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. 

Oh, okay, I got it. Yeah, I agree that'd be nicer. I tried that at first, as a matter of fact, but ran into some sort of problem using just a gold key door as the button; no doubt it was some misconfiguration, or misunderstanding of Quake entities in my early experimentation. Once I had that goofy covering in place and working, I just never thought to go back and try again.

Thanks for the comments, I would say less "shameless" and more "shameless ripoff", but I'm humbled nonetheless. :P 

I've now completed the maps up to Necros' map, which did not seem to lag at all on my computer. I could see that I got much worse, but still playable, framerates on the big EricW & Tronyn map.

This might be a little surprising because people who complained about the map lagging probably have much better graphics hardware. I'm stuck for a little while with a computer not suitable for any kind of modern game, but I'm glad that Quakespasm still runs well.

I think I have five maps to go for tomorrow. I will then upload my demos to Quaketastic. Can anyone suggest how I should package them to not make the download too big for people who just want to see how I played their map?

I'll think about that when I have tried all the maps. Probably I'll just split them into a few different clearly named archives if that appears necessary. Maybe they will compress well and I won't need to do that. 

When I first approach a map I am in "debug" mode. Thinking about how to break the thing and reach the end as efficiently as possible. I played through it and my son played through it and still had a blast although standing your ground when the Shambler arrives is a fairly loosing proposition. I think you would have to shut off the areas in order to prevent running or have something slow the player down so the enemies could react. Spawn 1 creature immediately at the exit using a larger trigger then the rest on a delay. Or a wall and a counter. But I am very jealous of the map, it executed several things I thought of but didn't have the time nor the talent to do in this Jam. Kudos 

7-Zip is the way to go for demos, it'll compress a GB of demos down to 10MB or so. 

My demos, total mess, enjoy! Blame Quakespasm not being as awesome as reQuiem for the filenames. :P

Great maps, all of you.

916 MB of demos in 35 MB of 7z (^ would have been 70 MB as zip, 33 as xz): http://www.quaketastic.com/files/demos/mapjam6-spirit.7z 

http://www.quaketastic.com/files/demos/mapjam6_sleep_3.7z

Exhelzar: Nice little old school map. It's a bit boxy and bland of course, but it's a fun little romp.

ionous: Great map with nice setpieces. The architecture is positively huge and made me feel like a small insignificant piece of human meat sniffing around in the forbidden elder world. Great stuff. Some monster placement was pretty ineffective though, if there's anything to criticize, it's that. You'll see in my demo what I mean.

ItEndsWithTens: Very refreshing, creative map. I don't like the overall look, but the gadget idea (eyes) more than makes up for it. Had some nice fights in here, esp. using voreballs to gib zombies.

Hope to see more from Exhelzar and ItEndsWithTens in the future! 

spirit: you forgot sc2.dem! scum troll! 

 

"916 MB of demos in 35 MB of 7z (^ would have been 70 MB as zip"

So instead of being inconsequential it would have been negligible. Gotcha. ;) 

skill 1 demos:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9wany37dvahevmv/func_mapjam6_demos_pathogen.7z?dl=0

no ending for scampie's map playthrough, unfortunately, cause i was an idiot :(

noticed a major issue on jam6_shotro: it's possible to get stuck in the dark maze, because the exit door can only be opened once.

necros' map worked just fine, fps have never dropped below 60 there on my 2010 hardware. had around 50 fps on tronyn's/ericw's map. 

Ionous: Great looking map and unlike retrojam3 map, this one wasn't cramped and dark! The outdoor area felt unfinished comparing to indoor sections tho. Anyway, this one played well and was uber detailed. I liked that almost every room had something to look at thru the floor.

Shotro: I have mixed feelings about this one. It was really hard, I died a lot in this map. Also I think I managed to break this map: in the area with 2 ambushes with monsters coming out of lava I retreated to the first isle during the second ambush and when I killed all 4 monsters the bridges moved down to the lava leaving me alone standing on the first isle. I had to noclip to the the next isle to continue my plot (bridges came back when I reached the second isle). Also I felt a little confused in the area with biosuit secret: it took me some time to figure out what to do to proceed.
I liked that I managed to make a lot of infighting in this map, especially in the final area. So keep on mapping to produce more maps!

