Short on time tonight, so here's 3 quick ones.

Aftermath by Queenjazz

I've played this one before of course, but not with the lower gravity (which was a good addition if I dare say so myself). Very interesting theme, must have been more annoying to put together than it seems. I think that a full map in this theme, with several of these kinds of "stations" floating in the void, would be probably a real treat.

Surrounded by Ish and Rhoq

A collaboration, pretty cute. This time round the layout wasn't as interesting as ish's other offerings, but it was still decent, and rather nicely populated. Not sure what was the deal with all the pushables, seems like they were more for decoration than something functional, unless I missed something obvious.

Train Station Infiltration by Ing

Sorry, didn't really like this, instant death traps and being forced to use no ammo isn't my idea of fun. There already are other mods that explore the idea of stealth in Quake and they're much better at it. It's a shame since the actual train station map idea is interesting. 

There were some breakables that if broken keep you from getting up to the key without the pushable. Its a sub-puzzle. Only necessary if you, like me, shoot all crates, barrels, wood, windows, globes, red things, Q symbols, and demons. 

Airgapped and Fully Integrated by JCR

The zip is twice as big as my other ones combined, nice.

I liked this pair of maps, both were really pretty (save for some minor misaligned textures) and seemed to flow into eachother well, as both used the Rubicon 2 texture set rather extensively, with similar characteristics.

Both were pretty hardcore gameplay wise, even on skill 1, but nothing that was overly difficult or unfair. After what was way too many axe starts, I enjoyed that both maps gave me heavy weaponry relatively early on - it made for a nice change of pace, and opened up some different gameplay possibilities.

Map 1 was off to an interesting start, and was very interesting looking, but to be fair I wasn't a big fan of the layout, the progression was done nicely but it felt like I was moving across a box rather than a real place.

I remembered little of map 2, despite having tested it, so some of it was a nice surprise. This time the warehouse/military base justified the somewhat boxy layout, and I felt it was more interesting than map 1. Really liked the sinister "story" of this one.

Are these two maps meant to form a coherent unit together? It felt that way when I played both in a row.

Good work overall! 

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/292234299896365056/524958757873254400/sueK02w.png 

Wow. Even with an HD texture pak it still looks good. 

Hall of Shards by Pinchy Skree

A late write-up to a demo I recorded two days ago, so apologies for not remembering too many details.

A decent mix between a classic Quake map and one that is totally off the rails, with all the unique detailing that I appreciated (but not necessarily liked). Definitely felt like the most lived-in map from the jam together with Bal's, but for different reasons entirely. Big props for using the more obscure textures like the marble walls and the ornate carpets.

The layout could have been more interesting (the top floor was decent, despite being just 3 rooms, while the bottom felt like a box was placed first and then bits were added) but the progression through it was fun. I never want to fight another spider or scorpion in AD again, though.

Nice map overall! 

I noticed that your map "Gift of the Boxlord" has a line in the bsp where it says:
"_texpart_sky_xsnow" "fte_weather.tex_skysnow"

but there is no snow falling from the sky, even when i write r_particledesc fte_weather or r_particledesc weather on the console :(

I'm using the last version of quakespasm-spiked-win64, but i also tested it with Mark V and quakespasm 0.93

Is there something that i have to write on the console to make it work?

Thanks! 

Here's Part 2! This episode finishes up the final maps within the pack.

https://youtu.be/2oCtxQzcCMA

Here is the list of maps in this episode, again sorry, list is not in order:

Shadow and Flame by Ionous
Abyssal Nimiety by Ish
Surrounded by Ish and Rhoq
Coal in your Socks! by Krampus
You see me, you a stranger. I see you, I see danger by Naitelveni
Gift of the Boxlord by Qmaster
Cop Speed Gentlemen by Qmaster
NoQuarter by Scampie
Chapel Perilous by Shambler
Moonlit Keep by Shotro
Frozen Demise by Bloodshot

Overall amazing pack! I can't believe we have another 5-6 hours of Quake we can play here (for free!) and the majority of what is in here is good! There are a few maps that I was not the biggest fan of and you'll hear my thoughts on those when I play them. To those people I say, please don't give up and don't take the criticism to heart, just keep working your craft and you'll get there. ;)

Merry Quakemas all! 

I'm not sure how to get the snow working myself actually. I slapped that line in there because ionous said that was what was needed for snowy maps to have snow effect....oh well. 

For Qmasters map I believe it should be adjusted to this:

"_texpart_SKY003" "fte_weather.tex_skysnow"

Which translate to this:

"_texpart_(your standard 2D sky's name)" "fte_weather.tex_skysnow"

Since he didn't USE "sky_xsnow", his 2D sky's name is SKY003, nothing happens.

At least that's what I think is going on. 

