Getting a late start on this one. I just now played Makkon's map, which, whoo.

I understand this one requires a bit of patience for exploration but that happens to be OK w/ me. The aesthetic is powerful, especially with that music track. (And I smell my wife baking some Christmas-y thing so that probably gave it some extra atmosphere too!)

I'm really glad that the map kept going after the "find a bunch of tomes" section. The overall structure was really pleasant to work through.

The only "gotcha" moment I ran across was that a necessary ladder was super hard to see... basically I had to catch its silhouette from certain angles. Once I found that then it was smooth sailing. A couple of the zombie-related areas were also almost pitch black but eh, in a halloween map I guess that's OK. :-)

Finding the big secret does seem to really swing the balance of the map? I wonder how well it would have played if I hadn't found that. Also the final fight is kind of trivial (with or without the big secret) but that's OK, it was a cathartic hose-down-the-monsters moment.

Good stuff man. 

Entsoy's map: Very spooky; nice economical use of suggestive text to frame things. Generally a cool experience and a great result for a jam map... if it were a standalone release I'd say it needed polish, like a bit more navigation aid or some pruning-down (not sure) because it was a little tiring by the end. But! Still appreciated, and super appropriate for a Halloween theme.

Mista Heita's map: Another real Halloween banger! And a very clever structure. Some nice punchy soundtrack-switching as well. A perfect bite-sized experience in a lovingly crafted environment; I don't think I have any real critique for it.

I'm not sure what's up with Mobin because on Discord and in this thread folks act kind of weird about them. But if they really are just a new mapper, this is an A+ little debut map (although not at all Halloweeny). The ammo was especially well tuned IMO (skill 2). Good construction, monster placement, just a fun tiny place to work through. 

Finished it up. Good pack! A few more impressions to post here, then I'll get the rest after the day's New Year stuff is over.

** hwjam3_vbs

Fun start, when you get out of the little house and see the wider area, really makes you wonder where things will go. Reminded me of some Dusk maps in a good way.

The open-ness of the map with limited ammo scattered about means that the player often has little or no ammo. At the beginning I was fine with the map turning into Dog Axe-ing Simulator 2020 for a while, and then later in the map it was exciting in its own way to sometimes have to run past lots of enemies in search of ammo (or even weapons). The ending was a little unsatisfying though because similarly I had to just run past the final big fight to exit.

I really like the experimentation going on here, and much of what is going on in the first part of the map. The big structure in the second half of the map has some playability issues from its combination of openness, repetitiveness, and size. So room for improvement, but a cool jam map idea.


** hwjam3_artistical

Didn't get on with this one. I think it's been discussed enough elsewhere tho. :-)


** hwjam3_pinchy

I bailed out of this one near the beginning because I wasn't in the mood for what it appeared to be (altho I was wrong). Seemed to be a punishing map that was also open with not much direction, and it looked like I'd be dodging voreballs in a watery environment. Will come back to it later when I'm feeling cheeky.


** hwjam3_greenwood

Classic start, themewise :-) and some other good theme-y moments. In general a nice example of a tricksy trapsy dungeon. Some of the trap spots were savescummy but IMO that's fine in this sort of thing. I think there were some spots where the lighting and texturing was a bit harsh and inconsistent, so the atmosphere was uneven, but fun to play through. 

Haha my subconscious may be trying to sabotage me. "altho I was wrong" above should instead read "altho I could be wrong". 

** hwjam3_nyo

An interesting initial impression here. The larger scale, somewhat brighter/flatter lighting, and the expanses of flat surfaces gave me an oldschool vibe in a good way. Mainly I think the instant clarity of what a space was and what you could do with it. Your texturing and lighting is way better though (in comparison to those early-wave maps) and so it was still nice to look at. I dunno, the overall impact was both nostalgic and relaxing/refreshing to bop around in.

I do wonder if you ran out of time because IMO the end of the map is more aimless feeling... doesn't really seem to come together. Also there's an odd thing where I got to the end door before encountering a notable chunk of the map; not in the sense of a secret, or a deliberate choice I made to skip some route, just: "here's the end door and by the way there's a bit more map over through there". Hmm!


** hwjam3_quasiotter

Also quit out of this one early, sorry. Got stuck for a while and wasn't motivated to keep poking at it.


** hwjam3_shades

Good looking in a cheerfully spooky way. I really like the central area you built out. I kind of agree with someone else's comment that a lot of the play is on a 2D plane, but then on the other hand you do give out jumpboots at one point and you get major points for that. Going back out into the center and fighting with the boots on, you can make your own verticality :-) and that's a blast.

The perky music track is a fun choice. For me it encourages more gung-ho play, which is good, but also that can evennnntually start to wear. So I understand how some folks are down on it. A more complicated setup with triggers to change the music in various spots might have been ideal?, but regardless I appreciate the occasional different kind of soundtrack.


