20 minutes, 4 secrets, 58 kills.

Didn't die on Easy.

Unfortunately it seems my demo didn't record all the way through, because of the map change at the skill selection thingy. :-/ So that pretty much cost you my demo. (I know negke is gonna say something about how that can be accomplished, but tbh I don't play Quake so often anymore and thus I didn't even think about that.)

Thank you for having an acceptable Easy skill setting unlike everybody else. It meant I finished your map without getting frustrated and still had time to look at the pretty brushwork & lighting. Thanks for the consideration.

Good map, reminded me of playing vanilla Quake, which I mean as a compliment. (It was still more like id Hard instead of id Easy, but I'm not gonna complain.)

It didn't occur to me that the blue window things were teleporters, and so I got lost for a bit. I also found the Vore squisher button and afterwards couldn't access the button inside that alcove because the squisher never went back up.

Found 4 secrets.

Needed 5 tries or so for the hop skip and jump part. I tried jumping from the alcove to the right of the window and just bumped off the ceiling there, which I always find a tad annoying - if you want people to jump, give them vertical room.

Got stuck right in front of the LG which almost stupid-killed me. Playtesting??

Still not a fan of the visuals, but then again it added to the vanilla Quake feel. Some nice brushwork in places and also nice routing when I wondered where the GK door was and dropped down right in front of it.

Still slightly too easy to get lost in, and slightly too easy to get hung up on architecture while dodging monsters - same thing I said about your mod's start map.

I played version 1d in Quakespasm.

Final battle was a bit hectic, because I kept pressing the buttons and monsters just kept NOT walking through the spikes. It's probably EASIER to not press the buttons there at all. It was also pushing the upper limit for an Easy skill fight. 

Is the thing that players never do. If they did, your map would be boring tripe.

Haven't played this yet, will have a run tomorrow hopefully. 

to read others opinions on matters of skill and etc.
gb, were you able to get the GA secret? 

http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/mstalk_drew2.zip

generally played like a doofus, much less cautious than in 1st round. Definitely wasn't "clever" -- and so didn't die. 

took full advantage of the set up in the finale this time! 

I honestly don't remember. 

I had no desire to be trapped on a landed lift surrounded by 3 shamblers right next to me, so I did the tactically obvious thing of jumping off to try to run to a more advantageous position.

And died. 

 

you might have had 1 maybe 2 left (although with less than half health). 

Watch the demo..... 

I wasted my grenades on them in an attempt to kill them or weaken then before having to actually face them up close. Was a great relief when the lift stopped :) 

They shoot back though. Thus the conclusion that there is too little time to do the necessary shooting and ducking before the lift lands and you are trapped (as it looks like will happen). I suppose you could gamble that the lift will miraculously stop before the Shamblers....but it's more natural to take an active step to control the situation... 

Its good time being a Quake Player!
So awesome! Sock you rock! 

@gb, thanks for the feedback :)
It always good to get detailed comments.

It didn't occur to me that the blue window things were teleporters
This does confuse me because I am big fan of visual consistency and all teleporters in the map (including the skill selection ones) are the same texture so I am not sure why you were confused.

Got stuck right in front of the LG which almost stupid-killed me.
Yeah this is certainly my fault, a bad design decision. I assumed everyone would go round and see the ramp hint on the floor, but players always take the path of least resistance. I should of put bars there to make the visuals rights.

Final battle was a bit hectic, it was also pushing the upper limit for an Easy skill fight.
I originally planned for a different skill version of the final battle but then I thought I want the final to be memorable and give the player a sense of achievement. There is subtle difference (less trash spawns) but it is the last room and should feel like an epic battle.

The traps and teleporters in the final room are purely optional and something that players will either use or not. I thought the trap shooters would encouraged players to circle the room which is the best method for the fight (unless of course you are orbs!) 

looks like my demo ends when I go through the skill select teleporter :( Crap that was an awesome demo! 

it will play fine in fitz mark 5 (what about quakespasm?) 

I watched your demo, it worked in the latest version of Fitz 

All the demo's work perfectly (except spirit, unknown protocol) with the markV engine. It is the best engine for recording and playing demos and it is thanks to baker for his awesome code. The other engines would be wise to integrate the baker code, it really makes the engine shine. 

I thought with mark 5 it kept recording even if you die, and would only cease if you manually stop it.
apparently this isn't the case. 

This does confuse me because I am big fan of visual consistency and all teleporters in the map (including the skill selection ones) are the same texture so I am not sure why you were confused.

I guess the arrangement of the skill select portals (and the familiar text on them) made it immediately clear to Quake players what those were; so I used them as teleporters instinctively. I had forgotten that they have a different texture by the time I reached the window-teleporters. Everything else in the map felt like Quake, so when I heard the teleporter noise, I instinctively looked for the starfield texture.

About the idea to add bars in front of that LG at the lava, well more power to you, but I'd suggest to fix the bug / make the route that *looks* as if it should work actually work. 

I like the bar idea more personally, as the pathway and its slanty indicator is cooler. 

Thanks Necros/fifth. I really need to change all my Quake shortcuts to use MarkV I guess. 

Superb application of deliberately limited texture package, minimal but solid brushwork all around, smooth lighting with added color where applicable, great level layout that doesn't get confusing and perfect gameplay thanks to ingenius monster/choice placement and balanced loadout. Even two weeks work from you results in a brilliant map.

Many thanks sock, much appreciated!

1stRunDemo (Vanilla)
QuakeSpasm 0.85.8
skill 2; 15:52, 9/10 secrets, 101/101 kills 

Great brushwork, and having recently read "Mountains of Madness" it really captured this "Elder World" feel for me. The layout was great, nicely interconnected and not confusing at all. Also liked how only parts of the map were damaged.

Skill 1 first run demo 

And extremely well done :) The creative texturing and architectural details really set this map apart. The gameplay was good and should have been survivable but, as you can see in my demo, it wasn't on my first run (on normal, too). The lighting was cool.

Cheers!

Demo: http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/mstalk_generic.7z