I's suggest movign the porter at the end battle a bit(or give it a delaY), because its easy to get into porter again and again, and i'd say to have some respawning health at the end ( i actualy think you intend to have respawning health there, but it doesnt atleast not for me (using fitzquake V) 

it does respawn, or atleast sometimes sometimes even twce, seems to be soem random factor with it 

Sorry, I do not understand. Please write the details (maybe in other words)? 

This took me two nights to finish.

time: 70:02 (i got lost a lot and went in a lot of circles)

secrets: 0/0 (but i found two things that claimed to be secrets, plus shot a weird blue-rivet ceiling brush that became brown, but didn't actually find an open door nearby so maybe that wasn't a secret)

kills: 204/204

I enjoyed solving all of the puzzles that this map put in front of me. Exploration puzzles, jumping puzzles, speed puzzles, etc. All were well conceived and executed. I also really appreciate the nonlinearity.

I spent a lot of time being lost, but actually began to learn the map through my repeated traversals of the same few loops. It feels very open but each of the looped sections is fairly well isolated. I think the biggest confusing factor for me was the group of teleporters that all connected the same 3-4 rooms.

I would suggest making each type of gate unique and consistent in appearance and function. For example gates that open permanently should look different than gates that close after a few seconds.

I also think that a door that says "press 3 buttons" in a map that has 25 buttons doesn't help either. Giving the player some other task like "collect 3 runes" would help keep the different player objectives more distinct.

I was disappointed a couple of times when i rocket jumped to someplace hard to see and hard to get to, but was not rewarded with anything. 

wanted to say that I got both a Doom vibe from this and a Super Metroid vibe from it. 

Another unique experimental map, much appreciated. Unfortunately, the way it's done is very taxing on the player.

Construction and style are great as usual. A bit dark, but not too much so - although I did increase brightness a little. Shouldn't have used minlight. Combat was fine, not problem with all the items.

The problem is that this maps tries too many things at once, I think. Namely nonstandard movement (RJ), nonlinear secret/puzzle gameplay, and atmospheric style (gloomy light level) all at the same time, which turns into a fatal combination in this case.

The rocketjumping was fine for me. All jumps were managable even if I screwed up occasionally. The repawning items are nice (and essential). Though I can imagine that the rocketjumping may well be a showstopper for players with no multiplayer background. I guess it's just that we take for granted everyone knows how to do it much as things like shambler dancing etc.

The layout felt very confusing to me for some reason. Usually I enjoy nonlinear layouts that allow exploration and multiple routes, but in this map I ran around in circles most of the time. After a while I somewhat got an idea of the areas, but often still couldn't figure out how to get from A to B. What made it even more difficult were things like one-way gates and dead ends - and ultimately the need for puzzle-solving to progress (without having a clear notion of what or where the puzzles were). Felt a bit like a maze.

I think the biggest issue in this sense is the lack of signposting. I don't necessarily mean arrows everywhere, although it would've helped to have some dynamic arrows appear as needed. Visual (and logic) conections are what I'm talking about.
While it's kind of clear one has to find three buttons, none of them is visible before entering the actal room - maybe apart from the one submerged in slime, but even that is too removed from a proper sense of place and direction. So initially, if not most of the time, the player ends up running around thinking "what the hell am I supposed to do here" and "how do I get there". It's counter-intuitive compared to situations where a problem is presented (e.g. button behind bars) and the player has a clear (visual) goal, and possibly an idea of how to approach it. But in this map it often felt fairly random, because there's no clear connection between problem and solution. Sometimes it felt like I was merely stumbling upon the solution. Of course the large size of the map and the openness of the layout adds to the confusion if the player is clueless/without a tangible goal.

It's very hard for the player to make a connection between certain areas and actions. A couple of examples: I would have prefered to have more distinct styles for the different interactable objects. Like the gates that open permanently should look different from those that close again after a moment. Their centerprints aren't helpful, either - rather than "button-controlled", something like "Opened from the other side" would've better for the player's understanding.
The gate puzzle (which is very much digs style, I might add). I didn't even notice that one button opens two gates until someone mentioned "gate PUZZLE". I hadn't made a connection between the teleporter behind the second gate and the one in the locked room in the hub, both somewhat tucked away in a corner. The two teleporters could've been placed more prominently in the rooms and make to look similar, a distinct recognizable style, so the player can make the connection.
The Quad jump. While I sort of got this one quickly, it's another one of those unconnected things. A simple Quad logo (e.g. from the hud graphic) and might have been obvious. Or if there was another crosshair texture beneath the Quad damage pickup - although this may not be strong enough to reinforce the idea. Finding one's way from the Quad back to the slime room is difficult enough.

