Latest reviews
I got the bad ending 
Aesopolis, A beautiful environment with so many cool details that I spent ages just wandering around looking. The introduction of the music once the first puzzle is complete is just perfect timing because the vista is breathtaking. The free form routing can be disquieting at first, but its something I really appreciate and gave me time to explore the layout further instead.
alexUnder, The vista once you leave the cave is just amazing, probably the best looking in the pack. The giant's causeway style rockwork lends itself to Quake blocky-ness and the presentation of different movement puzzles is perfect. I especially liked the re-use of space with the player going through and over moving obstacles. My only problem is the chain/ladders and I wished they were presented beforehand so that I could understand them better before the deathly slime pit incident!
bizzozeron, I can appreciate the vision and movement tricks that are required for this map, but it feels like it needs less rough edges and more testing for idiots like me. I especially liked the giant brushwork hands high above the ceiling, very creative idea.
brain, I saw someone complete this map on twitch and its a masterpiece of movement and Quake tricks. I just wish the first jump was easier, so at least I could make some progress into the map. The initial skill wall for this map is too hardcore for my old hands.
Colossus, The opening sequence is amazing, especially when the player is presented with this gigantic playground of shapes to explore. I loved the use of the ghost knights to guide the player and the runes being something obvious to collect. My only problem was the first rocket jump across the broken bridge, its such a great distance that I was wondering if it was the correct route to go. I assumed it would be a much easier introduction to rocket jumping for less skilled players like me. The most sublime part to this map is the Death Knight walking into the sun, pure visual masterpiece!
CommomCold, Such a good intro sequence presenting a dystopia city landscape. I loved all the different NPC's around the city to talk to and the way the story develops is very cool and unexpected. I wish CC had used the map variable system for the NPC conversations instead, its very easy to break the dialogue which is probably why there is warning messages very early on.
iYago, A Sauna, A Tavern and a Mountain, what else could you ask for! Such a perfect place to rest, chill out and catch some snappy conversations. Especially loved the giant sliding patio window for some reason!
Konig, This is a very cool homage to an ID map which changes into something else towards the end. I just wish the map was brighter, I had to bump the gamma/contrast up really high to see where to go. I wish it had more spooky environmental events, turnaround triggers and maybe some jump scares.
MadScientist, It was cool to see a low gravity map, they don't often happen from the community. Though I wished their was more gravity changes with different sections using different strengths and more options to climb using only the gravity jumps. The puzzle cube was cool, though the button part was confusing at first for me.
Rabbit, Such a masterpiece of movement puzzles, with easy jump sequences for unskilled players like me, to legendary sliding puzzles for the gifted movement players to enjoy. The visuals are top notch and everything feels so professional presented and well balanced. The sneaky puzzles linked to the rotating centre is Jonathan Blow level stuff. I especially loved the shambler shop for progression and the icing on the cake being the counter underneath!
RecicleDoj, Probably my favourite map of the pack because the architecture reminded me of the game Sin (Evil Corporation vibe) and the sound track was just pure Markie level legendary-ness that it brought the map to life. My only problem was the initial jump into the complex, I thought it was so confusing because it felt like it should have been from the giant crate not the ledge. The progression and HL style (vent) exploration was awesome and the executive suite at the top with the 45 degree angle windows, just sublime.
Sock, Its unfortunate that the start map has so much mirroring of architecture that it reduces the uniqueness down to 1/4. If there was more time I would have loved to add more NPC's to bring the place to life. Unfortunately the map name expresses my feelings for the final result. The puzzle maps were fun to create and I loved the circular layouts opening up with each new block to push around. I thought the YT links on the books would be more fun, but alas it turned out to be a disaster, a lesson learned.
