job done, couple kilobytes :P 

Bloughsburgh's map was probably my favorite as well. Nothing like a little bit of well-realized optional exploration to keep me interested. The reward was a little disappointing (I didn't get the reference), but finding everything was rewarding in its own way.

My only gripe is that it's very easy to get stuck in the pipe leading to the final encounter. Next time I won't wear a tie.

I played khreathor's map first, and it was pretty trippy. Was annoyed by darkness at first, but after some time it started to feel like a natural part of the map's charm, much like with the level by NewHouse. Since nails are practically free, navigating in the darkest corridor wasn't that hard, and it was something fresh.

Wrecking the environment while blowing up zombies was a nice touch. For some reason I almost expected the whole place to go up at some point - just to deconstruct the eternal trope of the protagonist mindlessly blasting everything with little to no consequence. 

Oh, and the secret items near the gold key seem pretty redundant, at least if you visit the gold door first. 

Wow, really good so far after playing just one map. I started the second, but I'll save it for later. I started with the slipgate to the left / first level and finished that. I didn't find the one secret. It is amazing this was made in such short time. The brushwork is beautiful and spectacular. I didn't see a nightmare difficulty selection hidden on the start map. It looks like the first map by Ionous does not have a music track selected. I also noticed on the start map that it looks like there is a texture missing if you look out on the edge of the window to the left toward the left. 

I didn't see a nightmare difficulty selection hidden on the start map.

It's there, if you really need to reach it and need a hint...look straight up immediately before you enter the room with the slipgates. 

Notes taken. Already have few ideas how to fix and update weak points.
I'm surprised no one found spawn troll trap :D

dwere:
Yeah you are right, this secret is kinda lame.
Originally this map was supposed to be twice as big.
So if you would get 2nd part of the map (instead of current ending), it would have much more sense.
But my ambition faced reality and I had to cut stuff off to make it on time, but the secret room stayed...

Anyway many thanks for demos and comments!
Keep them coming :) 

It seems like I really should use indeed normal lights almost white colors and then adding "gels" "color layers" over them. That way lighting should be much brighter. But of course adding value about 50 - 75 up what I used, but those are just my guess - I have to figure out what works in this case. 

Negke - I never checked underwater after lowering the generator...that is some crazy z-fighting. I never really used SKIP but now it makes sense where to sensibly apply it as the base of the falls did bother me at some point. I actually am aware of the void light trick, but since Bob was basically the only enemy to be affected I sort of enjoyed the bright red eyes effect for him.

Still, it would be good to have a primer on the trick as I only dug it out deep within the mapping thread.

Shambler - Another well played run, and it was nice to see Skill 1 this time! I laughed at your reaction to your first safety net fall and when you discovered you were not worthy haha.

Preach - Thank you for the comments, a big part of some of those secrets to work was due to you! (Jumping through rings and making them phase out, sound entities, etc.) Watching the second demo was not dull as I wanted to see what secret hunting looked like. I read somewhere that the player should always start a level without being immediately threaten by danger...even if just for a few seconds.

Dwere - No demo, but thank you for the comments. There is really no reference...yet I guess. The last secret was also present in "A Horse Named Quake" and I intend to always have it in each of my releases. The last secret is just meant to show you conquered my map in terms of exploration I suppose. I did try to test for getting stuck in the wind pipe but apparently not enough!

Skacky - Wow thank you for the comments! To level with you, "A Horse Named Quake" was directly inspired by your "Dysnystaxis" map. So to hear critique from you is something important to me. Bizarre and exploration was definitely something I was going for when creating the map. I will take time to throw markers or pointers at key points in future maps.

I will further watch and comment on any future demos but for now, a few things I will take from this map:

-More visual language in form of "by example" and texture markers.

-Don't rely on a gimmick too heavily for the main path (Ladders)

-Make NoClip/NoTarget runs looking for texture and z-fighting specifically.

-Try to become stuck in the map even if it seems no player would do so.

-Do not assume players will find secrets, even easy ones.

Thank you all! 

I just want to thank you all pointing out things that didn't make it quite pleasure to play. I try to be not so blind now on.

I started fixing lighting yesterday, I'm going to make more enemies comes from closets so I can at the same give the meaning where they all come from and also be able to give the player possibility to pick up ammunition from those closets, because simply spawning them to previous areas where they were before could feel a bit weird, and just leaving "enough" cells/shells doesn't work, because people don't like backtracking unless there is no action going on. So maybe it is logical kind of feed the player while giving him more to shoot, going back to find ammo is not good design.

Also things like jumping over one tiny lamp on ground wasn't that great idea, because I didn't explained or made it clear to the player earlier, maybe if I had made one room before everything where you must use something like that to get up boxes.. so now I just place it box so player can just easily go over them and pick up "easy silver key secret".. also I tried to give more lighting to that control center secret button.. I changed two secrets right after main hall door (start of gold key path) where is that blue-ish thing that has couple boxes in middle of it it has one too small button on ground which you can shoot and that opens in front of your nose quad damage secret and in that same place very clear was also rocket launcher secret.. if you jump from top over those boxes that has one door "broken" flashing red lights, there was one button also you can shoot.. so I thought in my head that when player picks up items he could have looked that button that was right in front of their eyes but I guess players are too focused on something else. But I buttons now much bigger and changed texture to "shoot me arrow" button, same what I used in control center area. So there is going to be many changes, but hopefully many of those will make it much more easier to find, when new players want to try it out.

Release will be some kind of 0.5 version, because I had in my plans to extend this map.. but because it has enough length even in this form, maybe it's better to quickly fix and release this attempt as well. I needed to get rid of many parts that were part of the original vision I had, but it really is not that big of a deal really, map works with or without those parts. 