A trick boss fight is always a nice touch, but when finally reaching it, I was so worn out by the rest of the map that I couldn't be bothered to deal with him. I realized I had to lure him onto the crusher, but it seems like a real chore and also quite deadly, so I shot him for a while even though I kind of knew it was pointless, and eventually just noclipped to the exit. Sorry.

What's the reason that none of the secrets are marked with a secret trigger? Apart from the peculiar fact of being secrets in a secret map... I found a SNG but no idea how I opened the closet.
Bit of a shame there's nothing on top of the industrial area with pipes. I jumped up there several times.

Demo, very painful to watch.
So, yay for a new digs map; good experimentation, but could have been less strennous with a few tweaks. Get more playtesters next time, especially for such a nonstandard level! 

Seems like this is one of those levels that only start to shine on the second playthrough. 

Yeah, what the FUCK does that blue ceiling bit do? I explored all around that room and adjacent areas in game, then in no clip, and could find "fuck all".

Maybe it is a than-esque "You Fixed it!" 

I was hoping that negke would play this and have his soul crushed by the obtuse progression.....which I guess kinda happened, but the result seems to be some really good feedback including great general warnings to mappers about design logic :) 

I agree with Shambler's five points. The homegenuity he mentions is probably what made it so hard for me and others to navigate the map with confidence. There are few strong setpieces and together with the gloomy light level it creates the feeling that all looks the same (which it doesn't, but neither does it look different or unique enough to be really memorable) which the "corridor-ness" of the layout ultimately adds to. 

metlslime: thanks for comments. Use runes instead of buttons is a good idea. I will do so

negke: thanks for comments and demo. I wanted to make visible 0 secrets to the player did not know how many there are. And in the beginning did not even know about them. It's an experiment. I'll think about how to change the sign for QRJ point.

I also will see what I can do with the rest of the comments.

My main mistake: I had not given test map before release. It began testing one person, but he was too busy. Next time, I'll consider it and ask to test 

Replayed it without recording a demo and quicksaving all the time, not dropping into the slime by accident. Suddenly it was much more fun. I would recommend removing that slime "trap" window somehow. And/Or add an item at the bottom of the way out of that slime area so the player has a reason to drop down there and then look for ways out.

Got lost searching the third button and gave up. Too samey for me, I never knew where to go. I was not sure if I was supposed to grenade+rocket jump above the not working shoot button but I did that somehow.

My problem with the map is that it does not clearly sets the new rule of "rocket jumping is needed". If there are so many opportunities to RJ somewhere, I get frustrated and lost, not knowing what to do. Might be less hard with god mode.

Make sure the message at the start does not say "one" rocketjump but "rocketjumps"!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111 

Spirit's comment is key I think, and also reminds me of Portal 1/2.

At the start of every test chamber was a series of helper images letting you know what you're in for.

You could use a similar idea in your map by putting a special texture on the floor whenever a rocket jump is required for progression, but not for secrets.

That way you clarify the visual language of the level (hello Sock's demon head secrets). 

...you mean Sock's Demon Head Secrets where ever single one was opened by a nearby button....except the YA Demon Head secret on the thin ledge in Zendar, which was a shootable door and took me 5 times longer to find than any obscure progression in RJZ??

Or a different Sock's Demon Head Secrets? 

Not ones that changed the visual language and made shamblers sad 

Having read some of the comments here I tried two approaches:

1. Played under Quoth and cheated myself a flashlight. This helped fuck all since the flashlight is virtually useless in such open spaces.

2. Played under id1 with sv_gravity 100. This was instantly much better than having to rocketjump everywhere. Haven't beaten it yet, though. 

First, teleporters inherently make it more difficult for players to learn the layout of a map, since they pop you between disconnected areas. You lose sense of place and direction. This isn't necessarily bad, but does make the challenge higher.

Second, since you had (i think) 3 different pairs of teleporters, it was even harder to figure out what was what. Perhaps giving each pair of teleporters a unique shape to the frame (like rectangle, diamond, oval) instead of all having basically the same rectangular frames. Or, color-code the frames (or color-code the actual teleport texture) so there's a red, a blue, a green.

