I finally got a chance to play this weekend. Very fun atmospheric map! Genuinely spooky in spots with some of the Hellknight placements! It was difficult, but overall well-balanced and survivable if played cautiously (for those of you that didn't get the opportunity to die in the lava, there's a really cool new sound as you lie there dead, contemplating your fate!).

I enjoyed the killable Chthons, and the other varied and well-placed enemies.

Not much more to say that hasn't already been said. I've always very much enjoyed your maps, and if this isn't truly your last, then I look forward to your next release!

P.S. - anyone find a way to get to the hall that leads to the megahealth secret when you're in the room with the broken bridge over the lava without - a trick jump? I tried normal jumps from the ledges near the RA a number of times but couldn't make it. 

I just recorded a sloppy nightmare 100% demo, first finish time 14 minutes 24 seconds. I had to pause the game once because an antivirus update interrupted me thus making game choppy. Too bad the mini Chthons take 10 rockets each, as they took only 3 on easy skill. The way I took the last secret almost messed me up in the end. I had had several attempts where I fell to the lava. :)

The map has a very good atmosphere. New monsters and old monsters behaving differently were a nice extra. :)

I would like to coop on this map with somebody, 2-player time goes easily below 10 minutes. :)

Oh and here is the demo, I once again abused Mandel's temp directory. http://mandelmassa.net/temp/fmb_1424.dz

Try to enjoy. :) 

I improved my Nightmare 100% by 87 seconds to 12:57 a bit after the first finish demo. New route was better.

Then, this evening I suggested mwh to coop on this map and he agreed. Soon after I had planned routes for two players, sidd wanted to come in and I had to plan routes again, for three players this time.

We got a terrible 3:06 in the Easy 100%, where mwh has lots of free time and sidd runs out of rockets. The most annoying part of the map was to get to the rocket launcher secret at start. We kept falling to the lava quite many times. :)

Here are the demos then:
http://mandelmassa.net/temp/fmb_306.dz Easy 100% 3-Player
http://mandelmassa.net/temp/fmb_1257.dz Improved Nightmare 100% 

please put coop starts in. 

Chton doesnt spawn when you take GL with coop 1 setting. 

I'm up here getting some heavy doses of Colorado powder (as they say here, awesome!!) so have only just had the chance to review all the comments. I'm chuffed to bits that so many people liked the map. Thanks for taking the trouble to post.

The music seemed to get the most thumbs down, although if I do ever finish the Imp's Castle, it will (already has) have music.

The darkness also was commented on and I can only say that I like it dark. However, I am sure that there are major differences between graphics cards that affect the screen display (I use ATI Pro 9800). For example, there has been a lot of discussion about screenshots being too dark: for this map, mine were done in FitzQuake at default setting and no adjustment other than to convert to jpeg. They are just as I see it in-game. However, if your engine of choice does not support fog, it will be darker than I intended as fog does light the map a little. I only use FitzQuake for playing Quake.

I also saw the z-fighting during sidd's demo in the room where the ogres jump out of the wall. This is not happening on my system in either FitzQuake or aguiRre's development engine, so I never saw it during testing. AguiRre did warn me but I had already 'finished' the map by then.

Likewise the crash: I knew some people would jump up there so placed a trigger_once to killtarget the trigger_push, which was used to get the monsters into the Slaughter Room. I now know that some engines crash, but not FitzQuake. The error causing the crash is mug-trapped by FQ and I never spotted the error message during testing as the game was never interrupted.

Generic: jumping out of the window was one of the planned short cuts - just don't land in the lava :)

Aaron: I didn't put any screenshots on Planetquake but the ones listed above were all FitzQuake.

Spirit: that was the intention for the music - I thought it made the level more immersive and intense. But I knew it wouldn't appeal to everyone hence the on/off switch.

Ijed: I never developed the music module to include it in the save file. The reason you press twice is first time to switch it off (even though after a quickload you can't hear it) and a second time to switch it on. As I say, I never finished the module.

Ankh: great demo, sorry about the crash - even I was gutted at that point!

Sidd: nice jumps in your demo - I'm still not sure how you opened one of the secrets ;)

Neg!ke: this map is right on the limit for marksurfaces and edicts, and only just inside clipnode limit. Before I split it, marksurfaces and clipnodes were around 50k. Total brushes for the complete map were 14k: This_Onion is 6500+ and Imp�s Castle is 7500+.

Scragbait: I'm not sure about your 'pocket in the wall' but I can give you some clues if you are stuck. Also, all short cuts were intentional.

JohnXmas: I'm glad you liked the no-turning-back ending. I rather suspected most players would be so glad to have got past the Vermis that they wouldn't have turned around to see what was happening. I'm curious about you getting trapped in the map - I thought I had all short cuts covered? I have no explanation as to why you couldn't pick up the yellow armour unless you were already full up?

Now, it�s time to get back on the piss/piste � only 7days left!! 

I just went back there in FitzQ, AguirRe's and TomazQ148 and couldn't reproduce the problem. Weird...

