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Coffee Quake 2: Double Shot - Coffee Quake 2 is back!
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Coffee Quake 2: Double Shot - Coffee Quake 2 is back!
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- Thread starter spootnik
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Just played through episode 4 on nightmare, and what a fun experience it was! It felt like Quake distilled to its core essentials, with the primary focus being on gameplay. That being said, I'm astonished how amazing some of the maps looked!
I think you guys also did a great job with ordering the maps. Sure, there were times of overabundance and times, when I could easily cheese enemies from afar or in some other way due to having a powerful weapon from a previous map. But I still felt like I couldn't be too wasteful with my ammo either.
And sure, there were also times I could tell that the mapper had run out of time to fine tune encounters or various other aspects of their map, but it didn't detract much from the overall experience. My biggest gripe would probably have to be that some encounters involving Vores are a bit broken on nightmare difficulty, but that's more of a problem with the vanilla game mechanics than the maps.
Other various notes (with my favourites highlighted in gold):
I think you guys also did a great job with ordering the maps. Sure, there were times of overabundance and times, when I could easily cheese enemies from afar or in some other way due to having a powerful weapon from a previous map. But I still felt like I couldn't be too wasteful with my ammo either.
And sure, there were also times I could tell that the mapper had run out of time to fine tune encounters or various other aspects of their map, but it didn't detract much from the overall experience. My biggest gripe would probably have to be that some encounters involving Vores are a bit broken on nightmare difficulty, but that's more of a problem with the vanilla game mechanics than the maps.
Other various notes (with my favourites highlighted in gold):
- e4m2_ionous Reverse Osmosis: I got stuck after pressing the button that opens the 'sluice' gates. To reproduce the bug, walk actively towards the button while it's still being pressed.
- e4m4_spoot This ain't a V60: Loved the presentation in this one!
- e4m8_khre The Pink Maze: I quite liked the purple haze and sky!
- e4m11_newhouse3 In the Dark of the Night: The combat was nice and I really liked the looks of the the map. It reminded me of E3M1 from Blood.
- e4m13_spoot2 Decaff Debugging: Nice layout, nice looks, nice combat, well-rounded and balanced map.
- e4m16_rickyt23 Unholy Hovel: Another pretty well-rounded map. Maybe not quite on the level of e4m13, but I still liked it quite a bit.
- e4m17_greenwood Cobalt Compound: I think the combat encounters felt really satisfying in this one, one of my favourites because of that.
- E4M18_zetabyt Teal Torment II: I liked the fight where you climb up the tower.
- E4M19_grue The Eerie Atelier: I love E4M2, so I really loved the presentation! Nice use of colored lighting, too. I also liked the floating water separating the different floors.
- E4M20_sze Fiendish Souls: Great map, one of my favourites! The last fight was kinda possible to cheese, though, because the monsters weren't trigger aggroed.
- E4M23_dukeborg The Mad God's Sanctum: I liked the dark atmosphere of the map, another well-rounded map.
- E4M26_wiedo Realm of the Lost Anticarnist: I really loved the atmosphere, nice fog effect! I also liked the teleport trick to disorient the player.
- E4M27_comfybythefire2 Lemon Stealing Vores: Very striking presentation, didn't expect to come across fog that blue! I also liked the unique way you used Vores here. I felt they didn't work that well on Nightmare, though, but I don't blame the map for that.
- E4M28_yoder What Would Sandy Do? Loved it, definitely one of my favourites, if not my favourite outright! I liked how you could choose your playstyle at the beginning. Personally, I went in stealthy and wasn't disappointed.
- E4M29_newhouse2 Halls of Nirvana: Really nice presentation and a super cool novel idea! One of my favourites!
- E4M30_colossus_newhouse Bridge of Doom: Another one of those maps that are really tough with nightmare Vores. I cheesed the map by escaping constantly to the starting room.
- E4M33_comfybythefire The Tangent Universe: I really loved the coloring and the trippy locations of this map, and based on the aesthetics alone I place this as one of my favourites. The combat's also nice as long as you manage to pick the quad damage in the final encounter.
