Well, it's not blatantly obvious. You do have to be in the general vicinity before it can be seen.

It's too bad I didn't think to give either shells or spikes at the end, depending on whether the secret had been found. Well, I did think of it, but not until after it was released :) 

Someone quoted a Valve guy here in the forums, saying the biggest level design challenge is to make the player look up. It's happening here. 

I think that's true. Maybe part of the problem is not giving the player a reason to look up...in the right spot.

You can't really see that there's a secret until it's triggered. Instead of hiding the rising walkway under the lava, I should have positioned it so that it was just out of the lava enough to see, but not high enough to get back up. Then the player might be motivated to look for a way to raise the walkway. Ah well, better next time. 

adib:
Lovely tight map, I enjoyed the stalactite use. My only annoyance was with items being placed in such a way that you had to pick them up. For example the teleporter at the bottom brings you back up on top of the 25 health by the exit, so it is easily wasted if you took a bit of fall damage. The yellow armor doesn't seem to be optional, and I had just picked up a green armor which was yet to receive any scratches. Found one secret. Hope to see more from you.

Breezeep:
Not exactly in keeping with the incendiary aesthetic of the village, but it has its charm. Some very good fights here (the underwater Scrag fight in particular). The level looked great, but it had some awkward texture transitions: the arch with the dagger, the dagger point seemed to be floating out there, as the underside didn't match at all, numerous arches used a very stylized trim with no transition brush for when it encountered a differently textured wall, there were a lot of texture changes where the surface was exactly aligned with a different textured surface (the bookshelves for example). Offsetting things can help a lot with textures that depict geometry deeper than an inch or so. Obviously such things are the first (and best) thing to suffer in a map jam.

The area you fall into with the wind tunnel seemed a little too direct mechanically. "Push these buttons on opposite walls, now go in here and push this button, now cross the room and leave." It felt videogamey in a way that drew me out.

I did not find a single secret, and I spent another map's worth of play time hunting for them after exiting the level. I ran through numerous times bumping against and shooting every surface that looked like a potential trigger. I bounced grenades into places I couldn't reach. Nothing. I did see one area I couldn't get into, the library above the flooded section, but other than that I had no inkling as to where the secrets were or what they contained.

I'm not sure why you put clip brushes on the alcoves to the right of the stairs up to the drop to the silver key, but it really threw me off (I was secret hunting and was really surprised when I couldn't get through there).

I'm not trying to nitpick, just hopefully giving you action items, because I'd love to see more from you based on this :) 

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the jam. I enjoyed all the maps. You all did better than me because you made the deadline (my map will come out, sometime...) Here are some thoughts and demos.

jam6_adib
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tad03s1eg3y1ybr/adib.zip?dl=0

A nice idea with the seals being not just a button to press but stepping-stones to reach new areas. I liked the vertical layout and the tight spaces with lava. Falling in is an ever-present hazard but not annoyingly so (I did fall in lava on my demo in the last room). Good rocky areas, good lighting and
texturing and a nice end battle. My main complaint is that it could have all tied together more rather than just being separate rooms reached from a hub full
of doors.

jam6_daz
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lu161l54gfcbk5z/daz.zip?dl=0

A wonderful insane lava castle and the most pure interpretation of the fire and brimstone theme. The cylinder-based rock detail in the main area is unique in style, it must have taken ages and looks great but it might have been better to spend a little less time there and more detailing the fairly boxy corridors
on the approach to the gold key. The main area gave my computer indigestion on which I'm going to blame my performance in the big rooftop battle where my demo ends... I'm going to spend a bit of time exploring this map properly to find more of the secrets, it's the sort of map that is worth a good look around.

The start map was also cool, a cheeky lava takeover of the original.

jam6_exhelzar
https://www.dropbox.com/s/c1y3ay1mwm99h97/exhelzar.zip?dl=0

An enjoyable little map. Although quite basic in detail and texturing it keeps your interest with varied gameplay. There are cramped corridor fights, the large vertical space of the main room, a bit of lava jumping and the beginnings of a set-piece with the large bridge. It might have been better if, after pressing the button to lower the bridge, the player was led to it by a trail of fresh monsters, and the same at the end to get to the silver door. The map
was too small to get lost in but if it had been larger I might have had trouble remembering how to get to those places (and I hope you do make more and larger maps). I appreciated the lighting on this map, it added a lot of sombre atmosphere without ever being too dark to see.

jam6_ericwtronyn

Like most of the bsp2 maps (or whatever format it is) I'm going to have to wait for a computer upgrade before I can enjoy this. Judging from the first area it looks fantastic though, like a molten lava blend of A Roman Wilderness of Pain and The Masque of the Red Death...

