I'm still playing CTSJ2, but Bal's map, "Dehydration Station" was absolutely delightful in the way it fit CTSJ2's theme!

This jam was fantastic, as expected, and every map shines (including the sunny start map). While I had a ton of fun with all of them, I did want to comment on two in particular. Fairweather's map is one of the best Quake maps I've ever played: it has stunning oldschool architecture and lighting that highlight the best elements of the runic theme, a wonderfully oppressive atmosphere and inventive quad mechanic that guides you and keeps you moving forward, and a sort of combat-puzzle encounter design that I've always wanted to see in more Quake maps. Fans of Sunlust will have a ton of fun with it. Don't forget the hidden final fight! It's the hardest one, and is very satisfying to complete.

Mazu's map was an evolution of (what I consider) one of the greatest strengths of Mazu maps, in that he does exploration like nobody else, except this time you're taking the supplies you find back to crafting/market areas in order to have enough supplies to progress through the map, like a step up from his key market in Chamber of Forbidden Runes. Mechanics like this really add to replayability, since you can approach the level in whatever way you'd like. If only there was a way to see what supplies you had, though! The secrets are plentiful, and are a ton of fun to find, following a difficulty curve from easy to very hard, so there's something for people of all skill levels. I always liken Mazu secrets to munching on a plate of cookies, they're just really satisfying, plentiful, and almost always have tells that let you recognize them if you pay attention. This map is probably the largest I've ever played, and is basically another game in itself. The best part is, it's only the beta version, so I'm really looking forward to playing the final release.

Superb release. "Weeping shades of indigo" was my favourite of the pack, kind of a mix between an ancient sith temple and that place with the snake women in "Arx fatalis", sinister, mysterious and scary.

Yet again... an absolutely wonderful map pack!

The maps vary, as in all communal projects, from excellent to... not quite. But each and every one shows good mapping, good details, great ideas and quite a bit of thinking-out-of-the-box.

The one single map that made this rise to a five-star rating (not to belittle any of the others) is Mazu's "McGyver" map. I have a secret suspicion that this map may not entirely have been concieved within the time limit...

Exploring. New ideas. A new way of doing quake... that includes all the old ones. Bloody marvellous. It took me bloody 2½ days to finish this map, and im still a handful of monsters and 14 secrets down...

All of you: really well done. Mazu: exceptional! Thanks for your time and efforts, and thanks for sharing, everyone.

On the office building level some hissing starts when using QSS. I wanted to enjoy it but that kinda ruins it.

Map of Mazu is really great, true adventure! Anyway, I wanna ask the question: what's the trouble with the fog on 1yago's map? Different rooms has diffetrent fog, but why it changes so discrete?

The text file says that this pack uses the modification "copper 1.20". But it has not appeared on the developer's website yet. Is this a modification of version 1.20 just for this mappack?

I opened the file "pak0.pak" and saw that several sounds and menu images for this mappack were added to it. If I want to use version 1.20 with fixed bugs, do I only need to replace the "progs.dat" file in the existing version 1.19?

How do I use the grappling hook in the Minecraft themed level please?

Disregard that, ahem

I haven't played the other maps yet, but Mazu's is definitely a must-play. He took exploration to a whole new level and I'm blown away by the result.

Oh, by the way: when Mazu warns you that "Hard" might be too hard, you listen.

I guess I am doing a dumb here, but I can't figure out how to open the door into the base in Rifts to Abhorrence (ctsj2_hrnekbezucha). What am I missing? And oddly-textured button?

Pac (ctsj2_riktoi) is clever — I won't say how, because I don't want to spoil the surprise. But is it actually fun? Not really, not for me. Sorry. I'll award a generous two stars because the moment of realisation is nice.

I like Sun King's Passage (ctsj2_mfk) much more: a pleasant palace with sufficiently interesting combat and an easy-to-grasp structure. Nothing especially unusual, but fun. A award a rather mean three stars. (This is nearly stars better than Pac, but I rounded that one up from about 1.6 and this one down from about 3.4)

Lethe's temple is a nice experience of well-judged combats in a bland but beautiful temple with mostly pleasant and clear progression. It falls down a little right at the end, in a few ways: * The silver-key door isn't marked, and I spent a while looking for it — partly my fault as I took a break at a crucial moment and lost my context. * The ending is anticlimactic, which nothing behind the final door. * The only secret can only be found at the very end, and it doesn't contain anything.

But I like this a lot, nevertheless. Four stars in the context of a jam.

TIL that Quaddicted's Markdown renderer doesn't support bullet lists. Oh well.

It should!

