From the website:
"PC first person shooter Duke Nukem 3D— Duke3D for short—to Windows, Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, several handhelds, your family toaster, and your girlfriend's vibrator. "
It was a wonderful collection of rage inducing weapons: pipe bombs, laser trip mines, shrink ray (then step on them for the kill), freeze gun (any hit shatters for the kill), and the BFG.
We had LAN parties and would play for hours on end with custom maps we had built or downloaded.
Same! We used to host "Jetpack Freeze Ray" duels which ended when somebody was frozen causing them to plummet out of the sky and shatter when they hit the ground~~
Back when I worked at the AG Group (famous for etherpeek) we'd play late at night we could hear each other screaming from our offices, and I'd walk out of my office terrified. The laser trips were the best. This game truly holds a special place in my heart.
Duke Nukem/BUILD was the first level editor that sucked me into level editing/mods, it is also the place where I spent the most hours. I later pivoted to more professional pursuits, however i killed a ton of time building new levels, and exploiting the engine to an obscene level.
I doubt I could get back into it these days, however, I hope the open source effort can inspire some awesome stuff!
Hmmm. I do sometimes play old DOS games. And then the era
of games that followed, say ... from 1995 to 2005 or so,
give or take. Though quite rarely nowadays.
I'd wish there could be an improvement of some of the old
games. Not to change their character per se, but to make
some small modest improvements to e. g. gameplay, usability,
perhaps even the graphics - without killing the old flair
it had. Anyone remember Alone in the Dark? I liked the
polygons, even though nobody would use these today. So that
can probably not be improved a lot without ruining the old
feeling. But content-wise? Where is AI when you need it?
Can't AI autogenerate more content for those games AND also
improve them modestly?
There are a lot of remakes of old games. Nintendo has done this a lot, but one challenge is these old games all come with IP and copyright, so it's hard to remake a game even with the technology. You have to have ownership and a good reason to believe people will buy a slightly updated game.
The front page of reddit (not logged in) is 11 MB, logged in it is 17 MB for me (variable based on media-heavy subreddits and ads). Facebook's login page is 8 MB. Hell, Google's front, once a bastion of efficiency (long since fallen), is 9 MB.
It's sad how 19 MB now doesn't even register for me in today's bloated web.
It's a sort of duke roguelike with 100's of potential levels, you play through a a certain random number of them in a run. Also you unlock all sorts of power ups as you progress, enemies also get stronger and get random buffs. + Theyve added a load of mechanics, more weapons, enemies, more playable characters etc.
Duke Nukems are still my favorite games ever. One of the first game I played multiplayer with two laptops. I was 12ish years old. First game was actually retaliator, but that aside. Level design, graphics, sounds and the atmosphere was groundbreaking those days. Wish I was that age again.
Me too! I learnt a lot about how games „work“ by using the level editor and using more and more of the advanced features.
And playing your own worlds in 1vs1 serial linked multiplayer mode was a whole new experience.
I used eduke32 to blaze through DN3D once more on a boomer shooter kick a few years back. Which arguably never ended, as Doom and Quake mods make up most of my gaming time now.
I was into playing and modding Doom back in the 90s and just a few months ago rediscovered the community - I am just blown away by the effort and creativity that is going into these source ports and the indie games people are building on top of them. That passion and spirit of sharing is peak Internet/open-source.
I downloaded the AshesStandalone_V1_51.zip file, but it looks like it only contains the windows executable. For our linux friends, unzip it, install gzdoom, and then run this command inside the "Resources" folder to play it on linux:
From the website: "PC first person shooter Duke Nukem 3D— Duke3D for short—to Windows, Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, several handhelds, your family toaster, and your girlfriend's vibrator. "
Why they go this route is beyond me :)
Mac Source Ports has signed and notarized versions of this along with Raze and JFDuke3D - https://www.macsourceports.com/game/duke3d
All ported and ready to go on Apple Silicon - they even have instructions on how to extract the needed data from Steam or GoG.
Duke Nukem 3D was probably one of the earlier FPS games that really encouraged modding because of Ken Silverman's Build Engine.
Even the enemy AI could be modified (albeit relatively limited) by editing the text CON files.
Anyone else remember playing over LAN with friends, dropping a Duke hologram in an elevator along with a bunch of pipe bombs hidden at its feet?
It was a wonderful collection of rage inducing weapons: pipe bombs, laser trip mines, shrink ray (then step on them for the kill), freeze gun (any hit shatters for the kill), and the BFG.
We had LAN parties and would play for hours on end with custom maps we had built or downloaded.
Same! We used to host "Jetpack Freeze Ray" duels which ended when somebody was frozen causing them to plummet out of the sky and shatter when they hit the ground~~
Hail to the king, baby!
Back when I worked at the AG Group (famous for etherpeek) we'd play late at night we could hear each other screaming from our offices, and I'd walk out of my office terrified. The laser trips were the best. This game truly holds a special place in my heart.
We also had a really good LAN there.
Nice. The laser-trip alarm effect that would play right before it detonated in your face is forever emblazoned in my memory.