ItEndsWithTens: That weird but in a good way! Those eyes!!! They were watching me! I really liked the style and the atmosphere of this map and it played well. I want more of this=)

WarrenM: This one was an eyecandy. It was a pleasure to look at this map but it played not that interesting. And 0 secrets! What a shame. Playing this I got a thought that it would had been nice to make a map without monsters at all that had a great focus on visuals and had some exploration/traps gameplay.

Plus some more thoughts about other impressive maps for me:
I had a feeling that Daz's map had a lot of giant references to rpgsp1 hanging from ceiling=)
I wish Tronyn's/Ericw's map to be re-released with more subtle lighting and a bit rebalanced since I found it was rather easy on normal in the first part due to lots of megahealth and red armor.
Re-played Scampie's map on hard and managed to find 2 more secrets - 4/6. Really loved the lighting in this one. I think I need to add Chthon to my future map. 

Man, you mastered my level. You jumped from that ledge back to the rock. You missed a secret, but wow. 

FWIW, I've twice tried to download this from Quaddicted (using Chrome on Win10). I get an invalid zip archive -- can't be opened by native unzip or by 7-zip. I'm not sure about what the first DL attempt ended up as, but this second one has a size of 77,261,648 bytes and an md5sum of d2284a5038aca3a8ec4a0e2de3773526.

The download from Quaketastic works OK for me so I'ma go with that. It's a little bigger than the one from Quaddicted so I'm assuming that I'm getting an incomplete DL for some reason... 

@path0gen - Oi! I will have to fix that. I had another mechanism in place until a few days out and replaced it with a similar button for constancy... oddly I fixed the first button but not that one. Damn.

@Pulsar - Thanks for the critique. I knew I didn't like that encounter for a reason. It is my favorite idea followed by my least favorite encounter in my map that created a lot of risk which made me uneasy leaving it in. Just because I couldn't find the issue doesn't mean other people wouldn't. :-p (it was also easy to exploit) 

Well my Ericw/Tronyn video is in several pieces, and will need some TLC to be ready for public consumption. The first two are done, though, so I've decided to upload and post these a few at a time. Keep an eye on this Youtube playlist, I'll update it over the coming days: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoGPuWBXfT0e_7Tebm1-vkckkykG1OEbf


Adib
----

I played the maps in order, and as I've said I was a bit out of sorts at the start, so I have to apologize; though I suppose some criticisms are warranted, my difficulty playing was mostly on me.

As others have noted, it's a little hard to jump from some of those rocks, and the map was a bit cramped for my taste, but it's an interesting style being so up close with enemies like this. I got a huge kick out of seeing your stalactites, I've always loved what people would build out of func_doors, trains and the like in Quake. Vehicles, brush based monsters, falling rocks, it's fun to see what mappers can invent with these tools.

You've got a gorgeous skybox, excellent choice, especially in combination with your lighting. The fade up to blue toward the top suits your sky exquisitely, and the color still has me almost thinking the rock walls are bump or normal mapped from a distance.

http://youtu.be/RWZ_pcrvn6A


Breezeep
----

"My map's gonna suck", are you kidding me? I'll grant the theme wasn't as strong as some other entries, but this was a beautiful map with a more than solid design.

Architecturally I love the nice, cozy feel of the place, I got a great sense of "arcane library" from your brushwork and lighting. The texture choices, too; I was particularly struck by the handful of empty shelves, I feel like I never see that in videogame libraries. Makes the place feel more alive, like it's still being filled up. I haven't played this Contract Revoked everybody's talking about, but I'll be getting around to that post haste after seeing what it inspired.

