Jam Quake Brutalist Jam III

Well I finally got through all of it, and it was a fantastic. This pack contains more quality design and gameplay than most commercial AAA titles. Played through Mazu's behemoth twice for a grand total of 7 hours(loved the system shock like twist in the plot, which is revealed if one takes the right path), can't wait to see what happens next.

I'd like to preface this review by saying that I played the initial dev test of this Jam, that being the tutorial level. I got the impression that these would be very questionable changes to make to the game, both in terms of the new enemies and in terms of the weaponry replacements. Since I had this preview, I admittedly did go into this Jam expecting myself to not enjoy it, yet I do want to mention that I found most of the levels here to be enjoyable maps. Although, I do have a few maps that I had particularly stronger opinions about.


The Good Levels

Darkness There, and Nothing More (ThatSpacePirate) – Despite the first half having questionable enemy placements, I found the latter half of the level to be very enjoyable. The enemies had a lot of room to be fought in, the joke room was fun to see after having played through so many maps by then, and the final arena felt like a good combat puzzle.

Screeching under a concrete moon (Riktoi) – This was the first map that I felt stood out environmentally, as it still followed brutalist architecture while also having something like an Art Deco style. The combat was set up very well with the use of the new powerups.

The Funnel (Paul Lawitzki) – The limited weapons available on the main path made this map into a very enjoyable challenge, though I did rush out of the final area as I couldn't deal with the poor visibility.

Overscoped Clusterfuck (Rabbit) – The music and level design made me feel like I was going mad, but I think that served to make the map far more enjoyable. Excellently made.

Blood Train (Chaosedo) – This was the only map in the New Faces section of the jam that stood out to me, and I'm both glad and disappointed that it is the final level of the Jam (if you are to go through all the levels from left to right). It is an excellent level to send off the mod, but it is unfortunate that it was held to the very end. This map poses quite the challenge with its enemy placements and how much ammunition and health you can get, but it was enjoyable to find methods to get around the horde. I do want to point out that the barricades can be jumped around, letting you skip sections of the level, so I would suggest adding in a way to prevent this.


The Bad Levels

Both the unfinished levels. That being Guess where I ran out of time. Everywhere! (Janvanderweg) and Untitled [Or as called in the level, Pumpstation F103] (Haikids). These maps were fine, but I think adding in levels that are clearly unfinished makes for a poor experience, as with the former you are left with empty environments that take far too long to get through, and with the latter you get an unfinished experience.

31 Spooner Street (Avix) – This is not a level that should have been added. Not even in the sense of "oh, this isn't a funny joke map.," this is just adding in a map just to make the final number of maps a bit bigger.

Fullmoon Brutalism (Compbluewiz) – The stalest gameplay loop with the dullest visuals I've seen. It was so, so boring. It's like the map creator didn't try in either aspect of the level.

Escape From KOE-37 (Mazu) – This level review is going to be far more anecdotal than the previous ones, as I find levels with this sort of length to be quite pompous. I played the Immortal Lock somewhere in March of last year, drawn in by the map boasting about the 5000+ enemy count. I found it to be rather difficult to start the map, started enjoying it halfway through, before it started being just a slog to get through. The vast majority of the enemies being hidden away in two final arduous final arenas felt like I had been tricked into spending far too long on the map, that the map itself felt so proud of having that many enemies that it could freely waste the players time in the way it does. KOE-37 gave me very, very similar feelings. The start was enjoyable, and about halfway through, (during the fake escape sequence) I was ready to finish the map. Yet, the map continued on, and on, and on. The first ending possible feels like the map is just trying to be extremely annoying to get through, that it's wasting your time by tricking you into this frustrating ending, it knowing that you've already spent so much time crawling through the mud and that you will want to get that ending no matter what, that the large enemy count will allow it to pull whatever bullshit it wants. I godmoded the first ending after crawling through it all up to that point, because I was beyond tired of having my time wasted in this level.

