The Brutalist Volumes

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The Brutalist Volumes

Enter a Quake world of pure concrete, minimalist structures, and eldritch horror.

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What started as just a map for QBJ2 got out of hand and became a standalone episode. Enjoy!
This release uses Copper 1.30 (included), and includes custom music.
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spootnik
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906
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3,306
Release date
Nov 4, 2023
First uploaded
Last update
Rating
4.65 star(s) 17 ratings
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Latest updates

  1. 1.01 - Small fixes

    - fixed a misaligned texture - added a center-print to explain Chthon fight - added auto-saves...
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Latest reviews

L
These are wonderful looking and good playable maps. And I was happy I found the two gilberts. And most of the other secrets.

But may it be that it's a little bit too hard even on skill 0? I couldn't stand the boss fight in map 4, and is the final map something like the final map in quake? ( I know how to play it, but it never worked for me ... )

The bonus map looks great, as the others. But it's not fun, I dyed about every 10 seconds.

It's mostly a matter of lack of ammo and health, of cause.

Also the end of map 2 is hard.

Anyway, good jobs. Compliments. And thanks.
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J
This has been a treat! Usually, I don't like maps with too many platforms (precise jumping) or narrow paths surrounded by a sea of lava/slime or void, but I simply could not stop playing.
changed skill 2 -> 1
It's challenging, but also very rewarding. I liked these quad runs with many Shamblers and Vores.

Chthon fight: at my first playthrough I thought the black floor was really a void, this was kind of a break in style compared to the other maps.

And somehow I overlooked/missed the shootable chains ( played the original 1.0 release without the center-print message), until I fought of all the enemies ;)

Well done!!

this is a re-edit of my previous review from 12.Nov. Rating remains the same
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techtrogs
Normal/Ironwail. It was okay, with a cool aesthetic and some nice touches, with the caveat that the style of map isn't really for me.

The "air current glitter" things and the unique buttons were cool. I really really liked the second map. The aesthetics for all the maps was great, especially the final room. I appreciate being able to fairly easily sequence break if I want to.

The main problem for me is I don't really vibe with super platformy style maps which most of these are. If you like that I think you'll enjoy this a lot more than I did.

Some of the big set piece fights were fun, albeit they might have gone on a hair long (ex the Shambler flood in the second to last map might have benefitted from a Quad respawn). My complaint about the first map in QBJ2 held here, there's a hair too much "spawn something behind the player immediately after engaging them in a fight" for my taste.

I didn't enjoy the final fight at all, the idea and aesthetic is really cool and it's an excellently built arena but there's just way too much shit in too small an arena. After the third or fourth death I realized I was just playing rng dice roll with Cthon rocks and Vore balls. I was completely done when I picked up the quad and instantly got flooded with Shamblers and Vores. I would cut the chain hitpoints, cut the vore entirely, and severely cut how much crap floods in at the end.
spootnik
spootnik
Thanks for your feedback. I might work on balancing the map for easy and normal a bit more and post an update. It's a good suggestion to remove the vores completely for the Chthon fight on Easy and Normal - thanks.
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ironicmoustache
Nightmare was a bit above my pay grade here (I probably should familiarise myself with Copper 1.30's Nightmare changes on less... perilous maps), but I had a good time on skill 2.

I'm not necessarily the hugest fan of platforming-heavy void/lava/slime/etc levels, but the clever level progression, compelling atmosphere, and broadly excellent encounter design kept me hooked throughout. Not enough to make me totally overlook my general aversion, but enough to appreciate what spootnik was going for here.

I especially enjoyed the final map and the secret level, with map 4 probably my favourite after those two. All are quite good, though.
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zenialynn
Insanely satisfying quad runs across a decently sized episode. Minor gripe would be that on the new Copper 1.30's Nightmare some of the encounters had the player be in places where they would need to hop to safety after an ambush and risk falling off into a void/lava/acid or do a careful back and forth dance if possible. That being said, repositioning while panicking can feel reinvigorating, as long as it's not too easy to trip over. I really loved the level progression and atmosphere, it felt satisfying and the visuals aided with top notch signposting.
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Mazu
Insanely cool encounter setups throughout the whole episode. Highly recommend on gameplay alone. Very simplistic brutalist art style works really well here and doesn't need to be super detailed to be striking. Very minimalistic lighting gives this a really cool atmosphere.

There are few things that can break flow, but those issues are minor.

Copper nightmare difficulty changes work with these maps really well. Challenge is very welcome to me at least.
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A
I'm torn on this: there's a lot of good things in the level design -and as h4724 says, the bonus map and end map are well conceptualised (although I also thought the design of map 4 was good as well, on that level). I really liked the ideas in most of the maps...

On the other hand, this remains super hard on skill 0, to the extent that I had to save almost every 30 seconds on some maps to make progress, and I eventually godmoded the final bits of the end map after about 15 attempts (just on the final section - the final rune, teleporter sequence and cleaning up).

This also kinda stopped me from looking for secrets as much - there's quite a bit of jumping in some maps, and I was exhausted enough from not falling off (okay, I did fall off quite a lot) that I didn't have the energy in me to go looking for red boxes to shoot, after map 1. I think I found one secret on map 3 (the fake lavafall that's shootable) but otherwise mostly tapped out.
(As such, I did the bonus map via changelevel...)


Anyway, with some tweaks for skill 0, I think this would get up to Excellent for me...
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alexUnder Ros
Really cool experience in my opinion. Gameplay is somewhat classic in the best sense of word. Nice ambushes and smart layout setups, but without those too elaborate modern encounters. Personally I prefer simpler non-conceptual encounters, just interesting multilevel layouts with interesting mobs placements. Visuals are modern (thanks to Makkon textures sets) but blocky enough to feel right in Quake. Really recommended to everyone. Oh and it's not hardcore or something, no hordes. Proper nice difficulties similar to DOMA.
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h4724
All the levels in this are good, with lots of fun challenges and surprises. Combat can be a little heavy on enemies around corners, which becomes predictable quickly (and encourages overly cautious play, especially on nightmare). I found every secret without much searching - I don't think I had to go back for any at all - and while I didn't find any of them annoying or distasteful, some felt a little repetitive and the episode was especially heavy on shootable buttons for secrets. I thought the maps were balanced well for continuous play, and I also got a hint of some choices that would make it interesting to replay with shotgun starts.

The visuals are intentionally minimalistic, and they manage to get a lot of atmosphere out of the flat textures and blocky geometry. I wouldn't call it a unique aesthetic, but it's definitely explored well, with a good amount of variation between maps.

The real stars of the show here are the secret map and the end map: each has a clear concept that it executes well and felt much more like it was doing something new rather than simply creating a new variation on Quake-dungeon Spootnik-style (as fun as that may be). Though the end map took me many restarts, it never felt like I was being treated unfairly by the level design; I simply got what I deserved for playing on nightmare.

Maps 1 to 4 are 3.5/5 or 4/5, maps S and end are 5/5. As always, cohesive episodes make for a better experience overall so it's an easy 5/5. Who cares about ratings? Go play!
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