This Tribute To Quake Is Just 13 Kilobytes In Size

Yes, I did know.
I saw it Sunday on Youtube.

Impressive, most impressive.

Fantastic.

Hats off to the folks who pulled this off.

@Sketcz
Black magic ?
Chaos magic ?

@Sketcz

It’s not really 13kb if you include the browser it runs on etc. It’s not like 40kb NES games, which run directly on the hardware. In that 40kb you have everything needed to initialise and control the hardware.

I mention this because it’s made to seem as if pure wizardry is involved, when in reality the browser acts like a game engine and software environment.

Edit: I’m not saying it’s not a great achievement and well designed program. It’s just not the same as writing a stand alone game which is somehow 13kb on a modern 64bit system.

Edit2: I mention this because I once saw an article fawning over how one of these js competitions had made a Mario clone at 13kb, whereas the original NES game is 40kb. They’re not comparable. Also, the NES programmers of yore often were wizards! Yes, I idolise them somewhat! 😂

@amongtheworms Thanks for the further context. I remember that development video on Micro Mages and that really was enjoyable and impressive to see what approaches to take to make a NES game within 40kb. The game itself turned out pretty nice too. I love videos like that.

@amongtheworms I haven't checked this exact thing out, more than this article.

But you can do alot with just code generating assets and such on the fly.
Around 20 years ago. .kkrieger made the rave trough the demo scene, it was only 96k, but looked like a modern game in 2004. I played it myself many times. There where no shenanigans like browsers involved. It was just a simple single executable 96kb in size.
It took ages to load up, but was amazingly impressive when you played the game, considering the size.

Check it out if you have not.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/.kkrieger

Anyway, I imagine this 13kb version of Quake was done in a similar way.

Edit: when I say it looked like a modern game, I mean that it looked like it uses graphical tech new in that era, like bumpmapping and modern light systems. As well contemporary texture resolution and models.
But still of course it's just a demo.

Edit2: check out nostalgia nerds video about it if you are interested. https://youtu.be/bD1wWY1YD-M?si=JCqZAUXr9aHs2XRb

Edit3: i would also like to point out that, having the browser run the game could be compared to an operating system running a game, or for that matter am old console using a bios, or a sound generator enabling audio. Every piece of gaming hardware is aiding the game it's running in one way or another.

@Lovelime

Yeah, they are making some of the assets on the fly.

Also yes, modern games have to run alongside an OS, but so do browsers (and modern browsers also benefit from hardware acceleration). So in reality, these 13kb games are running on a browser and alongside an OS. I’m not diminishing the achievement, I was merely stating that it’s not some spooky programming magic which is occurring. My point about NES programming was that the NES doesn’t have an OS or even a proper BIOS. The cart has to setup everything, write the logic, and store the assets. There were different cartridge hardware setups, some with much greater memory, but the basic one was 40kb - the one used for Super Mario Bros.

Edit1: Thank you for the link to Krieger. I will check it out!

Edit2: Very interesting! It certainly reminds me of the various demoscene marvels over the years. While it’s true that the executable is 96kb, it of course relies on the OS to enable all of its asset generation. In no way does that diminish what is a truly amazing achievement! Whether it’s a 13kb JS game, a 96kb PC/OS game, or a 40kb NES game, they all showcase some form of ingenuity. In my original comment I just wanted to highlight what is actually happening.

Edit3: of course, there was some utter garbage on the NES which filled 40kb. I’m talking about the technical marvels!