Welcome back to another Quake edition of Nods to Mods, where we sit down with community creators to take a closer look at their process! We’re so excited to have Rubicon 2, an awesome free mod and add-on combo, now available for the Quake re-release! Originally released on community hubs in 2011, Rubicon 2 features three major single player levels (plus a starting map), new enemies, sounds, textures, models, hazards and more!
Let’s give the mods a warm nod, welcome to newcomer and co-creator of Rubicon 2, John Fitzgibbons! This mod was made in collaboration with someone who is no stranger to the Quake scene: Rubicon 2 co-creator, Nods 2 Mods veteran and Senior Level Designer at MachineGames: Christian Grawert.
Since we’ve been lucky enough to feature Christian’s incredible creations on past Nods to Mods, (ICYMI, check out our interviews for Honey and Terra), today we’ll be focusing on John for the Shambler’s share of the answers!
SLAYERS CLUB: Thanks for joining us! Share some background information about yourself for our readers.
JOHN FITZGIBBONS: I’m John Fitzgibbons, known as metlslime in several online communities. I’ve been working in the games industry for about two decades as a level designer on many different games – mostly first- and third-person shooters, but I also worked on an MMORPG and a few mobile casual games. In the Quake community, I created levels, textures, and tools for Quake and Quake 2, created the level design forum Func_Msgboard, and created the quake engine port Fitzquake.
SC: How long have you been making Quake mods/levels?
JF: I’m not active in the hobby world anymore, but I’ve been doing it for about 15 years, starting in 1997 and ending with the release of Rubicon 2 in 2011. I had received Quake as a Christmas present in 1996 and within a month, discovered that levels were that you could download online and that you could get a level editor and create your own levels.
My first attempts were using the old “Thred” editor which had some major drawbacks such as no ability to align textures. My first level released was The Crawling Chaos and you might notice that it uses textures almost entirely that don’t need any specific alignment. For the few that did, such as button structures, I had to manually align them in a text editor before each compilation.
SC: You’ve been awarded the title “Deadliest Mapper Alive” by the Quake community – how did you earn such a ferocious title?
JF: This was purely a self-titled (and semi-ironic) title. When it came to creating an online portfolio to get jobs, I thought it would be a good idea to excite myself a bit. The name is a riff on the old ads you’d see in the back of comic books or ninja magazines in the 1980s, advertising “The Deadliest Man Alive” that could teach you his deadly martial arts techniques if you turned off his mail order order.
SC: How did you and Christian form this dream team duo to work together? What’s the history there?
JF: We were both members of the old quake message board QMap and Christian had already released some critically acclaimed levels at the time, including Insomnia (as czg07.) I wanted to make a bigger mod compared to my previous releases and I thought it would go faster with a another level designer. I asked czg and he said yes, for some reason.
SC: What was your main inspiration for this incredible three-level add-on and mod?
JF: I don’t think there was one big source of inspiration. It was clear that I wanted to make something in the same sci-fi/industrial theme as the original Rubicon. Some pop culture influences include movies like Alien, Blade Runner, and Akira, and games like Super Metroid, Final Fantasy 7, and Super R-Type. Quake 2 is an obvious influence. I also sneaked a few references to games like Planetfall and Zork there.
SC: How does Rubicon 2 compare to the original Rubicon (originally released in ’98) in story, size or scale? And what’s it like to make a sequel to your previous work?
JF: The links are focused on art style and gameplay. The art style is sci-fi/industrial with a bit of a retro flavor. It’s science fiction, but thoroughly Quake-y in terms of how rough, dirty and dark everything is.
The gameplay of the original Rubicon was only limited to the military enemies. Rubicon 2 adds some new enemies, but they’re all still firmly in that military/sci-fi faction. Many of the elements that appeared in rough form in Rubicon have been polished in the sequel. Textures are similar but have been repainted with better quality, the hacky ladders from the original have been replaced with custom ladder code, etc. I always found the original Rubicon textures a bit sloppy so it felt good to recreate the same style one more time .