"fte_weather.tex_skysnow" is the engine directive of what to display, hence:

"fte_weather.tex_skyrain" would be rain instead of snow.

hth's 

Sorry for the triple posting on this but:

Using MarkV's "copy ents" console command plus Notepad2, I successfully created a "xmasjam2018_qmaster1.ent" file. Where you can change the incorrect Worldspawn key/value pair to:

"_texpart_SKY003" "fte_weather.tex_skysnow"

Then snow will fall in "Gift of the Boxlord"

HOWEVER, it will not be correct :( The snow particles lifespan is not long enough to reach the lower part of the map and so, it looks really odd ingame.

To correct this, I had to edit the "fte_weather.cfg" inside my "...xmasjam2018\particles\" folder and set "die", under section "r_part tex_skysnow", to "14". It is initially set to "8".

This of course has an effect on the whole pack and so may not really be a viable solution.

Wrapping up, I don't know if it's possible to set this on a per map basis in Worldspawn. If possible, the .ent file alone would resolve this without a recompile/release.

Anyways... just thought I'd let you guys know. 

A Christmas Romp by Spipper

About to have Xmas dinner so keeping this short.

Probably the funniest map from the pack, had me loling from the first time I saw a screenshot. I knew right away I'd have to wait to play this until the 24th.

The gameplay was fine, but a bit too many pushables than necessary, and that one blue Death Knight was a very harsh spike in difficulty.

I adored all the destructible detail like the boxes or the snowmen. The map pretty much ended up getting destroyed too, with lots of clever AD entity setups. The only way I'd improve this is if maybe the presents were actually a hollywood timebomb (since the family is already dead).

I didn't mind the music but after 2 minutes I ended up switching it off.

Only 1/5 secrets found, while some of the items I got I'd definitely have marked as secrets personally (like the mega in the basement).

Nice map overall! 

Had to cheat twice, once because the chimney killed me when I was falling down with 1HP, the other because the Minotaur wouldn't stop spawning Imps infinitely. 

I figured it out!

http://www.quaketastic.com/files/misc/Gift%20of%20the%20Boxlord%20-%20SNOW%5Bent%2Bcfg%20files%5D.zip

Deposit that into your xmasjam2018 folder and you're set. 

Sweet! Thanks and Merry Christmas dumptruck! 

Thanks! You're awesome!! =D 

Where is map from the poster? 

purely for jam promotion 

Finally managed to play the rest of the maps. Here are the demoes:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/b5bkr4az3emii65/xmasspipper_demoes02.zip?dl=0

I was a bit tired when I played through some of the maps from the 2nd floor, so the playthroughs are a bit rushed and my "commentary" perhaps not too insightful.
(Also, sorry Ing if I were a bit harsh on your map. Seeing some other playthroughs of your map, made me appreciate what you were trying to do a whole lot more) 

It will be included in the DLC update but for anyone wanting to play a working copy of the map:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/l42tgtf6yvu4623/xmasjam2_shotro.zip?dl=0

The original release of the map somehow had multiple entities that had the target/targetname settings all set to the same thing in a vertical slice of the map across multiple floors. This led me to hunt down all the affected entities.

To prevent this in the future I also adjusted the brushes in the left hallway to no longer allow non-linear navigation through the map so I can test the map without missing something like this again. With that, two areas of the map received brushwork.

Another complaint came when a couple of (non-tester) players overlooked a major trigger for proceeding through the map and couldn't move forward, I added brushwork to make the logic of the map far more apparent. With that, the adjacent areas got some additional brushwork in order to accommodate the change and since I ended up with a dead end because of this, I added a new functional set piece to fill that gap.

The rest of the map is the same layout and is the same as it was upon release... if entities would have triggered correctly. I had time to re-test the map and added a few quality of life improvements relating to button triggers, messages, and fixed the map sounds. I added a joke two-part secret to the map and added a secret in an area someone reached that I hadn't expected (now has a wall and an item. Oh my). 

Thanks for the demo! 

Xmasjam2018 Playlist

Thank you all for your feedback! I made playlist from when I streamed my playthroughs. I hope my commentary is useful to you all. I really enjoyed all the maps, each brought something to the table and it was a real Christmas treat for me to participate. 

Is anyone playing this maps with quakespasm-spiked?

I'm not sure what i'm doing wrong, but there are, at least, three maps that crashes when you try to save or quicksave. I'm not getting any warnings or error messages... quakespasm-spiked just crashes, closes and goes to the desktop :P

It is happening with both Qmaster's maps and with Spiper's (that one with santa's sleigh). I didn't tested with all the maps yet, but i know these three have this "save" issue with quakespasm-spiked.

What these three maps have in common? What do they have that is different from the other maps? Do I have to change something, like change protocols or write something in the console to make it work?