- E4M34_hcm AQ2 Is Flecking Good: Tough but satisfying gameplay. I also loved the secrets. Had one of my favourite clutch Quad runs in this map!
- E4M35_zigi2 Curse of Dagon: Another contender for my overall favourite map of the episode, alongside E4M28. Really clever layout, looks really nice, plays nice and the combat's fun. What's not to love!?
- E4M37_hcm2 Sandy's Fleet of Destruction: What is this map!? It's so silly and somehow endearing, I kinda love it!
spootnik updated Coffee Quake 2: Double Shot with a new update entry:
e4m29 map exit update
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e4m29 map exit update
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Yesterday, in my series of running the pack backwards, I played through episode 3. Not sure if it's just my preference for the Elder world theme, or whether it was my initial excitement having already died out, but I felt like the episode didn't reach quite the same highs as the excellent episode 4. Don't get me wrong, it was still a fun episode in its own right.
Anyway, below are listed my various notes (in addition to the gold font to denote my favourites, I have included texts in red font to denote bugs):
Anyway, below are listed my various notes (in addition to the gold font to denote my favourites, I have included texts in red font to denote bugs):
- E3M1_juzley2 Ranger Danger: Since I haven't been on the mapping Discord, I have no idea how the base maps were assigned to people and whether they were under the same 2 hour time limit as the other maps, but this pretty much looked like a full-fledged map to me! Masterful recycling of the central area, great combat encounters. I have a hard time believing this was done in under two hours. Or maybe it was exactly the fact that Juzley kept reusing the same space for the different scenes that Juzley was able to make the map look so great. Easily one of my favourites of the episode!
- E3M5_grue Lambs to the Slaughter: One of the best looking maps of the episode, and plays nicely, too. I love the red color the blood gave to the map.
- E3M7_zetabyt2 Bungle Jungle: Loved the opening mechanism effect for the level exit, even though - if I recal correctly - it's already been used in a previous map. Nevertheless, it still looked cool!
- E3M8_juzley Koohootenanny: Apparently, I have a thing for Juzley's maps, because I thoroughly enjoyed this one, too! It shares some "DNA" with E3M1 in the fact that the gameplay revolves around reusing a central space. Some tight and satisfying action on offer here! One of my favourites.
- E3M10_bmfbr Wading in Dark Waters: A solid well-rounded map. I liked the platforming section, which provided an intense backdrop for fighting while trying to balance on the pillars.
- E3M11_riktoi2 Temple for Sale, Cheap: A fun little map. The mouth shaped doors reminded me of Blood again.
This time I was reminded of the secret level of episode 1. During my first run, I actually softlocked myself, when I ran to safety after seeing the first tarbaby, and then the func_train got in front of me and stopped in front of the exit, so I was unable to get past it. - E3M12_pinchy Swamped with Clag: A nice little map, but another one of those that don't work that well with vanilla nightmare Vores. (Man, Copper sure improved the Vores a lot, didn't it!) There's a bug in skill 1, where there final fiend doesn't have its spawnflag for normal skill disabled, so there's a fiend and a vore occupying the same space.
- E3M16_niccolicious Down the River: For some reason this map stood out to me. I guess the map evoked some feelings of going on an adventure, maybe due to its more linear map design, as opposed to many of the previous maps that tended to focus more on one central area with some intense arena fights. I guess it provided a nice breather, a more chilled exploratory map.
- E3M17_hcm Lovecraftian Flush: I liked the idea of the pillars moving the player and enemies around to provide some chaos and unpredictability to fights. Also the part where you had to time yourself against the moving pillars and could hide in the trenches was cool!
- E3M18_ish3: I liked the presentation and atmosphere of this map. Weird, how much using a bit of fence textures can do to improve the visuals of a map. Cool use of the pentagram, too! I did frustratingly get stuck in the map for quite a while, though, because the corner where I had to drop myself into was so dark and hidden.
