Forum thread for retrojam5
ec5e66c561411028c4d0ade6e37fbf96377726e5df815fe679b571e9ce4c0b55
overall_rating
3.956521739130435
46
Dibs on the first comment! 
Copy/pasted my review from the Func_Msgboard page.
Great jam overall, with only good to great maps, not even a “meh” one. Thanks to OTP for organizing it. Played on skill 2 in Darkplaces. No demos, sorry… In playing order:
Breezeep: Very good but very tough map, with one particularly vicious arena fight. A bit stingy on ammo and armor. I wish there was at least one secret. [SPOILER] I couldn’t figure out what triggered the spawning fiends at the beginning, it seemed somewhat randomized.[END SPOILER]
Issues: 1) I got stuck once on the inner side of the second turn in the first wind tunnel, but it didn’t happen again upon reload. 2) I had one missing frag but couldn’t find the last monster even after thoroughly re-exploring the map several times. I suspect it somehow fell out of the map.
Qmaster: A very intricate layout with nice verticality but monotonous texturing - then again, one can do so much in a week’s time, so I don’t hold it against Qmaster. The theme was wind tunnels and IMHO the bill is only half-fitted: there’s wind “pads” but where are the tunnels?
Issues: 1) the first wind pad on the second floor seems to activate on its own when the player simply walks over it, thus greatly impairing walking speed - this can be a problem when you have [SPOILER]a vore shooting her balls at you from the other side of the central pit![END SPOILER] 2) the exit teleporter points to a non-existing retrojam5_start.bsp while OTP explicitly stated that he wouldn’t provide a start map.
Shambler (or OTP, according to Shambler): Wow! Incredible on all accounts! You won’t have me believe you made such a large, detailed and visually stunning map in just one week, even if you’d worked on it 24/7. You even took the time to add a couple funny centerprints. The carefully crafted lighting gives it a great atmosphere, even better with an extra .lit file. The action is very tough and frantic, especially that final horde fight in a much too small arena, which was a bit unfair. This one took me “a few” tries but I eventually managed to survive it. Secrets are nice.
Issues: 1) I had to turn RTworld off, otherwise the map would be drenched in overbrights. 2) I got stuck on the remnants of bars at the end of the second wind tunnel. The trigger_push prevented me from moving and I had to noclip out of there. The issue did repeat upon retries.
Shamblernaut: A fun smallish map with some boxy rooms. I liked the large scale of the main rooms and the gameplay mechanic in the second room that allowed to dispose of the monsters without even shooting once. The very wide tunnels were a nice variation on the usual wind tunnel design, with these large fans that would fit in industrial complexes. As others have pointed out, the lighting is very flat.
Issue: like with Shambler/OTP’s map, RTworld has to be turned off.
ItEndsWithTens: What does the title mean? This one takes the concept of “retro” even further: it’s as fugly as a 96/97 custom map! If this was the intent, it’s awesome. Gameplay-wise, it’s good but I wish the wind tunnel served as more than an excuse to delay the ending for a few seconds.
MJB: Loved it! Even when Bloughsburgh does something “retro”, he manages to bring in fresh ideas. These upside down torches were neat and looked much better than expected with Seven’s particle flame, as if fire was sprayed downwards and then went back up. Missed secret #5 but I tend to disregard flickering lights (because they’re also used as simple decoration), especially when there are so many around! A shootable button might have been better. The inclusion of a skill selection area was a nice touch, given the absence of a start map.
NewHouse: I first played the original version but found it way too easy, so I tried the updated one and it was much better. A fun and rather short map with, as usual, nice atmosphere and attention to detail (the open lid of the well at the start). I would voice the same criticism than for Qmaster’s map regarding the absence of actual wind tunnels.
Issue: same as Shambler & Shamblernaut.
[User added a rating.]
[User added a rating.]
[User added a rating.]
[User added a rating.]
There’s no top-level README for this package – only map-specific files for four of the seven maps. So I am not sure how to unpack this – e.g. whether I need to put the maps in my quoth directory. Seems like an oversight.
Mike,
Extract the maps folder to your id1 directory.
This uses vanilla Quake gameplay.
Hope that helps!
Thanks – but I’d already extracted them to their own retrojam4 directory – seemed the safest. Anyway, it’s working fine.
Anger Ventilation Shaft (retrojam7_breezeep) is just brutally difficult, even on Normal. Having finally fought my way through massed shamblers, fiends, vores and death-knights to reach the base of the first wind tunnel, I jumped through it only to find myself in the midst of another nowhere-to-run shamblerfest, and quit. Not my idea of a good time, however finely the level may be crafted.