With

• stars

• and

• with

• lines

but the parser might require a leading and/or trailing empty line, like many. I hope soon we will have a different commenting setup.

Ah, I'd not come across that convention — I'm used to GitHub-flavoured Markdown. Thanks for the tip!

• This is
• A test of
• A leading blank line before the whole list
• But no blanks between entries.

And this is what comes after the list.

Meanwhile, I really enjoyed Greenwood's Seti in Stone, a egyptian/alien temple with enjoyable progression and a good blend of tactical and hectic combats. Pleasant to look at, too. A very solid four stars.

A quarter of the way through A Blaze in the Northern Sky (ctsj2_stickflip) I was worried that I was going to get lost, as all the areas look much the same, constructed from the same grey rock walls. But I needn't have worried. The map is so carefully constructed that the right path is always apparent despite the visual homogeneity.

The choice of which silver-key door to take first adds a nice element of replayability, and combat balance is pretty good. Early in the first sub-quest (the silver door on the right) I just ran out of ammo, and had to run past an ogre ledge to reach resupplies. That was a satisfying moment.

Apart from the unexciting (but effective) visuals, I have two other quibbles. First, the lack of secrets; and second, the lack of points where we re-emerge above an area visited earlier. This kind of verticality always helps to establish the geometry of the space the player is exploring, as well giving the inherently satisfying feeling of looking down on a familiar area from an unfamiliar perspective.

Despite these imperfections, I rate this map a solid four stars.

The Satisfyer 2 : Holiday in Finland (ctsj2_zigi) is not really my cup of tea: I like to play Quake slowly and thoughtfully on the whole, with occasional frantic interludes; a map that is frantic from start to finish might be brilliant, but just won't work for me.

So I won't award a score for this one at all.

I will say this, though: I turned on notarget and lawnmowered may through the hordes of unresponding enemies in a way that required absolutely no skill at all ... and I really enjoyed it. It's not what the the map was intended for, but I guess if it's fun then that's success.

I like Inner Sea Ruins (ctsj_pinchy) for its self-contained quality. I found it difficult early on, with ammo running out. But while sometimes that can be frustrating, I felt it was well judged in this map, so I was able to rescue myself by causing enough infighting to rush inside and grab some more ammo. My only real criticism is that the ending is anticlimactic: having taken out the monsters that appear on the top of the temple when you pick up the gold key, I was surprised to find nothing more than a few regular knights up there waiting for me when I took the teleporter. I think a shambler surprise would have been warranted. Anyway, this is nice. Four stars.

Rotten Rivet (ctsj2_sze) is nice, linear progression through a slimy base with an aesthetic somewhere between Insomnia and Rubicon (without being as atmospheric as either). It could be argued that the repeating pattern of enter-a-room, pick-off-the-enemies, press-the-button is unimaginative, but in fact I found it pleasantly soothing. And the different layouts of those rooms meant that each stage was a distinct challenge. Very nice. Four stars.

Well, I reluctantly gave up on Scvmfvck II: Fvcked Harder (ctsj2_fairweather).

It started out feeling like it was going to by my favourite map of this jam, with its lovely architecture and novel qud-based progression mechanic, and I did really enjoy the first 100 or so kills.

But then I came to the room where after you grab the quad you're dropped into a tiny circular room surrounded by insta-death lava, and get spammed by dozens of ogres, death knights and vores with no room to manoeuvre. I died over and over and over. Could I have beaten it? Maaaybe, but I wasn't having fun trying. So I god-moded through and moved on to the next section.

Where I was almost immediately confronted by a choice of two teleporters, both of which took me to equally impossible constrained combats. At that point I had to ask myself why I was putting myself through this. I considered god-moding those two sections, too, but really, what would be the point?

Worse, I realised that having been stuck in this map for so long had meant I wasn't playing any of the other CTJS2 maps, which was silly. In fact I wasn't playing any Quake, because I had somehow got it into my head that I needed to beat this one first.

I know, I know. It's my own fault. But I concluded that the best thing to do was put myself out of my own misery, and declare this map a WONTCOMPLETE. Which is a real shame, as it felt like it was going to be a five-star map.

Tried two maps running in Quake Remastered and both crashed.

OK, obviously I am a complete idiot, but I cannot figure out how the heck to craft anything in Mazu's map, which everyone loves. As a result, I am chronically short of ammo, and on the verge of giving up. Can anyone guide me? Thanks!

Mike, you need to enter special room, where you can craft weapon or some another stuff. You need to pass about half of the map to reach this room.

Thanks, Vasya. Then I think I'm screwed — I just can't make it through to there on so little ammo, and I don't have the heart to go back to the start and play on Normal or Easy.