- E3M19_comfybythefire Sleep Paralysis: Albeit using Koohoo textures, this cool map felt thematically more like an elder world map! It was so otherworldly and trippy. I like how you help set the mood with very strong fog effects with saturated colors, starts to feel like a trademark of yours. Gameplay-wise the map doesn't really give you a second chance: miss one jump, and you're "fed to the lions", so to speak. One of the secrets also required a very particular kind of trick jump that took me dozens of quickloads to figure out. But yeah, the unique presentation alone made it one of my favourites.
- E3M20_fw I Did It All for the Koohookie: An all-around nice balanced map. I liked the atmospheric gentle blue night tint of the map. My favourite part was the fight in the slime pit. One of my favourites.
- E3M21_spoot It Stinks and Rhymes with Koohoo: The neon colored fog and light effects give the map a feel of some sort of an ancient lab infused with modern tech, or something. It's pretty cool! For some reason, it reminds me of the Terraniux map from Unreal. Maybe it's the satured colors... The map is rather difficult to survive if you don't have the Quad damage equipped by the time you open the central room. On my first run, I desperately tried to circle around the monsters to reach the quad damage, but to no avail.
- E3M23_chocohearts The Way of the Serpent: I was able to find all the secrets, but I don't know what triggering one of them caused in the map, if anything at all. It was confusing, but otherwise, a pretty sweet little map.
- E3M27_cocerello Green Foetid Wind: I have no idea how you implemented the upside down mechanic, but that was pretty cool. It's the first time I remember seeing it. I also liked how you used darkness in the map and how it introduced its own challenge to fighting distant turret monsters.
- E3M28_greenwood Subterranean Slimehold: An all-around good map with tight satisfying combat from beginning to end. I loved the cute little boat the player starts the map in.
One of my favourites. - E3M29_ish: Another map where you can softlock yourself. I understand the point was to test the player's speed, but I wish a solution was found that didn't end in the player getting stuck.
- E3M30_riktoi With Iron and Steel: Maybe it was because of me playing in a sunlit room yesterday, but it took me very long to come across the way how to get out of the central building. Maybe because I kept looking for the answer in the blue little lights of the ceiling beams instead of the little dim red wall buttons instead.
- E3M31_fw2 Bono: A highly satisfying finale to the episode. I really liked the circular winding layout of the map and the tight encounters. It kinda reminded me of Fairweather's previous E3M20 both visually and in the gameplay department, but this was better all-around, in my opinion. I just wish it was possible to escape from the slime moats at the beginning. I accidentally mistook the moats for grass at first.
But besides that nitpick, this was probably my favourite map of the episode. Maybe not quite as high as the best from episode 4, but not far apart from them either. Great job! - E3M32_colossus Tower of the Gods: Despite its simple design and looks, there was just something really pleasing about this map. Maybe the fact that I got to pretty much see the entire level at the beginning, gave me a sense of control and the ability to tackle the level as I best saw fit, with few unknowns in the way. Also, the setting itself felt pretty relaxing: A fairly symmetrical tower surrounded by a calmly swirling dome of stars, in silence, no distracting background music this time. And it is due to these points, that I just might have to include this among my favourites of the episode.
Played through episode 2, which felt like the most difficult one yet, up to this point of my playthrough, at least based on the amount of frustration I had while playing. Or maybe it just wasn't my day. Regardless of the difficulty, the episode felt quite consistently good throughout; there were few maps that felt like a league above the rest, which is reflected in the amount of "nice map" comments below and the low amount of gold colored entries. This time, I wrote something for all of the maps:
- E2M1_fw_yoder Dude You Really Need to... Aesthetically really pleasing and relaxing; maybe it was the large very open view to the blue skies above, and the barely ankle deep water that could cool your feet during a hot summer's day. If the green armor at the beginning is one of the listed secrets, it didn't fire for me for some reason.
- E2M2_4lt2 Are You Tired of the Bee Trope Yet? I quite liked how the map looked, but it took me an embarrassing amount of practice deaths to get the Shambler juggling down using the pillars. I guess it was more a skill issue of mine. Quite a cool map!