In case NewHouse’s map is too easy, he has released a harder version that wasn’t included in this pack. Download here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwxYkKdSD855S1lGQ05JeU9ZMW8/view?usp=sharing
Airing of Grievances (retrojam5_mjb) is much better – very solidly engineered, and fun to play. I only found two of the seven secrets, and exited the level despite the warning that “You left something behind”. I will go back now and work through the secrets guide thgat MJB thoughtfully included in the documentation.
[User added a rating.]
My favourite maps were Airing of Grievances and Deterritorialization, hands down.
In general, I’d say AoG had the best overall balance with gameplay/architecture. I liked the clever secrets, in particular.
Deterritorialization was visually the best, and I liked the parts where I got to gib wave after wave of monsters under the influence of Quad damage. >:D
The Flying Obelisk was quite a fun and funny little map. It had some cool visual stuff going on with it, especially the beginning before you go outside to the graves. It was quite fun to make the Death Knights fight the Zombies. It was also quite endearing to have mere Enforcers be the required triggers for reaching the obelisk
‘Good Map’ Pipe Dreams and Bethel Ekon-Lin were visually quiiite different from vanilla wind tunnels, but I kind of liked the architecture in both. I especially liked how the wind tunnels were executed in the former, in a medieval themed map. The room with the spike traps had the idea in it that you were supposed to follow the trails to not trigger the spike traps, but it was too easy to just run around the edges and then press the buttons.
Come to think of it, the overall fragmented and vertical style of Trick Bricks kind of made me think of how the Citadel in Half-Life 2 looked like. xD
Anger Ventilation Shaft was just so tough, with its low resources, that at times I was forced to just make a run for it. Visually I’d say it’s in the top three of the bunch. I also wish there were secrets, though.
Retro Jam 5 on The Quake Grave
Bloughsburgh (MJB): This map has a great flow to it and for such a small map, it’s pretty impressive how many secrets were crammed in here! Nice job on this one, this maps is feels better than a 5 day jam map.
Breezeep: I love the look of this one, architecture looks great! Unfortunately I didn’t have time to take it in as I had to run my ass off to get away from all the enemies and find the exit! My play-through proves that it can be finished, however this map is so chocked full of enemies that the only way to finish it (at least for me) is to just run for it!
ItEndsWithTens: I love the difference in textures from the rest, breaking it up with some blue is never a bad thing. I thought that this map was paced great and perfectly emulates that of a '96-'97 era community made map. This one also houses my favorite wind tunnel in the pack. Woo!
NewHouse: This is a great little map! It may be short, but it accomplishes a lot in that short time! I love the changes in the look of the map as you progress and I really like the last bit where you’re using a little wind gust/tunnel to propel yourself up through unlockable doors. Cool idea!
Qmaster: I liked the verticality of this map, but feel it could’ve used a little more player guidance. I’m not sure that this one connected with me. I wasn’t ultimately sure how to climb the bricks without killing myself, then once I got to the top I wasn’t sure how to get the door open.
Shambler: It’s hard to believe that this map was built in 5 days! It looks really great and has such a huge sense of scale compared to the rest. I’m not sure that the gameplay is my favorite, as it houses larges rooms with tons of enemies in each. Maybe I just need to give it another go? Nonetheless, it’s a very interesting and fun map in it’s own right!
Shamblernaut: This map also has a huge sense of scale to it with big rooms. My favorite part of this map is the big fans that propel you around, though I think a fan was missing from the last room you enter. Also, with the fan at the beginning in the floor, it suggests that you’re riding in a big air ship or something which I think is a great effect.
Great work everyone!
[User added a rating.]
I replayed Airing of Grievances (retrojam5_mjb), following the secrets guide that Blousburgh thoughtfully included in the documentation – but still finished with only 55 of 65 kills (and all seven secrets, of course). What gives? Where are the last ten bad-guys hiding?
Mike,
Near the bottom section of the readme, where monster kill counts per difficulty are stated there is a blurb about the rotfish being counted twice for the kill total.
The actual numbers I have in the readme are correct. 55 is 100% kills on Hard. 
It wouldn’t be retro without the fish kill count bug!
Unregistered user “Jonathan” posted:
There’s a problem with this in quakeinjector - the folder gets created with a trailing backslash (or similar) in it so the launched engine doesn’t correctly look in the folder.
Unregistered user “Jonathan” posted:
There’s a problem with this in quakeinjector - the folder gets created with a trailing backslash (or similar) in it so the launched engine doesn’t correctly look in the folder.