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 

That turret destroyed me. I still don't know what I'm supposed to do with it.

Don't worry, some others had some issues too. It's a bit of a stretch on my behalf to try and make people recognize exactly what this enemy is, and even that it is meant to be an enemy in the first place! He is meant to be a miniboss. This is the sort of thing I try to do in a mapjam, trying to make a unusual trick work.

I am mostly hoping players recognize that he is an oversized brushmodel version of the Dalek robot monsters from Rubicon2, and that they realize that shooting it will eventually kill it.

Strategy wise, the intended way you fight it is to simply strafe back and forth behind the boxes shooting it. The lasers shoot at where you are, but generally if you just keep moving, they won't hit you.

The unintended scum strategy is to get behind one of the boxes, and slightly back up until you can see the top of Megafloyd's head, but he can't shoot over the box, and just cheese him to death. 

I have now played every map and recorded demos. Some maps took multiple tries, and have thus multiple demos. Demos that end in letters QL are continued after a quickload instead of starting from the beginning.

http://www.quaketastic.com/files/demos/jam6_pekka_demos.7z

I used a Linux command-line utility to create this archive. It should be compatible with the Windows 7-Zip program, but if you have any trouble, let me know.

Mappers who don't want to download and extract an archive of about 32 MB can e-mail me instead. My address is in my profile. Mail me, and I can put just the demos you want for upload somewhere else for a short period of time. (Not that I think 32 MB is troublesome for anyone.)

The contents of the archive are:

Testing j6adib_pekka1.dem
Testing j6breezeep_pekka1.dem
Testing j6daz_pekka1.dem
Testing j6dericwtronyn_pekka1.dem
Testing j6dericwtronyn_pekka2.dem
Testing j6dericwtronyn_pekka3.dem
Testing j6exhelzar_pekka1.dem
Testing j6exhelzar_pekka2.dem
Testing j6exhelzar_pekka3.dem
Testing j6ionous_pekka1.dem
Testing j6ionous_pekka2.dem
Testing j6matecha_pekka1.dem
Testing j6matecha_pekka2.dem
Testing j6necros_pekka1.dem
Testing j6necros_pekka2.dem
Testing j6rick_pekka1.dem
Testing j6rick_pekka2.dem
Testing j6rick_pekka3.dem
Testing j6rick_pekka4.dem
Testing j6scampie_pekka1.dem
Testing j6scampie_pekka2ql.dem
Testing j6shotro_pekka1.dem
Testing j6shotro_pekka2ql.dem
Testing j6shotro_pekka3ql.dem
Testing j6tens_pekka1.dem
Testing j6tens_pekka2ql.dem
Testing j6warrenm_pekka1.dem
Testing j6warrenm_pekka2.dem

As you can see, I added a superfluous d in front of [d]Eric's name. That was accidental, but since I only noticed afterwards I let it be.

I enjoyed myself a lot playing these. I started using saves and loads towards the end because I wanted to get them done today, but I will definitely want to revisit most of the maps to hunt for secrets and explore the parts I didn't get to explore properly.

As usual, I was really bad at finding the secrets in my first runs. I really only get a couple here and there. I even forgot some of the ones I watched Daz create during his mapping streams, so good work, self.

Some of my favorite parts were:

Dropping the rocks in Adib's map. Seeing afterwards that I could have dropped a few of them earlier for more effective results.

Monsters jumping to join the end fight in Daz's map. Rocky formations in same.

Wondering if that thing up there is level geometry or skybox in EricW & Tronyn's map. It was of course part of the level. And then there was more.

Using the rocket launcher in the same map.

Ionous' map had a good feel to it, and some delightfully tough combat encounters. Probably my second favorite of the bunch. Maybe a tie with Daz's one.

Necros' map looked good, but was a bit too dark in some parts.

Rick's map was fun to play. I ran out of ammo on my first try, so I tried to be frugal in further runs. All kinds of things happened in them, but I enjoyed it all a lot.

Scampie's map is probably my favorite in this pack. It flows well and has some unexpected twists in just the right places. It looks great.

While some maps might lack polish, they all have good parts and I enjoyed myself a lot. Thanks again to everyone involved. 

Also, I think I should've been signaled that the doors were locked. Some people seemed to think that the escape was to figure out how to go through the doors rather that shoot MegaFloyd. Possibly didn't help that I had earlier introduced the concept of shooting a button through a door to lower a platform (which I intended to do more of, but never got to it) 

 

There were some vis-related artifacts at the very beginning of Daz's map, and I spent a few moments lining them up and looking at them. They might be engine-dependent, so you will perhaps not see them.