- E2M3_erysdren Satan's Dark Roast: This almost felt like a vertical slice straight out of vanilla episode 3. It was short, but the little that was there felt sweet and quite polished!
- E2M4_zetabyt2 Teal Torment: An all-around nice map, with excellent presentation! I especially loved the pyramid shaped blue lamps: Their shape and the hue of blue they emitted was just... chef's kiss! The lamps kinda reminded me of the mana stones from the Westwood game Nox.
- E2M5_wiedo Protein Deficiency Death Spiral: I liked the atmospheric fog and light effects. The fight at the central arena was also fun.
- E2M6_4LT Riveting: Quite... riveting! Nice use of ogres!
- E2M7_yoder Under the Incandescent Bulb: I just loved the dark moody catacomby looks of this map, and the fights were really enjoyable, too! One of my favourites!
- E2M8_sze I Adore You: A good map all-around! I wasn't a huge fan of the final fight, though, with the very limited amount of cover available.
- E2M9_Juzley Time Flies When You're Having Fungicide: Fun map! The first vore fight was pretty annoying on nightmare, though. I kinda wish the Copper mod had been used for the whole project.
- E2M10_colossus Loca Moca: An enjoyable little map. A couple of fights that felt just the right amount of challenging.
- E2M11_pinchy Runic Run: Quite tricky, but as long as you have a cool head and enough health, it's very doable. The map seemed to trickle just enough resources to keep me alive through my first run.
- E2M12_comfybythefire Ferric Injection: Very nice looking map! The fiend/ogre fight felt quite cramped. I did survive on my second try, though, by picking a corner behind one of the pillars, DPSing the fiends with the SNG while tanking them at the same time. I liked the moving crushers in the final room, but unfortunately the room was pretty easy to cheese by sniping the enemies from afar. I wonder if the map would've worked better with a shotgun start.
- E2M13_grue2 The Bends: A nice little map, especially looks-wise; really atmospheric! The first room is kinda easy to cheese with the helpless Fiends below. Also, I wonder if you ran out of time to implement lighting to the last couple of "bends". They were in complete darkness, even if there was an open sky above.
- E2M14_alexunder Rusty Maiden: A really cool puzzley map, with a well executed idea! Short but sweet! When I exited the secret room, I had no idea I would step outside into the void, so I ended up killing myself. A little guard rail there would've been nice to have.
- E2M15_greenwood Lair of Yog-Sapha: Good map; nice presentation and gameplay! I liked the consistent way how the secrets were telegraphed. The one gargoyle with its tongue out reminded me of the gargoyles from Keen Dreams.
- E2M16_newhouse Entryway: I loved the dimly lit atmosphere, great presentation, especially with the vines combined with the yellow lights! I also liked the Shambler fight; I actually had the zombies kick its butt. The poor guy was just too confused and couldn't concentrate on a single zombie for long enough at a time.
- E2M17_riktoi Runic Reanimation: My favourite part was the circular room with the crushers and the storm drain. The poor monsters were more prone to falling to the wayside than me, though. The final Shambler was kinda easy to cheese on nightmare, since the Shambler held mostly still, while I kept leaning safely against the wall closest to the other monsters.
- E2M18_newhouse_colossus The Metal Pyramid: The first room, with its vores, was rather frustrating on nightmare. I kinda liked the chaotic second room. I didn't fight the monsters, though, but instead concentrated on pressing the buttons. I did die a few times, I think, before being able to survive.
- E2M19_spoot McDonald's Lawsuit: A fun little map, especially the second floor. Unfortunately, many of the enemies can be cheesed either from afar or, in the case of the second floor, from just outside the entrance.
- E2M20_grue Dance with the Devil: A map that looks better the further you advance. I love the atmospheric final corridor with the lava gently illuminating it from below, it looks great! The corridor sure could've used some clip brushes, though, to help the poor monsters navigate it more easily.
