xj2020_grome: Kind of linear but a punchy romp; no complaints with most of the map. Lots of good shootin'. I enjoyed the finale a lot too for the most part... good excuse (or necessity even) to Grenade All The Things, except for the very last bit which was just too punishing IMO on skill 2. Savescummed my way past that part. But a lot of cool craft in this one, from the brushwork to the sfx/setpieces.

xj2020_dfl was a good use of the space and just generally a fun construct to play around in. DragonsForLunch is levelling up! 

xj2020_heresy was a _fantastic_ use of the space. It had me chasing my tail up and down and back again across the map. Some unclear navigation hints (messages) IIRC, but the fact that it's such a small map and that the traditional approach of "follow the new monster spawns" always worked meant that it wasn't frustrating. I felt like I really knew the place near the end....

... except I almost couldn't find the exit! I triggered the "seasonal" secret and killed those new monsters, and by the end of all that I forgot that I had picked up the gold key. The "you can leave now" message after the new monsters cleanup made me wonder if there was some newly revealed door nearby or at the start of the map that I needed to find. Anyway: stumbled across the gold key door eventually after a lot of wandering (it's kind of out the main path).

The outside detail surrounding this map is nice as well. Cool alternative to the usual blocked door/slipgate at map start. Overall not as weird as some of Heresy's other work :-) but that's quite OK. 

xj2020_ionotp: good fun, a little troll-ish at times? but even that feels in the spirit of the concept. I'm mildly disappointed that the secrets didn't _seem_ to recapitulate many of the "famous" secrets from the various environments/episodes (altho I didn't find all secrets so could be some like this I missed). Overall, it's a nice concept to take a "small volume" jam constraint and cram all these environments into it... the scope of each environment and their fit together was well done.

xj2020_ish may be my favorite so far in the jam and a possible candidate to go back and add to the "best maps of 2020" thread! Need to sit and think on it a bit. I think it would have fit better in the halloween jam ;-) but fantastic use of AD features to create a sense of (weird) place and progression. Ammo and health were tight on skill 2 IMO... it worked out for me in the end, which just made it all the more fun. My only criticism would be to lay off the poison monsters if you want to make a resource-constrained map. 

xj2020_muk: neat little jungle-gym of a map. I'm probably not completely on board with the find-lots-of-buttons kind of secret, so I don't think I'm going to poke around further for the one that I overlooked somehow. Too bad because I guess that's how you get the jump boots, which could be great here. Other than that though, good times! Always a tiny thrill to find ways to look down and drop into some new area, and the swiss-cheese routes were lovely. BTW the way that several key-and-door setups were apparently just for unlocking "backtracking shortcuts" is ... unusual?

xj2020_pinchy: fun setup for a mini-arena. Cute! I think some of my less favorite pinchy-isms were on display here though, e.g. surrounding you with distant missile mobs while subjecting you to fiddly navigation (water, tight spaces, platforming, etc.). And the backspawning, including backspawning archers immediately behind you. At least no vores doing that stuff, this time! I dunno man, not entirely my thing, but I finished it up without much grumbling. :-) Got the Quad with no monsters left though. :-( My fault for not checking the monster count. Although I kind of attained the Quad secret by accident just fooling around, not sure how that one is meant to be found.

xj_naitelveni: well this was a bit of a shitshow both in my playstyle and in the performance on my old Quake-ing computer. Enjoyed it though. I didn't see a way to kill the first zombies immediately (was the Quad unlocked at that point?) and I eventually ended up with a hundred monsters zerging around in that room. Basically turned into a strafejumping/infighting spectator show sort of thing, which was fine. It's good that at the end I then had a couple of waves that I could mulch with the WM, LG, and/or Quad. A palate cleanser in between the bigger explore-y jam entries. 

Anybody else getting a broken LG viewmodel running this in QSS? 

Try the latest official QSS release, not a dev-build. People had this issue on AD 1.8 with various dev-builds. 

FWIW Spike told me to best use the dev build these days, and QSS is working fine for me in AD and in this jam.

maiden, what's your setup like? What OS, what version of QSS? And you do have this jam in its own mod folder right (not dumped into the AD folder)? 

Using as directed.
QSS latest official release, 64-bit, own mod folder. It's not a big deal, just thought it was odd that I couldn't reproduce the problem with Quakespasm, which points the finger at QSS. 

Yah, might as well try the latest dev build. It has bug fixes. My impression is the main reason Spike hasn't blessed a new official build is that he's tired of working on QSS for now. 

xj2020_qalten: I like the general idea for the mechanics of progression, but the scale is a bit cramped for the kinds of fighting and navigating that the player needs to do in here. Felt a little too fiddly IMO.

xj2020_qmaster: Great short adventure. I mean, obviously the "reveal" and the music sting is going to hit nicely for many of us, but even aside from that I think there's some cool paths and slightly different combat setups in here.

xj2020_qmaster2: An arena fight in a room again yah. Didn't leave much of an impression.

xj2020_quasiotter: Gets a surprising amount of mileage out of the contrast between the cutesy dialog and the grimacing mean-mugging idle animations (that you don't often get an extended chance to see up close).

xj2020_shadesmaster: Yet another arena fight in a room (or two)! Dressed up mighty purty though. Fun little blitz, and (as usual for shadesmaster) with a particularly perky music track. Nice to get to pound on some of the new monsters.