I was confused by the key requirement message at the end of WarrenM's map, and thought I didn't pick up the Gold Key at all. I went back to look for it, and then thought for a while I had somehow lost it.

Slight criticism to some people. I ended up luring Fiends into lava here and there, but they did not die because you did not add a trigger_hurt to simulate monsters burning in lava. Shame on you :) 

Yeah, I dunno ... I couldn't seem to set up 2 doors that require the gold key that were linked. You could open one side but the other would still bitch about the key. Blech. 

Finally played all maps, what an amazing pack!!! Started recording yesterday, finished just yet..!
So many new mappers, i am both amazed and surprised by the number of finished entries here.
So basically all was said before, i can only repeat starting with:

Adib: Nothing but a beautyfully strange place! The mechanic of breaking the seals wasn't clear, i managed to do it:)
Love the style throughout, map more!
Demo.7z

Breezeep: Knave? Oh yeah, this is good! Knowing your DOOM stuff, waiting for more Quake! Incredible for a 1st release! Go map!
Demo.7z

DaZ: I wanted to join the Jam, glad i didn't. My map would have totally looked like yours.
Without all that glitchy stuff of course:) Loving the variety of all the loose bricks, rocks look ace!
One of my favorites! Oh, and neat startmap too! Now go map!
Demo.7z

EricW & Tronyn: OMFG! What an incredibly huge and evil place! I managed too beat this! Mhahaha. Still a bit high from playin, must have been the weed secret..
I liked the progression, the ceiling seems to never end, at every roof another vista opened up. I am deeply impressed how you fit this into the bounds. The skybox/lights worked well, the lava was too bright in places but i cannot really say anything bad. I had no performance issues btw. One of my favorites, and one of my favorite Tronyn maps of all times! This had me quite entertained, yeah! I don't know how much you did Eric, this goes out to you too. Awesome!
Demo.7z

Exhelzar: My first maps looked like crap compared to yours, and i mean that. Solid brim style, had fun! Go map!
Demo.7z

Ionous: You managed too improve the issues that i had while testing:) Well done, think about polishing the outer areas maybe and adding the "rest"?!? Go go map!
Demo.7z

Matecha: Another 1st map that promises more. The scale made me feel desperate. Go map!
Demo.7z

Necros: What to say?!? Awesome geometry combined with base/techy bits, this so much tickles me in the right spots...
Gameplay wasn't on my side sadly, i found some places too dark. I died way too early.. Also performance issues. Anyway, I noclipped too every corner of it and had a wank, thats why no demo. Forgive me. Finish this please!

Rick: Loving the geometry in this one as well, the fact there are no monsters on easy gave it that special vibe! Go map!
Meddemo.7z

Scampie: �berfloyds and Chtons in a rubicon-style setting, you made no mistakes here. Its perfect, the pacing, the ambushs, the secrets, hell yeah! My favorite map of the pack, loved every single bit of it.
Demo.7z

ShoTro: Ambitious. I couldnt finish one room in time, you tried a whole city. This even works in a weird way.. Impressive for a debut appearance. Go map! Sadly no demo, i forgot to record.. Will u/l one later.

ItEndsWithTens: This map, OMFG! This map! Technically another level, i really liked the draped skin uses as bridges. Did that thing just looked at me? Wtf? I found the gameplay itself to be not too enjoyable, had to cheat on easy. Way too much spawning in my face, literally. Anyway, so much novelty here, the lavaflow which gets cut for example! Very very impressive.. Go map!
Cheatdemo.7z

WarrenM: Polished, lovely to look at, what was it, shining through? I enjoyed it a lot! Another fav in style!:)
Demo.7z

Im dizzy now, wow! Amazing pack, thank you all for hours of fun and slaughter! 

Dalek robot monsters from Rubicon2

jfc 

Sorry the final fight pwnd you :( I didn't have time to add difficulty settings to it. 

matecha - Very short, bit too short actually. Great start, hope to see more.

rick - I missed something because I ran out of ammo at the second shambler. I found nails, but no nailgun, so I had to godmode it. Also missed some shells it seems.

necros - Awesome looking map, except for the pitch black indoor bits which were a bit annoying. Your obj2map experiment turned out really well, I have to say.

Demos: http://www.quaketastic.com/files/demos/mapjam6_sleep_4.7z 

Yep, it's borderline breakage of the rule that secrets should not be required to finish a map. The nailgun is the one secret. You can get to the end without it on "hard", but making a run for it is often necessary due to the lack of shells.