SC: What tools did you use to create this ambitious combination of mod and add-on?
JF: Making a Quake mod feels like it takes dozens of different tools and utilities. I can’t remember them all except: QERadiant, Texmex, qME, milkshape, Pak Explorer, FrikQCC, SleepwalkR’s map converter, aguirRe’s map compilers, SFXR, SoundForge, Paint Shop Pro, and Photoshop, to name a few.
SC: How long did it take you to complete this mod + add-on combo?
JF: Rubicon 2 took about 10 years from inception to release, but there were a lot of interruptions along the way where I took the time to work on other hobby projects like Fitzquake, other Quake levels, and even maps for other games like Cube and Sauerbraten. Meanwhile, Christian also worked on different levels/projects at different times.
SC: Tell us about the new enemies appearing in the add-on…
JF: The original Rubicon was limited to just the military enemies – grunts, enforcers and dogs. There was a lack of variety and the challenge slope of enemies was very shallow as these are three of the weakest enemies in the game. I created these new enemies to increase the variety and challenge without breaking the theme.
Dreadnaughts are flamethrower enforcers. They have a high DPS but no ranged attack. I modeled the gameplay after Berzerkers from Quake 2 — harmless from a distance but very dangerous if they can corner you.
Centurions are Nailgun enforcers on flying platforms. Many flying enemies in games seem to have small hit boxes. I wanted something at least as big as an enforcer or Scragg because it’s no fun sneaking up on little flying robots. These are inspired by the “Air Centurions” from the movie Masters of the Universe.
Vending machines are extra large security robots. They have been nicknamed “Floyd” in reference to Planetfall. Its design is inspired by the robots of Super Metroid. Bigger and slower than the other enemies and they explode on death to keep players on their toes.
SC: You guys have come up with some wild new gameplay objects in this mod, from deadly elements like armored turrets and steam vents that spew deadly fumes, to some cool traversal options like ladders that give players access to new areas or color-coded lasers that close- no access to key areas. Tell us a bit about this coming into being…
JF: It’s been so long that it’s hard to remember where all the ideas came from. Ladders were already present in the original Rubicon, but in a hacky way (the super-steep stair trick.) For the sequel, I just wanted to give them a good feeling to climb.
The lasers were inspired by Quake 2. I think before adding them I used something more like the particle force fields from the mission packs, but I wasn’t happy with it. I thought color-coded lasers are a nice mechanism because with one button you can knock out multiple barriers in different parts of the level and the player understands. The turrets evolved through multiple iterations, but I believe they originally started out more like the original Quake’s laser shooting traps and then slowly evolved into something that actively followed the player and had a special trick to deactivate it.
SC: Who is your favorite modder or team of modders in the Quake community and what’s your favorite thing they’ve done?
JF: There is no way to limit it. The Quake community is overflowing with talented people who have come and gone in its long history. Some of my favorites are Kell and the rest of the Quoth team. Quoth was one of those early mods with a coherent vision that fit Quake very well, spreading subtle hints of lore that hinted at a larger universe. Sock and the Arcane Dimensions team for similar reasons – the whole mod has so many high quality substitutes and a vast enemy roster that is very well crafted and also well thought out and consistent. Hrimfaxi, ijed and mfx for Rubicon Rumble Pack – the mod that took the theme and gameplay from Rubicon 2 and brought it to 11.
SC: Want to give any other shoutouts? No time like the present…
JF: The level designers and modders are often the stars of the community, but I am very grateful to all the people who have created and maintained the “infrastructure” of the community: the websites, forums, tools and engines that enable the community and keep it evolving .
Ghost for Quaddicted. SleepwalkR for hosting Func_Msgboard and also for creating Fitzquake’s SDL ports, which eventually became the foundation for Quakespasm, (He also created the TrenchBroom editor.) The whole Quakespasm team to keep that project going all these years to keep. AguirRe for his work on engines and compiler tools. Shambler for his Quake-level review site way back in the day.
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