Along the way, various cereal-themed power-ups, weapons, and ammunition can be found that can boost the player character's health and make him better able to counterattack or flee his enemies.

Chex Quest was the first foray into professional game development for lead artist Charles Jacobi and programmer Scott Holman, though both had previously modded Doom levels in the past.

In an interview with PC Gamer magazine in 2009, Jacobi stated that the biggest reason for the lasting success of Chex Quest has been that it is still essentially a disguised version of Doom with basically unaltered game dynamics.

Because time was limited, pre-existing tools popular with the Doom fan community (such as the level creation tool Doombuilder) were utilized in level design, and sound effects such as the distinctive vocalization of the Flemoids were created by creative director Dean Hyers and audio designer Andrew Benson playing around in a sound booth.

[19] Additional development team members include: Producer Kimberly Hyers, Technical Coordinator Dave Brus, Project Manager Mary Bregi.

[20] In support of the promotion, coupons and advertisements were included in newspapers and magazines with total circulation of 42 million; promotional art was added to the front of all boxes containing the game; a 30-second television advertisement was broadcast; and a website (chexquest.com) was launched to present game tips, Chex recipes, and further plot details such as character biographies.

[6] To cut down on development costs, WatersMolitor formed a promotional partnership with America Online who actually manufactured the CDs[11] in exchange for which all copies of Chex Quest came bundled with the AOL software and a "50 Free Hours" subscription offer.

Despite Chex Quest's major changes from its predecessor, there are still a few remaining relics (e.g. levels from other Ultimate Doom episodes and some in-game text).

Likewise, completing E4M5 displays the end graphic from Thy Flesh Consumed, the fourth and final episode of The Ultimate Doom.

Charles Jacobi has said that there were never any plans to produce more than five levels[18] and that he knew Scott Holman, another programmer, ran through the text strings and changed any that seemed inappropriate, without knowing where they went.

[6][11] These increases were directly attributed to the release of Chex Quest, and General Mills deemed the promotion "highly successful.

[32] In modern times, Chex Quest is often considered to have been highly innovative[33][34] and to have pioneered the use of licensed modding to insert product placement into established titles.

[1][6] Developed on an even tighter schedule than the original game, Chex Quest 2 was rushed to completion and consequently the level design and progression notably suffered.

[18] Plans were drafted to allow individual WAD file levels and updates to the game to be posted on the company Web site as an effective way of generating traffic there,[21][38] and an end sequence suggesting a possible third installation was available for viewing.

There, the player battles through a terrestrial spaceport, a cinema (showing three videos each endlessly looping), a museum, and the eponymous city (Chextropolis), until reaching the sewers to confront an end boss named "The Maximus".

was developed and released as a service to fans[17] by former Digital Café members Charles Jacobi (art director and lead artist) and Scott Holman (programmer).

[39] Chex Quest 3 employs the ZDoom source port (version 2.3.1),[40] and is considerably larger in size than the previous two games.

The plot for this sequel is set ten years later than the events of the first two Chex Quest games, with the invasion of the planet Ralston by the Flemoids.

The breadth of the story was expanded to a much larger scale, possessing a seemingly more grim scenario than the predecessors—the latter of which Charles Jacobi dispelled as unintentional, in that he simply "wanted it to feel bigger" than the first two games.

[18] In response to an interview question regarding the possibility of a canonical Kickstarter-funded Chex Quest 4, Jacobi pointed out that the franchise is owned by General Mills so a funded project would likely violate copyright and trademark laws.

[18] In 2016, Jacobi revealed that a high definition remake of the original game called Chex Quest HD was in development using Unreal Engine 4 with the permission of General Mills.

[44] Similarities have been drawn by fans between Chex Quest and GoldenEye with respect to the legal rights to the game subsequent to the original creators' purchase by larger companies.