Had a lot of fun playing these. Got my ass handed to me a lot at various stages, but I just got used to saving a lot (I'm a bit out of practice with quake too).

Can see a few ways in which this isn't really "finished", but what the hell, I still had a great time. Thanks for getting this out!

Going to have to play again now I know roughly speaking what's going on... 

I just watched Than's demo, which was great until he died.

I am archiving all my Quake stuff (for posterity, you understand) and would love to see any more demos that anyone made of any of the BDG2 maps. Watching someone else play my maps is such great fun: I'm shouting at the screen, "you walked past that secret", "watch your back here", "noooo, don't go in there yet you haven't got enough ammo to survive".

And I also marvel at the mouse and jumping skills, which I just never mastered, and the different ways that players attack things. Anyway, if anyone has got any 'ego boosts' for me I would be grateful. 

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

Not first runs by a long way but the maps are confusing enough (in a good way) that they might as well be. I did try to recreate some of the chaos and nonsense of my first runs, especially in maps 1 and 2 where I try pretty hard to break the progression.

1 + 1a - first map, think I died in lava.

2 + abcd - second map, I really fucked the progression in this one AND died in lava.

3 _ a + a_alt - third map, with a choice of endings. 

I really appreciate the time and trouble you have taken.

I have only watched the first one but from my point of view it was brilliant. You took all sorts of short cuts and although the Slaughter Room didn't work as planned, it was still good to watch. And the map still stood up well even though you were hitting triggers at the wrong time and in the wrong order.

I am sorry you fell in the lava right near the end; I think the Vermis was just about to die but it meant you missed my explosions there, and I had spent a lot of time on those trying to get the timing right.

I will watch the rest soon and give you a response.

Thanks again. 

I will definitely record a demo this weekend. After all, you deserve as much love as Sock has been getting lately :) 

Excellent news, thanks. 

Worked through them; it was quite intense in places and they were great fun to watch. I could almost hear you saying to yourself sometimes, "I know I am supposed to go that way but I'm going THIS way". That made me smile.

And some of the jumping skills were very impressive. I had placed a red armour in a position that you could see early but would not get until later. But oh no, Shambler wanted it early and jumping off two walls managed to get it.

There was several hundred man-hours work in the maps but seeing these demos makes it all worthwhile. Once again, thanks for taking time out. 

to complete the map, I'm finding it way too hard to do. I got fairly far but I was god mode-ing through and I accidently switched off god mode and died immediately.
For some reason I found I had way more grenades than shells/nails, I was always stocked.

The map is sexy as heck but I personally didn't enjoy the binary nature of the map. Way too many insta-death scenarios, not enough ammo. :-/ 

Getting the rl secret at the start of map 1 makes it way too easy imho. If I get bored at work next week I'll try to record a demo or two :) 

still trying to record a demo for mr. woodham, but my skills are too limited i think.
those fuckin fuckers with ammo. ..
arghh!!! 

Glad you liked them. Sorry I didn't record first runs, but the amount of dicking around I did was probably fairly similar.

The whole "going the wrong way" thing was one of the cool parts of the maps. When I first played them I was trying to get the YA and dropped down into the passage into the lava pit, I had no idea if I'd broken it or what, and just kept going....it was good fun that way.

I think I know the RA you mean, that was definitely speedrunner-style dicking around, I broke it pretty well getting the gold key and going to the exit there lol! I have no idea how I survived until the shambler thing before the MH alcove.... 

I'm getting killed by dogs. 

This is hardcore attrition gameplay.

Just realised after all my bellyaching I didn't play the release... 

I don't know if you are still reading this post but I just played this and wow! I'm sure glad you released it. It would sure be nice to see that other half 

Glad that you're enjoying it - well I think you are :) 

I still pop-in every now and then.

I wonder if you downloaded the latest version: FMB-BDG was the release from a few years ago, which is just the This Onion map. FMB-BDG2 is the 3 map pack released this year This Onion, This Garlic and That Shallot (it's was supposed to be a play on words, you see).

So unfortnuately, that's your lot; there is no more to come :( 

Let me explain - I was playing terribly yesterday because I was a bit drunk. I was at a restaurant and we ordered starters etc. I had a Peruvian Pisco Sour: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisco_Sour

We'd been sat there for forty minutes after a small starter (and my second sour, which meant I'd had about a pint of the stuff on an empty stomach) when one of the chefs was stretchered out and we were informed that due to a fight in the kitchen they were having to close.