About being trapped... mmmh yes... I think what I wrote in my previous post was more reflecting my own phantasm! Being trapped there was such a delight... 0_o ;) In fact, on my second run, I took the bottom passage underneath the stairwell. Following a shortcut in my head to reach the exit avoiding the BKey area, I found myself trapped, trying to grab the GKey! I was already playing the map since hours when I finally found my way through the floor grate! Then, I completely forgot the broken bridge route when I wrote the review... Lol!

The ambiance of your map is a sure trigger for my old addiction to puzzle games! Wish I can get more of this in Quake sometimes... 

which one? :) 

Normally in coop, picking up a weapon doesn't fire triggers like in sp. It can be changed of course, like e.g. in Quoth. 

The one by the stairs where you have to jump into it. It's trigger is miles away. 

I open it with RL after I kill scrag. The trigger takes splashdamage and opens the secret :P 

...and as such loved the light and dark of this level. The fog fit in with no problems.

If you ever decide to finish the sequel and if you need a tester, I'm compatible with your display card. 

Just watched your demos: brilliant!

Thanks guys. 

Less of a map, more of a way of life.

Very good in both gameplay, design and layout. The challenge was good and succumbed to both altertness and positioning.

Someone has probably pointed out that if you drop down from the YA secret, you miss a fair chunk of the map out. 

nice design, nice layout, nice gameplay.
i like the atmosphere of the giant underground castle, large caves without any sky cracks.
my next map (that is almost ready) will also be a giant underground. 

Glad you lked it.

All short cuts were put there deliberately, the one near the YA being the easiest to use.

The main (long) route through the map is really just 'follow your nose'. The short cuts add a bit of interest for second-plays: some are available via secrets e.g. jumping out of the window near the start, some via 'trick' jumps e.g. the GK. (It's unfortunate that I wasn't aware of the trigger_once crash in some engines when bypassing the Slaughter Room otherwiae I would have put fancy bars there to stop that particular short cut)

The map can be finished, without touching lava, in about 35 seconds on Easy with just the one kill. 

Nice work. Great texture choices, good architectural details, and nice use of multiple routes (though I wish I could have backtracked to see the areas I skipped when I jumped down into one of the secrets.) The feeling of exploring lots of secret passages and hidden tunnels to progress was cool.

Music was buggy -- didn't loop forever, plus if you reload a savegame it stops playing. I would restart the music every time I saw one of those buttons, though :)

A few textures used fullbrights well, but some others seemed to have accidental fullbrights which looked weird in pitch-black areas. (gold key room I think was one of them.) 

Thanks for your comments.

The music wasn't supposed to loop forever. There were three 'turnoff' triggers throughout the map that played an end-piece to whichever tune was playing. I just felt that playing music all the time was too much. Even the Vermis music finished before you end the map.

If you play the map in the 'normal' route, you will have music1 until the GK room. It then starts music2 when you leave the GK room and plays until you cross the bridge leading to the Slaughter Room. It plays music3 in the Slaughter Room and until you go through the Silver Door. And then back to music1 when you go into the cavern just before the GK Room, and stops that just as you go through the GK barrier. It then plays music4 when you start down the stairs to the Vermis, which stops when you get around the Vermis just before you finish.

In playtesting, I had each loop playing for over one hour without problems (in FitzQuake of course). I found out that the engines only play non-looped sounds for 3m 11secs, which is why I used loops. Anything longer simply stops playing at that point. All of the music is edited from much longer pieces.

As for the savegame problem with the music, and the fullbrights... well, I just ran out of interest: sorry.

That's probably too much information, kind of like explaining how to kill a turkey just as you're sitting down to eat a Thanksgiving dinner! 

The Progs.dat is not encrypted. It can be decompiled with standard tools. Obviously, no comments will be retained but I think the code is fairly self-explanatory. 

I don't think it's my place to prompt a release of other people's code even though I have released a map using other people's code that I have altered. It is still primarily their code.

Oh dear, perhaps a moderator should strike my last comment? 

About the music, I understand now. I actually think you made the right choice by not having it play for the entire level, it's just that I misunderstood and assumed it was a bug rather than the design.

Don't worry about planting bad thoughts in people's heads. If they do something bad, it's their choice and their fault. 

Loved that main atrium. All the best bits happened in there imho. There was one good ambush at the sk, but it was annoyingly hard for me because I had little health when I went in and the drole was just a little too much. Because I have slightly dodgy hands at the moment I decided to cheat there to avoid being killed by the drole for the fifth time.

The music was great too, when it stopped I definitely missed it. Not like the Quake soundtrack at all, but it still managed to fit into the Quake theme.

The battle with vermis was pretty easy, but also very cool - especially with the gate to the city or whatever in the background. There was some nice rock modelling evident in that room, and the scale kind of puts my attempts (in my upcoming map) to shame :)

Good stuff. 

Don't know how many playthroughs but I'd guess 10+, (I'm onto 11 secrets now) and decided to noclip outside and look at the castle beyond the level . . . Mike, please make That Shallot. 

remind me of ocarina of time (in a very good way!) 

as I have seen no one mention this yet, is this all to be installed into the ID1 directory as separate folders, or lumped into its own directory with a -game tag? I am using Fitz btw, but am unaware if it has an option to throw together all these separate folders...

Thanks for any assistance,

S