Finally, the biggest issues with this map is that as you open up more areas, the challenge of finding a new puzzle gets harder, since there is more area to explore and it seems that the new puzzle could be anywhere, even in areas you've previously visited.

I don't have an ideal solution for this problem. There are plenty of sub-optimal solutions like locking the player in a specific area until they solve the puzzle (which would open the route back to the hub), or by eliminating any puzzle where the solution is "find an unmarked passage" but they would take away some of the uncompromizing "maze" aspect of this map.

I think a better approach would be not to change layout or puzzle design, but to improve navigation by making areas more distinct and the relationships between areas easier to learn.

In addition to Metroid, another game that this level reminds me of a lot is Solstice on the NES. That game had a similar degree of openness and maze/puzzle-focus. It was also broken into fairly distinct areas (castle, garden, dungeon) that had relatively few inter-connections. It also had teleporters. (It also had an auto-map!) 

Were awesome. 

Echoing some of the sentiments already posted - layout was very confusing at times, some areas were way too dark. I can always appreciate the experimental nature of digs' maps (digs04 is still my all-time favorite q1sp), but I think much like with digs06, this map is just way too big for its own good, which can easily lead to the player wandering around in circles. I did get a bit bored at times.

On the other hand I quite enjoyed the main gimmick of the map, that being rocketjumping, seeing as I love to abuse such tricks in the game, one of the main reasons I love Quake so much. The puzzles were a bit hit and miss, like the one with the buttons opening different doors in order to enter a teleport, but I really enjoyed the pentagram/rocketjump-one. The one at the end with the quad+RA was quite satisfying when figuring out what the solution was, but the problem I found with it was first and foremost the red "target" texture underneath the grating in the slime. This texture typically means "shoot me", and when this resulted in nothing, I was left quite perplexed. It didn't help that I didn't even notice the shaft in the ceiling until after having first wandered around for a few minutes, maybe it could have been made more conspicuous.

The boss fight wasn't too bad in my opinion. Overall I'd say it was an enjoyable map but with some things here and there dragging the experience down, with some changes it could be really good.

Oh, and here's my demo (skill 3) 

and very hard!

The visuals were great, I loved the motif of the woven beams in the skylights; made the base feel really oppressive. The colored lighting was also really well done.

The puzzle with the pent was my favourite area.. it was clear that you were supposed to climb to the top of the room, and the jumps were fun.

negke and metl covered most of the things I had trouble with. I cleared out the enemies in the area with the quad fairly early on. I noticed the shootable button you're supposed to quad rocketjump on, but once I found it wasn't a shootable button I just abandoned it and didn't realize it could have another meaning (and didn't look up..), so unfortunately I eventually noclipped on that puzzle.

also it took a while of being lost and looping through the map to notice that the pillar buttons were the 3 I was looking for to trigger the big door. it was satisfying, though, once I figured out the basic arrangement was 3 distinct areas each with a puzzle blocking access to a pillar button.

anyhow thanks for this release! 

kaffikopp, ericw thanks for playing and comments.

map updated, link same
http://digspt.ru/quake/maps/digs07.zip

changes:
1. map now lighter
2. fixed bug with slime space of big slime leak
3. smoothed ('clip' texture) base of buttons. Now going from side to push easier
4. add few guide pointers
5. in Shambler room (before QuadDamage) added 2 item_health for normal and easy, and 1 for other
6. reduce time regeneration for item_health from 5 to 3 seconds
7. fixed seizing of Scrag in the tower
8. fixed vulnerability for first boss on hard and nightmare skills
9. in QRJ point add message "You will have to use a QuadDamage RocketJump"
10. changed messages for closed doors
11. three buttons changed to runes
12. add tranparent label for zone which activate teleports for boss
13. teleports now have different colors
N. other small changes 

I'm a little sad that the quad puzzle is now trivial, i really liked that one. But i guess everyone else was stumped on it. 

Figuring out what you had to do was what's fun with that puzzle, explaining outright to the player what he has to do removes the puzzle part entirely. As I said the problem for me was that the top shaft wasn't noticeable enough. Maybe just having an arrow on the wall pointing upwards so as to encourage the player to look up would have been enough. 

I think it all depends on the person. If he likes puzzles, it will look without pointers. If not, then he needs a clue. Difficult to ensure that everyone is interested