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 

exhelzar
ionous
ItEndsWithTens

----

Shambler: You are the first I've seen to not kill the Cthons, congrats on unlocking the pacifist achievement! 

You were supposed to kill them? Didn't even think of that, I just enjoyed the DRAMA! 

You don't have to, you just can... It's why the gold key says "...it bleeds..." 

ItEndsWithTens:

I really liked you map. The lava fall receding was genius, as was the giant googly eyed thing. I don't think I've ever laughed as much at geometry in a quake map before. Gameplay was solid, although I sort of felt that there was something missing tying the areas together. I dunno, let me think on it, it might dawn on me what it is. Great work!

Matecha:

Neat and short little map. Design was nice, although the mob glitches were strange. The light plinths although novel confused me as I had just played maps that have plinths as switches (not that you could have known this). Difficulty was not very challenging on normal, I didn't play on other difficulties to see the scaling. I probably would have died more (like my axe skills? lol). A "the pentagram portal has been activated" message would have helped idiots like myself who missed the exit. Otherwise, excellent map, love the first area and the last area. The lava pit area felt a little lacking in comparison. awesome work none-the-less.

Rick:

Lighting and mood is A+ for this map. A minor criticism, that others may disagree with is that falling into lava (near super shotgun) is waaaay punishing. Shallow lava here would have given the player the punishment for failing without death. But I suck at platforming in 3d games, so there is that :/

That aside, if I didn't feel constrained by time to play everybody's levels I would play the shit out of this level, or even a bigger variation of it. Excellent mob placement, I felt that the ogres could have been placed a little closer to the door. Perfect vore placement, this is serously my most hated enemy alongside those blue blobby things.

Love the falling fireballs, I ended up finishing the level after this record. I ran out of ammo again, still couldnt find the nailgun, lol. I ended up making the ogres kill the shambler. Excellent work :)

Scampie:

I felt the whole time like I was playing an Id map. I felt the map was a touch too easy on normal difficulty, until I reached the turret. That turret destroyed me. I still don't know what I'm supposed to do with it. I dunno man, just a solid solid map, and I didn't even finish it. It really has that, "hell on earth" feel. So yeah, that's all the feedback I can give really. Great work!

Shotro:

I have a bit of constructive criticism for this map. First let's go with the good stuff, I love the individual themes. Really like the ogre / scrag / pillar area with the blue key, love the village (although this could use a little more variety).

I dislike pitch black areas in maps. In reality, if there is even a small amount of lights in a room, you'll be able to (just barely) make out the shadows. Having said that, the maze area is excellent, so take what I say with a grain of salt here.

I like the early arena area, but hate the transition between that and the blue key area. I don't feel like enforcers quite fit the theme in this map, but having said that they do add challenge that soldiers don't provide.

The map itself lacks polish in many areas. Obviously there were time constraints and a map this large is going to take a lot of time to get the finish correct. I feel like you've got a lot of good concepts in this map which each would make excellent maps in their own rights. However because of the feel of each section are so different from one another the transitions between them are clunky.

The map is hard, I ran out of ammo on a few occasions on normal. (maybe I should have played on easy ;)

I really want to play this again with the lighting smoothed out, geometry polished and the area transitions fitting the areas a touch better.

With a bit more work this could be a really excellent map.

Necros:

Excellent excellent map. The obj2map capabilities really shone through here. Maybe I should say your ability really shone through here, lol. Really balanced gameplay and feel. I played on normal and thought it could have been a touch harder. The shambler fight was a bit obvious and a bit easy, kind of fish in a barrel stuff. Otherwise I loved every part of this level. Excellent work.

WarrenM:

Probably my favourite map of this jam. I liked how the skill jumps don't overly punish you for failing. I like the non linearity of the level. The map is balanced and gorgeous. Only criticism is that it's too easy to exploit the line of sight on the last two shamblers. I want to play more of it!

Nothing more to say, awesome work!

Demos of me failing and rage quitting your maps:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/k6m75376di6vwb6/jam6.7z?dl=0