About
Duke Nukem 1 was a 1991 16-color EGA (320x200) platform game published by Apogee Software, created by Todd Replogle, John Carmack, Scott Miller, Allen H. Blum III, George Broussard, and Jim Norwood, and it launched the Duke Nukem series. Dave Gnukem is a retro-style 2D scrolling platform shooter inspired by, but explicitly not a clone or remake of, Duke Nukem 1 — the author describes it as "similar but different" in gameplay and look, and a parody rather than a faithful recreation. It's cross-platform (Windows, Linux, macOS, and more) and packaged in most major Linux distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, Kali, Raspbian, Devuan, the Arch AUR, openSUSE, and others), with the current stable release (1.0.3, November 2022) being the first official SDL2-based version. Development began in the mid-1990s, was later maintained by other contributors, and has been actively developed again since October 2016.
How it differs from the original
Unlike the original, the game deliberately uses only hand-drawn sprites and levels created from scratch rather than the original Duke Nukem 1's assets or level data — the author states it is not intended to load or replicate actual original level or sprite data. It also deliberately caps its frame rate at 18fps and keeps the original's 320x200 display resolution as a nostalgic homage, even though the underlying engine could run faster and at higher resolutions.
Getting started
Default controls are left/right to move, Ctrl to jump, Alt to shoot, and the up arrow as a context action key (e.g. opening doors or activating teleporters); an in-game level editor is included, reachable after enabling a debug/cheat mode from the in-game menu. It's available as a package on most major Linux distributions (e.g. "sudo apt install davegnukem"), via Flathub, or as prebuilt Windows/macOS builds.
History
Originally created by David Joffe starting around 1994 as an x86 assembly DOS/EGA project, the C++ version began around 1995; it was maintained by other contributors from 2004–2008, went dormant for several years, and became actively developed again in October 2016, with version 1.0 released in April 2018.
Media
Additional notes
- Design choice
- The 18fps frame cap and 320x200 resolution are deliberate homages to Duke Nukem 1's original EGA-era hardware limitations, not technical constraints of the engine itself.