To be honest, adding the "hard" skill setting was very nearly the last thing I did to the map and it was never actually tested. I just changed a few monster types, threw in some extra scrags and a bit more ammo and was done with it.

I have an improved version of the map in the works that should be much better. 

i think my monitor is too bright. and i have brightness set to lowest too... god damn it. 

@enliten - Well, the issue with the abyss is that it didn't get lit correctly at all on the final compile, which is sad, but I am glad people still enjoyed it. You are in luck. I am in the process of updating the map based on feedback and improving the areas I know are disappointing. I just need a whole lot of free time...

@MFX - Thanks. I set some hard limits on myself after trying somethings and failing at them. It is sad but setting those restrictions on myself meant less wasted time and more focus on what I knew I could do. After the release I have learned a ton about how I should have approached those situations so I can push my level further next time. 

@necros - I opened your map source. Seems that you attenuated the blue lights too much. That blue color would make a nice "black light" sci fi base effect, adding to the Doom mood, if you let them reach further. Also, don't you like ericw's _surface and _surface_offset keys?

Your level is a modern day classic Doom, very well executed. Like a Doom fanfic graphic novel. Your rock test is a big success. I don't care about monsters, my only complain is about dark.

@DaZ - The purple haze fits perfect the rock texture you chose, making an amazing kid's fantasy setting. These colors set the level's identity upfront and I found them beautiful. It's like a Harry Potter game, moody and happy.

I read a complain about blockiness of this level, but I don't think so: there are good texture choices and enough variation, many different places in the level.

There's a giant rock dildo pending from the ceiling when the level begins. I don't wanna know what you meant with that. Just kidding, I was skeptic about the octogonal rocks, but turns out I was dead wrong. 

adib: Very fine use of colored lighting, the gentle blue of the sky sets a serene mood to the map. I actually did not pick up right away the fact I had to shoot the large stalagtites hanging from above, on the platforms below to proceed. I always enjoy jumping across ledges to avoid death by lava, the threat of danger never leaves even after all the monsters are dead.

breezeep: This map gave me the sensation that I was in a very sacred, ancient temple of knowledge, and my presence was not welcome. Needless to say I pressed onward. Very nicely constructed, along with some hard to spot secrets such as bricks sticking ever so slightly outward to reach a ledge.

Daz: Truly the definition of fire and brimstone. A large castle settled deep underground, drowning in dangerous lavafalls. Detailing in this map is excellent, especially the rocky columns, reminiscent of Giant's Causeway. Gameplay was also satisfying, challenging yet fair.

erictronyn: You should know by now any map with Tronyn's involvment is going to be epic in size and monsters, and this is no exception. The largest and longest map in the pack. Playing this map, I felt so insignificant because of the sheer size of it, the castle just stretches to the sky, and just when you think you've reached the top, you haven't. Exploration is mandatory in a map this size, if you don't search every nook and cranny you might miss key items that will help you survive. That is usually the case, but in this instance, I felt ammo and health were overstocked. Despite the maps threatening 400+ monster count, never once did I feel at risk because health, armor, and bullets were very abundunt throughout the entire map.

Exhelzar: Short, and kind of plain on details. But for a first map, its a very good start, and true to the theme of fire and brimstone. A very good effort.

Ionous: Molten lava bathes underneath this well structured acropolis. If you can imagine what the heat would feel like, it must be 50 celcius throughout this map. I got lost a few times during my inital run, but all it takes is a little exploration and backtracking to get back in the right direction. Take your time on this map, and see all there is to see, otherwise you'll miss out on some of the greatest looking ceilings you'll ever see.

Matecha: It may have the smallest amount of monsters, but don't let that get your guard down. A short map that kind of ends abruptly, and with a secret I can't imagine anyone being able to find unless its by accident. My favorite segment is the graveyard, as it has very precise detailing down to the pixel level. The gate door opened halfway, the cross on a tomb stone toppled over, the fence surrounding it, in my opinion the strongest part of the map entirely.

necros: This one kind of had my head scratching. For such a large map with terrific detailing, monster count was quite low. At first, it almost seemed like the threat of death was non-existant. I guess what I'm saying is I wish this map lasted longer because of how big it is, and how pleasant it was to look at.

Rick: A dark forboding castle that seems to echo death down the long empty halls, buried beneath centuries of earth, finally giving way to a volcanic eruption. Makes you wonder where the electricity is coming from. The purple fog was an interesting touch, not one I would have chosen but it did add color to the gray and brown palette.

Continued... 