Here's a general issue I noticed that applies to a lot of the levels, many of them are not Brutalist. They're industrial. I'm certain the number of Industrial maps outnumbers the amount of Brutalist maps. Of course, this doesn't change the gameplay, but I do feel it is worth mentioning.


Now that I have covered my appraisals and complaints with the levels, I would like to talk about the main part of this Jam. That being that all of base Quake has either been removed or replaced in some capacity, and how I feel this impacts the feel and balance of the game.


Enemy Design

I'll mention the issues I have with the combat of the new enemies first and then move onto what I think of the designs.

The Rocket Grunts are the worst of the Grunt replacements, not only because they are simply a poor idea to add, their rockets home in on you slightly, meaning it's far more difficult to avoid them than you'd initially think. The only redeeming quality is that they share the same health as the other grunts do.

The Kamikaze is far too quick for what it does, and that is being a replacement for spawns that hides among other enemies. They only realistically serve as a jump scare into a load save button combo since you just lost about half of your armour and health. Just a ridiculous enemy type, only being beaten by the next enemy.

The Swarmer. This is the most pointless enemy in the mod. Like the Kamikaze, they just serve as a cheap way to scare the player and make the enemy count of a level go dramatically high for what little content it adds. It's fodder. It being fodder isn't even the worst part, it's the fact that it simply does not work in the game it's in. The Swarmer takes clear inspiration, deliberately or not, from the Filth in Ultrakill. Issue is that Ultrakill has various methods for avoiding these enemies, such as movement beyond small jumps. This lack of movement makes this specific enemy a nightmare to deal with, and it doesn't help that half the maps in the Jam gladly overuse it.

While not a new enemy, the Vore has been changed. The projectiles lose tracking of you after the Vore that launched them is killed, which I find to be a pointless change. Half the challenge of fighting a Vore is figuring out how to deal with the projectiles afterwards.


Now I do appreciate and understand the amount of effort that must've gone into changing all of the enemies visuals, but I find solid argument for these changes beyond the possible "These were changed to fit in better with a Brutalist setting", which I don't even fully believe could be a reason since the Grunt, Enforcer and Ogre are replaced with knights wearing or using modern weaponry and the Scrags have been changed into something resembling a robed wizard. Changes that cause the enemies present to not fit in with each other at all, extremely unlike how base Quake's monsters all fit in together relatively well. Additionally, changing the looks of the enemies means you must change the sound effects as well, but the issue with this is that these sound effects do not help you distinguish what enemy is after you. It is much easier to tell what enemy is telling you to "FREEZE!" and "STOP!" compared to finding out what enemy is constantly telling you "There she is." and "Stop resisting!."


Weapons

Moving onto the combat, I don't think I'd be wrong in saying that all the weapons in this Jam are extremely powerful, which makes the gameplay quite entertaining! The issue is that All the weapons are extremely powerful. I will be comparing each weapon to its base Quake counterpart if possible.

The Wrench, doing 40 more damage than the Axe at the horrifying penalty of a marginally slower swing speed. This weapon can occasionally gib the Grunt replacements.

The Flak does 4 damage per pellet, of which there are 22 of, for a potential 88 damage. The Double Shotgun does a potential 56 damage. Enemy health values are untouched by the Jam, so this results in the Flak being far stronger than the weapon it's replacing, at half the ammo cost.

The Rebar Cannon, alongside the Pistol and the Flak, make the Nailgun basically useless unless you're being pursued by Swarmers. Plus, the maximum nail ammo being increased to 300 lets you carry up to 3000 damage in one weapon. That's enough to beat Armagon on easy mode with 50 nails to spare. There is no point in comparing this to the Super Nailgun.

The Missile Launcher spews out 8 55 damage rockets at the cost of 4 rockets. This gives is the damage potential of clearing out Most enemies in the game with a single, focused volley. It takes about 6 seconds to kill a Shambler with this weapon, while it'd take 10 seconds to do so with the Rocket Launcher. I'm not sure why this weapon specifically was changed so drastically, since the grenade launcher remains the same. The design also prevents you from rocket jumping, and I think that many maps took this for granted while forgetting about grenade jumps.