Anyway, back to the maps;

I got my ass handed to me replaying This Onion - I was staggering a lot and not doing the precise footwork needed in the lava areas with the Lavamen.

This Garlic I just finished and it was murder. Weaponstrip and HK start?! I also missed the NG and so suffered through the level until getting over halfway through. It seems the only armour is from secrets as well, and I wasn't having much luck finding them. Some of geometry is hard to fight in as well - I kept on bumping my head on low ceilings or getting stuck on wall details.

But I can tell with a bit more patience (and sobriety) this will be a much more forgiving map.

Just started That Shallot and finding it much more friendly, having a lot of fun with it so far. The balance feels superior to This Garlic - shotgun start (wow the Quake guy has butterfingers!) versus regular knights and not HKs is much better. The brushwork here is very nice as well - the caves look great.

Will be replaying the whole thing again once I finish to do it justice.

Thanks for the release! 

I love this map, but it's a tough one for demos, in that it is quite difficult, with rather steep spikes, and a general war of attrition style gameplay elsewhere. 

Well Mike let me tell you. I did play the 3 map pack. I thought I read you were thinking of adding more to it. Anyway great textures-great theme-great everything. I can't believe the imagination some of you mappers have. I was discussing it with my son and he said quake 1 must be a guide line or gateway to future mappers. A college requirement. Whatever it is I hope you guys keep making great maps. 

Hope my comments didn't sound too negative - this is still an instant classic. 

The fact that you're playing it and going back for more is good enough for me.

The loss of weapons between maps was just me thinking that they could be played as stand alone maps. But I suppose I could have made the ammo more sparse and left the weapons in. It's just that I felt the maps were a bit on the large size and that people may not have wanted to play all three together, especially as I wanted Hard to be a bit of challenge.

It surprises me that so many players seem to start on Hard, whereas I used to play Quake on Normal skill and then move to Hard for
a second play if I had enjoyed the map first time around. 

2nd run of the first map:

http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/files/demos/generic_fmb_bdg2a.7z

What you didn't get to see:

Me dying twice right off the bat -- hiding that first armor in a secret was plain mean -- me wandering around aimlessly looking for paths to secret items sitting in plain view, and me Daz-derping into the lava more than just a couple of times ;)

More to come!!! 

Great fun, well done.

I love the way you are looking around all the time: is that a secret panel, can I jump on to that ledge, etc. I think the "secret door opens near some stairs" foxed you because you saw the secret switch before you saw the right staircase. You also had the right idea for the MH secret but the jump has to be 'pixel perfect' (I think you can rocket-jump up to that opening as well)

You also highlighted at least two flaws - fullbrites in a ceiling texture that I missed that you clearly thought was a secret of some kind; and a 'seam' in some brickwork where the texture was mis-aligned. Oh, and the end cut-scene didn't work correctly where a rock falls from the cave ceiling and the bridge collapses into the lava - you may have ended the demo before that showed up but I am not sure.

Thank you for taking the trouble; I'll watch out for demo number 2 :) 

And one thing I forgot to mention - I noticed that one time you accidentally backed onto a music switch and turned the music off, but then went back and switched it on again. Oooooh, thank you, thank you, thank you. 

This was a very challenging mini-episode. Close-quarters combat in the second map was a nice switch from the other, more open maps. Figuring out the guardian statue puzzle for the end was pretty challenging too; I found only two runes, had no idea where to look for the rest but luckily I found that pentagram. However, I rocketjumped to get there because some gates had come down so I'm not sure if this was the "official" way of doing it. I also had to cheat once, in the last map: That platform that goes up when you step on it, surrounded by lava, I assume I was supposed to jump to the ledges where the knights were but I jumped back to the stairwell so I got stuck. The way I see it, this was a design faux pas as you're not supposed to make it so that the player can get permanently stuck.

Anyway, here's a demo of the entire thing, in eight parts. I didn't die that often really, mostly had trouble with the running-vagina type monsters (their projectiles were faster than I remembered) and those gatekeeping gargoyles:
http://www.freefilehosting.net/mikkowalk