Actually I might try it at the weekend with the RMQ engine, since that worked for me with "Something Wicked This Way Comes." Since it's Tronyn you can assume I will like it.

jam6_ionous
https://www.dropbox.com/s/d1b5yjc6th8sqbs/ionous.zip?dl=0

A lot of samey corridors but at least they're huge weird corridors with masses of detail on the walls and ceilings. A strange alien temple type vibe. Another map
like jam6_adib which adds something to the basic button pushing with some kind of weird lava field thing. Perhaps I would have liked to see that connect somehow to the pyramids in the large outdoor area. Found 2 secrets.

jam6_rick
https://www.dropbox.com/s/d1zoj1ptmvmegmo/rick.zip?dl=0

Nice sense of exploration and mystery here. I missed the nailgun and had to run past the last monsters to the exit. Not necessarily a bad thing, it creates a nice sense of panic, so long as you can complete the map...

jam6_matecha
https://www.dropbox.com/s/n9pderurunnwav5/matecha.zip?dl=0

This map really follows the theme of "fire and brimstone" well with its corrupted graveyard theme. Nice lighting and texturing. Short but sweet. An advantage of small maps is you can build a fully 3d fence! The end of the map was quite abrupt, I think I missed exploring an area although I still had all the kills. It was strange, after commenting on daz's cylindrical rock style, to see it again here, is this the new trend? 

jam6_necros
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6dydgxzhbcqog1s/necros.zip?dl=0

I understand that this was largely a tech demo for the new rock style, which was awesome. It could easily be used to create some sort of bio-mechanical setting as well as just rocks. I would love to see a fully developed map in this style. The buildings were great, they produced that crucial urge to explore and looked straight out of the concept art provided for the map jam. I think though that better textures are available than those from Doom and Quake 2 and
the interiors were a little dark. My demo ends abruptly because my pc overheated, but it's near the end.

jam6_scampie
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ngoj9dr5v165bl2/scampie.zip?dl=0

A beautiful map. Loved the cameo appearance by the Rubicon 2 robot. I was going to complain that a base map with lava falls short on the "fire and brimstone" theme, but the Cthons made up for that. Why not more Cthons in this jam? My Demo goes up to the first Cthon... This map would stand alone the best out of the pack as just a full scale high quality map.

jam6_tens
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9xpna9kx0g0d7f6/tens.zip?dl=0

I admit that I didn't think much of the screenshots for this map, but I eat my words because this is one of those maps that shoves through any complaints about detail or style with its gleeful fun and insanity. The cavern is madly ambitious and I felt like a fly inside a rotting Halloween pumpkin. Love the
eyes on the large totem, the first time they moved I thought I was just being paranoid. Perhaps the most pure fun map here.

jam6_breezeep
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3br02osnvxmzk7w/breezeep.zip?dl=0

The visuals and smooth, varied gameplay bode well for future releases. A simple knave map is a wise choice for (I'm assumming) a first release and I should probably make one myself rather than all my quickly abandoned mega-projects. However the map didn't really have anything to do with fire and brimstone, apart from one or two lava pools.

jam6_warrenm
https://www.dropbox.com/s/m17fl0gfq1na5dy/warrenm.zip?dl=0

I love the ruined castle, the jam was in need of some non-linearity and it reminded me of a number of great exploratory maps from the past. It looks great and feels eerie but just needs a few secrets to give more incentive to explore. I like the "border" on the lava lake, I don't think I've seen that before. It
acknowledges the limitations of Quake in doing open areas without just having the lake abruptly stop like many maps do. The second underground part of the map seemed a bit rushed, as I expect it was. I missed quite a few monsters, despite there being no secret areas. I assume they appeared somewhere like that armour I didn't pick up.

jam6_shotro

Unfortunately I had to play this in winquake as my framerate was so bad in quakespasm. This ruined all your careful coloured lighting! The framerate was still quite bad though so it might not be just my computer's fault. Sorry but no demo for this map as I kept falling in lava early on and just wanted to finish it with quicksaving, having spent all evening on these maps.

Enough grumbling though, because I really liked the map and it might even be my favourite from the jam. It reminded me of Tronyn, with its whimsical architecture and large areas with generous mobs of enemies. I don't know why people are complaining about the inconsistent style. Even if there wasn't
clearly some sort of inter-dimensional nonsense going on, Quake should be accomodating of weirdness and surrealism. There were plenty of cool little touches
too, like the arena with enemies running up out of the lava. I completed it with enough ammo on hard despite not finding any secret ammo. I did find a secret biosuit that didn't lead to any other items, was this a joke or did I miss something?

