All of these maps are amazing! The idea of having surprises in each of them makes them stand out from the usual map packs. My favorites are "The Dead Room" and "Daughter Drink This Water", but all the others have their undeniable highlights as well.

What I appreciate most is that settings are really different in each offering, turning this into a visual feast. I am going to play through this again soon, I think. 

Glad to see that you enjoyed the map.
I hadn't so much time theses last months but I wanted to do something for that Quake anniversary. You remind me that I totally missed the ambient sounds layer in my map.
truely sorry !
Anyway I'm plannong to make a DM version of this map soon. 

Played about half of it so far, and loving the surprises and twists. Mazu's map is as hardcore as expected, and Palmlix's must be one of the strangest maps I've ever played. I was worried that the texture constraint would lead to ugly maps and would be more fun for mappers than for players and I'm glad I was proven wrong.

Thank you so much for this wonderful pack! 

Mazu's map was super fun.

I am often not not not a fan of loading up a map and seeing a monster count in the high three digits, but here it works out. (I know I've posted something like that a few times... mainly because I'd rather just mention the good cases rather than complain about the bad ones!)

I think a lot of the reason this map worked for me and didn't feel grindy is because it lets you explore and re-explore a not-too-gigantic space, where you come through new paths in areas you've seen before rather than just always moving on to some new area. Feels satisfying to finally get to some high ledge you've been looking at, finally unlock a particular door you've been past a few times, etc. I appreciated the occasional "navigation arrow" BTW.

The other nice thing is that significant chunks of the monster count come in a few big horde fights, so the pacing has variety rather than being a lonnnng drip feed or constant hordes. And those big fights are staged out really well IMO -- good use of arena-like spaces, elevation, different monster types, etc. Lots of freedom to move and fight, but without it just turning into a "racetrack" where you run circles and take potshots while hoping for infighting.

The nail/shotgun ammo on skill 2 was really tight in a few places. Health too, although maybe I just did some dumb things there. Sometimes the ammo shortage was good because it encouraged grenade use. In a couple of places I had to reload multiple times to figure out the exact right way to run past some encounters in narrow halls to hopefully get to more ammo/health pickups beyond. Depending on my mood this might have been annoying, I dunno. It was fine this time; I just got into a zone of quickly reloading and trying something else. (Kind of reminded me of some play patterns solo-ing Halo games on Legendary... it's all about the reload/retry.)

Anyway: epic map. Loved the "ritual chamber"! I guess that was one of the "surprises", not sure what the other one was supposed to be but there are a few cool candidates. :-) 

Is it just me, or is The Sore just about impossible on Skill 2?

Even with encouragin infighting at every turn and scrimping every piece of ammo I can find, I'm nearly constantly out of ammo with Shamblers and Fiends and Scrags everywhere.

Unless I'm missing a big room filled with ammo and weapons, this map feels basically broken. I'm not the most skilled player in the world, but I can usually quicksave and reload my way through even the toughest maps. This one - no way. 

I see. The backpacks that appear at the portal at the start. I didn't even notice them and somehow didn't pick them up when I went through the portals after picking up the runes. 

entsoy's map is.. eh.. largely skippable: https://youtu.be/Rp1cefO3H 

somehow the last character got cut off that link
corrected: https://youtu.be/Rp1cefO3Hg 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp1cefO3HAg 

Mazu's map is a ringer 

Sent to Spirit for Quaddicted, including everyone's updates. Sorry for delay. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r5f4sHbmO17SpS_qLIkNNyrLXkLP0uob/view?usp=sharing 

Using Quakespewsm 0.93.2.

http://www.quaketastic.com/files/sinister625_spasm0000.png

http://www.quaketastic.com/files/sinister625_spasm0001.png 

Looks just fine to me. 

Flat colors without textures? 

That's how it's supposed to look. The pack has a 6 texture limit, and start map is following that restriction as well. I suspect some of the textures are just stretched so much that they look like solid color. 

...You mean THIS is a conscious design choice?

http://www.quaketastic.com/files/sinister625_spasm0002.png

If it is, I'm stumped. Kinda clashes with the quality of mapping involved... 

It's a scaled up texture to get around limitations in texture choice, methinks. :) 

While it's a nasty and hacky approach, it's a legitimate move by the map artist. If you don't like this style, there are more than enough other projects out there for you to try. However, you'd be skipping some quite ingenious maps in this compilation. 

...but I'm sure there are plenty of other great abilities for you to peruse. 

WTF? 

Errr... get outta here. 

You should just be your nick - I'm planning a whole mini-ep with solid colors - you'll hate it. Avoid it please. 

...Y'see, old men tend to forget things.
Other men, though, seem to have serious cognitive trouble so I'll just try to explain myself better. This thread completely slipped off my mind and my recent 100% run through the pack on skill 3 brought it back to my attention. Did not mean to throw the stone and run away.

Last things first: Dumptruck, I perfectly agree with your sticking to one's nick policy. Go first, please.
Also, while I do appreciate your advice, none is really needed, thanks, I always skip "experimental" Quake maps accurately.

#23, #22 see "Other men" chapter.

Then, to the pack itself: this is probably one of the best overall to come out as of late with truly amazing gameplay and scenery, the start map, though, is very ugly. And this pretty sums up my review.

Going a little bit more in detail, the only playable map I find maybe unbalanced and a bit unfair on NM skill is Entsoy's where very low lighting coupled with incessant spawning and details in architecture that easily let you slip into the void becomes tiring very soon, if you don't opt for the short route mentioned above. Very atmospheric nonetheless.

I'm becoming increasingly fascinated with everything Mazu and I think that his map is easily the best of the bunch (the reason I did this 100% run, to tell the truth). For the future, I think that his maps should always come as last in the picking order, because climax.

All of the others, bar none, I enjoyed immensely: from DFL's sandy romp to Newhouse' running puzzle temple(minus the water-colored lava). Palmlix' mind games were also very enjoyable, atmospheric and true to Quake's original spirit.
Radiatoryang's majestic piece is one great concept awesomely executed, if a bit samey on the combat side, due to the large open spaces and recurring hordes.

Naitelveni's stands out for sheer looks. Gorgeous. Gorgeous. And gorgeous.

The start map... well, we already mentioned that, didn't we?

An overall truly great pack and a fitting tribute to the best game ever.
Bravi! 

The Google drive links no longer work, it's available to download at:

https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/sinister625.html