epic Flails and can fling Vore-like homing explosives at you.
  • Enforcers have Eliminators, who have more health and shoot deadlier plasma shots.
  • The Boglord, a Unique Enemy that appears only in a secret area of “The Forgotten Sepulcher”, is a giant, green Shambler.
• Embedded Precursor: The original Quake episodes can be accessed from a secret area within the Hub Level, "In the Beginning", which includes a copy of the original hub, "Introduction". It's more than a fun easter egg: the various changes made to the graphics and gameplay still apply, and a pillar in the middle of the room can be activated to engage "Chaos Mode", which completely randomizes the enemies within said levels. A second pillar can be found where the original Nightmare skill portal is located in the Episode 4 entrance, which engages Chaos Mode Level 666 when activated
• Equipment Upgrade: The Axe, Double-Barreled Shotgun and Thunderbolt can now be upgraded to the Shadow Axe, Widowmaker Shotgun and Plasma Gun, respectively. The Super Nailgun is also now treated as an upgrade to the standard Nailgun.
• Guest Fighter: Among the roster of new monsters are the Lost Souls from Doom and a large collection of enemies adapted from Hexen II.
• Harder Than Hard: Not only does the original Harder Than Hard mode, Nightmare, return, but an even harder mode called Evil is added, which halves the player's maximum health and starts the player with the Shadow Axe only.
• Hitscan: Averted, in one of the most immediately visible changes. The shotguns now fire fast-moving projectiles instead of hitting instantaneously, giving you a bit of a better view of where your shots are landing as well as allowing you to dodge oncoming shotgun blasts.
• Hub Level: Arcane Dimensions has two of these; "In the Beginning", which boots up whenever a new game is begun, and "Arcane Chapters", accessible via a portal on the second floor, directly left of the lift the player spawns on. As per Quake I tradition, these levels allow the player to select their skill level, achieved via pillars as opposed to slipgates, in addition to teleporters that load each of the mod's available levels.
  • Also per Quake tradition, the player can unlock a hidden Nightmare skill pillar by completing certain sequences in each Hub: "In the Beginning"'s Nightmare pillar is unlocked by dropping into the lava pool in front of the slipgate to "Grendel's Blade" into a hidden room beneath. Walking through the button-opened doorway back into the hub raises the pillar.
  • "Arcane Chapters"' Nightmare pillar is unlocked by shooting a button hidden beneath an awning in front of a closed door, adjacent to the slipgate to "The Horde of Zendar".
  • Unlocking the Nightmare skill pillars also reveals a switch hidden on two of the pillars in the main room of both levels which, when activated, unlocks the Evil difficulty option. Doing so causes the Evil pillar to erupt beneath and destroy the Easy pillar when approached, accompanied by a text popup declaring "No need for Easy skill anymore!! You now have Evil skill instead!?!".
• Lemony Narrator: The onscreen text is generally a lot more colourful than in the base game, frequently making wry commentary on the environment or complimenting the player on their skills.
• Made of Plasticine: Quake's trademark Ludicrous Gibs system has been expanded upon in such a way that practically everything has this attribute. You can now blow apart corpses and dying enemies like in Quake II, making it all the easier to blast baddies into gory chunks with only a single well-placed shotgun shell, and any breakable object - regardless of whether it’s made of glass, wood, stone, or metal - will always crumble to bits after only a few strikes.
• Marathon Level: “Foggy Bogbottom”, “The Forgotten Sepulcher”, and “Tears of the False God” are all incredibly large, with over 500 enemies and several dozen secrets. Your first playthrough of any of them is unlikely to take less than an hour, and that’s without completing the very difficult, lengthy tasks required for 100% Completion.
• Minecart Madness: “The Realm of Enceladus” is partially set within a mine and includes a mine cart, although you only ride on it for a brief moment to destroy a barrier.
• Mook Maker: Some monsters have variants that will spawn other monsters until they are killed, such as the black Skull Wizard that generates Lost Souls, the brown Minotaur that summons Gargoyles, and the Vore variant that tosses Voreling eggs instead of fireballs.
• Mini Mook: Vorelings are baby Vores, although the relationship is only skin-deep, as they only have a melee attack.
