Mitigated impression.

+:
Gameplay is good, architecture and details are kicking ass... some places are a little bit crampy, but OMG, the castle is very well designed: where did you picked all these ideas ?

-: The ambience must be improved. I don't know who created the music, but for the sake of God, please change it. I really think it could be improved with ambience sounds like done in "distrans' Ruined Nation" or my "Fort Driant" map. With some patience, you can find some very good satanic ambience sounds on the internet that would fit well to replace the music...

Anyway, thanks a lot for this Happy Halloween map

Keep it up !!! 

... that after first try (that crashes the game with a HostError after typing 1 trying to get the 2 fists... I think I read correctly...), then I reloaded the map, and cheated a little bit (impulse 9...)... 

This map is like a bastard child of nsoe and zer :D

I expected another huge, 300+ monsters and 300+ vis days map, but was positively surprised to see something small and compact (and yet quite hard). Facing the high-level enemies with nothing but the SG + Chainsaw + the ruby wand thing was pretty refreshing (thank hell for infighting).

Visually it was hot. I really have a soft spot for maps which mix many wads to create a new theme, rather than sticking to just one wad. The combination of id1/Knave/doom2 here works very well, there wasn't a single thing that looked out of place (maybe except for one crappy skulls texture from doom). The lighting was pretty dark but it felt like a good addition to the gameplay.

When's the full pack coming out?? 

I didn't really mind the music TBH. It was pretty arcadey but it somehow fit. I think. 

I am dying and dying and dying. Skill 0 for me then. 

This is really not my type of map. 

http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/arcanum1-arcdemo-spirit.zip 

Wait, what ruby wand thing?

I liked the music, although the loop is very short. 

I LOVED the lo fi old school music. Though I think if you could get your hands on something more droney and low key it would be better overall.
But the music that you did pick perfectly suits this map. It's like the maps I imagined in my head when I first started playing quake.
I can't overstate how much I love this fucking map, seriously.
I died on my first run too though!Just because I couldn't get up that stupid ladder without taking damage... 

skill 3

http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/arcanum1_drew.7z 

Wait, what ruby wand thing?

A fairly obvious secret ;) 

That screenshot looks like E1M5 always looked in my mind 

skill 2 

A very nice map. The addition of the ruby wand made things much smoother, I wouldn't mind seeing it in future maps.

My only real quarrel is the beginning, which is very hard when you are limited in arsenal against all the rottweilers and zombies. After that though, it gets fairly easier and more enjoyable.

I'd also like to point out that this map certainly has some great detail to it, unfortunately a lot of it is obscured by the darkness, but maybe that's intentional.

But either way, a very fine and very challenging map for the start of what is to come, a great episode. :) 

The secret in arcanum1 originally contained a chainsaw, but I asked Tronyn if I can replace it with the wand at the last minute, and he gave the okay.

The ruby wand was designed as a light source and a short ranged fallback weapon. Despite unlimited use, its damage rate is the worst of all weapons, less than even the unmodified Quake axe. Offensively, it is about as effective as the pistol from Doom or the hand blaster from Quake2. To prevent it from becoming completely useless, it has some special properties.

While held until it is fired, the wand builds up energy, shedding light while doing so. When fully charged, the wand glows brightly. The more energy that builds up, the stronger the attack will be when the wand is discharged. A direct hit from a fully charged blast will also force the target struck flying backwards. It takes slightly over a second for the wand to fully charge. With preparation, it is effective for ambushing and dispatching weaker enemies. In addition to the above, merely holding the wand also reduces damage the player takes by one point per hit. 

The full arcanum pack will be released when it is ready.

My focus now is to finish the mod and start map for A Roman Wilderness of Pain, both of which are close to completion. Tronyn is more or less finished with his maps. 

Great map :)

The architecture inside the castle was awesome; I loved the statue and other details.

The only thing I felt could have been better was the monster selection. Felt like I was mostly fighting zombies and sorcerers, which have quite similar attacks and got a bit stale. Having the riot controller and chainsaw was awesome, but there weren't many close-range monsters to use them on.

Looking forward to the rest of rest of the episode! 

I like it. Like it lots 8>
Music, broken stairs, elusive first key, zombies on coffins getting gibbed, sacrifice chamber entrance, green missile attacks... The wand is v.good too, really fits in.
Minuses: bored with the too loud riot controller + chainsaw, and it'd be more balanced if you could gib stunned zombies. 

was a little hard on skill 1. Too many z's 

What else did I miss? o_O 

~Was~ a pretty dark and twisted map. Can't remember where it was.