Fantastic stuff.
Trapped Under Ice — gorgeous environment with some brilliant set pieces. Difficulty was pretty intense on normal skill! I adored the vast ice cavern but thought the ice pillars cut off into bottomless pit was a bit abrupt. +1e6 points for Scrag cloud quad rocket
Blue Velvet Underground — delightfully odd. The opening shoot switch puzzle was good fun & I loved the green-lit industrial crawl-space, reminded me of Event Horizon
Draconian Flesh Isles — nice to get the Gigery Makkon textures out. A lot fot hings felt just a bit off here: the white fog cut out against washed out red background just jarred, it was impossible to parse the skybox contents. A lot of architecture had suggestive lips and drop-down areas that occasionally produced goodies but more often dead-ended. The lip around the central area felt annoyingly precarious, the stairs down from the rightmost area made it difficult to jump back onto the platforms. The single teleport destination at the beginning compounded the frustrating walks. The downward slope after the yellow armour bridge occasionally blocks movement. Top marks for Xen revival though
Heretics Blood in the test chamber — great fun, I loved the eccentric texture usage. Kept me surprised throughout. Finished with 77/113 kills on medium though, maybe I missed something
A Walk In The Park — beautiful, I loved the little details of the city. The houses doors and the raised beams are particularly cute. The infinitesimally swaying platform screwed with enemy animation a fair bit — I often wonder if situations like that could be hacked so that the surrounding environment moves instead, negating the odd jolty movement effect.
Swim With The Fishes — brilliant, very scary, beautifully simple puzzler.
Yvorax — awesome, best castle in ages! I loved the little mausoleums at the top. Such a joy exploring the place. Missing one secret, can't figure out what the push button in the tower at the very end does.
Lobotomy Lobster — great journeying between 3 distinct themes, some lovely brushwork here and there. I adored the crazy pipes at the beginning, also the way you handled those slopes around the valley was extremely well done for sense of scale IMO — people often struggle with big open areas like that and end up with arbitrarily clunky geometric cut-offs, but this was a really artful approach. Also loved the sense of scale plumbing the depths of the crypt. Extra points for the nail traps, whose triggers I only noticed on the way back — ingenious. Did have a problem soft locking myself into the pits those Fiends emerged from
The Acid Vats — great nauseating bleak industrial vibe. Reminds me of an ancient Quoth-based episode that originally shipped with its own exe to remove limits
You Gotta Get The Rune — MY GOD these are the best atmospherics in YEARS! I can't remember seeing such fantastic lighting and the palette composition was just stellar. Screenshotting distracted me during combat. Also those particles emerging through the gaps in the central atrium … don't think I've seen that effect before, looks great.
Crushing Depths — so much to love about this. You really pulled off the looming cyclopean city. The hot start with almost certain infighting is a really nice touch — lots of opportunities for infighting and generally really fresh combat encounters throughout. There were some annoying water geometry artefacts: being able to see weird light coloured top planes from the rooftops was a shame because the vistas are otherwise extremely compelling. I think I would have done the waterfall walls as planes rather than volumes and ensured the top edges faded to pitch black. Everything under the major water surface looked a bit of a mess too but this is all made up for by the excellent dopefish.
Nergal Awakened — very punishing on medium difficulty! Loved the starting area and the house most. The pivot to Koohoo theme was unexpected!
Copper Factory — man I love a Mazu Q2-in-Q1 romp. So soothing… until it turns utterly frenetic!
Hellish Entertainment — short & sweet. Took me a long time to get through the first portal
. The two knights either side of the first portal in the terminus room are immobilised somehow.
A Convocation Of Scions — loved the cavernous alien brutalism and rewarding secrets. Echoes of Lorns Lure. Unimpeachable platforming as always. Final showdown was fantastic. The teleporting in and out, the rumbling… Nice echoes of JCRs The Waters Below.
Rorybabory — great urban brushwork. Light fittings very cool, loved the train action.
Lovely start map Markie. Didn't expect to get lasered and tarred!