The Pistol. This is a ridiculously overpowered weapon. 20 damage per shot with a clip size of 10, and an infinite supply of ammo on a hit scan weapon. Most maps seem to have completely forgotten that this weapon exists, and it outright ruins the way you play levels. This is made worse by the fact that QBJ3's recommended source port, Ironwail, having a quick zoom option. This means that the player has constant access to an infinite ammo sniper. One could argue that the issue there lies with how the player approaches the level, but it is ridiculous to say that when the developer is at fault for willingly believing that a weapon like this is a good addition to a Quake mod. One clip to kill an ogre. 1 and a half to kill a Death Knight and Fiend. 2 to kill a Vore. If you land all your shots, you can kill a Shambler in just 3 clips. The only reasonable thing to do would be to completely remove it from the mod and think of something better, because a weapon like this has no place in a shooter game, let alone Quake.


I'm of the belief that Quake has a very delicate balance of weapon functionality and how they affect the enemies you fight, and these changes completely ruin that balance. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy using these weapons, but this is ridiculously unbalanced.

On a smaller weapon note, I do think the Invoker lacks the sound design to make it feel powerful. As it stands, it makes an incredibly generic laser noise when used, which really does not fit with the sheer amount of power it has. Perhaps a deep, bassy sound when the lasers fires? Or anything to signal a wind-up of power before it fires?


I forgot to write about the power ups in my initial review, so I deleted the review so I can include my opinions on those.

The Ring of Shadows has been changed to copy the Partial Invisibility from Doom. The ring is already a rarely useful item, and this change just makes it worse for no benefit. Vampirism is a power up that I do see the appeal of, but in levels it was rarely used beyond justifying hordes in arenas. I do wish it gave even a slight damage buff, because it just feels a bit poorly thought out in its current state.

Berserk is a real highlight of the mod, even if it's not a fully original idea, it's always fun to use when you see it in a level. I do think the overpowered nature of it should have leaned into a bit more, maybe by making the melee have a wider range, though that change could be biased as Berserk is usually accompanied by hordes in levels.

Armour ticking down like over heal isn't the worst thing in the world, but I do think it's a redundant change that mainly serves to be an annoyance.


Conclusion

Overall, I think most of the levels in QBJ3 are very enjoyable, but my issues with the mod lie at the very roots. It is just not Quake anymore. It's not like it's using Quake as a vehicle for its own ideas, since anything that was already there was changed to fit with what the developer wanted, even if it was not needed. Calling the Vore by its other name, using pre-existing lore and applying it to the new enemies (Trenchknight lore is just Shambler lore), erroneously replacing Ranger with Rover, a word that is synonymous with a Ranger. It is taking parts from Quake while also trying to distance itself away from it. The map makers did an excellent job building the levels available, but the very foundation of every level is Not Quake.

My final verdict would be a 2.5/5. However, Slipseer does not seem to support that sort of scoring system and as my issues lie with the very core of the mod and are thusly present in every single level, I will be rounding this rating down to a 2/5.

Y'know who I feel sorry for? Anyone who released a map in the last week that has been overlooked by this!

Anyway...
Played around 35 maps so far and WOW! What can I say? Too many maps to talk about them all, but some standouts are maps by Mazu, Zbidou72, Colossus and Milestone, but they're all great.



Some good things:

I LOVE the new skins and artwork. Fiends in particular look great, but so do Vores, Champions, Scrags, Dogs – and most of all Shambler's arse.

The new gib sound is utterly exquisite. Better even than AD's gib sound – and that's saying something.

The new weapons are great too. The pistol is my new favourite toy, although it requires precision aiming, which I'm not good at. The multi rocket launcher and Invoker are great too. The general artwork and 'look' (console, HUD, etc.) are fantastic too.