If I had a criticism, I guess I'd like a little more vertical progression. I feel like that's become a lot more common over the years, and I've seen a lot of it in these jams, but I'm not tired of it yet. There's something immensely satisfying about a good climb.

http://youtu.be/q34LNuO8zz8 

@Spirit - Your play through was thoroughly enjoyable. I am going to have to adopt leaving comments on demos. I can not believe the little touch to adjust the height of the alter after the first elevator to let the dogs hit the player actually helped kill someone! Also... mad grenade jumping skills on the platforming section to recover from the "lie". It was so funny how you almost saw two secrets with megahealth in your playthrough but also missed most of the health packs by not looking directly at them. Super surprised that you got past the (MDK) maze with only 3 health EVERY SINGLE TIME. Fun demo.

@Tens - The map punishes rushing which got you a few times (Skip enemies in a loop and the next time gets harder). I gasped every time you backed up towards a shear cliff edge during your demos. I don't think you realized you do that a lot. I also saw you twitch when the dogs startled you. Awesome.

Thoughts:
- The map needs some tweaking and expanding
- Some things are broken/exploitable
- Dogs == Least expected and least noticed enemy chipping on players health (yay!)
- Encounters play out differently in each demo
- Everyone kind of freaks out the first time an enemy jumps the lava pit in the hub
- Everyone's demo so far had a WTF moment when something I planned to create that reaction works as expected. Mission accomplished. 

Probably an hour or two of working on finishing my jam6 map, then finally playing jam6. I haven't played any of the maps yet, so have mostly been avoiding this thread.

http://www.twitch.tv/ionous 

What a great pack. Uploading demos as I type.

Three things stood out with this jam:

1. The theme-adherence is superb. Everyone put the effort in to capture "fire and brimstone" in their own way.

2. The theme-variety is superb. Everyone has their own different interpretation while sticking to the theme well. From subtle hints of lava to all out flaming volcano-fests, base to medieval, indoor to terrain.

3. The "new" mappers all did the theme really well in their own ways AND all of them show great potential for future maps, whether they had a simple but refined design or a crude but epic idea, the potential quality is there for all to see. 

jam6_adib
Lovely little map. Quite cartoony lighting but nicely done overall. Cool gameplay and design.

jam6_breezeep
Good style and designs, solid gameplay, quite boxy but shows a lot of promise. Secrets desperate.

jam6_daz
Very cool, great arena, love the exploration and nooks and crannies. Needs more octagonal rocks. A pleasure to wander aimlessly around.

jam6_ericwtronyn
The usual demented cacophony of textures and proportions married to a fantastic design and scale to provide another unrefined but butt-numbingly irresistable epic experience.


jam6_exhelzar
Good theme/textures. Real nice lighting. Quite simple (gameplay too) and boxy but the "dark castle" style could go far.

jam6_ionous
Very refined and stylish. I like the contrast of it being "lighter" than other maps. Cables were very cool. It perhaps didn't have as strong a hook as it could. Gameplay rocked.

jam6_matecha
Good style, proper fire and brimstone, kinda messy / unpolished designs, again shows good promise.

jam6_necros
Holy fucking terrain batman! Stunning little design. A bit dark and needed more gameplay but the style is great.

jam6_rick
Cool epic designs, got a good feeling of being part of somewhere dramatic. Not sure about purple fog. Died twice trying to get back from SSG, and once just running through, so gave up!

jam6_scampie
Absolutely wonderful. This really felt like a true early level in a proper Quake/Q2-style game, loved it. 98% perfect, throw in a couple of Vores near the end and it would be 100%

jam6_shotro
Some good ideas although too big and incoherent. Would have been good to stick with a smaller area and refine it.

jam6_tens
Bonkers. Cool rockwork, cool OTT-scale arena, interesting combo of designs, a bit random though. Head with nicely done but didn't really fit. Industrial stuff better. Showed a LOT of promise, you could do wonders with this start.

jam6_warrenm
Love the rocks - mesmerising. Upper area very cool and atmospheric, lower area seemed a bit of an after thought. Good fun gameplay. 

http://www.quaketastic.com/files/demos/mapsham6_demos.zip

http://www.quaketastic.com/files/demos/mapsham6_ericwtronyn.zip 

The file is intact and I can download it fine. Please post anything you can think of as factors in https://www.quaddicted.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=266