Spootnik, A giant lava soaked cavern full of hazards, tiny ledges and tricky jumps. Very cool progression though I did struggle to find the GK (at first) at the end of the lightning death corridor. I wished the vania style items did not expire so quickly as I wanted to take my time to explore the map more. In the end I felt pressured to complete each area in order to survive.
alexUnder, The vista once you leave the cave is just amazing, probably the best looking in the pack. The giant's causeway style rockwork lends itself to Quake blocky-ness and the presentation of different movement puzzles is perfect. I especially liked the re-use of space with the player going through and over moving obstacles. My only problem is the chain/ladders and I wished they were presented beforehand so that I could understand them better before the deathly slime pit incident!
bizzozeron, I can appreciate the vision and movement tricks that are required for this map, but it feels like it needs less rough edges and more testing for idiots like me. I especially liked the giant brushwork hands high above the ceiling, very creative idea.
brain, I saw someone complete this map on twitch and its a masterpiece of movement and Quake tricks. I just wish the first jump was easier, so at least I could make some progress into the map. The initial skill wall for this map is too hardcore for my old hands.
Colossus, The opening sequence is amazing, especially when the player is presented with this gigantic playground of shapes to explore. I loved the use of the ghost knights to guide the player and the runes being something obvious to collect. My only problem was the first rocket jump across the broken bridge, its such a great distance that I was wondering if it was the correct route to go. I assumed it would be a much easier introduction to rocket jumping for less skilled players like me. The most sublime part to this map is the Death Knight walking into the sun, pure visual masterpiece!
CommomCold, Such a good intro sequence presenting a dystopia city landscape. I loved all the different NPC's around the city to talk to and the way the story develops is very cool and unexpected. I wish CC had used the map variable system for the NPC conversations instead, its very easy to break the dialogue which is probably why there is warning messages very early on.
iYago, A Sauna, A Tavern and a Mountain, what else could you ask for! Such a perfect place to rest, chill out and catch some snappy conversations. Especially loved the giant sliding patio window for some reason!
Konig, This is a very cool homage to an ID map which changes into something else towards the end. I just wish the map was brighter, I had to bump the gamma/contrast up really high to see where to go. I wish it had more spooky environmental events, turnaround triggers and maybe some jump scares.
MadScientist, It was cool to see a low gravity map, they don't often happen from the community. Though I wished their was more gravity changes with different sections using different strengths and more options to climb using only the gravity jumps. The puzzle cube was cool, though the button part was confusing at first for me.
Rabbit, Such a masterpiece of movement puzzles, with easy jump sequences for unskilled players like me, to legendary sliding puzzles for the gifted movement players to enjoy. The visuals are top notch and everything feels so professional presented and well balanced. The sneaky puzzles linked to the rotating centre is Jonathan Blow level stuff. I especially loved the shambler shop for progression and the icing on the cake being the counter underneath!
RecicleDoj, Probably my favourite map of the pack because the architecture reminded me of the game Sin (Evil Corporation vibe) and the sound track was just pure Markie level legendary-ness that it brought the map to life. My only problem was the initial jump into the complex, I thought it was so confusing because it felt like it should have been from the giant crate not the ledge. The progression and HL style (vent) exploration was awesome and the executive suite at the top with the 45 degree angle windows, just sublime.
Sock, Its unfortunate that the start map has so much mirroring of architecture that it reduces the uniqueness down to 1/4. If there was more time I would have loved to add more NPC's to bring the place to life. Unfortunately the map name expresses my feelings for the final result. The puzzle maps were fun to create and I loved the circular layouts opening up with each new block to push around. I thought the YT links on the books would be more fun, but alas it turned out to be a disaster, a lesson learned.
Spootnik, A giant lava soaked cavern full of hazards, tiny ledges and tricky jumps. Very cool progression though I did struggle to find the GK (at first) at the end of the lightning death corridor. I wished the vania style items did not expire so quickly as I wanted to take my time to explore the map more. In the end I felt pressured to complete each area in order to survive.
The demon is your friend!I'll pile on, this is great. Played through the Ironwail mod download list.
Witch House Mixtape is one of my favorite maps and Sentinel Rave is a great ending level that isn't Cthon again or something obnoxious.
Sentinel Rave especially impresses. The atmosphere going into the first part, the wild architecture, the chains, all of it. The slaughter fight at the end is my favorite end of any campaign I've played and I wish it was packaged as it's own map.