In conclusion, an excellent map jam, especially for new mappers. Hopefully we'll get them back next time with some more of the old hands who were missing to create the best map jam yet. 

@SleepwalkR - Hahaha, just saw you playing, sorry for that. You were just about to finish the level, but didn't get to that teleport, it's crazy! Like Enliten said, those rocks could be easier to jump on and off. I can see you're not into jumping, but you're right: those ledges need work. Thanks for the patience.


@ShoTro You nailed it! Nailed that first vore. With a really big nail. I thought nobody would do that. Your escape from the Shambler were ruined by the same problem: jumps from those rocks should be easier. 

@scarecrow Agreed about the mandatory items. Straight to my to-do list.

@tomb Thanks. People keep jumping on that ledge. My design failed miserably there. 

Embarassing myself at Scampie's, Necro's, Warren's, Matecha's and Rick's:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/k9clcr9jlan0a5a/jam6_demos_adib.zip 

The application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000022). Click OK to close the application.

Quakespasm win64 will not run on my windows 7 computer. 

Try either re-downloading and extracting (make sure to overwrite any existing DLL's), try both quakespasm.exe and quakespasm-sdl2.exe, or try the above with the 32-bit version.

The DLL's can be a pain since they can conflict with other engines (e.g. Darkplaces) 

Demos: https://mega.nz/#!lJAV3JDb!t8KEssKa7E7fzA6CiqqAu_Re72hC6uf4nuKcum-1wO8 

@tomb - Thanks for the compliment. I know how to optimize the lighting and stuff to fix some of your performance problems, I am going to see how the deadline is for DLC and hopefully put out an extended optimized version of the map. As my first map, my method for creating geometry needs work. It was kind of a rush to finish at the end.

Glad you liked the lava "arena" idea, it was the first thing that I thought of and it sadly was put into an almost unfinished area.

@adib - I tried to kill those damned scrags too. I actually did on my fourth attempt when I actually beat the map. I also crushed half the hell knights with one of them as well, definitely helps you beat the level with more ammo. 

The enviro secret is all that there is. It is so you can recover cells from the acid or kill anything that falls in easily. I was going to add something else, but didn't have the time, it was far more critical when the end game was harder as you wanted to conserve cells throughout the level to make short work of the shalrath and shambler at the end. 

abyss.dem - exhelzar - Nice short map with a simple texture scheme. The bridge idea was neat but the constant narrow hallway combat was a pain. Hell knights and platforming seems kind of punishing. I died trying to stay on one of the rocks as the HK shots went high instead of low and knocked me around.

gehennae.dem - ionous - As awesome as it was looking during your twitch broadcast! Really love the look and feel. In my demo I abuse how large this map is to a fair degree.

fromashes.dem - ShoTro - The most colorful map in the jam. Too much ammo and health given at the end. :-p

Get them here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0e9zpfk5op3zcmd/mapjam6_demos3.rar?dl=0 

 

Tomb and AAS.

AAS holy shit man your first run through the map was hilarious. 1hp!!! Glad there was some health left for you to top yourself up :) 

"We've Been Quaddicted"

The whining in that thread is a little annoying. Free maps for a 20 year old game ... and you're complaining ? Eat a barge of dicks. 

skill 3
kept dying due to sliding off ledges into lava.
the last section i dumbly agro'd all the fiends/hell knights and the shambler to grab the rocket launcher.

a schoolboy error...

one step at a time seems to work if you want to survive.

i managed to nail the shambler with the overhanging rock first time (with help from the mega health secret).
other runs were not too successful :(

the vore was slightly easier to nail with the rock earlier on, you just have to do it sooner rather than later.

i enjoyed it once i managed to control my slippery footwork . it felt like i was drunk wearing a pair of pradas :0 

Warren, I'm used to users. And the kind of users that can get you fired, not some 11 year old brat, probably Spirit's nephew. I'm too dazzled about being published, I'd hug any troll. 

argh!

again, only one last secret to find.

i'll have to start making notes what number each secret is.

my first run i was really tired, and i slipped off into the lava :(

i played on skill 3

not too hard, although the one suit of armor i had was wearing a bit thin.

i'm looking forwards to replaying so i can find out the best time for using the quad.

the red armor one was a bastard!
i was lucky in the sense that i had just found the rocket launcher secret, as i don't see a way to get it otherwise?

normal grenades? :p

a great map, i really like the angular architecture and the lava veins running through the brickwork. 

