Great details, great atmosphere, great gameplay. This one was fun to play.

https://youtu.be/6k58r_nj_To 

From the Tim Burtonesque ambiance to the most intriguing trees, everything oozes fineness here. Very hard to describe this map without spoiling all the nice visual touches, original gameplay mechanics and unique use of old id1 standards. I thought 'What a nice map to introduce Quake to kids...' (and I mean that not in a childish way !).I played through this intricately crafted little gem with a constant smile on my face. What a charming map ! 

I had a Pan's Labyrinth moment when I went from the forest through a cave to suddenly inside a castle! There were a number of thematic surprises like this I enjoyed. Definitely would enjoy some more in this world and this feeling :)

Mechanically, the encounters were a little simple, but the quad damage section was fun! Managed to clear all the enemies in that area before the quad ran out.

Well done! 

I loved the theme of this map. I'd love to see more. It had such a great atmosphere. My only issue was it was too short! :) 

This is a great one, well within the Quake spirit.

I love that kind of "Out Of This World" style! 

I'm glad you guys like it and thanks for the kind words. Going to try to improve my visual style and world building, but also focus on adding more gameplay mechanics and better encounters in the future. Oh and thanks for the video wizardbeard, was fun and useful to watch. 

I'm afraid I'll have to play without wearing pants.

Really though, this map oozes style. Hard to believe it's all id1 textures other than the skybox. Love the little visual flares like the ground fog and the bobbing pillars and the general trail through the trees areas. Difficult enough without being annoying on Hard difficulty, although I may have chosen the wrong route to go about playing because it would have been much easier had I found the grenade launcher early- not that that's a bad thing, it ends up being a seventh-hour upgrade after frantic shell-and-nail fighting prior. Multiple "oh holy shit" moments, like teleporting into the hub area. Secrets are good enough to not be blatant while still allowing a secret-blind numpty like me to find most of them (other than the red armor, which I'm assuming needs some crazy parkour that I wasn't up to). I did die once towards the end after getting a bit too ballsy with a Shambler. Here's a few (out of practice) skill 2 demos. 

Truly a five star effort! Great visuals, I couldn't believe that it all was vanilla textures. Different areas didn't clash, but flowed into each other very smoothly. I was really excited to explore the map and non-linearity wasn't confusing and only enhanced the atmosphere. Other great visual achievement is the brush forest that doesn't look like ass :)

Ammo was well rationed, I finished pretty close to 0 on skill 2. Very fun quad run, fair and challenging monster placing overall. Those early vores were scary :D In a few cases the map just reveals a shambler directly in front of you, I'm not very fond of this setup, very easy to counter and frankly it's been used too much by mappers in general. Secrets are probably the weakest part of the map, red armor one was pretty good, others were kinda obvious.

Here is a skill 2 demo. Really looking forward to your future maps!
http://mgrankin.xyz/quake/tower.zip 

I have actually posted a demo

http://www.quaketastic.com/files/demos/bindingtower_drew.zip

Good map. Nice setting and vibes.
Didn't find red armor. Some slight derping.
Agree there could have been a few points with more robust gameplay, theoretically. That being said the overall vibe is one conducive to somewhat less taxing gameplay. It really had a nice exploratory feel to it.

Some rough edges and some overly flat surfaces/ some sticky architecture too.
would recommend and I could see myself loading this up again soon to poke around and try to get that red armor! 

Skill: 1
Time: 27:34 (That last secret was a nice curveball.)
Secrets: 5/5
Kills: 95/99 (Nothing else showed up.)

Great job! Simple combat, striking visuals (dem trees, look in on the wishlist thread and tell how you made them work.) Well done with this, and I hope to see how you improve on this. 

Thanks!

Skill 2 demo:
http://www.quaketastic.com/files/demos/bindingtower_ankh_01.7z 

Good stuff man.

As a critique I'd say that there were a couple of spaces that had the "disconnected big box room" sort of feel.

However for the most part the aesthetic was super strong and I really enjoyed the slightly-more-vivid-than-vanilla use of light and color. I always enjoy a good green Quake map. :-)

The brush-based trees and terrain were cute and reminescent of other past attempts to push Quake content into more natural forms. I guess my brain takes them in as something intended to be representational rather than realistic and it's all good.

Most of the secrets became pretty much non-secret as a result of the "hit the face texture" mechanic being eventually presented as something required for progression (IIRC).

I liked the moderate multiple-path stuff, and the minor bit of climbing around on rough terrain to get to goodies.

Keep it up! 

the biggest turn off for me was the final void area where the bounding boxes of the black room were quite visible 

What a great map, a lot of nice details.

Most of the secrets became pretty much non-secret as a result of the "hit the face texture" mechanic being eventually presented as something required for progression (IIRC).

Yeah, this is my only major problem with the map. I suck at secrets and any non-obvious thing needed for progression kills the pacing for me.

There are two instances of this here. One to lift the bridge from the water, but that's at least marked as "hit here" so it's my problem that I'm blind. But the face-triggered train was a massive problem for me.

Also, one missed opportunity for awesome detail was the aforementioned bridge lifted from the water. Subdividing it into smaller parts and making them lift at a different pace would fit nicely with the theme of tiles randomly scattered across the map.

But, again, having said that - I wish I had the skill. Great work! 

I've not finished this, in fact I haven't even gotten close (got wiped on skill 2 twice), but I already have some Observations™:

- Absolutely amazing how this was done with just the id1 textures (and a skybox), and the extended map limits

- Great balance between tiny details (i.e. broken tiles, stony pathways) and the big picture (the everpresent, overwhelming trees, and the big curving posts straight from an old folklore tale

- (Could still have been improved by ditching the outer layer of black trees and painting them over the skybox instead)

- Loving the focus on exploration, did not expect this kind of map from the early screenshots

- I was expecting a moderate stroll through a medieval world but got the full Elder World treatment very early on!

Two mediocre demos... so far! 

The blend of standard Id1 textures, a pretty strong Quakey vibe, with the whole dark fantasy fairytale design....works great, really nice. Fits well but with an intriguing atmosphere of it's own that keeps you exploring and enjoying. Gameplay was fun and varied and well-balanced, keeps you on your toes without any nastiness.

The one criticism is that some areas (early side areas of the excellent outside bit, and red tower interior for example) were a bit bland in design and lighting compared to the good bits. Stronger designs there or trimming them down a bit would have enhanced the overall quality. But overall, really good and memorable. 

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/438583868 playthrough here from 46:25 

Totally cool map, I would've liked to see the forest areas expanded more! I loved your choice of textures and brushwork. It was a nice map overall!

Playthrough 

I love the atmosphere. This is what my imagination hoped minecraft would feel like. 

gameplay 5/5
Visuals 5/5

i loved this map! 

Here's the demoes: https://www.dropbox.com/s/miipjuzawslxvgg/spipper_bindingtower.zip?dl=0

I can only second what others have said: Really fun map, great atmosphere and enjoyed the exploration.

It really inspires me to mess around with some forest theme experiments myself. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60_DZiTqh2w
10/10 level 

Great map, one of my favorites of recent times. I'd like to know how you did that ground fog effect. 

 

This was fantastic! Lovely details. Excellent use of the black texture, this map really gets back to the roots of vanilla. Just such a fun gem!