Using the criticism given to update your map can only lead to a more improved experience.

Looking forward to your re-release and take your time...no deadline this time! ;) 

Yeah, it feels much different, good luck for your mapping too* maybe in next jam is even more people involved.

Looking forward to your new-content too* 

It is great to see this first release that even has difficulty settings implemented.

On skill 0, the player seems to get locked in the control center. The bars open when the final 4 monsters are killed. However, two of them are not present on easy. Even after having killed 39/39 enemies, a centerprint says 'only 2 more to go...'.

This should be an easy fix for the upcoming release, which I am very much looking forward to. 

Absolutely, thanks for pointing that one out, I didn't even notice. I playtested normal/hard mode only and didn't even touched easy mode I just expected it to work, so I'm terribly sorry something like that happened. But all those will be fixed soon during this week. 

Oh the SHAME. 

they were good. 

Welp, that is life I guess. Hopefully I will not make too much frustrated/angry people towards me because of that mistake I made. Though release will gonna fix at least that, and many more problems it had. 

If anybody would be interested playtesting today or tomorrow? I will share it through my google drive. 

NewHouse, I would be glad to test the map. 

Hi!

Here is direct link to current test version:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwxYkKdSD855TUFHRTVTRHZRd3c

Requires quoth mod, yet better to replace the ones that are in, if that is possible (I'm not familiar with this stuff yet).

Jam7:
http://www.celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=61347&start=44
or Quoth:
https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/quoth.html


I tweaked balancing, ammunition (feeding player more), and fixing trigger_counter mistake I made - now easy mode works, but it would be great to hear from others too. You can record or just tell how does it feels now. I have to say, because there is only 3 main skill levels I want to satisfy even skillful players. So I'm not quite sure am I giving too much ammunition or not, so let me know and I will try my best.

Also if the map is still too dark, just let me know. As long as the darkness doesn't make the map unplayable - I intended my map to be dark that player can't see everything and enemies can hide in darkness (sometimes). 

Fixed one flickering light I placed in place, doors don't block lights, and light comes through on ground level if you know what I mean. So it that bothers here is same test version without that flickering light thing:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwxYkKdSD855TWJ2cV9nYUdiRDA/view?usp=sharing 

Also I thought that it might be better to give almost every player change to get rocket launcher, considering that this map is quite hard, because all those enemies. So now rocket launcher is also behind glass doors in control center.. so let me know if or not that is making the map too easy to beat. 

3/7 secrets

- Blue key near flame guys
- Megahealth near RL
- RL


113 / 115 enemies

on hard difficulty

This playthough was much better than the last, it didn't seem as dark and I get a better feel for the atmosphere you were trying to create. I still feel like it needs more white lights with the coloured lights as accents. But again, much better.

Are the grates in the airduct system you start in supposed to break? because you shoot them and they have the blood particle effect, then nothing.

The battle style in this map is very encounter focused. Rather than having a few tricky mobs along your path, your map has large encounters of mobs. This isn't a judgement of that style of map design, however it does make resource management very tricky. I found that my ammunition would get extremely low, then spike hugely with an ammo cache somewhere.

The only time I had difficulties with ammo this time around was mid game, however I managed to get through this and ended up finishing the game with heaps. In part because I found the RL.

I think it would have been a different story if I had finished without finding the RL. I have mixed emotions with this, the first playthrough I found neither the double barrelled shotgun nor the rocket launcher. I really liked the choice between (normal) shotgun and lightning gun. On the other hand the flexibility that having the extra guns gave was huge. I'm a little torn.

On the blue key secret near the flame guys, the addition of extra light helps see what to do. I would move the smallest crate away from the others so a skill jump is still required to get that one.

It was a much better experience than last time, I enjoyed it a lot more. Keep it up. 

Very big thanks Shamblernaut. Which one of glass windows you picked by using that silver key? So you managed to find rocket launcher from behind secret door? Or was it from control center? 

Ionous - A real treat for the eyes. A bit on the easy side, but theres no denying the visuals are stunning. There are some spots on the ground that have perfectly square lighting, which seemed a bit odd but didn't detract from the overall experience.

Khreathor - I loved the vending machines, a very novel idea that I took great advantage of. Good use of Quoth's breakable boxes, it always makes a map feel more alive. My only complaint would be the map is too flat, no height variation whatsoever, not even a single staircase. Save for the drop in the sewer though.

Mjb - Climbing waterfalls, who'da thought? I'm sorry to say that I noclipped at a few points because I fell into the void. Of course it wasn't until later that I would have just teleported back up. I felt dumb... I did get lost a few times, just trying to find my way of where to go next. Gameplay was tough but fair, though I did die from the gug at the end.

Newhouse - As others have said, its quite dark, but I assumed that's just the theme of the map, so I went with it. It didn't bother me too much, as I never really got lost. I died a really bizarre way at the end, a shambler just seemed to appear out of nowhere from behind and clobbered me.

Tens - That giant heart set piece was really neat, it gave me the impression I was at the very core of some intense secret underground facility, and I just discovered the truth of whatever had happened. Don't think I didn't notice that awesome owl statue hidden behind the cliff. Monster count was a bit short, a few more could have spiced things up. The map was over before I knew it.

A great effort by all involved! First run demos on hard skill, recorded in Quakespasm: http://qrf.servequake.com/~orl/misc/orl_jam7.7z 

Grates bleed maybe because they has trigger that has hp.. not sure about blood.. but there is invisible plate that blocks enemies look raycast thing so they will not spot you immediately.. unless you shoot them or walk through basic trigger.. then trigger kills this viewblock.. it might be something I need to remove after getting RL for example.. even though it is 0.01% possible.. some might try that and shit happens.