A shot from an unused area at the start of development
The Immortal Lock started as an entry for Coppertone Summer Jam 2, though I very quickly realized that it was getting far out of scope. This seems to be a running theme for new mappers, which I definitely was at the time. I didn't anticipate it taking a year and a half, but when I was a kid, I had a history of abandoning projects, so I swore a long time ago that I would finish everything that I started. Before this, I had only worked on a single project that I later incorporated into the Immortal Lock as the base section. Unfortunately, all of that, and everything that I did early on in the Immortal Lock's development, had to be redone as I gained more experience from both making and playing other maps.
The opening scene was one of the first areas made
Surprisingly, playing other maps turned out to be the most useful. You learn a lot about level design and aesthetics from playing Quake maps, because there are so many talented people in the community. Whether they are professionals in the games industry, or just otherwise very skilled, the community of this game can teach you a great deal. For example, Mazu and Fairweather excel at creative encounter design, so whenever I found myself making a combat section, I had a voice in the back of my mind constantly asking me if what I was making was up to that standard. Sometimes that worked, and sometimes it didn't, but it always pushed me forward. Smilecythe always had interesting jumping puzzles, so even though I'm not skilled enough to do the advanced techniques he uses, I was still inspired to try. Likewise, Bal's aesthetics were always a goal for me, since nobody can evoke a sense of mystical otherworldliness quite like him, and that was exactly the kind of atmosphere that I wanted to go for - and the music done by the community only enhances that - the many Quake tracks by Markie Music and AlekswithaK evoke that same sense of arcane dread that I found so inspiring.
Tears of the False God was a major inspiration for the curvy sections
The point being, that if you ever find yourself lacking for drive or ideas, play the thousands of maps that the community has to offer. I promise that you'll come out feeling inspired. Find something that you think is cool, and then put your own twist on it. This was particularly helpful for the Immortal Lock, because one of the things that annoys me most about playing a map is getting lost in it. And when you have a map as large as this was, that's doubly an issue. But, there's an easy way to help with that - make every area visually memorable; and after playing so many maps, I had no shortage of ideas. There are other ways - you will often see mappers like Ionous loop the player back into early areas, subtly guiding them without making them feel railroaded - but having striking visuals is important to having a memorable map. Makkon's textures helped a lot with this, and we're quite lucky as a community to have him - every room could feel a bit like an experiment, and I was constantly trying to put myself in the player's point of view so I could frame things as cinematically as I could.
This was early on, but took over a week to make
That's what the goal was, for the most part - to be memorable. We've all played swampy castle #5968, and while those standard Quake maps are fun, if I'm being honest they tend to blend together in my mind. So I wanted to do something different, and I usually try to do exactly that for any map that I make. That doesn't always work though. Not everything you make will appeal to everybody, and there were a lot of challenges with smoothing things out. Difficulty in particular is quite rough for me to nail down, because not everyone has time to play a lot of Quake, and I still want my maps to be accessible for people. Thankfully, my partner Lilah was willing to playtest it despite never playing Quake before, and that helped a lot, but even then I still fell a bit short. It was also difficult to maintain a sense of smoothness in some encounters, and they could occasionally feel a bit chaotic or otherwise lackluster. For example, I would probably redo the (final) final fight, and at least make the arena a lot tighter, because I noticed people would ignore the jump pads and just blast things on the open field, which gave me flashbacks to a lot of low-effort Doom slaughtermaps.
One of many areas that gave me compiling issues
It's hard to know what people are going to think, or how they'll act beyond a certain point. It's often the path of least resistance, but inevitably, when you release a map, you'll watch all the playthroughs and get a list of bugs and other things to fix, because it's impossible to see them all. The mod Quoth, by Kell, Preach, and Necros likewise took a bit of time to get used to. It's an old mod, so it doesn't have some of the features that most modern ones do - but despite this, it's still my favorite. Kell, who was very helpful during the creation of the Immortal Lock, imbued Quoth with a very particular atmosphere, exemplified by its roster of enemies that are direct references to Lovecraft's creations. Its assets have a feeling of industrial mysticism to them, and the Knave textures being tangentially associated with the mod oddly reinforce that even when they aren't present. Quoth is the de-facto cosmic horror mod of Quake, and it evokes all the sensations associated with the genre. I think that Quake excels in surrealism, so it was a great match from the start. It also has a lot of unique features, and a couple ways of doing things that are quite intuitive for me, like moving trains by duration of transit between points instead of a more nebulous speed value. The monsters are quite creative too - I know some people don't like them, but they're wrong. And, as a slight spoiler, an update to Quoth is slowly being worked on, so it will eventually have the resurgence that it very much deserves. Even before that, though, and beyond Meat Jam, I hope that people continue making maps for Quoth as it stands.
And speaking of Meat Jam, I'm sure the participants are now aware of how horrible working with organic brushes can be. There's a lot of pushing vertices around, and compiling is not always guaranteed for the particularly complex shapes. It's a time-consuming process, and it's a theme you don't see a lot of - now I know why. Despite this, it was a wonderful journey, and I'm looking forward to making many more Quake maps in the future. It's a creative outlet that I'd recommend to anyone, because the feeling of visualizing an area in your mind, and then actually being able to create it, is just incomparable. This game and this community has been such a blessing for me, and I've never met a more talented and welcoming group of people. Thank you for playing my map.
And speaking of Meat Jam, I'm sure the participants are now aware of how horrible working with organic brushes can be. There's a lot of pushing vertices around, and compiling is not always guaranteed for the particularly complex shapes. It's a time-consuming process, and it's a theme you don't see a lot of - now I know why. Despite this, it was a wonderful journey, and I'm looking forward to making many more Quake maps in the future. It's a creative outlet that I'd recommend to anyone, because the feeling of visualizing an area in your mind, and then actually being able to create it, is just incomparable. This game and this community has been such a blessing for me, and I've never met a more talented and welcoming group of people. Thank you for playing my map.