- E2M21_cocerello Mirror, Mirror: Since I played episode 3 first, the novelty of the upside-down monsters wasn't quite there anymore, but still, a really cool idea! And the map looked cool, as well.
- E2M22_mrtaufner Loop y Medio 2: After having played through claustrophobic maps with tough and tight combat, it was quite refreshing to have some room to breathe and maneuver. So much so, in fact, that the map felt a bit too easy! Still, a nice little romp to snack through before the next map.
- E2M23_yoder3 Hot Pan, Cold Oil: Yoder's excellent presentation continues with this one. I just love the red room and how the structure disappears into the red fog above! Simply awesome! The gameplay's not bad, either!
- E2M24_spoot2 Something Coffee: Even if the map is quite forgiving and generous with supplies, I got pretty close to dying. The false sense of security made me play really sloppily. All in all, a fun little arena fight.
- E2M25_fw Creamy Soybean Salt Free Human Flesh Alternative: A great looking and playing map! I loved the red fog, and the silver key room, albeit brutal, presented quite an exhilirating fight. But, had I died, I might not be feeling so positively about the map, but since I survived, it left a good mark in me. One of my favourites!
- E2M26_zetabyt Echoes: While the first two arenas left a bit something to be desired, the final fight sure didn't: The slaughter was quite a cathartic experience, and it seemed to work pretty well on nightmare, too!
- E2M27_grashuriza Iron Sorrow: While somewhat messy in terms of brushwork and textures, the map provided some fun moments of gibbing zombies and dogs.
- E2M28_ionous Aphelion Dawn: I liked the introduction to the map, riding on the floating platform. The map had a nice flow to it and the combat was fun. I also liked the structure itself with its really high ceilings, which made it appear quite striking, imposing and marvelous to look at. The secrets were also pretty nicely executed (even if I found them only after all the monsters were already dead). One of my favourites.
- E2M29_hcm Metal Menace: A solid map with a cool central bridge mechanic and nice secrets.
- E2M30_esrael Blowpipes: I think the amount of rockets the map gives you should be at least halved. I think the ammo balance for the rest of the episode suffers considerably because of the overabundance of rockets in this map.
- E2M31_dukeborg Devil's Rift: A really competent and fun map, with an inventive use of textures I haven't seen before: I really liked how Dukeborg used the copper floor texture for walls.
- E2M32_fw2 Cannabinoid-induced Hyperemesis: In terms of brushwork and texturing, the map looks quite detailed and polished. It's hard to believe that some of these maps were done in under two hours! I think the first half of this map suffers quite a bit due to the rocket overabundance from E2M30. Monsters can be cut down to size pretty easily with the rocket launcher. The second half with the elevator ride felt quite brutal during my first attempt. I guess I should have been moving around instead of hugging one of the pillar walls. It's just that the nightmare skill level makes me want to hide behind stuff more, in case a vore shows up and spews spheres that are nigh-impossible for me to evade.
Continued from previous post:
- E2M33_yoder2 I Don't Think That's Water: Another absolute banger from Yoder, with a visual style very similar to his other maps from the episode, but this time with yellow fog. The combat was just so satisfying, with enough cover from the Shamblers and Vores, but still enough pressure coming from them to instill a sense of urgency in me, encouraging me to let 'er rip with the Thunderbolt. And man, did it feel good! Probably my favourite map of the episode!
- E2M34_comfybythefire2 The Negative Engine: A competent final map, but unfortunately, another one that suffers quite greatly from E2M30's surplus rockets. I could snipe a whole bunch of enemies right from the get-go with no fear of resistance. In addition, the Fiend/Vore arena and the arena with the Shamblers were quite buggy for me: For the Fiend/Vore fight, during my first attempt, there was quite a bit of telefragging among the monsters, and the same happened with the shambler fight. Also, while not being a bug per se, I realized I could beat the map without ever picking up the rune! Maybe including a gate preventing the player from exiting the level before picking it up would be prudent.