Some points for improvement:

I do think the mod is missing the super nailgun. Sometimes you need quick crowd control with no reload time and no danger from explosions, and the mod doesn't really offer that. Possible solution: have a super nailgun that replaces the standard nailgun, or a nailgun upgrade, whose speed is halfway between the standard nailgun and super nailgun. Like nailgun 1.5.

I'm not sure what the changes to armour add, effectively removing yellow and red armour. Pound for pound, the monsters are a little more dangerous overall than vanilla quake (there is no equivalent of the Amalgam, for example, and exploding swarmers are more used than spawns in vanilla quake) so the weaker armour is felt more keenly. Possible solution: countdown threshold is increased to 150, or damage reduction is increased to maybe 65%?



General observation:

The slightly more dangerous bestiary, combined with the slightly weaker armour, makes this a slightly harder jam than normal. Especially when you add in having to get used to the new skins, silhouettes, monster reaction times, new weapons and longer reload times. Was this intentional?



Overall, this is a grower. As someone who plays on hard, and normally does fairly well, the first dozen or so maps really kicked my arse. But once I'd got used to all the new things, this set really came into its own. So new players should stick with it. It's worth it.



Playing Mazu's map first was probably a bad idea though!

The Brutalest jam

Loving my time with the mod so far. The gameplay, music, and art assets are very refreshing and polished. The sheer quantity and variety of contributions is freaking awesome. Some maps are gorgeous, some are clever, some are frustrating, some are unfinished, but all of them have soul and I genuinely wouldn't have it any other way.

Brutalist jam feels like a new platform for the mapping community to express themselves, and while I understand criticisms regarding quality control, it would genuinely sadden to have the undercooked works excluded for the sake of polish.

I'm new to this community, and ultimately, I'm here for the humanity that comes through in each of these maps — the polished, the jank, and the confusing af (at least for my walnut brain) — and QBJ3 freaking owns in this regard, I love it so much.

Though saying all that, the one thing that's been erking since playing are the missing audio tracks (or maybe incorrect audio maps) for some of the levels. Hate to miss-out on this banger of an ost!!!

I'm playing it through Ironwail and wondering if it's something on my end or if the standalone also has this issue? I probably would've assumed it was intentional but a message appears in the top right saying "can't play track xx, location missing" (or something similar to that)

I am still working through this monster of a jam, but everything I've played so far, from all three galleries, has been an absolute joy. The modded enemies/weapons is so refreshing to play, while still feeling very Quake at its core. In addition to the main gallery of maps, there are remixes of old brutalists maps with the new modded assets, as well as New Faces, which I believe is new mappers' contributions.

The "Resurfaced" maps are a bit more than simple ports to the new mod, they seem to have a lot of care and meaningful changes to elevate them and add a few twists. Some give a vibe that Rover (the protagonist) is going through these places after Ranger, with dead enforcers at the feet of Trench Knights. I have completed about half of these, all fun twists on old, familiar maps.

The New Faces was full of so many creative and surprising maps to be honest! I'm really enjoying this gallery, and I would say to anyone picking up this jam not to discredit or disregard the new faces maps. Thank you new mappers for stepping up and making these, your work is very appreciated.

Main Gallery is the meat and potatoes of the jam and full of so many maps. The ones I've played so far are solid experiences. If you've played previous brutalist jams (and you should) you'll know what to expect here. If you enjoyed the previous jams, you'll enjoy the main gallery. I am eyeing the Mazu boss map at the top and wondering how many hours I will end up spending on it...

Review of the mod "Quake Brutalist Jam 3":
The work was done colossally and in a very short time. All participants of this project are great! All maps were completed on Normal difficulty. But! Quake has descended to the level of a boomer shooter with a huge number of enemies in a confined area! Often I activated the "god mode", because the screen simply does not show what to do due to the abundance of monsters! There can be no question of any enjoyable game in the style of "Quake", "Alkaline" and "AD" mods, where the main thing is exploration and an exciting adventure! In this mod, the main qualities are only shooting, running and retreating from hordes of monsters! Many of the most beautiful maps have simply been ruined by an overabundance of monsters! This needs to change!

