proper review later, but for now some quick comments:

Cocerello: I didn't have much trouble with the route, though the library was a bit tricky. When I found the silver key and saw the ladder ahead I thought I was going to be crushed between bookshelves lol. Played on normal so found the gameplay reasonable, though perhaps light on ammo later on.

Fifth/Ericw: great stuff, this is the kind of map that makes me want to look for secrets, what with all the building tops, arches, towers, etc. The end (with the lamp) was awesome, tough but I eventually managed to finish it without cheating (secret is helpful lol - first they're invincible, then you get to pay them back for that). Perhaps the vertical route could have had more mileage, but overall great.

Lunaran: Holy invents Ik-Red - probably the most unique visual style of the pack. Saw some lava secrets ala e1m8, super cool though I didn't find them; I liked the dark final combat, it was challenging in an unusual way but not unreasonable.

Mfx: "Are you employed, sir?" (the Big Lebowski to the Dude) - how could you make something this impressive in such a short space of time? This strikes me as easily the best map in the pack, up to Zendar standards even (!!), and a huge leap from previous MFX maps. I loved the little details and sense of exploration, the secrets I did find, variety in the environment; amazing sense of place.

Scampie: Great style, this is one evil map. The intense gameplay totally fit the theme/concept (this god clearly loves blood), this map had a strong hostile bloodbath feeling and made me want to kill stuff. Very atmospheric, the monsters all seemed right at home, beautiful lighting. Quite an Elder World feel for sure.

Skacky: Loved the title and concept, although (can't believe I'm saying this) less hordey combat might have suited both better. Secret quad run was awesome though. The idea of a sky city has always appealed to me. Excellent use of the textures and probably the best lighting out of any map in here. Like Fifth's map, this is the kind of map you just want to fly around checking out how all the sections fit together.

Sock: Gameplay reminded me of Midnight Stalker a bit, close quarters with ogres, shamblers, and hellknights is often more challenging than I assume! Great details as usual like the health pools (heretic 2 textures yay! - actually the whole style reminded me of heretic 2's "Cloudhub"). The setting on the edge of a cliff was great, in fact now that I think of it like half the maps were set way up in the sky. Sweet.

Overall thanks to everyone who contributed and especially to Sock for making it happen, the maps were all great and this is the most fun I've had playing Q1SP in a long time. The temple/palace setting rules and I'll be replaying this trying to find all the secrets in the future. The fact that the ikblue/ikwhite/etc texture set is now significantly expanded is a nice side benefit too. 

http://www.twitch.tv/tddaz

For real this time! 

Copy and paste helped a lot in my map, glad you liked it. Zendar!?! Lol..

I made demos for each map, further praise in there. Sorry for probable derpings in some:)

Thanks again Sock for organizing this!

Overall, its a good time for Q1 players:) 

 

I don�t like the endfight(?) much, and still i�m not sure about the light in some places as well.

Nobodys arguing about monsters being spawned in, me wonders.. 

I noticed the way that the two last monsters are spawning from the ground. Felt weird, but cool anyway. Match well with that eerie nightmarish dream rndering. 

Some people want to cool off a bit so they have the whole of august to slack off. 

Definitely an excellent release, especially considering the time frame! Your earlier releases (and unreleased betas) did a great job of mimicking Than/CZG's style, but this map makes it undeniable that youhave your own style now. That's pretty fucking huge in and of itself.

Will replay the rest tonight and offer comments and demos shortly thereafter. Died early in tronyns map (from falldamage - a first time for everything) so pretty pumped about it from that preview/ shamblers comments.

Hard to pick a fav so far, they are all very very good and for the most part very innovative! 

What an amazing jam. I really don't know what to say. The maps were incredible!

Here is a demo pack (33mb) of first time runs from the stream https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/33279452/jam2.rar 

I tried Sock's map with the DMSP mod : all the supplementary monsters are just falling one by one into the void, near the shotgun balcony. One poor dude per second.

A rain of monsters, LOL !

Scampie's map doesn't behave well with DMSP neither. 

in a gasoline engine.. How could you? 

At least, your own map (MFX) works very well with the DMSP mode, and it's awseome.

