A brilliant Halloween map which manages to bring together unique mechanical innovations, a bit of 21st century pumpkin-cute aesthetic, and some seriously morbidly gripping maps together.
The decision to have most but not all of the maps manifest as an episodic sequence was confusing: Grues map was uniquely challenging, and it felt weird progressing on to much easier maps and disconcerting to realise they clearly weren't designed with weapon carry-over in mind — especially given the potential significance of the Penetrator. If I were challenged to arrange this collection in linear sequence I would have started with Mazus map, which provides an excellent introduction to the Penetrator mechanics, and concluded with Comfys epic set-piece confrontation (and also reset player inventory on start of each anyway). It is incredibly gratifying to be treated to a map pack featuring both of the latter, and Comfy deserves special reverence for finessing her very own distinctive style and synthesising as close as we have to Doom community style Slaughter in Quake (the soundtrack cracked a sickly grin across my face).
Grue also evoked Doom community conventions with that borderline impossible tight corridor combat relying on hugging the geometry — great to have these 3 maps for their particularly hard-nosed understanding of Quake mechanistic physics alongside the introduction of the new weapon!
The Penetrator is a delight. Judicious choice to roll it out alongside the Rotary Shotgun, both of them having blunt but subtle feel, requiring patience & dexterity and similar ammo economy implications: the one rubs off on the other. The semantic overlap with the Nailgun is obvious, and the ammo sharing is very interesting mechanically, but extremely confusing in terms of in-world rationalisation lol. I got some nice Painkiller nostalgia, even considered tweaking the field of view
Finally, it was a joy seeing the Gaunt revived. I miss all of Quoths bestiary but these guys are just extra special and it was wonderful to see them stretch their wings according to the various mappers distinct interpretations.
Some of these maps stood out for unique artistic merit:
# Spootnik
Phenomenal use of lighting to bring localised character to these ruins. I associate the Egyptian texture / brushwork theme with uniform diffuse half-light, and having the contrast between the fantastically executed pallid lightning-from-dizzying-heights (so appropriate to the Gaunts!) with the variously suffocating dusty hollows and lava-lit pits was wonderfully immersive.
# Comfy
Your dark fireblu palette with its foreshadowing of Quad * Pentagram is excellent as ever but the way this moved from grimly familiar Elder World trappings to the breathtaking vista beyond the gates of hunger was sublime. The Paul D soundtrack & Coppers new combined powerups feedback are the icing on the cake.
# Stickflip
I adored falling back into the realms of Quoth. Something feels very uncanny about seeing the Knave textures outwith the sickly colourless half-light of yesteryear — part of me wants to get cantankerously purist and insist a proper Knave revival should eschew coloured lighting altogether — but this
works. Combining the wonderful old murky clouds over star-flecked sky with the vanishing horizon of the blood sea is absolute genius. The necessity for parallax skys to mirror on the horizon has forever been a dated and tacky-looking restriction… but the way you've made that work here is phenomenal. I'm inspired to steal it! And finally, Kells hideous vast portal… in that pitch void, with the door behind stretching up into nothingness… Sublime, utterly sublime.
