The basic gameplay of Chex Quest is that of the Doom series. You fend off monsters, you hunt down keys, and you explore pseudo-3D levels from a first-person perspective. Given that this is a kid-friendly game, there are, of course, some alterations. The blood and gore from Doom are absent. Enemies are not killed; your zorchers (weapons) send them back to their home dimension. The setpieces and graphics are cartoony and kid-friendly as opposed to the futuristic militarism meets cosmic horror themes of the original Doom.

Graphically, this game is heavily oriented towards kids. There is a lot of Chex cereal branding all over the game set pieces that look like something out of a cartoon. The Flemoid enemies are rather silly-looking, and this is about as far removed from the adult Doom graphics as you can get.

Sounds and music are also appropriately kid-friendly. The music is light and airy chiptune music that wouldn’t sound out of place in NES-era Nintendo games. The Flemoids make all sorts of goofy noises as well. Clearly, the goal was to make this feel like a silly kids' game, and the audio does well on that front.

This game was meant to be played with a keyboard and mouse. It can be played with a controller of some kind, but you’d need to set it up. This is possible on the official Chex Quest 3 game engine and via any other Doom source port available. There is no tutorial, but the controls are very simple to learn and remappable if need be.

Chex Quest is pretty stable, though that can depend on what source port you use. The official Chex Quest 3 port is tailored to Windows, but you can easily get it running on other operating systems with a source port, though it will require some configuration.

Morally, there is very little to be concerned about. There is no foul language, sexual content, and the setting has no occult or supernatural elements.

The violence is absolutely sterile. The “zorchers” you can use to harmlessly teleport the Flemoids away. Your character doesn’t “die”; they get “slimed”. It’s worth noting that the Flemoids are basically phlegm, which is a bit crude, admittedly. At the same time, given the even worse thing they replaced, this is very tame.

Overall, Chex Quest was more fun than I expected. Technically, it’s solid. Morally, it’s appropriate for almost any age. If you want to play an interesting piece of gaming history, want your kids to play something tame, or really love Chex cereal, then give Chex Quest a try.