And here's a room full of nasties in Scampie's map, just under the start floor. Hilarious to go there and say hello !

http://fsgregs.startlogic.com/Public_Files/Cham/Pictures/army.jpg

Hehehee, I love to do this ! 

that isn't a picture of my map... 

I like to find the hidden boxes full of monsters and drop in them like a shit. Monsters hate that. 

I applaud all of you for being able to create such visually pleasing and fun gameplay maps in only a months time. I can guarantee this map pack will go down in Quake hall of fame as one of the best.

First run playthrough of each map, hard skill:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEFoR2z4yZc 

Cocerello - didn't attempt to play it after the gameplay complaints. I turned right and the first enemy I see is a Shambler with my sg - alrighty then. Nice visuals though.

Lun - nice lava filled map. I wasn't quite so set on the unlit fight at the top, but it was frantic.

Fifth/Eric - pretty bit battle at the end! I really liked the final arena - I think I preferred it over the white parts of the level. good map.

Skacky - mate another fucking awesome map. You really have some talent. The combat was well balanced as well with a good mix of shamblers/vores/ogres/hell knights the closer you get to the finish, but without just throwing them all at you at once. Although there was a massive horde fight, I kind of like that this wasn't at the end. I ended up reloading a few times just to make maximum use of the quad. It's placed far enough away that you can't quite use it on both shamblers. Only thing I'd tone down on again are the constant ogres are in high spots. Anyway great level, again!

Sock - this might be my favourite sock map. I just love the texture combinations with the heretic or hexen mix. Though not as heavy on tough combat like some of the others - ie a single shambler to finish the map, I just love a nice small map like this with lots of Ogres. You really don't need 200 enemies for a nice fun map. Anyway love the visual style. Only disappointment was missing out on the two underground bits since they're secrets only. I only found them after noclipping which isn't quite the same. Also the second SK door - it would have nice to go back and find out what's on the other side to lengthen it a bit.

Will play the rest tomorrow, got Tronyns, mfx and scampies left. 

You have only read a part of the thread.

The complaints are only about hard skill.

No one that played the map on normal skill had a single complaint about enemies in the map. For example, check Tronyn review on post #39.

Dont drop a map for a reason like that.

Ps: typing a long text from a phone is a pain. 

yet another package of demos, blind first run on normal. don't expect any skill here at all.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9SGXU6l13Prb1JjUlRRSkpGajA/edit?usp=sharing

managed to miss a ton of the most obvious secrets somehow, geegee. also, had to re-record the very beginning of jam2_tronyn separately after beating the map, cause i've realised way too late quakespasm stopped the demo on level restart.

thanks to all the authors for the awesome map pack! 

Cool cocerello - although I was on normal and the first enemy was still a shambler, and when I did run around I didn't see weapons anywhere. Might give it another go at some stage. 

If you don't mind, i would like to discuss your comments, discussions done right are what get things moving and improving and your comments are interesting.


Cocerello's is again another map where 'bit off more than you could chew' seems to be what happened.

You don't know how much you nailed it with that comment:

- Its the biggest antagonist that i had to dealt with since the beginning of my mapping for Quake in 1996-1997. For example, the third or fourth scrap i ever did, was a giant plain where i used all the room in the .bsp format. My first map after leaving Quake SP for 15 years, a speedmap for sm170 that wasn't released for that session because of lack of Internet, was as big as the .bsp format again, and complicated to the extenuation. After that i toned it down a lot with sm171 and sm173 and with several other maps that i have near completion, but came back again with sm175. Bad habits are hard to deal, but i'm concentrating my efforts on that.

- This map was at the beginning of the jamp a previous work in progress map that i used for the jam because it fitted with the theme exactly (it was also ikwhite/ikblue).
If you think this was big, the sketches i have of the map are thrice the size and the theme of the map is very different and complicated, not a mansion in the sky at all. Well, to be just, the map didn't look as complicated as it does in the sketches ...


