You got me a few times man, it definitely has a Sandy flavour. 

demo https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/33279452/daz_dw.zip

Too dark in most areas. Had to use the shotgun muzzleflash as a torch in some trickier jumping parts!

The lift right before the GK door was infuriating as you need to go both up and down and it's annoying to go down. Needs a proper and easy way to get down like a ledge or stairs.

Enjoyable combat though! Definitely on the tougher side of things (hard skill felt pretty hard, especially nearer the end) and strangely I didn't mind the backspawning so much because it was consistent and telegraphed. Ok so there were a few cheap shots but for the most part it was ok.

I died in the GK area due to Shambler overload. Not sure if you are supposed to stay and fight or look for an exit before you get overwhelmed. Nothing really stood out to me as an "escape here!" door.

I'll replay and beat this thing :) 

It's a fun map with some awesome ambushes. I supposed pent was placed for spawns fight, but I was mistaken =)

Some criticism: I didn't like that this map hadn't much variety in weapons. Even though I found SNG, there were not enough nails to use it throughout the map. Had to kill everything with SSG mostly.

Found 5/10 secrets. 

Had a lot of fun. The map looks very polished and pretty, well chosen textures. Looks iD-ish, in the E4 concept, but not outdated. Great job, man.

Gameplay was great as well. DaZ should get some Quad to take care of that shambler overload. All fights felt right to me, with the fair amount of ammo and space.

Some monsters were facing the wrong direction (two ogres and a scrag).

Found 8 secrets. I know the YA and megahealth near the rocket launcher are the remaining two secrets, but I couldn't figure how to get there.

Didn't use the rocket launcher. I think RL is useless in Q1SP.

Thanks for the fun. Looking forward for more. 

Yes, it's a shotgun map. I saved SNG for some special moments and it helped, though. 

I think RL is useless in Q1SP.

you should play a map called "the marcher fortress" 

Really enjoy this map. The chunky geometry is satisfying and suits the solid texture choices. I only wish it hadn't been so dark so I could appreciate it more!

Gameplay felt good, fun and challenging and it kept me moving about. I agree with the sentiments about weapon diversity; I used the ssg almost exclusively, except for when I picked up that pentagram and went berserk on the spawns with the rocket launcher.

Scale seems solid, too. Some of the encounters felt a little tight, especially that massacre with the shamblers, but at the same time it just kept me on my toes. Overall, cool map. I look forward to more! 

adib
Hmmm, I did played Stanley Parable. What gave me away?

While watching Daz demo I saw that he activated passage to YA, but didn't go for it. I assume darkness covered change in the map, activated by secret button.
I promise to map with lights on in the room from now on.

As for MH it is jump-around-corner secret. I think I need to stop using those.

DaZ
Could you elaborate further on cheap shots? I'd like to avoid bad practices. I guess one is scrags on RL tele-exit.

Is backspawning considered to be in bad taste in general? I like how it forces player to move around a bit instead of just retreat to safety each time.

Thanks for the demo, it is always insightful.

PuLSaR
Would putting more more nails solve fight repetitiveness? 

Back spawning is generally frowned upon because (a) the player doesn't see it happen (which feels unfair) and (b) you're almost guaranteed to take damage (which feels cheap). 

Demo: http://quaketastic.com/files/demos/ascend_paru.zip

This is my favorite retrojam4 map by quite some distance.

Thus I felt obliged to post the demo even though it is long and boring with about a dozen deaths and restarts.

Well, I recall sock commenting that 'the derpier the demo the better', so this one should be plenty good. 

The "stop doing this" secret/gag reminded me Stanley Parable, that I played recently. This and the second quad secret were my favorites.

*** minor SPOILER ALERT ***

Shooting a vore made me find a secret by accident. Probably not what you intended, right? 

 

Wow, I had to excavate into the .map to find the access to YA, that was in my face all the time!! Again, nice job. 

I think you should have placed NG earlier in the map and provide nails for it. And there should be non-secret SNG later in the map (like right before the shambler party).

Backspawning was done in a good way in this map. 

I had to learn how to use my mouse again.

http://quaketastic.com/files/demos/hey.zip

Lift before GK was actually ok, I thought.
The quad certainly helps in the GK area with the shamblers.
An enjoyable spawn combat in a map! :)
The NG and the GL do provide enough weapon variety in my opinion.

Secrets. I think it is best to provide a way for the player to access all secrets without slope-jumping and corner-jumping. It is not bad
if they are additionally reachable by these kind of jumps though.

I would love to see a whole DW-episode. 

I pent rocket jumped to that Megahealth.

Nice map. Simple but consistent visuals with a few highlights (gold key etc). Interesting and creative gameplay. Hard but only a couple 'cheap shots'.
I really liked the first set of zombies!
I like moments like that, that tend to slightly fuck with the valve style learning process discussed on this board recently.
This maps game play was very enjoyable for me on hard.
I didn't notice the quad in that room til about halfway through the shambles situation though!
Lighting was good for me on my computer. Moody and nice low key use of colours.
I think I found 8 secrets.

Anyway I hope you keep mapping! Thanks for this release. 

Yeah nail gun comments spot on. 

adib
Ah, I see now. I liked that game a lot, partly for rewarding excessive exploring - there is an achievement for going out of level bounds 8)
Though I was thinking about HL door when making it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdLRZzCf_kk
and Serious Sam of course. Always loved all that unique secrets and their creative names.

Yes, Vor secret would work better with touch type I guess.

parubaru
Few times it made me scream inside "I'm sorry for everything!", but overall was great.
You can never have first run of your own map and watching demos is closest you can get to it. Helps checking which design/gameplay decisions work and which don't. Also I just find it enjoyable. Thanks. 

Yeah, I noclipped and found that too. Something strange happened in Quakespasm and I couldn't noclip off inside the level again, returning to that room forever. A lot like Stanley Parable. 

Would have fitted into the Jam perfectly and been one of the better ones. Basic in places but solid design and build quality. Too dark of course. Gameplay was good and also solid, backspawning was fun and well done. The Shambler GK area was a bit brutal as it's easy to miss the Quad, but running away was kinda neat. Secrets also kinda neat but some were frustrating.

Shows a lot of potential overall. 

I wouldn't place this map in my favorites but it was enjoyable for a moment. Architecture was nice. I didn't really like the back spawning. Although there are things that can change from bad to good experience after a few tries.

There was a problem at gold key. I had left a scrag behind and when the floor with shamblers popped up, colliding with the scrag, went back down. There it remained. Well, a grenade jump helped to continue the game.

84/86 kills, 6/10 secrets. 

This floor, probably a func_door, should inflict a damage like 9999 to crush everything on its way and not close back. 

 

Impressive map.

One of the secrets was clearly designed for engines that allows full vertical aim, so it was too hard to find a good position where I could hit the switch.

Fun thing: when replaying the map with notarget active, some knights followed me around peacefully, just walking.

This map has simply too many good parts for me to detail. Extremely rich gameplay, and very good to replay. I agree with all the positive comments. 

fun gameplay