Warmup on The Quake Grave

What can I really say about this map? I don't normally like to critique a map without talking about some positives within it as well but I can't think of much positive to say about this one.

There's a "gold key door" but no gold key. There's an upper platform with no obvious way to get up to it. There's another sub area with more enemies with no obvious way to get to it. I had to clip through the map to discover some of these things! Texture choices are strange and there is absolutely no flow to the level. I can't recommend this one unless you need a good example of how not to build a quake map.

In order to get to ceiling floor, you have swim down a hole in a corner of the pool that is highlighted by a blinking light. It is hard to discover because the only way you can drop down is by jumping while standing on top of the hole. Also, there's a hidden wall near another blinking light which is not marked by anything, not even a misaligned texture. This is not a secret and it is how you get to the next room. Couldn't find the gold key either, even with noclip, and i had to give up on the map.

Heh, correction. The gold key is hidden behind the stairs on the way to the ceiling floor, after dropping into the hole of the pool.

I'm not a big fan of placing key items (get it, KEY? ;D Okay, I stop now) behind mandatory secrets. Well, at least after some careful looking around the secret DID have a visual clue going for it.

But another thing was placing the gold door in complete darkness, which I happened to find only by complete accident. That's quite a huge oversight, and it's probably due to the author having little time to playtest the map (as stated in the readme file).

But on the positive side, the architecture of the main hall was decent, I particularly liked the geometry of the top platform.

The enemies also kept me on my toes, taking potshots at me from above, so combat was challenging, albeit a bit unfair at times, because I got shot occasionally from complete darkness. :/ I would have also liked more shells.

But all these frustrating things build up just enough for me to rate this thing only 1/5.

this map feels incomplete and rushed and is not worth a play through. Also the map is too damn dark that it makes it impossible to see anything including the gold key door. This map gets a one out of five rating from me and is not worth your time.