My only critics :

1. The sky box doesn't fit well the thunder sound. The sky should be more stormy. Currently, there's a full moon visible.


2. It would fit better as an AD map (?), instead of a stand alone Mod. 

I've been going through my Quake backlog for the last couple of weeks. By way of coincidence, I've happened to play all of your standalone releases, nearly back to back in two days time, that being yesterday and today. Apart from The Battery (which leans a bit more towards the modern side of things), all of them (The Darkstone Halls, The Underkeep and The Forgotten Fortress) exhibit refined yet undoubtedly id-inherited, classic looks coupled with nicely flowing gunplay. I enjoyed all four of them the same. It was also pretty apparent that you were getting even better in that style with each release.

Brick Red is another step forward. It felt a little bit cramped and a tad crowded (skill 2) at first but things got better by the minute. I loved the slightly expanded, interconnected Terracotta work - especially the central river bed. Hope to see more from you!

Here is my 33-mins first-run demo recorded under QS 0.93.2. 

Nice map but the thunder sounds are very annoying and far too frequent. Doesn't fit the visuals.

Gameplay is solid so far as always. 

I liked it. I especially appreciated that it is shock full of nooks and crannies and ladders and buttons opening up new sections.

I had nothing against the thunder sounds in themselves, but agree that they don't fit with the sky box and visuals, which made it a bit like thunder sounds at the theatre.

Anyway, nice map! 

honestly, after so many playtests, i stopped noticing the thunders at all, and I have no idea why they are audible throughout the whole level... i recall placing just 2 or 3 ambient_thunders in very specific areas.

@erc - there are more coming, no worries :) 

I think the combo of weird clear sky with thunder works for me, it's eerie. Yeah it does thunder a lot, but eh. :-)

Anyway, enough thundertalk... great map. The size/arrangement of the spaces make for a knife-fighting kind of combat feel which is fine with me. Some cool multi-level fights mixed in there.

As usual for JPal IMO, there's a very nice feel to how the space opens up and gets revisited; makes it all hang together as a journey and not just feel like a haphazard collection of rooms.

The only thing that caused me some where-to-go-next pause was the "return to the floodgate" message (or something like that), but as it happens I did remember previously pushing a button that opened a gate/door I wasn't sure I could get to immediately, and so I went back to see if I could find that revealed spot and it all worked out.

I didn't find many secrets, but the ammo seemed to work out well on skill 2. A bit of shell/nail stinginess that encourages use of rockets/grenades and even cells along the way, which I always like to see.

A real treat! 

AD is not the end all, be all for some of us.

As far as the ambient_thunder effect, it's taken directly from Zerstörer which is hard coded to ATTN_NONE which plays everywhere in the level. I'll add some other ATTN option in the next release.

I need to add this comment to manual in the next version:

/* The original ambient_thunder was included in Quake but the code was missing. This version is borrowed from the Zerstörer mod but modified to only play the original thunder1.wav included in the game. This is also different than the other ambient sounds as it plays back randomly as opposed to looping. You only need one of these in your level. It will play everywhere. */


Doh! 

Enjoyed it. Great to see people still making maps for vanilla/id1. I disagree with the notion that it would have been better for AD, as great as that and other mods are, I still enjoy the purity of "normal" Quake, both in gameplay and visuals. I'm probably a bit odd in that I actually even prefer it.

Anyway, some nice, clean, classic visuals. Thunder ambience didn't bother me, although perhaps it clashed a bit with the skybox. Gameplay-wise, nice flow and interconnectivity, nothing too difficult, although I'm a bit rusty so did take a fair amount of damage. I liked the progs.dat additions with ladders, breakable boxes etc. Although I did initially mess up when extracting the files so the progs didn't load. Didn't play that far before I realized something was off.

Playthrough on Twitch (feel free to ignore the in-jokes towards the end)

Looking forward to more (id1) maps from you! 

I'm probably a bit odd in that I actually even prefer it.

You're not alone. 

Excelent map, perfect oldschool Quake feel. And the easy level was easy indeed, I had a great time. Congrats. 

This is a fantastic map. The only things I would've changed is the skybox & music, but those are minor and subjective. Play this puppy! 

Really nice vanilla map.
skill 1 Playthrough

Nice looking, and gameplay. 

A very nice take on the classic id1 castle theme. I didn't mind the green skybox, it added a nice contrast to the red and yellow bricks of the map.

First run, hard skill: https://youtu.be/gYoGA-pDsgU?t=337