Duke Nukem/BUILD was the first level editor that sucked me into level editing/mods, it is also the place where I spent the most hours. I later pivoted to more professional pursuits, however i killed a ton of time building new levels, and exploiting the engine to an obscene level.
I doubt I could get back into it these days, however, I hope the open source effort can inspire some awesome stuff!
Hmmm. I do sometimes play old DOS games. And then the era of games that followed, say ... from 1995 to 2005 or so, give or take. Though quite rarely nowadays.
I'd wish there could be an improvement of some of the old games. Not to change their character per se, but to make some small modest improvements to e. g. gameplay, usability, perhaps even the graphics - without killing the old flair it had. Anyone remember Alone in the Dark? I liked the polygons, even though nobody would use these today. So that can probably not be improved a lot without ruining the old feeling. But content-wise? Where is AI when you need it? Can't AI autogenerate more content for those games AND also improve them modestly?
Some of the source ports (and some of the reimagining) does exactly what you want:
Various DooM ports go beyond replicating "vanilla DooM" and even beyond updating graphics, to adding true 3D, etc.
VMCI and HotA go way beyond "Heroes III on modern machines"
Augustus expands on Julius until it's not just "Caesar 3" on current equipment.
There are a lot of remakes of old games. Nintendo has done this a lot, but one challenge is these old games all come with IP and copyright, so it's hard to remake a game even with the technology. You have to have ownership and a good reason to believe people will buy a slightly updated game.
Classic!
Play the (only?) WASM demo at https://midzer.de/wasm/duke3d/ (ported from https://github.com/GPSnoopy/BelgianChocolateDuke3D). Miserably only software rendering right now.
Offtopic:
> "Click here to load ~19mb"
Oh, how sweet...
The front page of reddit (not logged in) is 11 MB, logged in it is 17 MB for me (variable based on media-heavy subreddits and ads). Facebook's login page is 8 MB. Hell, Google's front, once a bastion of efficiency (long since fallen), is 9 MB.
It's sad how 19 MB now doesn't even register for me in today's bloated web.
> It's sad how 19 MB now doesn't even register for me in today's bloated web.
I have recently mentally registered that many people look at GB the same way in 2026
wow, first Linux crash in over a year trying to run that. artifacts and unresponsive 2nd monitor, had to hard reboot.
Duke3D deathmatch over IPX was epic, especially to hide in secret places when others didn't know them.
Yes! And Kali!
I pirated this as a kid.
I've probably bought 10 different versions in the meantime to make up for it
I spent a lot of time in the Duke Nukem 3D level editor, even had a thick reference book. Really gave me a leg up for CAD in school.
Duke Nukem 3D was my first experience urinating in a video game. Hail to the king, baby.
Am still looking for where I am supposed to type 'dnkroz' IRL
This is the most fun I've had with Duke Nukem this century https://www.moddb.com/mods/duke-nukem-alien-armageddon
It's a sort of duke roguelike with 100's of potential levels, you play through a a certain random number of them in a run. Also you unlock all sorts of power ups as you progress, enemies also get stronger and get random buffs. + Theyve added a load of mechanics, more weapons, enemies, more playable characters etc.
Hail to the king, baby!
Duke nukem 3D is kinda the most adult shooter ever if you compute the ratio of age/controversy/sex/blood/possibilities.
Duke Nukems are still my favorite games ever. One of the first game I played multiplayer with two laptops. I was 12ish years old. First game was actually retaliator, but that aside. Level design, graphics, sounds and the atmosphere was groundbreaking those days. Wish I was that age again.
Me too! I learnt a lot about how games „work“ by using the level editor and using more and more of the advanced features. And playing your own worlds in 1vs1 serial linked multiplayer mode was a whole new experience.
I used eduke32 to blaze through DN3D once more on a boomer shooter kick a few years back. Which arguably never ended, as Doom and Quake mods make up most of my gaming time now.
I was into playing and modding Doom back in the 90s and just a few months ago rediscovered the community - I am just blown away by the effort and creativity that is going into these source ports and the indie games people are building on top of them. That passion and spirit of sharing is peak Internet/open-source.
doomhack and hex editors taught me a lot in that era
If you havent played the Ashes 2063 mod series for DOOM I highly recommend it. https://www.moddb.com/mods/ashes-2063
Ive played a lot of excellent doom and quake mods...
* brutal doom, hell on earth starter pack
* blade of agony
* Hedon
* quake brutalist jams 1 to 3
* Arcane Dimensions
* alien armageddon (for duke3d)
but that one really stand out.
Ashes 2063 looks awesome thank you for sharing!
I downloaded the AshesStandalone_V1_51.zip file, but it looks like it only contains the windows executable. For our linux friends, unzip it, install gzdoom, and then run this command inside the "Resources" folder to play it on linux:
> gzdoom -config gzdoom-ashes.ini -iwad freedoom-0.12.1/freedoom2.wad -file AshesSAMenu.pk3 lightmodepatch.pk3 Ashes2063Enriched2_23.pk3 Ashes2063EnrichedFDPatch.pk3 +logfile log.txt
Don’t forgot to check out Ashes Hard Reset and Afterglow as well.