Jam Meat Jam

Most of these aren't my style, but there's no denying a lot of work and attention to detail went into these.

Of these meaty/organic maps, there's some variation in "meatiness" - the majority start with the full meat on display, whilst others transition towards meatiness over the course of the map (and sometimes, back again).
I think, in general, I mildly preferred the meatier ones, because they're just more distinctive for the entire map, although narrative-through-map-design is good in general!

Because this was a jam, difficulty balancing isn't perfect across the maps - some of them are definitely harder than they should be on Easy, and I think there's 3 of them that I had to turn on God mode at some point to get to the end.
I'll also admit that I have opinions about Quoth's enemy roster, and particularly dislike the floating sentinel nail-shooting things, so the map with loads of them in it was a trial. Similarly, in general, I don't particularly like "final boss = horde wave" design, which some maps have here.
Similarly, with apologies to Zbidou72, I am awful at entirely underwater/swimming maps, and whilst it looks great, it's also the only map I DNF because of the core mechanic.

I really really liked Rabbit's map (although there's some confusion caused by "shortcuts" opening up that are more obvious than the forward path) and MonkeyShock's map by comparison, I think they're probably my favourite in design and gameplay terms.
(A special shout-out though to Comfy's map, which has an excellent design using darkness and limited resource... it was just [on v1.0] a little too limited a resource for the combat built in.)

I suspect people who play on Hard will not have my issue with difficulty balancing, and it's probably a 5/5 for them!

This is a review for the 1.0 version.

It's awesome to see a month long jam~ around a central idea again, it's interesting see Quoth, there is still so much untapped potential in the mod and opportunities to map for it like this are great, and it's also great to see more horror and seeing all the different interpretations of it. Great variety in the pack too, from bite sized to seriously quite impressively long given the time allowed, but one common theme is definitely bombastic and chaotic combat, especially due to Quoth's entities. An anomaly would be that there are a noticeable amount of places where the player can get stuck on and quite possibly sink through the world (on all maps), uncertain of what could be causing this, never experienced anything quite like it, but it's nothing a quick noclip can't solve. It was a great 9ish hours with the pack, would get digested again.

• meat_zbidou72 - As always, a great adventure with a really cool sense of scale, very playful, very alien and of course organic. Considering this is one of the more linear* (huge asterisk, there's still plenty of looking around, but less backtracking than one might imagine) zbidou maps, it is still very easy at times to get lost in, and by lost I mean remembering or finding the way forward, the map has a lot of landmarks and outside of navigating a boat and like 1.5 vertical caves (there are many) there's nothing that's ever samey. The scale combined with the gorgeous natural lighting can sometimes make you forget which corner you've checked and it is very possible to circle around the same room until you find a rope, ladder, hole etc. to use if not attentive. I seriously loved
  Spoiler

  the jellyfish for oxygen, felt like reverse Metroid, and the whole process of liberating the ship from the tendrils/tentacles,
  but I do think the red and darkness was taking its toll on me. Be patient and possibly be ready for multiple sittings when playing because it is a treat, but one that bites (gently). It honestly feels like a mini 1-2 hour itch.io game and I mean this in the best way possible.

• meat_cc - fat nuts fred
• meat_f15h00k - One of my favourites, for some reason I kept thinking that this is a cool version of q3dm1, but of course definitely does its own thing. Love everything about it, although
  Spoiler

  the timing on the smooshers was the tiniest amounts of weird
  but still fun. Great art and encounters.
• meat_comfybythefire - I see in v1.1 there has been a reduction in monsters but have not replayed, I am not entirely sure where one might remove enemies from outside of the start, I hope it's not (in some of) the optional areas, because there is something very cool about being scared or knowing you quite can't handle an optional zone that possibly is about to offer a high tier reward. The torch is great and its pacing can feel good, either letting you catch your breath or making some situations extra tense, though sometimes it can feel like a slap in the face. I thought this particular scavenging for resources was cool, but due to the lighting, one zone was a little tougher to attempt
  Spoiler

  (the rocket launcher),
  its reward thankfully could be skipped without feeling handicapped. Nevertheless, attempting to scour the very organic perimeter felt fun. I liked the final fight quite a bit.
  
  
• meat_rabbit - A hell of a journey. Transitions into the central theme in an amazing way, it leads the player nicely and was surprised to see it's so big. Great encounters and art, and I hope others can find the
  Spoiler

  bunnies
  that I couldn't find.
• meat_hcm - Very fun hectic rooms. I kept trying to unintentionally sequence break in the goofiest ways, the progression is actually quite straight forward. I also liked the atmosphere of a couple of rooms a lot. The final fight is to commend, it's quite a unique idea, haven't seen
  Spoiler

  transmogrification
  in Quake much.
• meat_nickster - Very claustrophobic and tricksy and possibly rude due to the verticality of some rooms, great lighting and art. Possibly the best
  Spoiler

  Vermis reveal
  in the pack.
• meat_lyddrie - A very interesting vibe, it felt quite unsettling. The progression was a bit mixed, and some of the geo definitely needs to be clipped to help both the player and monsters. Would love to see more like this.
• meat_chuma - Quite fun and cute secrets, but possibly over kitted resources wise. Either way a fun bite sized map. #chumastic
• meat_monkeyshock - Had a similar vibe to f15hook and lyddrie but even more bite sized, nice outdoors.
• meat_shades - A gentler Shades map, quite enjoyable. It is small but still it's nice that there are branching pathways and nice encounters that are arted well.
  meat_start - Very impressive organic geo at a nice scale, nice unique carvings for each teleport.
  

That was some good meat.

Now all the maps had something going for them which really stand out in a good way. But pretty much all maps had some major flaws as well, including my really fast speedmap entry for this. A lot of nice effort from newer mappers in the scene which should be praised. Pretty hard theme to get used to if you are building your first level in Quake.

Occasional tedious moments and wonky terrain blocking player movement in many maps. Rushed execution on my map. Quoth breaking randomly also being a pain. This might sound pretty negative but the really good stuff outweigh the bad.

There are many unique moments in both gameplay and set pieces that I've not encountered that often in Quake maps. Totally recommend playing through everything and seeing different ideas taken in this meaty theme!

They call me the meat jammer

Solid work.
As in all community works, the quality varies - but this is generally in the high end!
The theme... urgh! A bit too much on the disgusting/hellish side (reminds me a bit of the movie "Jacob's Ladder") for my liking, but it is - as always - interesting to see the different approaches to the subject.
Well done everyone!
Thanks for your efforts, and thanks for sharing!

The scope and quality of this pack was once again stunning. Personally, the fun was limited for me as I can't do much with the meat texture as I'm red-green blind. Apart from that, the maps were consistently great. Thank you very much.