Soulsucker (ctsj2_aleks) is a satisfying map in a runic setting, with enjoyable progression and a nice selection of enemies. All the areas look pretty much the same, but that's not too much of a problem because it's usually pretty clear where you need to go next. The ending is appropriately climatic. All in all, while this map doesn't break any new ground or blow me away, it was a huge relief just to play a regular map after the ludicrous difficulty of Scvmfvck II: Fvcked Harder and the ammo starvation of MacGyver Goes Lovecraft Beta (ctsj2_hcm).

Dehydration Station, Ranger really could use a drink (ctsj2_bal) is by some distance my favourite of these maps so far. Set in a distinctive location — a sort of desert-island oil rig — it offers an environment that you can see most of from the start, but which progressively opens up in a satisfying manner. Very nice.

Breakfast Under The Balloons by radiatoryang (ctsj2_radiatoryang) is by some distance the most memorable map in this pack so far. Set around the base of, and then up in the branches of, an enormous tree, it's a setting that I've never seen before in Quake — and as I have rated 698 releases, that's saying something.

Everything is on a vast scale, and I enjoyed the proper gut-level vertigo of peering down out of the branches of the tree — although that feeling was a bit spoiled by the way Quake's crazy dropping calculus meant that falling from the highest available point to the ground cost only five health points!

Novel setting, lovely visuals, new forms of combat — what's not to like? Five stars.

Weeping Shades of Indigo (ctsj2_h4724) is a small but tightly constructed level with very difficult combats, but difficult in a way that doesn't feel unfair. I did chicken out and back down to Normal skill, but it seems to me that I could make it through on Hard if I wanted to work that hard. The space is used well, and there were plenty of times when I really had to stop and think. Recommended.

Dearth to Dust (ctsj2_ionous), while rather different from Weeping Shades of Indigo can, by coincidence, be described in much the same way as I described that map: "a small but tightly constructed level with very difficult combats, but difficult in a way that doesn't feel unfair. [...]. The space is used well, and there were plenty of times when I really had to stop and think. Recommended."

I particularly enjoyed finding out late in the map that my intuition of how to deal with all the fiends at the beginning had been correct.

Amid A Fresh Carcass (ctsj2_trashbang) has a promising beginning in a fresh setting — the wreck of some kind of huge ship in a desert. The problem is, that's all it has. It's over so quickly. Sweet enough, but too short. I'd love to see the concept developed into a full-sized map.

For Here Shall They Reign Again (ctsj2_iyago) is a nicely constructed medium-sized castle, densely populated with 100 kills (on Hard), largely in a sequence of enjoyable set-pieces. Very solid build quality, and plenty of fun.

I will say nothing at all about LZJ124's unnamed map because LZJ124 did not name his or her map. Name your maps, people! It's so easy! It takes, what, 20 seconds? NAME YOUR MAPS.

Enfer (ctsj2_xeo) is another example of a castle map that is not especially big, but which judges its combats well, so that the gameplay is better than you would expect. Multiple times I got my health knocked right now, once into single digits. In the final combat, I was briefly completely out of ammo (apart from grenades, which were no use against a shambler), before discovering more. The whole thing was pretty thrilling.

One minor problem: After collecting the silver key, when I was very low on health, I jumped across the spikes in a lava pit to get back to an earlier earlier where I'd left unused health packs. Having done that, and retraced my steps, I found that it was not possible to get back into the post-silver-key area, as the bars that had blocked my retreat earlier would not now lift from the other side. I had to noclip though to continue.

Death in the shade (ctsj2_dfl) is a pleasant journey through a runic temple with some fairly straightforward combats and not too many surprises. I have nothing to say by way of criticism, but somehow it doesn't feel like it's going to linger in the memory. The nail traps on the bridge to the gold-key door feel entirely superfluous, though (so I guess I do have something to say by way of criticism).

The New Order (ctsj2_dr57) is a fantastic way to finish this pack: not necessarily the best map in this jam, but definitely the most unique (leaving aside Pac, which is only a novelty). This one is an art heist, carried out by traversing the rooftops of several skyscrapers and fighting combats along the way. I found this hard, but not so hard it was frustrating. Several times I had Aha! moments that were really satisfying. Really nice, and it feels so good to play something I've never played before in this 27-year-old game.

Needless to say, the pack as whole is very well worth five solid stars. There's just so much goodness in here that I am prepared to forgive even the two maps I couldn't finish. Great work!

On Fairweathers map, the circular room with the quad in the middle doesn't seem to work, at least for me. The quad always falls down into the ground and I can't progress. Does anyone know how to fix this?

I'm using Quakespasm btw.