- E2M35_ish: I gotta be honest: I wasn't enjoying this map very much. There were too many mean traps hell-bent on trolling me, such as super deadly spike traps and a dark spot on the floor that hides a fall next to lava. I did like exploring under the lava with the pentagram, but that's pretty much it.
@zaratzara Thanks for your thorough review! It was fun to read, and getting feedback (especially positive) for my maps feels rewarding and provides fuel for further mapping! Concerning your feedback for E3M22: I was aware of the sniping tactic, and I wanted to seal the player in the arena, but unfortunately, I ran out of time to implement it. If you were to shotgun start the map, the sniping tactic wouldn't be quite as viable anymore, but when played as part of the episode, yeah, the map is kind of broken. 
I'm glad you enjoyed E4M6! I think it's the best of my three submissions. I'm particularly happy with the fiends in the long corridor, since they can be quite unpredictable when they decide to appear in front of you. I did want to include some gates in the map to seal the player for the shambler and vore fights, and I also wanted to implement a checkpoint system, where you didn't always have to teleport all the way to the beginning if you were to fall into the void during the second half of the map. But alas, time constraints, time constraints...
I'm glad you enjoyed E4M6! I think it's the best of my three submissions. I'm particularly happy with the fiends in the long corridor, since they can be quite unpredictable when they decide to appear in front of you. I did want to include some gates in the map to seal the player for the shambler and vore fights, and I also wanted to implement a checkpoint system, where you didn't always have to teleport all the way to the beginning if you were to fall into the void during the second half of the map. But alas, time constraints, time constraints...
And last, and dare I actually say, the least: episode 1. This episode had the feel of being the practice run for the later episodes. That's not to say there weren't some great moments to be had. Alright, onto the individual map notes:
- Newhouse - Tormented Base: I really liked the copious use of exploboxes; making things go boom be fun like that.
- Alexunder - Brutal Gods of Nile: A rare occasion where rotfish actually presented an actual threat. Cool!
- Chocohears: I like how upon entering the courtyard the imposing structure before me formed a shape resembling that of a pyramid.
- Mike_C - Tomb Robbers: Speaking of pyramids, I really liked the outside part of the map!
- Arsenalchan: Cool looking map! I liked the blue walls of the final room, in particular. Too bad, the enemies were mostly rather easy to cheese from afar.
- Dukeborg - Medjed's Mausoleum: Speaking of blue, I liked the blue accents in the architecture of this nice looking map. It also played quite nicely.
- Spoot - Qahwah with a Silent Q: I quite liked the large scale of the room. Some nice tight combat on offer here.
- Erysdren - Dark Roast: Looks pretty good and plays well. Short but sweet!
- Yoder - Skill Issue: Some sweet tight fights in a pretty map. I especially felt the heat in a good way during the second arena,
- Pinchy - Stopgypt: The silver key trap was cool.
- Ionous - Haraad El Chamon: A solid little map. I liked the yellow decorative lamps and the overall atmosphere of the dim space.
- Mr. Taufner - Loop y Medio: The map looks nice, and plays pretty well too. I actually quite liked the fairly precise jumps the map required you to make.
- Zetabyt - Courtyards of Osiris: Quite a nice breather to relax in spacious outdoors maps with ample space to breeze through and instigate infights. I appreciate the variety!
- Niccolicious - Perilous Pickings: The underground fight is quite brutal, but still fairly enjoyable. I kept escaping to the smaller room with the death knights, and tried to blow them up without blowing myself up. Only then would I engage the larger room. Maybe a bit more space to maneuver in the smaller room would've been nice. I liked the blue lighting of the arena.
- Fairweather - Dimensional Fentanyl: I really liked the large imposing lava-lit rooms. The encounters didn't quite feel like the most tightly crafted experiences out there, but nice enough.
- Yoder - Vertical Integration: The map looks great! I liked the color the sky cast on the surfaces. The central elevator mechanic was pretty cool, and I liked how the map kept opening itself to reveal more enemies.
- Spoot - Quofvefe: I liked how the arenas provided some chaotic fights but at the same time the opportunity to attempt to bail out by jumping down.