As always, "non combat jams" are a sort of mixed bag for me - I'm not good at traversal in Quake in general (and certainly can't do advanced movement tricks like circle jumps, let alone the kind of super advanced power bunnyhop into surfs stuff you see in speedrunning). And Explore Jams tend to have maps on a continuum from "here's a beautiful map I made with some light traversal" to "I made this map so you can only complete it with microsecond reflexes and millimetre precision using advanced speedrun techniques". Obviously, one end of the continuum here is more open to "general consumption" than the other (but it can be extremely challenging to make niche speedrunning technique maps, of course).
This is confounded by a tendency for some to consider "difficulty levels" to only be concerned with combat difficulty, and not challenge in general. (Meaning that some maps here do change between skill 0 and skill 3 - spootnik's certainly does - and others remain identical on all skill levels.)
Maps I completed: Aesop's (beautiful and expansive map, only really confusing at the start because the player isn't sure how hard the map is supposed to be, rather than anything intrinsic about the map itself), AlexUnder's (Alex, you undersell this map, it's good and contains a lot of accessible challenges), iYago (very much a "interact with this setting" map, but it's fun), Konig (a very creepy setting, mostly a tone piece which works well), Madscientist (I sort of think of this as built around the moving puzzle setpiece which I really enjoyed), Sock 1 & 2 (youtube link injokes, push block puzzles which were engaging - slight physics jank is really just a Quake limitation), CommonCold (somewhat trippy and atmospheric, bonus marks for "conversation" system), Spootnik (very much at the limit of my traversal ability even on Easy - I did have to noclip towards the end because I just couldn't quite complete something before the powerup ran out, but fun non-the-less).
Maps I didn't quite complete: Colossus (I actually like this map's openness, but I also felt like it didn't help to have less direction when I'm not that good at rocket jumping - once I got past the "obviously directed" bits, I felt a bit like I didn't know what was supposed to be possible for me to get to), Recycleddoj (I did actually complete this, but I needed to noclip a jump near the start to get into the main building - unless I'm missing how I'm supposed to do that. The rest is a lot of cool "puzzles to circumvent the obstacle" setpieces).
Maps I am never going to complete in a million years;: Brain (but he knows this), Bizz (I managed to, just about, get the axe. I have no idea how to do anything else )
As such, I'm knocking 1 mark off for "maps without difficulty settings" (and *not* for "maps I can't complete"), but actually there's a lot of really good stuff in here and it's worth picking up and playing.
This is confounded by a tendency for some to consider "difficulty levels" to only be concerned with combat difficulty, and not challenge in general. (Meaning that some maps here do change between skill 0 and skill 3 - spootnik's certainly does - and others remain identical on all skill levels.)
Maps I completed: Aesop's (beautiful and expansive map, only really confusing at the start because the player isn't sure how hard the map is supposed to be, rather than anything intrinsic about the map itself), AlexUnder's (Alex, you undersell this map, it's good and contains a lot of accessible challenges), iYago (very much a "interact with this setting" map, but it's fun), Konig (a very creepy setting, mostly a tone piece which works well), Madscientist (I sort of think of this as built around the moving puzzle setpiece which I really enjoyed), Sock 1 & 2 (youtube link injokes, push block puzzles which were engaging - slight physics jank is really just a Quake limitation), CommonCold (somewhat trippy and atmospheric, bonus marks for "conversation" system), Spootnik (very much at the limit of my traversal ability even on Easy - I did have to noclip towards the end because I just couldn't quite complete something before the powerup ran out, but fun non-the-less).
Maps I didn't quite complete: Colossus (I actually like this map's openness, but I also felt like it didn't help to have less direction when I'm not that good at rocket jumping - once I got past the "obviously directed" bits, I felt a bit like I didn't know what was supposed to be possible for me to get to), Recycleddoj (I did actually complete this, but I needed to noclip a jump near the start to get into the main building - unless I'm missing how I'm supposed to do that. The rest is a lot of cool "puzzles to circumvent the obstacle" setpieces).
Maps I am never going to complete in a million years;: Brain (but he knows this), Bizz (I managed to, just about, get the axe. I have no idea how to do anything else
)As such, I'm knocking 1 mark off for "maps without difficulty settings" (and *not* for "maps I can't complete"), but actually there's a lot of really good stuff in here and it's worth picking up and playing.
riktoi
It seems like setting host_timescale too high will break the map!!!
