In retrospect, attacking with knights at the bottom of the stairs probably distracted too much. 

Heh, one thing I discovered watching people play my map is that over 50% of the time it's not at all what I expected. 

fuckin' 'ell!!

i died more than christ :0

3 out of 6 secrets.

i had to shoot the shotgun to light up a corner, where i noticed a thunderbolt secret.

i found the pentagram secret

of course, maybe turning up the brightness would help on the next run through looking for the other secrets.

the first 3rd of the map is restrained enough, but it seems to really kick into gear after that. 

I want to ask a mapping question. Why did you make the lava falls at the ends of the bucket ride solid?

On replaying the map I wanted to see how they'd kill me, and the answer is apparently they will push me off the bucket and I will fall into the lava below. It wasn't what I expected. Perhaps there is a reason why making them func_illusionary wouldn't work?

@Warren In my second demo I use a slope jump :) 

I was hiding that the buckets are just traveling in a rectangular loop, so I needed them to go behind something, and a big curtain of lava for them to get filled by seemed the best solution. I also intended it would be somewhat harrowing that you have to jump off to the nearby ledge at the last moment to avoid death. I regard lava as signalling 'this will kill you' in my map, and don't expect the player to go into it except in one very rare place where I give you a tool to survive death...

A few people tried to go into the lava fall, I should have recognized that would be something people would want to do and better support that (even if it still killed you), just like those catwalks above Mega Floyd and the ones the Enforcers walk on and shoot at you from. Originally those were just meant to look neat, and you were just going to go up a lift to the blue key without going up to them at all... but the view looked so cool I quickly added a windtunnel just so I could make enforcers shoot at you while you walked on one of the catwalks!

And speaking of odd choices, Sock brought this up, and ItEndsWithTens got confused at this point: To progress in the level, you need to go into the maintenance hatch below the gold key door. This is a source of confusion because you're being clearly shown a walkway that goes toward the gold key door, but there's no clear path to the ledge you drop down onto. Originally, I was going to make that gold key door simply a 'locked' door, and have it hint that you should find a way around, which would have helped quite a bit... but then the layout started going in a different direction.

So I did what I could to point players at that little hatch... the light blinks, there's a sound, there's ammo on the ledge, an enforcer shoots at you from that door earlier in the map, and the shortcut button has a view of the door and ledge when you push it. I hope these things helped direct the player in this admittedly confusing part, but I think it was more the sense of exploration by players that made then jump down and actually go the right way.

TLDR of all this is: I just made cool looking things and quickly connected them together as I went, and there's a lot of things I might have done better had I planned them out ahead of time. 

Okay, fair enough. 

I didn't have much trouble figuring out the maintenance hatch part, but I did almost ride into the lava. It wasn't till the last second when I realized "Uh oh, I need to get off this thing real quick" 

It wasn't till the last second when I realized "Uh oh, I need to get off this thing real quick"

This is exactly what I was going for :D 

 

 

but I was also curious as to exactly how I would die once I realized I'd screwed up :-) 

where's the last secret?

i've searched the map after killing everything, but i'm missing one.

i have:

nails
megahealth
yellow armor
thunderbolt
pentagram of protection 

That Pent has a special use... 

e1m8 

 

...i'll give that another shot then! 

I got a new version of my map in the works. Expanded (silver key area) and cleaned up a bit ( also removed some areas that hindered the game play). Going to release it sometime this weekend. This version won't have the future gold key area yet. 

that was tough!

there was a good mixture of enemies for the majority of the battles, which made them very tough at times.

i spazzed about alot having issues maneuvering underwater, shooting scrags while watching my air.

like others have said, tough secrets.

i really enjoyed playing that section where you are in a room with four ogres with grenades bouncing off every wall...very nasty, but fun!

i found the thunderbolt.
i found the megahealth (well, i found the steps in the wall, but i needed to see someones demo to relise to shoot the button and reach the top step)).
i needed help finding the yellow armor.

i spent a while going around the cleaned out map looking for the 4th and final secret, but couldn't find it :( 

It worked really well. On my 2nd playthrough, I noticed the flashing light above the little door, and thought "That's a really neat and natural way to highlight where the player needs to go". Same with the cable from the button-less lift. 

I ventured through WarrenM's, Necros, Scampie's and Daz's levels. All very creative and enjoyable. Simply love what you guys do with Quake. It's awesome :)

My stream wasn't setup up correctly for QS(my own fault) so I deleted the archive. And I'm not a demo recording person, sowwee.

Anyways, just wanted to stop by and say a BIG "Thank You" to all those who participated, Thank you ;) 

adib - lovely atmosphere, wish this was longer. The lighting was exquisite, some of the vore placement was devious but the end arena seemed a bit rushed.

matecha - also had lovely atmosphere, again wish this was longer because gameplay was pretty much non-existent.

breezeep - solid if unspectacular map. Gameplay was on the tough side but manageable.

shotro - definitely a map that feels like uncohesive as a whole and more like different ideas stuck together but some of the gameplay ideas as well as some of the individual visual ideas are very neat. Definitely worthwhile on the whole just for the intrigue factor as to what comes next.

exelzhar - this seemed a bit more speedmappish, some very basic designs and gameplay was also not that interesting. 

ItEndsWithTens - love it, my favorite so far. Very very creative and original.

Rick - lovely atmosphere in this one as well, again wish it was longer.

Warren - very polished, great atmosphere, some of the monsters get stuck on the geometry a bit too much but otherwise very enjoyable map, although again wish it was longer. 

I have been gone a week, I was across the pond in the US on business, but it gave me time to create a todo list and redesign of my map, but also a plan. In the next 48 hours I will work on what will be the final version of "From Ashes" on this forum, if you want to replay the map as-is with better balance, a few surprises, and a few fixes, this might be worth it for you. Later, months down the road, I will release "Forged From Ashes" a map built on the ideas and feedback received. Without a time limit you can expect the quality to be much higher with a few bits of modified code thrown in to boot. 

Jackhammer screwed up the entities on the map, so I have to relink everything... I am back to being busy at work, so, if I get something in the future done, I will release it, but right now the MapJam is being pushed to the back of my mind now. 

Here is a new and final version of my level Signati:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/pfdjoxfqyq04gkb/signati.zip

It has better:
- Polishment: some things were bugging me aesthetically, some geometry was too messy, some were just not finalized;
- Gameplay: many changes based on your feedback, some improvements, a new battle after the last seal breaks, polished ending.
- Deathmatch ready! A full blown DM setup, including geometry for better bot navigation, only visible in DM mode. Not the best DM ever, but it's playable. I'm not fiddling with it any longer, Jackhammer and MAP sources available for anyone up to.

I made it just to empty the buffer, finish it and have a closed version. Don't think it screws jam's purpose. It's the same level, with its pros and cons. If you're serious about DLC, it can include this version along with new stuff.