Yes, I can work the jumps better. The vore is easier to crush with the stalactite, the fiends are harder to crush, and you crushed the harder one, because the stalactite is inset in a hole. Requires health and yellow armor to resist one or two shocks while "come here kitty kitty... step forward... bang!" 

just to be clear, my map was really just an excuse to experiment with the obj2map tool. It is essentially one giant box room with the terrain floating inside. It is sealed but unvised with like 17k wpoly + 15k epoly (so over 30k faces in total) if you go in a corner and look at the whole map.

so those complaints are somewhat justified...

otoh, in 2015, i kinda don't give a shit about limits or anything anymore. :P I have an old intel i5 with an ancient geforce gts250 and I can run the map smoothly. I use my old hardware as my benchmark for what is slow considering how old it all is. 

I played through the pack yesterday, and enjoyed the everloving shit out of it! Before I offer any specific feedback I'm going to go play through everything again to refresh my thoughts, and maybe see if I can come up with some more substantial comments for everybody.

I took the liberty of recording video and commentary of my playthroughs, but there's a bit of audio mixing and video compression work I have to do before I can get those up on Youtube, so in the meantime here are the demos I recorded simultaneously: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/eb9zbuw8h9jb99y/AAAf7XEISFXL4fbQGeF7fBoXa?dl=0

You can download the "-all" archive to get everything, but it's a 36MB file that expands to over 750, so be prepared. If you just want the demos for a particular map, you can find those in the folder too. I used 7-Zip to keep file sizes down, but if you need a different format let me know and I'll upload whatever you prefer. Also be warned some maps have several demos (sorry, adib, I was really out of it at the start), since I'm not exactly a Top Tier Professional Gamer.

As for my own map, first off, for anyone who skipped the readme, doesn't care about Twitter, and hasn't seen the link in Mike Taylor's Quaddicted review, I made heavy use of a reference image for this map, "Tower of Evil" by Xueguo Yang: http://yangxueguo.deviantart.com/art/Tower-of-evil-342477532 I first saw the painting several years ago in reference to Beksinski-style artwork, and have wanted to do something like it since. "Fire and Brimstone" seemed like the perfect opportunity.

Responding to specific comments:

necros: I appreciate the sentiment, but you died several times because I don't have any friends (I could stop the sentence right here) who play Quake and the map didn't get tested. I played it on Easy, Normal and Hard until I was blue in the face, trying desperately to balance it as best I could, but there's no substitute for another pair of eyes. Especially giant creepy ones.

scar3crow: That comment made my day, thank you! I wasn't sure what to do about ammo, I felt like things might have been okay at an earlier stage but figured what felt right to me would be too difficult for others. I know the map inside and out and one's work is usually easier for oneself than for the players, so I added a few packs of ammo. Again, textbook lack of testing. I also wanted to add some kind of fun secret you could access with the pent/quad combo, but by the time I realized I could it was close to the deadline and my polycounts were scraping the recommended max in a couple areas, so I scrapped the idea. I hadn't thought you'd have enough powerup time to get to the nose, though, I should have thrown something in there.

adib: No apologies necessary! Considering how poorly I performed in your map, and how many demos I had to record to get through it, I'd say we're even. :) Could you explain what you mean about the key and button? I wasn't thrilled with them, exactly, but I wanted the lift to be locked at first for a little "you can't get in here yet, go find the macguffin" gameplay and couldn't come up with a replacement. Is there another way you'd suggest I could get the same type of thing?

ShoTro: That's one of those glaring issues I was aware of but couldn't solve in time. Not just running away from the things, but running in such a direction and to such a position that you end up telefragging one of the enemies that pop in (namely the Shambler). Maybe if I'd started with a longer delay on the first totem, then shortened it each time? That setup, however, made me worry about too much of a wait between approaching the first one and seeing some kind of result. I tried to bridge the gap with text, which was nice for pacing but ruined the atmosphere since it had the effect of explicitly defining the totems and/or face as sentient beings that were aware of you. Getting rid of the text altogether made the whole thing ambiguous, and a lot more like the mood I was going for, so I stuck with that and tightened up the delays. But I guess that's putting the cart before the horse. 

Sure. A door that "opens" in the right direction looks exactly like a button. You should just make a door that requires the gold key and looks / opens like a button, also triggering the plat.

Plat: targetname=plat1
Door: target=plat1

When the door activates, it activates the plat.

P.S.1: loved that artist.

P.S.2: What is charming and vivid about your level is that you saw that painting and then vigorously slapped the frakking thing together to do it. Shamelessly, fearless. You have my respect. Looking forward for more.