Forum thread for sksp2b
e25311172222e0a7e5a4af26aaa0b96e219f566387f71201de70b62846521a8d
overall_rating
4.325581395348837
43
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Awesome!
Unregistered user “Dingo Harry” posted:
It was very good, but some of the scripts didn’t work for me (notably, after hitting the two switches, the gate to the silver key did not open, and in the “are you worthy” challenge, after killing the knights, nothing happened).
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Unregistered user “Lord Vorkosiga,” posted:
Very nice map!
Could be a little bit harder (played on Nightmare), with stronger monsters (Quoth has plenty of them).
Also, big map, but maybe some areas could be more exploited (access to roof in open areas for example).
However, very impressive, it took me 2 hours to finish it and find all secrets!
Nice map!
no problems / nightmare / darkplaces
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this is just the kind of place i love to do my killing grate environment! what a way to start the new year!
Unregistered user “LeopolD” posted:
Excellent map, I liked the geometric approach on some areas!
Nice, very straight ahead gameplay.
Unregistered user “LeopolD” posted:
symmetric, not geometric
What, no Shamblers wearing name tags and drinking stale coffee? That’s flagrant false advertising!
….
Other than that, though, it’s a really impressive release and one of the best-looking Knave maps yet. A majestic start to the new year indeed.
Love the abundance of secrets (and I am very happy that the trend with custom maps seems to be to include an ever-greater number of secrets). The silver key room is particularly nice: is it an intentional homage to the first map of Q3A? I also really liked the rocky outdoor/cave area, which provided some much-needed visual variety (it could in fact have been bigger and more elaborate in my opinion).
Combat was fair (if a bit heavy on teleporting monsters at times) with adequate weapons and ammo. Monster selection was spot-on. Normally I am not a fan of orchestrated fights where you get locked in and have to kill all the monsters to proceed, but here it was done very well and never felt unfair. There were some complaints on func_msgboard that the boss fight was too easy, but I thought it was fine (maybe the complaints were only about the beta version of the map?). Likewise some people thought enemy placement should have been less symmetrical, but I liked it, as it gives the player the opportunity to strategise.
Bookshelf textures were perhaps ever so slightly over-used at times and I agree with Lord Vorkosiga that it’s a pity more was not made of the exterior architecture. There is one particularly lovely exterior scene with some towers (when you press a button near some lava shortly after getting the silver key) which the player never really sees; you need to noclip to have a decent look at it, since during normal gameplay the angle is too low. Indoor lighting could perhaps have been a little darker/varied, but was still very nice.
I really hope we get to see more maps from Skacky.
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I thought this was very beautiful to look at, and a lot of fun to play. But I had to knock a point off because it felt very arbitrary – more like a Quake level than like a real place. For example, there was no revisiting earlier areas at a higher level, which always helps to tie the geography together – just a sequence of (very nice) set pieces. Still, I’m glad to have played it.
Unregistered user “tb” posted:
A good effort from a new designer. The rooms look good but to stand alongside the greatest Quoth/Knave maps of the past, it would benefit firstly from more inter-connectivity between the larger areas, some of which were underused or revisited only by backtracking, and secondly from a bit more difficulty to give that dread atmosphere. Also some of the symmetrical areas where you are essentially doing the same thing twice could be done without. Lots of fun, thanks for this Skacky.