** hwjam3_xeo

Short and sweet. Good intro, and strong cathedral mojo. I like the way you squeezed a lot of juice out of some small areas. I don't actually think it needs more variety of place/theme -- it's short enough that I think the consistency is fine. One oddity I did come across is that I got the gold key before the gold door (immediately before, I think) and IIRC that's the way it's set up to always happen. So that makes the key almost extraneous. It *is* nice to have the key up there as a visible indicator of where you need to get to, but maybe that signposting could be solved in a different way, because a key-then-door sequence always feels odd.


** hwjam3_strideh

This is a real gem, construction-wise. I love the intro text, the way the routes are packed together, how you get glimpses of future and past areas, the way things are unlocked, a nice final fight arena... it's all good. Feels super polished! A pretty linear path through the works, but just enough feel of choice and "how do I get there" to make for a smooth but interesting path.

The enemy choice/placement was good too but felt sparse (skill 2) through the majority of the map. In fact for a while I was expecting to be required to go back out the way I came, and there would be a lot more enemies on the return trip (but that wasn't the case of course). So yeah, pretty easy? But fun so eh whatever! 

Revisiting hwjam3_quasiotter:

Is fine. I made it through! Suitably weird. I'm not sure the fiddly traversal mixes well with this kind of surreal walking sim thing though.


Revisiting hwjam3_pinchy:

So yeah, the beginning is a bit of a combat puzzle: how to properly deal with turret-like enemies (vores and bog lord) in an open area of catwalks over water hazards when you're not sure where to go. I think this area is actually good in isolation, but IMO as the opener to a jam map it's a real invitation to just skip on to the next map. I think this sort of combat puzzle works better once someone is stuck into the map, i.e. there's a much more frustrating fight later in this map but I kept with it since I was already invested.

Some shining moments in this one, especially working through the opening area, but for my tastes there's too much savescum-bait like getting surprise-poisoned in close quarters or getting chased by voreballs in water. Some fun infighting as mentioned above but overall a pretty bumpy experience for me on skill 2. 

is great, but i have the same gold key/ending bug. Maybe it's been fixed, no mention / new download ?? 

He's a great boss too.

#qs -game hell +crosshair 0
Command line: ./quakespasm -heapsize 256000 -zone 4096 -bgsound -sndspeed 11025 -game hell +crosshair 0
Found SDL version 2.0.12
Detected 4 CPUs.
Quake 1.09 (c) id Software
GLQuake 1.00 (c) id Software
FitzQuake 0.85 (c) John Fitzgibbons
FitzQuake SDL port (c) SleepwalkR, Baker
QuakeSpasm 0.93.2 (c) Ozkan Sezer, Eric Wasylishen & others
Host_Init
Playing registered version.
Console initialized.
UDP Initialized
Server using protocol 666 (FitzQuake)
Exe: 16:40:34 Sep 10 2020
250.0 megabyte heap
Video mode 1280x1024x24 60Hz (24-bit z-buffer, 0x FSAA) initialized
GL_VENDOR: NVIDIA Corporation
GL_RENDERER: GeForce GTX 560/PCIe/SSE2
GL_VERSION: 4.4.0 NVIDIA 340.107
FOUND: ARB_vertex_buffer_object
FOUND: ARB_multitexture
GL_MAX_TEXTURE_UNITS: 4
FOUND: ARB_texture_env_combine
FOUND: ARB_texture_env_add
FOUND: SDL_GL_SetSwapInterval
FOUND: EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic
FOUND: ARB_texture_non_power_of_two
FOUND: GLSL

Sound Initialization
SDL audio spec : 44100 Hz, 1024 samples, 2 channels
SDL audio driver: pulseaudio - GF114 HDMI Audio Controller Digital Stereo (HDMI), 65536 bytes buffer
Audio: 16 bit, stereo, 44100 Hz
CDAudio disabled at compile time

========= Quake Initialized =========

execing quake.rc
execing default.cfg
execing config.cfg
Unknown command "r_useportalculling"
Unknown command "cl_beams_polygons"
Unknown command "Max"
couldn't exec autoexec.cfg
Loading game from /usr/local/games/quake/hell/s9.sav...
No spawn function for:

EDICT 90:
origin '-1780.0 -372.0 272.0'
angles ' 0.0 30.0 0.0'
classname misc_breakable_vase
No spawn function for:

EDICT 256:
origin '2080.0 968.0 16.0'
angles ' 0.0 330.0 0.0'
classname misc_breakable_vase

FITZQUAKE 0.85 SERVER (10963 CRC)



Necromancer's Swamp
Using protocol 999
������ Arcane Dimensions V1.80 Patch 1
godmode ON
You got the Tome of Power
You got the box of nails
CALL2 402(setmodel)setmodel()
monsters.qc : monster_spawn
<NO FUNCTION>
no precache: progs/mon_gaunt.mdl
Host_Error: Program error 

Sone patched maps: https://neogeographica-downloads.s3.amazonaws.com/tools/quakestarter/hwjam3_fixes.zip

Don't know why these haven't been more widely distributed. 

Ok, cheers :). Shades / AD is gorgeous.
Just a little note - I seem to be taking damage from the range attack of those green back spiders even in godmode. ! But never sends me under 25 health. Probably a known issue though.