- 4LT - Brought to You by the Letter L: Some satisfying gibbitude on offer here. Space is rather tight, but just spacious enough to provide room to maneuver. I quite like the looks of outdoor Egypt maps with the blue sky.
- Ish: I liked how there were optional rooms, which are surprisingly rare in Quake. The Shambler fight below was quite intense but nothing a Quad damage couldn't handle.
- Greenwood - Four Corners of the Pharaoh: Pleasing layout, good variety of encounters and locations. Even the Chthon fight wasn't half bad. The guy was just the right distance away from the player to be dangerous but provide enough time to react to the lava balls. I was surprised to come across the rune this early; I was already thinking like didn't the episode have more maps than this!
- Spoot - Beans in a Pod: A simple but quite a satisfying little map! I liked lobbing grenades over the crates onto the masses, and if anybody got past the barrage, I peppered them with a healthy dose of nails or electricity.
- Yoder - A Swim in the Mummy Juice: Really nice fights! The first fight reminded me quite a bit of Yoder's E2M7. My favourite was the second fight, though. I liked the time limit imposed by the biosuit. Probably my favourite map of the episode.
- Comfybythefire - Transient State: Comfy's back with the use of strong vibrant colors. I especially liked the room with the bright blue waters and the final red arena. The map's so spacious that I mostly just skipped through the fights. I only finished the remaining stragglers after the final fight. I had a brain fart of sorts, when I first approached the final fight. I had got so used to maps where you could only choose one powerup, so I ended up taking just the Quad and got totally whooped.
- Cocerello: I really liked the ominous oppressive atmosphere of the map. The hexagonal formations were really cool, too. The darkness also brought a nice additional element of challenge, making me paranoid of where to expect an enemy next. One of my favourites.
- Fairweather - The Stultifying MCU-ification of Quake: Where the gameplay took a slight backseat role in E1M15, the role felt swapped in this map: Tight challenging fights ahead! I was surprised I was able to survive the first fight with the Vores on nightmare. One of my favourites. I couldn't figure out how to reach one of the secrets without resorting to rocket jumping, though.
- Comfybythefire - Blood Ascendant: Quite a fitting end for the episode! A nice take on a Quake slaughtermap. I took a panicky approach, trying to quickly carve out a path with the TB, which resulted in me falling down quite a lot. Even with all the falling, the map still felt generous and forgiving enough. In hindsight, I probably would've been just fine with a slower more methodical approach with Quad rockets from afar. Now I ended up getting myself killed like 2-3 times.
- Yoder - Can't Stop Me: I loved the sewery looks of the map, combined with the dim green lighting; just great! The gameplay was also fun and intense, even with all the pentagrams, because of the limited invulnerability. Another contender for my episode favourite!
It's funny you say that, as that is one of the ones I actually fully streamed the creation of! That map and E3M20, in fact. Just in-case there was any doubt
And @zaratzara thanks for the kind words! The progression was mostly decided by a hierarchy.
Overall difficulty > Weapon progression > Authors Intent > Visual theme
We tried to let casual runs be about an average difficulty, but let the shotgun starts be as difficult as they want to. For instance, one of Yoders and one of Cocerellos maps were incredibly difficult from a shotgun start, so we ended up shifting them forward to fit closer to a good difficulty curve. The intended gameplay from the author still exists via shotgun start, and I think that's a good sacrifice to make since you don't want one level's difficulty spiking and stopping people from getting to other authors maps.
For secret and base maps it was a bit of a cop-out though, we had to contact specific people. The base map was first-come-first-serve, so someone in the chat channel would just claim it and produce it. The secret map was a bit more complex. For the first two episodes I just built a secret exit into one of my maps, and we asked one person if their map could be secret. For later levels someone claimed the secret-exit. Hope that illuminates some of it, it was mostly Spootnik doing the hard work here, I was mostly assisting since this was his first project running a jam.
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It's not just you - I think this is a pretty hard map for M2 (I eventually had to godmode past the shambler bit!)