By contrast, Tei’s untitled map (qbj_tei) is a very rare example of a map so incomplete that it should not have been released at all. A juxtaposition of clumsy set pieces with ugly building and arbitrary play, it has opportunities to get stuck at the bottom of an inescapable pit right at the start, and really feels more like someone’s experiments while learning an editor than it does like an actual playable map.
Also: name your maps, people.
Concrete Citadel (qbj_unijorse) also feels unfinished, though thankfully not in a hostile way. It’s clumsy but competent, and passes the time enjoyably enough. Unfortunately, it has to be marked down for the fatal flaw that the exit is inaccessible. Like Vasya shkolnik, I killed everything, but still got “kill the bastards first” when trying to go through the last door. Bearing in mind Unijorse’s warning above, “I think there may have been an issue with the targetnames on difficulties other than normal on Concrete Citadel”, played on Normal difficulty rather than my usual Hard, but still had to noclip to complete the map.
The unimaginatively named qbj_Mr.M (qbj_mr_m) is extremely rough and ready, but enjoyable for all that. Facing mostly base monsters, ogres and scrags, we fight out way through a subterranean base into an open area where we need to take a roundabout route to lower the bridge leading to the exit area. Nothing especially new or exciting, but fun.
More good stuff in Greyscale Downflow (qbj_pinchy), a map of several distinct areas with similarly variable combat types, all adding up to feeling of adventure. It’s set within some kind of water-processing plant, and my only real quibble is that I found it hard to know what to do next on a few occasions — not least, where to go after pressing the button behind the gold-key gate. (But it’s a good thing I didn’t find that straight away, or I would have missed out on the quad-fuelled killfest that got me to 100% kills). Nice.
I like the unique atmosphere of Cantilever (qbj_porglezomp), which takes place in and around a crumbling and half-ruined concrete arena. The map is quite short and really much too easy, but nevertheless satisfying to complete because of the sense of place. So far as I can see, this is Porglezomp’s debut, and it’s a very promising one.
V.A.B. (qbj_zbidou72) is a fantastic contribution to this pack: a base built around a huge rocket, in which you ascend to some very high heights and fight a lot of monsters. The escalating difficulty is well judged, and my only real regret is that I never found a rocket launcher or a lightning gun — both of them undoubtedly in secrets. (I found five of the eight, and got all 195 kills.) Scores highly in every area, and definitely among my top two or three maps in this pack.
I was enjoying Anger Wrought (qbj_greenwood) right till the end. Now, having killed everything and pressed the buttons through the gold and silver doors, I can’t find the exit. I thought it would be the “No easy way in” door, but that is still locked. Help?
OK, I finally found the Anger Wrought exit. It’s up on a catwalk, between the two areas that you access with the gold and silver keys.
Good map, apart from that frustration at the end. I enjoyed the of battling progressively through a real space, finding ways to cope early on when I had only the SSG and some difficult combats, and it was satisfying to get each new weapon.
The Cthon Building (qbj_eduardo ) is pretty poor, to be honest: a blandly overlit and disconnected sequence of combats that doesn’t make much sense and tries to make up for that with ludicrous over-powering of both player and enemies. Not actively unpleasant to play, but quite devoid of craftsmanship.
Having just played through, and loved Fallout: New Vegas (yes, I am ten years behind the curve) I was delighted to discover that this jam included Hoover Dam (qbj_annihilator), a very different rendition of the same real-life setting. This was mostly enjoyable, with several big-room combats that required a bit of thought to do well. But it suffers from the problem that until you emerge up onto the top of the dam at the end, you could be anywhere — and that the part of the game that takes place on the dam is the least satisfactory sequence, allowing you to skip most of the combat and just run into the exit teleport. So there’s lots to like here, but it’s all a bit anticlimactic just when it needs to up its game.
I enjoyed The Foundations of Cruelty (qbj_ekhudson) well enough, but found it unnecessarily disjointed. The garden section was a highlight, and the unpopulated but beautiful sculpture gallery another, but the undistinguished grey corridors that connect many of the sections really add little. I feel like this map could be a star or two better by some judicious cutting and compression.
Concrete Addiction - by Grash for 2022 Quake Brutalism Jam (qbj_grash) seems to be Grash’s first map, and it’s an interestingly mixed bag. the positives include some very nice small-scale architecture yielding a sense of a distinctive place. The negatives include shortness, arbitrariness, and the absolute dependency on finding the single secret (which to be fair is very easy) in order to finish the map. Also, some of the decorative blocks look confusingly like they could be buttons, which I think is a misjudgement. But although I’ve made more bad than good to say about this particular map, I think Grash looks really promising and I’m looking forward to seeing what he does next.
I now come to an unnamed map by Chocohearts (qbj_chocohearts). Every time I come across a map that the author has not take ten seconds to name, I feel a flash of irritation. Poor Chocohearts is the author who has broken this camel’s back. My new policy (starting now) is No reviews for unnamed maps.
Tower Theta (qbj_fifthskip ) starts out normally enough, with a small arena battle, then two side-quests to get the silver and gold keys. But after that it gets weird. An elevator takes us high to the outside of a tower that, when we look down, is not attached to anything. The only way to progress is to jump down onto what looks for all the world like a rendering bug, and through a void in the sky to the area where the final combat takes place. I can’t decide if I like the audacity of it or dislike its clumsiness. Anyway: fun.
After a brief indoor opening 50 Shades Of Grey (qbj_iyago ) progresses to a Coagula-style outdoor arena with plenty of scope for long-range sniping, where the goal is to obtain the silver key. Behind the silver-key door is a completely separate Coagular-style area, geometrically arranged, in which enforcers and death-knights, plus the occasional scrag and vore, try to prevent you from opening the exist by touching two pillars. Each section is fine, but the map suffers a little from a lack of integration between them.
I had a really tough time with Voidcorp xpm lab 0016 (qbj_sewerh), but in a good way. I was often very low on ammo, several times very low on health, but almost always the difficulty felt fair. So in the end, it was deeply satisfying to complete the map, really feeling I’d achieved something. Yes, it’s disjointed, relying much too heavily on teleporters to get the player to the next bit, and that’s disappointing in part because most of them are quite unnecessary. But in the end what I will remember is the sense of being alone in a hostile base, and making it through against the odds.
[User added a rating.]
I found Organ Foundry (qbj_riktoi ) not just ludicrous but a depressing grind. Once you’ve made your way through an initial brief section of maybe 15 or so monsters, you fall into an area where six hundred (not a typo) dogs all attack you at once, and you try to use respawning nails, cells and quads to kill them. I made a couple of legitimate attempts before giving up and going to god mode. But even then the process of quad-nailing 600 dogs was tedious and joyless, and I felt nothing but relief when it was all over. And it was all over: after that, there is nothing more to the map.
It’s weird. I’ve really liked some of riktoi’s earlier maps. I guess this one is just not addressed to my condition.
Pratique Concrete (qbj_magnetbox ) makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, but is still a lot of fun. Arbitrary progression, unmotivated monster spawning, ugly textures, nonsensical elevators — I don’t care, it was an enjoyable challenge.
I gave Liminality (qbj_newhouse) a fair go — several of them in fact — but by the time I reached seven kills, I had already been teleport-ambushed by a bunch of fields and a load of enforcers, then portal-ambushed by a shambler, then out-of-the-dark ambushed by a group of death-knights, then again by another group. Then I pressed a button and another shambler teleported into the nearly-dark cramped area and … Well, I just realised I wasn’t having any fun, and I don’t have anything to prove to anyone. Hard pass.