Firstly, I want to congratulate everyone who completed a map for this jam, the aesthetic of which is pitch perfect and one of the most evocative I've ever seen, and I would say this pack earns more of a 3.5/5, something like a B+. I sampled at least some of every map, finished more than a few, and found something engaging in all of them, which is to be commended. There's something about monolithic concrete pillars reaching into foreboding, heavenly skyboxes that works extremely well for Quake, blending easily with its industrial, gothic, cold, hard, and unyielding nature.
This jam serves as the perfect opportunity to think about the ongoing, internal struggle modern Quake maps so often suffer from: the push and pull between the excitement of impressive screenshots destined for engagement on social media and the much less hype need for new, engaging Quake gameplay. Though several of these maps do manage to marry aesthetics and gameplay together well, more often gameplay feels like an afterthought compared to the monumental, gray blocks so thoughtfully hand-crafted and laid out throughout so many maps with truly epic proportions. Like the brutalist constructions of the mid-to-late 20th century these maps seek to emulate, they're both impressive to behold and ambulate through yet mostly rote, self-serious, and business-like in their function.
And for a jam lasting a few weeks, who could possibly blame a mapper for choosing style over substance? Especially when the call of Makkon's immaculate textures is so much more alluring than populating yet another dark, abstract chamber with yet more knights, ogres, and enforcers. And for the purposes of furthering a mapper's career, focusing on aesthetics is clearly the superior choice for gaining immediate clout and recognition (though I'm sure professional opportunities for anyone are still few and far between). This jam even earned an article on a widely-read game journalism site, Rock Paper Shotgun, which is still a novelty in the modern Quake era and a testament to the strength of the jam's theming.
I would only suggest that, perhaps, we as mappers could take a page out of Valve's book and move more of these colossal, suggestive, stoic pieces of eye candy into the background and bring more unique Quake gameplay ideas into the foreground, even if they're messier, more awkward, and less exciting to work on at first. Food for thought, anyway, as we barrel straight ahead into the next jam and the next, full steam ahead. I continually wonder whether such an effective mapping tool as TrenchBroom wouldn't be better-served by a more mechanically-dense and script-driven game, but seeing as Quake is so accessible, fundamental, and essential, I think it's unlikely we'll have a better platform for simple, short-form level design experimentation any time soon. And in the end, if some of these maps end up more exciting for users and second-hand viewers to noclip through and gasp at high resolution PNGs of rather than play, like a group of wide-eyed students in a museum of curious and inspiring antiquities preserved behind glass, dim spotlights and all, who's to say that's a bad thing?