I think you intended players to sneak around and collect some weapons and ammo, but that goes against the instincts of Quake players so much

That too, but i wanted to put the ammo where it would feel natural, thats why there is so much in the closet near the SK door: what the hell would be doing a ammo box in a library, it would make no sense. Also, i don't like the feel of the ammo is just there for you to take. Sometimes i think that it would be best to make a weapon like the automatically rechargeable one from Drake, i like it a lot.

It doesn't go that much against, there is many Quake's Id and custom maps that have this feature, but yes, mine is one of the few that rely on it so much. The idea isn't bad, what was bad was the execution, there is some Quake custom maps that did this brilliantly. I think that this issue is mostly related to hard skill, where if i deleted the shambler at the beginning this issue would be lessened a lot. About the peashooters, i explained it before, instead of raising the monster count and mischeavity, lower the weapons to fit them, i think that it is an interesting way to do it, if i were to do it right, which i clearly haven't.


you clearly state in it's title it's not finished to your liking

Yes, the brushwork, progression, gameplay and even the theme of what i had planned is very different to what i did in this jam. That and that this mansion was supposed to be something on the middle of the progression of the planned map, this layout doesn't fit the beginning of a map at all, and that's where the problem with the gameplay in the early stages of the jam is.


My only suggestion for the future is to think smaller scale until you have a better handle on how much you can reasonable do to a high quality!

Yes, that's for sure a good idea, and i have a ''work in progress'' map that would fit it, even though i don't like the theme.


* About your demo:

I liked your display of skills, but above everything, how you remained calm and composed in dare situations, struggled to live and refused to die, and how you used architecture and layout in your favour.

It was surprising how you reached so far by jumping, never realized that anyone could get to the broken bridge like that.

By the way, you have brightness turned up a lot, don't you?, you realized the knights ambush in the dark part very easily and were the only one in doing so. 

http://www.quaketastic.com/files/demos/sham2_jam2demos.zip

So much that could be said about this pack, it's quite hard to condense it down to a few salient points:

1. Excellent and varied interpretations of the theme.

2. The quality, scope and sheer creativity of these maps irrefutably demonstrate why Quake is still relevant in 2014 and beyond.

3. In particular, most of the maps show how awesomely effective a few new additions to the engine - i.e. fog, coloured lighting, transparency and skyboxes - can be when they are used so well. The way these extra effects are implemented in these maps is a great demonstration of small enhancements making a big difference.

4. Although there are great maps from mappers old and new, it's really reassuring to see how well the "new" generation of Q1 SP mappers are doing, Sock (for maps and organisation), MFX and Skacky in particular. A few years ago no-one had heard of them Quake-wise. Now they are doing cutting edge Q1 SP. This is great.

Excellent pack, well done everyone. 

Cool cocerello - although I was on normal and the first enemy was still a shambler, and when I did run around I didn't see weapons anywhere. Might give it another go at some stage.

Are you talking about the shambler outside? There is no other shambler on easy or normal. Nothing bigger than two demons apart from that, by the way.

Yes, that one is in even on easy, but it is on a dead end, you can always see him before he sees you no matter what you do without cheating, and he is acting as a door to keep players from going there till they are confident in taking him because i planned to put in there a big secret. To summarize, it doesn't affect the gameplay at all.

The map rely heavily in exploration.

You can get the NG before after no more than a death knight and two knights see you, but it depends a lot of the path you take first. 

My complains about the Cocerello map are these :

1. The exterior borders are dull (flat square floating in mid-air).
You should build some wall all around the building, with some decorations.

2. The furniture at the end is really ugly : a table, a chair and especially a bed. They're too crude and don't fit with the architecture. I suggest that you simply remove them.

3. The end teleporter is very ugly. Replace it with a large square slipgate. Especially for such a large corridor.

4. The red circular windows are crude in that same corridor. Make them rectangular, or add more polys so they look less crude (more circular).

5. Even in nigthmare mode, there isn't enough monsters/battles. The rooms are extremelly large and feel empty without monsters. Just add more peeps to cuddle (rooms full of zombies and dogs).

Not really a complain : I would add a basement or a cave under that building. Something is missing there. 

jam3: remix jam2_cocerello 

Think it's a calibration thing with my monitor though, I have the gamma in Quake turned all the way down. It's also why I was constantly asking my testers to tell me if my map was too bright!