Shambler’s Chapel Perilous is one of the best small levels I’ve ever played — an object lesson in how to wind a long path through a limit area in a way that offers interesting progression and some good combats along the way. More than that, it feels good, like a proper AD level with all the grunginess that implies. It took me several attempts before I figured out how to win the final combat, and several more before I was able to pull it off. Even then I only finished with 125 of 130 kills, which must be because I missed a rather embarrassing eleven secrets from the high impressive total of 18. Great work.
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overall_rating
4.63013698630137
73
I’d love a QuakeSpasm release to fix the save errors: these have prevented me from playing quite a few maps over the years. If anyone here knows the QS maintainers, do please give them a prod from me!
Strideh’s A Crooked Clergy is another map that does good things in a limited space, not least giving a real sense of time and place. Unfortunately, the kill count is low — 33 on Hard — so that the map feels smaller than Chapel Perilous despite being a similar size over all. Still, fun and satisfying while it lasts, and I was pleased to get all kills and both (admittedly easy) secrets.
This map also has something I’ve never seen before: an actual landscape beyond the final door, and area that I longed to run into and explore. It’s good to be left wanting more.
QueenJazz’s Aftermath has a nice, unique atmosphere, but it’s too small (fifteen kills total) to develop into anything much. Also this kind of gameplay — enemies teleporting in when you pick up goodies — does not appeal to me, though others’ opinions may differ. Still, at the very least this is not like other maps.
JCR’s Airgapped is excellent, a difficult open-arena base with a bit of Koohoo feel to it and some hard combats that take several attempts to figure out. This one really ticks all the boxes: progression, atmosphere, sense of place, straight-up fun.
Ionous’s Shadow and Flame is another excellent entry, again making very good use of the limited space to revisit areas under different circumstances. This is another map that feels very Arcane Dimensionsy, which I consider a very good thing. In particular, it has a definite Firetop Mountain vibe to it.
One thing I was not so keen on is that it seems the whole map — 133 kills — is done with only shotguns. Not only did I not find any other weapons (which might have been in secrets that I missed), I didn’t even find any nails, grenades or cells. For me, selecting the appropriate weapon for the circumstances is one of the joys of Quake.
Ing’s Train Station Inflitration is a real disappointment after this excellent run. It’s blocky, overlit, replete with insta-deaths (three in the opening area alone), and absurdly under-resourced with ammo. I pushed through to the end, but more out of a sense of duty than because I was enjoying myself. I finished with no ammo left at all, despite having found two secrets and used a lot of infighting.
Shotro’s Moonlit Keep is another really high quality map, despite some blockiness and odd scaling. There’s a ton to discover, some unexpected progressions, and plenty of combat. It feels like the 1024^3 constraint is really firing a lot of people’s creative neurons. There are 14 secrets here, of which I found nine legitimately. I didn’t find the last of the “there are more to go” targets, which I am guessing opened up the temple area, but I got there anyway with an easy rocket-jump. Nice work!
Ish and Rhoq’s Surrounded is not bad, and has an enjoyably frenetic quality in that you never know where the next enemy is coming from. In terms of atmosphere, it has something of the feel of Warpspasm’s slime-factory map, though with more of a base-ish quality.
Short, though, and maybe a little more hectic than I like 'em. I liked the pushable-crate mechanism, and I was disappointed that more wasn’t done with it. Then again, I missed the only secret, which was perhaps achievable by means of clever crate-pushing.
Scampie’s NoQuarter was great fun right up until the ludicrous final combat, where three scrag-mothers are joined by a shedload of minions. There is simply not enough ammo available to kill everything, even if you’re in god mode. A stupid end to an otherwise enjoyable map.
I enjoyed the novel progression of JCR’s Fully Integrated, a level that feels more like Quake II than like Quake. It made a nice change of pace, even though I found myself unsure what to do near the start. Arguably the ending is a little anticlimactic: having acquired a lot of nice weapons, and high on health and armour, I was left with little to use them for.
Ish’s Abyssal Nimiety was a really interesting and novel challenge, a twisty and confusing base that often leaves you in places where you’re getting sniped at. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t finish it. You have to collect half a dozen or so objects that (I assume) result in the exit opening, but I couldn’t find the last one. I’m running around a now cleared base (all but a single monster that I’ve not found), unable to locate the final piece of key. So it’s an almost-but-not-quite.
Naitelveni’s You See Me… was a disappointment to me. It looks sensational, very Forgotten Sepulcher. But the actual gameplay is horrible: first a bunch of zombies that you have no way of killing, then a death-knight that you take on with only an axe, then if you get past to the shadow axe everything is suddenly super-ear. A bit of zombie-clearing, then a shotgun, a load of shells, and the level is basically over. Feels like the start of something wonderful.
Strideh’s Mutagenesis is a really nice piece of work, with a slow, low-key, puzzle-oriented opening that builds gradually. I loved that the big fight at the end was mostly with a lot of relatively low-powered enemies, and the final pair topped it off just right. A really neat, self-contained space that could stand as an examplar of how to make a small level feel solid.
Love Krampus’s Orthogonal Oreo, a beautifully constructed cathedral/castle that makes great use of the limited space. Really good architecture, a solid sense of place, decent combats and satisfying secrets. (I got all but one, but ended with all kills.) The only criticism would be that the progression is perhaps a little predictable. If this really is a debut map, as it appears to be, it’s a fantastic beginning.
Bloodshot’s Frozen Demise is yet another really good map with a sense of place, and making clever use of the limited space to put you through some areas multiple times under different circumstances. Satisfying.
Absolutely loved Bel’s Entering the city of Pale, right up to the moment it suddenly ended with (SPOILER ALERT!) entering the city of Pale. There is so much more beautiful architecture out there just waiting to be discovered and I really really wanted it all! Even in its present cut-down form this is very clear five-star map, with a bit of a Foggy Bogbottom vibe. But I really hope a full release is coming!
(By the way, I can’t find the name Bel in any previous map, so unless Benoit “Bal” Stordeur used a different name for earlier releases, this must be a debut. If it is, it’s the best debut map I have ever seen.)
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Sadly, I can’t play Spipper’s A Christmas Romp or either of QMaster’s maps, because all three have the crash-on-save bug that’s apparently related to long entity names or something. That means I’ve played all I can play of this pack, and I think it may be just about the best one outside of Arcane Dimensions itself. A very clear five stars!
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