Johnny Law, thanks for the fixes!
… Oh, my gawds. The Vileduct… so beautiful. I’m just disappointed the elevator doesn’t go all the way up; I’d love to see this one fleshed out with accessible building interiors and another level up.
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This is a very impressing map pack.
Only one of the maps completely beat me (“Us”) - that was too much like a good, old-fashioned LSD trip to me. You could nearly taste the colour nine…
All the other maps, each in their own way, contained elements of new thinking and new angles. That these keep popping up after nearly 25 years, is quite remarkable.
If a revised mappack (including the bugfixes mentioned elsewhere) is uploaded at some time in the future, i would appreciate if AD is not included - i’m stuck with a old ADSL modem and very limited bandwith. It should be enough to mention AD as a prequisite, and provide a link, please
All in all: very good.
Okay, so I screwed up and saved Us over my only save point. How the *$#@!?! do you get out of that level? And what kind of drugs is quasiotter taking?
Unregistered user “JP” posted:
This is a fantastic, and really interesting map-pack.
Marks the debut of a ‘Haunted Makkon’ texture style - sort of like quake haunted village meets tim burton. Colourful, almost cartoony in places.
Shadesmaster, Makkon, Strideh and Mista Heita all use this look to produce four excellent maps that form the thematic backbone of this jam.
Shadesmaster throws everything at the wall - every new AD monster in 1.8, jump-boots and these annoying poison spiders that can be really deadly. It works because of the lovely ‘hub’ centerpiece (very dark souls firelink shrine) and an ott heretic/hexen soundtrack that actually gels with the super-colourful Makkon textures. Sort of a ‘what if Hexen II had been good’ kind of level.
Makkon’s level is a lovely bit of key hunting and two tough set piece ambushes. What I really loved with his own take on his textures is that he pushed the surreal ‘floating’ take on this set into something that looked like the American Mcgee Alice games - again, something that really works with this look.
Strideh takes the look and tones it down into something closer to a ‘classic quake’ atmosphere. Strideh always nails his maps with polish, and they’re always reasonable lengths that never outstay their welcome. The portal effect at the end is jaw-droppingly beautiful - I’d like to see a whole episode that uses that technique.
Finally, Mister Heita - I think this is a debut? In which case, don’t stop doing what you’re doing. One one level, it’s a beautiful, polished and tight quake map in its own right. But it does three completely new things (three!) which push the envelope in terms of gameplay.
It has story-led intro with character dialogue. And it actually works! Introducing you to new concepts, the back story, your mission, etc. Great Quake-gothic atmosphere too.
A new mechanic. Granted, the full potential of this isn’t explored, but a ‘ghost mode’ where you can pass through certain objects but can’t attack anything is brilliant, and I want to see more of it!
Dynamic music! Again, not used enough in Quake, and the track choices are a little jarring - but my god, I want to see more of this used in Quake maps when an ambush is sprung or an arena/boss fight starts.
Outside of these four, the quality is a little mixed or experimental. I do want to shout out to Xeo’s map ‘The Banquet’ though - a punchy debut, with a lovely horror concept (camp but not TOO camp) great atmosphere and well-judged combat. Can’t wait to see more from Xeo - and wouldn’t mind an expanded/more detailed version of the Banquet as a separate release.
All in all, a jam well worth downloading.
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Greenwood’s The Well of Damned Souls (hwjam3_greenwood) is a remake of, and substantial upgrade on, Michael Reed’s Well of Lost Souls. It was fun to play through an old friend again, and for it to feel fairly fresh. Plus everything is better with Arcane Dimensions!
In fact, I just replayed the original Well of Lost Souls and it’s striking what a shot-for-shot remake Greenwood’s map is!
I was really enjoying Necromancer’s Swamp (hwjam3_shades) right up to the final (I assume) arena battle with the big boss and his spider minions … but then the game crashed, saying:
CALL2 402(setmodel)setmodel()
monsters.qc : monster_spawn
<NO FUNCTION>
no precache: progs/mon_gaunt.mdl
Host_Error: Program error
Does anyone know how to fix this?
Ah, OK, I should have read the earlier comments. I see there is an updated release that fixes this.
Yep, that fixed it — and, happily, my old save file was still good for the new version of the map. Thanks, Johnny Law!
The Vileduct (hwjam3_makkon) is properly lovely, a Quake level that looks like no other Quake level — which after a quarter of a century is really saying something! It plays nicely, too, though it does feel badly underpopulated, and could probably sustain about twice as many enemies as are actually present. The division of the ground-level houses into red, green, yellow and purple quadrants only becomes properly clear right at the end, when you can look down from the upper bridge, which gives a nice sense of closure.
The Banquet (hwjam3_xeo) is beautiful to look at, and fun as far as it goes, but it does feel a little disjointed and arbirary — with a lot of permanently locked doors that look like the might lead somewhere interesting, but never do. Nice final combat, though. That triple shotgun never gets old.
A Dead Man’s Favor (hwjam3_mh) was a refeshingly different experience, with the first part of the map played as a ghost who can walk through gratings but is unable to interact physcially with the surroundings. I enjoyed the often brutal gameplay, but felt that things were slightly spoiled by the inappropriate music: pulse-pounding when what was called for was something more eerie.
Blackvenom Retreat (hwjam3_pinchy) is an oddly unsatisfying experience. It takes place mostly in a good sized outdoor open structure over a lake, where monsters are visible from far off and can sniped — but can also snipe you. This leads to what I found an unfulfulling combat style where ammo exhaustion was the main risk. I liked it, but didn’t love it.
First Moon (hwjam3_mobin) is very short at just 14 kills, but reasonably sweet. It will only take two or three minutes to complete, but they’re quite enjoyable minutes.
Abbeytoire (hwjam3_strideh) is a really nice, atmospheric piece of work, using textures that are new to me to create a setting that feels refreshingly ominous. I could quibble that it shuts of some areas after you’ve been through them (preventing me from picking up the blue armour), and that the final confrontation is a bit anti-climactic; but that’s by the by. This was fun and satisfying.