Yeah my map can be quite a bit punishing in that last section.
I should have made the health respawn infinitely on lower skills and had more of it on higher difficulties.
I also hid the SNG in a secret when I should have made it part of the normal weapon progression.
DBear’s untitled map is lovely – so far as it goes. It’s a real shame that it wasn’t more fully populated, so that gameplay came closer to matching the architecture. It was particularly disappointing to pick up the RL and all those rockets at the end, then have absolutely nothing to use them on. The same would go for the quad secret, if I could have found a legitimate (= non-rocket-jump) way of reaching it.
There’s the foundation here for a very fine level, but it’s just not complete. I hope DBear keeps working on it and brings it to the point of a full release.
In its present form 3/5
For some reason, I enjoyed Night Gaunts (jam9_dumptruck) much more the second time through. There’s a lot to explore, but the level falls down a little in that there is little sense of actual progression: it is, so to speak, just one damned thing after another. Still, there are are some very nicely constructed combats that are tricky to puzzled out – like the one where you run into two Death Lords together in an enclosed space. All in all, this is pretty rewarding.
4/5.
Mensis Keep (jam9_breezeep) has a sort of Sockish feel to it, and I mean that as a compliment. Design-wise it’s a hit from start to finish. Where it falls down a little is that too much of the scenery really is just scenery – the most satisfying levels for my money are the ones where, later on, you get to climb on all the stuff that earlier you only saw from afar. Still, it’s a fun progression with some nice combats and well-judged supplies: I like a game that sometimes takes me down to 10-30 health.
4/5.
The Brimstone Mine (jam9_giftmacher) is a delight. Lots of lovely, chunky machinery, quite a bit of it moving, and lots of set-piece combats in beauriful areas. My favourite so far, though the very ending (behind the gold-key door) was a tad anticlimactic: I’d really hoped it would finish by the lift taking me all the way to the top of the big shaft.
I missed a few secrets, including the last of the white demon faces that would have unlocked the (I assume) super secret. Rats.
4.5/5.
The Tugging (jam9_haunter) is another level that is beautiful to look at, but feels unfinished. Even for the small physical size of the level, it’s underpopulated, and could have done with a bit more thought going into the combats. Still, it’s satisfying to push on through, and it’s an extremely impressive debut. Hopefully a harbinger of more substantial things to come.
3/5.
Amputated Extremities (jam9_ionous) is short, and unfortunately is another level that seems unfinished. There is a lot more architecture than there is gameplay. At least that is how it felt to me – but I finished with only three quarters of the 48 available kills, and only one of the six secrets. So I guess I was missing a lot.
But as Ionous himself says in his readme, “So this map was supposed to be huge. A palace constructed to honor the grace of Moloch, nestled within brimstone cliffs. There was going to be interconnectivity abound, secrets beyond count. Three days before the end, it was 9500 brushes. And was, sadly, not even close to completion. With a heavy heart I isolated one part of the orignal map, and closed it off. This is an extension of a small portion of the original map. It’s tiny, but should be a decent way to kill five minutes.”
But the good news: “The full version of the map will see release (Ceaseless Jaws of Moloch), most likely as ion02, at some point.” And in fact that is more than good, it’s great news. I’m really looking forward to this.
But for the present excerpt: just 2.5.5.
I admired Conspiracy of Cartographers a great deal without necessarily enjoying it very much. I don’t object in the least to void maps, but I do feel that low gravity is a bit played out now. And when do nail traps get fun? Has anyone ever played a Quake level, stumbled across a nail trap, and responded “Oh, good, this is going to make the level more fun”? Still, the level is beautiful, and the small number of secrets that I found (including the pentagram at the end) were all satisfying.
3.5/5.
Stress-Induced Coprophagia (jam9_mukor) scores highly for its truly revolting name, its escalating progression, and its (I am getting tired of writing this) beautiful architecture. In fact, I may as well mention here that this is, overall, the best-looking jam-pack so far.
If I were to criticise SIC, it would be on the basis that the early stages feel a bit underpopulated, and too many of the combats feel like undifferentiated waves of various kinds of knights. I’d have liked a bit more variety to the fighting. But I quibble. A solid 4/5 (as testified by the fact that I’ve played through it three times now.)
BTW., Mukor, if you’re reading this: there is an elevated platform containing a pile of crates. Behind the crates are half a dozen or so vorelings. I’ve searched and searched but can’t find any reward up there – health, ammo, armour. Is there a secret that I’m missing?