About monsters:
"Sploder" and "Swarmer" are analogues of the kamikaze and zombie runner from the "Alcaline" mod. Knights and soldiers are whipping boys, unless they are ambushed.
That's why many maps just have hordes of enemies that will bite you to death. This is the wrong approach.

About weapons (by model names):
«Wrench», «Pistol», «Tnailgun» are the best weapons in the game;
"Flakshotgun" - strong and slow, does not save against the crowd;
"Rebar" – there is not enough nailing monsters to the walls, as in "Painkiller" (never in my life have I seen the rebar break in half, it only bends – this is its main purpose);
"Grenlauncher" - shoots at the player's feet, it is not possible to throw a grenade on any ledge, unlike the original game;
"Mmml" – half of the missiles fly to nowhere and the weapons are practically not used. And if it is used, it is mainly on two types of monsters. RocketJump does not work with this weapon, including on the Rabbit map!
"Invoker" – while you aim it, enemies will kick your ass and run out of the line of fire

Retexturing maps:
The maps are well redone, but there is no such delight as from seeing it for the first time.
Some maps have become very brutal (meaty) and it is impossible to finish them even on normal difficulty without activating "god mode".

«New Faces» maps:
Many maps are worthy of respect, have beautiful architecture, but they are huge, empty, and boring. And this is sad.

Maps that only run on the «Ironwail» engine (I just like the «QSS» engine with extra particles):
Draqu, Hcm, Mrzuerg, Pulsar, Rabbit, Sh, Wons

Maps that have sound and music working normally only on the "Ironwail" engine (do not hiss or creak):
Nikster, Vanish

The most atmospheric maps by author (in my opinion):
Some maps didn't make it onto this list due to their brutality and overabundance of monsters, which ruins the overall atmosphere.
Annihilazor – Arnold loves you and sends greetings from Mars;
Clenow – is a wonderful prison city, but the LGBT theme spoils everything;
Draqu – an amazing adventure in the style of "Honey" and "AD";
H4724 - is a great atmosphere in the style of the movie "Equilibrium", but I don't understand how to get to the secret with "invoker" without using codes;
Haikids – excellent bunker with vegetation (it's a pity it's not finished, there is no lighting, I think it will be even better with it);
Hcm – is a huge map with multiple endings that you may not even know about (I just don't understand how you could make this map in such a short amount of time);
ID0 – the game "Half Life 2" and Pripyat are crying rain from this nostalgia, special thanks to the funny poster "Don't sleep on duty"
Milestone – Remarkable Flying Island Architecture;
Naitelveni – a great atmosphere in the style of the game «Doom2»;
Nikster – a great atmosphere in the style of the game "Doom3";
Pinchy – a cool reactor with a Geiger counter sound;
Radiatoryang – a unique map with a sunny island and an acidic sea;
Riktoi – The first half of the map is excellent, but once the extraction begins, there's a mess of monsters;
Scampie – «Wolfenstein»-style concrete labs;
Shades – a beautiful industrial map;
SZE – a beautiful city map in the style of "Painkiller" and "Half Life 2";
Tei – a small and very beautiful map of the container warehouse;
Zbidou72 – as if you find yourself at a submarine base in the game "Wolfenstein"

The strangest maps:
Avix2 – I've never seen a stranger map

Maps with LGBT theme in title and plot:
Avix, Clenow – to be honest, the maps are good, but what I read and saw in them is disgusting and crosses out all the efforts of the authors

P.S.: I am particularly indignant at the propaganda of non-traditional orientation (LGBT). I don't like it very much! I was raised on traditional values and in my country it is prohibited, which I welcome! This game is also played by teenagers, why should they see it?

I apologize for my English.