• Mythology Gag:
  • "The Necromancer's Keep" opens with a scene where the player must climb out of their own grave, which is a homage to the opening scene of "Among the Dead" from the classic mod Zerstörer, where the player must do the same thing.
  • The new Hammer Ogre enemy wields a large, powerful hammer that can create shockwaves and earthquakes when they hit the ground with it, which is probably a reference to the early design concepts for Quake, in which the player's main weapon would have been a "Hammer of Thunderbolts" with similar abilities.
  • The Pyro enemy is obviously inspired by the character class of the same name from Team Fortress. Although they use a reskinned Enforcer for their model instead of the Pyro skin from that mod, their flamethrower weapon functions in exactly the same way.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot:
  • The Zombie Knights, who, as their name would imply, are Zombies with the speed and attack power of Knights.
  • Freddie, a cyborg Ogre with a blaster and nailgun.
• No Plot? No Problem!: Zig-zagged. The mod as a whole is a collection of independent levels, with no interconnecting story, but a few individual levels do have stories, such as "Firetop Mountain" and "The Necromancer's Keep".
• Nostalgia Level:
  • Six levels are remakes of classic levels from the original game (plus one from Doom), with added Arcane Dimensions elements: "Slipgate Conundrum" is a remake of "E1M1: The Slipgate Complex"; "The Ogre Bastille" is a remake of "E2M2: The Ogre Citadel"; "The Mire" is a single-player adaptation of "DM5: The Cistern"; "The Underearth" is a remake of the level of the same name, E2M7; "The Place of Many Deaths" is a single-player adaptation of "DM1: The Place of Two Deaths"; and "Hangar 16" is a remake of Doom's "E1M1: Hangar".
  • "The Forgotten Sepulcher" was originally inspired by "E1M3: The Necropolis", although it's been expanded to such an enormous extent that the recognizable elements are few and far between.
• Patchwork Story: Many of the levels were originally created years earlier as standalone levels, only later being edited and repurposed into portions of AD.
• Secret Level: "The End", which can only be accessed after you acquire each of the runes located in "Crucial Error", "Foggy Bogbottom", "Firetop Mountain", and "Obsessive Brick Disorder".
• Shout-Out:
  • The Plasma Gun’s appearance is modelled directly on the eponymous weapon from Doom, although it has a much lower rate of fire and does not use the same sound effects.
  • A secret area in "Foggy Bogbottom" features a fish tank containing a Dopefish from Commander Keen, continuing the beloved meta Running Gag of its cameos in numerous games by Id and its former employees, beginning in "E2M3: The Crypt of Decay" from Quake itself. This Dopefish, unlike the flat wall texture in "The Crypt of Decay", gets a whole 3D model to itself, built off of the Rotfish.
  • The narration text in “The Place of Many Deaths” includes many quotes from the Back to the Future movies, usually ones appropriate to the current situation.
  The player finds a Green Armor: “Bulletproof vest! Genius!”
  The player comes across a tantalizing Quad Damage just out of their reach: “You know, if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.”
  The player activates a Monster Closet: “Make like a tree and get out of here!”
  • The Gaunts, like the Fiends and Shamblers before them, are directly inspired by a monster from an H. P. Lovecraft story, in this case, the Night-gaunts from “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath”.
  • The rocket launcher-brandishing Grunts are called “Rocketeers”. Unlike the superhero, though, they shoot rockets rather than using one to fly.
• Spirit Advisor: "Firetop Mountain" features the recurring appearance of a friendly Death Knight's ghost, who gently guides you through the level. If you follow his directions correctly, you'll find the secret that unlocks the "Knight's Tale" sidequest, allowing you to free his companions' spirits and save all of their souls, along with earning you the Rune that he died protecting.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: You're free to attack the peaceful Fishing Ogre anyway, at which point he will reveal himself to be quite the tough customer, with more health than a standard Ogre and an immunity to pain states. Killing him yields the player a whopping 6 rockets, along with the message "You are no fisherman's friend!".
• Villains Out Shopping: Several levels include encounters with "Fishing Ogres", who are simply out on a fishing trip, with their rod in the water (or suspended over bottomless pits) and a freshly-caught Rotfish beside them. They ignore the player completely no matter how closely they draw near.

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