@Greed: with some of the combats you’re describing, the trick is, well, a trick. It’s not about running around with your guns blazing, it’s about finding the right way to beat a particular set-piece. For example, dealing with the Vermis at the end of Mukor’s map, (rot13) jung lbh arrq gb qb vf trg sne rabhtu njnl fb vgf rkcybqvat zvffvyrf pna’g ernpu lbh, ohg lbh pna frr vg: gurz chzzry vg jvgu ebpxrgf. Guvf vf npghnyyl abg uneq gb qb bapr lbh svther bhg gur nccebnpu. Bar jnl vf gb teno gur ebpxrg ynhapure, gura vzzrqvngryl eha onpx qbja gur cnffntr jurer lbh pnzr sebz, onpx gbjneqf gur fgneg. Gur irezvf vf ovt rabhtu gung lbh pna frr vg, naq uvg vg, sebz zvyrf njnl. Ebpxrg nsgre ebpxrg, fjvgpuvat gb erthyne jrncbaf vs naq jura bar bs gur zvabe zbafgref svaqf vg jnl gbjneqf lbh. Ubcr guvf urycf!
Cloudy with a Chance of Gibs (jam9_mjb) is by some distance the most disgusting Quake level I’ve ever played – and I meant that, I suppose, as a compliment. It’s very atmospheric, but loses points for the crucial reason that the actual gameplay is mostly not that much fun. The map feels awkward to navigate around, both in the small-scale sense that individual exits and elevators are sometimes hard to use, andi n the large-scale sense that you often have to go a long way around to get back to somewhere you’ve previously been. The whole thing feels a bit cramped and (as ArrCee remarked above) sort of 90s-ish. So not MJB’s best work, for me.
That said, there’s a bonus point for the classic MJB secrets guide, which opened up quite a bit more of the game than I’d have found otherwise. So all in all, 4/5.
Eurotophobia (jam9_ naitelveni) is a real oddity. There’s enough space for this to be almost an entire episode, but it’s weirdly underpopulated, so that the 158 kills (on Hard) feels miserly – apart from the properly chaotic final battle, which is satisfyingly difficult. oddest of all is a prologue in a cavernous base, which has only four kills (all grunts) in a space that could happily host 50 or 60 enemies and sequence of challenging combats.
5/5 for the map, 3/5 for the gameplay, so 4/5 in total. I’d like to see this one reworked (i.e. finished) and given its own release.
Mouth of Yraal (jam9_newhouse) is huge and chaotic. There’s a ton of landscape to explore, and several very satisfying horde combats, often boosted by a quad, a trinity or even both. Those are excellent aspects of this map. Where it falls down is in attention to detail. A lot of the map, especially indoor areas, feels crudely constructed in a 1990s wsy. Much of the lighting is bland and flat. Some parts of the progression feel arbitrary in the extreme.
Still, putting it all together, it’s a blast to play (in both literal and figurative senses). I finished with 275 of 287 kills, and 6 of 9 secrets – and that was on my second playthrough, having enjoyed the first enough to want to return to it.
4/5.
The Book of Disconnect (jam9_otp) is fun, but marred by two of my most hated Quake features: spawns and nail-traps. Still, it’s enjoyable poking around in the sewers, even if the progression is a little contrived and too much of the combat is of the sniping variety.
The gold-key secret was very nice, though, and the payoff was great: what’s more satisfying that quadding wave after wave of those disgusting little vorelings?
I couldn’t figure out the significance of the two different level exits (one blue, one yellow). Did anyone get that?
Anyway, putting it all together, I rate this on 3.5/5.
“I’ve searched and searched but can’t find any reward up there – health, ammo, armour. Is there a secret that I’m missing?”
Search the bookshelves in that room.
btw, thanks for the kind words. 
Consciousness Outpost(jam9_pulsar) is just sensationally beautiful, and does a great job of showing you the whole map’s area in a way that makes you really want to reach all those places you can see. There are some nice secrets here, too – I am always fond of secrets that involve falling off ledges in careful ways – though I am infuriated with myself that, having solved the four-crosses secret that yields the SNG on my first play through. I’ve now forgotten where the last cross is. As a result, I got only seven of the ten secrets this time, though did finish with all the kills.
Is the gameplay up there with the architecture? Perhaps not quite. Not all of the combats are entirely delightful: getting pushed off a platform to my death by one of those sometimes-invisible green things was a lowlight. Still, the three-gug climax is, uh, climactic. All in all, well worth 4.5/5.
Mukor: thanks, got it! But that is a weird book-button. Pressing it did nothing. Whacking it from in front with the hammer did nothing. Shooting it from the side with a shotgun did open it. I’m not sure that’s quite fair. (Still: excellent reward!)
I was hugely impressed by Ruins of the Elder God (jam9_shotro) without actually enjoying it very much. I admire its clever re-use of the same basic area appearing differently in three run-throughs. But in the end it just wasn’t that much fun to keep hacking through pretty much the same areas. Sorry, Shotro, but 2/5 for me – which I know is not really fair, but it’s what I feel.
Its just odd because of how skinny of a trigger brush it is, so hitting it from the front it hard. I should of just made it a button.