I have highly mixed feelings. First of all I want to appreciate the Team's efforts, because they're enormous. Absolutely incredible and unique work. New models, textures, and sounds for renewed monsters and weapons – some weapons and monsters are completely new – all that is beyond great. Huge THANKS for making all of this; it's impressive and inspiring.

On the other hand, most of the maps introduce horde gameplay. Absolutely dumb, braindead hordes. It's not game design, it's not an effort. It's pure garbage.

I'm not saying that hordes are a bad thing. They can be done in interesting and inventive ways. There are tons of good examples in Quake custom maps. But simply throwing 50+ mobs in your face, or 5+ shamblers, is objectively just garbage. It doesn't take brains to put up four walls, add a couple of columns, and throw a crowd of monsters at the player. That takes 15 seconds. If a mapper doesn't want to invest energy and time into making a good map, then why should a player invest theirs?

All right. Let's imagine you want hordes on Nightmare. But why aren't Easy and Normal configured as intended? The game has the technical ability to customize everything for different players. Lazy...

I blame the mappers, of course – not the Team. The Team made a great total conversion. Looking forward to playing the commercial version.

PS. I haven't played all the maps yet, but I can already highlight maps by FifthElephant, Nickster, Plaw, PuLSaR, and Scampie. These are normal, good, solid maps. And I am not counting "resurfaced" maps; these are all good too without any exeptions – proper maps. Start map is a piece of art obviously; pretty spooky and liminal... Anyway I continue playing, you never know where are the gems

Amazing. This legit cured my depression

It feels great being able to admire the custom stuff either going, 'hey, I recognize that!' or 'how the hell did they do that?' It's like a 'best of the Quake community in the 2020s' in one big brutal Libre package.

PS: What's the secret password? Don't worry, I won't tell anyone...

Amazing set of maps.
I like it so much.
The maps that I played before started playing with new colors.
Thank you, guys, for your time and excellent job.

Wow! What an incredible mod. It's very clear a lot of love and attention went into this. Great work.

I Loooove what I've played so far and there is clearly hours upon hours of game-play here, the new weapons and enemies make this so unique and also familiar that it might just be the greatest Quake project ever made.

I was wondering if it was possible to play the other Jams or any other Quake mod with this weapon set because it looks and fells so good I want it to stay lol

This is awesome as hell! Damn! Thank you guys for your hard work. I'm having some really good time now playing this piece of art.

and:

created for explicit use with the Ironwail source port

Click to expand...

thank God it works on Quakedpasm! Because I don't have a modern PC and all that.

This is absolutely fantastic. I'm having an absolute blast with the maps so far, but it also has to be said that the work on audio and weapons is great. Everything - from the wrench to the shotgun and the invoker - packs absolute punches. And the modelwork! The Shambler!(!)

So far for favourite map I've got a tie between McKinley's Copyright Infringement and Blood Train, but there's still so many to go.

Hats off to all involved - incredible work. Cheers!

(Finally - it was a fun little reward to figure out the art dump - nice touch)

Quake has hit its peak this year, and we have a massive amount of modders and mappers to thank for it! The team behind QBJ3 are some of the most talented people on earth, and I'm honored that I got to make a small piece of this mod.

And for those of you looking for the password to the art vault, here's a hint:
Explore the start map, take notes and screenshots if you find something interesting, and finally, pay very close attention to the overhauled menus.

Such an amazing project. Props to everyone who contributed. I'm really impressed with the community and level of quality you guys have cultivated here. (c:

I'm blown away, simply awesome job. Very inspiring.

A gigantic mod! Days and days of gameplay. A fantastically oppressive and dizzying atmosphere. It's time to get acquainted with some unfamiliar mechanics and discover who are the usual suspects beneath their masks. The many recognizable sounds that have been retained are somewhat reassuring in this confusing environment. even if it's when things get confusing that they get even better. Many thanks for this titanic effort. A huge gift for the Quake community!

(This password-protected zip file is really intriguing...)

Simply - WOW !
The quality of this mod had me glued to my seat for hours from the moment I fired it up.