Scampie: This map was my favorite in regards to gameplay. Very unique enviornment hazards like the huge cauldrons moving in what appears to be a huge boiler room, the security robot was a very unexpected but fun enemy, and of course the shootable Chthons rising from the lava as you make your way towards the exit. It may not follow the theme exactly as it is more base than brimstone, but its fast and challenging gameplay, along with great map details, this map fits the bill.

Shotro: Kind of a mixed bag here. On the one hand you have some well designed areas with good gameplay, and then there are some that seem outright out of place. For example, the initial hub room with the gold key door fits the theme perfectly, as well as the busted up bridge area where the silver key lies, both nicely built. Along with the dark walled tunnel section. Then you have this one outside place, lush grass and mossy rocks fill the path, and a waterfall descends into a pit of slime. Which then follows up to an abnormally bright, bloodied doom texture room. Neither of these fit the theme at all and are very bland in detail. The huge underground area also fell a bit short, as it just seemed too boxy in comparison with the rest of the level. It all ends in a village type setting. For a first map, if this is a first map, its a very impressive start, but the weird transition into vastly different themes so suddenly can really ruin the immersion.

tens: The most disturbing map in the pack, and I mean that in a good way. The unnatural rock formations, unsettling bridges make of skin, and of course the enormous head with the large, dead bulbous eyes that seem to follow you as you progress through the map. Which if you are paying attention, you realize that they do, and thats the most disturbing part. This is also the only map where I died, at the very end as a result of very little health and ammunition left, dealing with the shambler and vore.

warrenm: I always had in my mind that whenever I see large structures and architecture floating in the sky, that time has stopped, forgotten. A strange destination now uninhabitable as time has stopped for everything but the living. A well tuned map, small but with some hectic combat towards the end.

A fantastic job to everyone, pride yourselves with your creations. 

primal, that was some creative playing in my map. In the demos that I've watched so far, no one else managed to jump over the trigger for the first wave of scrags, managed to start infighting between the first HK and vore, or managed to use the first wave of scrags against the vore.

You also got the fiends to jump into the lava pit and die, and because of that I think you could have finished with all kills but the 4 in the secret. But after 3 restarts it's completely understandable to just head for the exit :)

Oh, and at one point you looked right at the button to trigger the secret. Don't know if you missed it or just ignored it because you had no ammo to shoot it by then :) 

@Scampie - I would pick your level as a winner here. It has it all: it looks great, it plays great, there are chtons, there are secrets. It's a long operation, you have to take time to beat it in all its complexity.

I know squat about Quake mods. Like I said in my readme, the moment I telefragged Ziggurath I quit caring about single player Quake. So, I don't know anything about Rubicon. To me, you level is like Half-Life, and one to be remembered.

Of course I couldn't finish it yet, because I have a problem. Seriously, I should get medical attention.

@ionous - Another winner. Your level is a vertigo. The player can look up and be amazed, but I found the gameplay very horizontal. If you make the player look up or cross the same areas at different levels, its grandness would be much more appreciated.

I don't have any complains. The fights were great, the environment always an eye candy. It's amazing that you found time to give so much attention to detail. You don't explore color too much, a matter of taste.

I see you used the provided rock_brown texture. It has a glitch I fixed. You can get it here at post #336:

http://celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=61214&start=326&end=350 

@Warren - From your first screenshot I knew it would look beautiful.

Actually there's a funny story. I resented being back to these 64x64 desktop icons used as textures in 1996. I put a challenge to myself to use these wads only, though. At some point I was stuck, hating everything I did and no time to start over.

The reference that put me in the right direction was that screenie. They showed me these textures can make fine looks: oh, you can do like this, like that and suddenly I got the looks for that first "dm4" room in my level.

Comes out that yours is the prettiest of the pack. Looks like you're very comfortable with medieval settings, knows what to do very fast, right? Yet it's simple, not overdone, you made it look so easy to do.

Loved the height variations, the different places. The ending seems rough, but that's because you had to leave the boat sooner. These two tones you chose, the brown and the orange, are killer. 

GAAHHHH! What a ride! I had to call my wife to watch your demos. Should have made a movie of her laughing till the face got red. That touchy moment when you managed to fall to the lava at a tiny corner where a scrag died was a blast. But you made it in the end! I'm making an independent movie out of this for Sundance Festival, if you don't mind.

A lot like me playing Scampie's.

Thanks for the video. When I finally put together my website I'll link it there. 

The most rewarding moment of these demos is people trying to figure what a "seal" is and how to break it. The most shaming (for me) is poor bastar*cough* fellow players jumping to that tiny ledge at room 3. Since you seem to love it so much, I'm adding the ledge to gameplay (done right, off course).