Yep, it's a 5/5

PRFCT

If Quake 5 would come out I wish it will be something like this. 5/5. And THANKS to all authors of this incredible project

Highly enjoyable megaproject. Loved every part of it, especially the new weapons, statues and the music. Top tier must play for any Quake fan. Congrats to everyone involved

Wonderful and huge work! But unfortunately, after the second update, bright pixels remained in the textures at some levels, and in some places walls disappear under water. 5/5

Everything is fine until "d1end" Stand on steps, doors open kill 4 - 5, then theres a floating enemy, i cant hit with any weapon, but its not attacking me either, just floating.But i have nowhere else to go, using quakespasm 95.1

Ninja, touch all pillars and pick up the rune.

Is it my imagination here or are the enemies doing far more damage than otherwise? It all seems a bit loaded. Excellent maps though.

Awesome, thanks to the whole team!

5/5, but I prefer all secrets to be accessible for casual players.

Episode 2 is very unsuitable for troubled waters. Changing the transparency of the water is almost mandatory.

D2M6 darkened in 2/3 games, after the Shub-Niggurath encounter (quakespasm spiked).

In multiplayer: - Dying with a key makes the key disappear permanently. - D2M5: underwater, a large elevator can rise to the surface. I died of suffocation while the elevator was going up. The elevator then got stuck high up, while the players got stuck on the floor below.

This is more Quake than Quake itself. Excellent!

Atmospheric, a heap of effort has gone into making this look pretty but to me, it's just a pretty face. Looks nothing like quake. Nonintuitive gameplay, ammo balance variable but often bad and unrealistic secrets. The kamikaze are cool and the shotgun mod is ALMOST as good as the one in Nehahra, but those ogres on steroids add nothing to the game and the railgun thing looks like it was lifted from a different game altogether. The double axe is fun and looks good but not the best against mass attacks which is usually when you're given it. Has its moments and I the large levels would have been brilliant with tighter progression, more realistic battles and a less colorful, more Lovecraftian look but nothing makes up for the irritating puzzles and super tedious gameplay which was made a LOT worse by copper. ad would have been a better choice by far. 2/5 - 4/5 depending on the level.

How to open Hightmare skill?

This is good.

Very, very good.

Thanks for sharing, everyone!

This has been one of my favorite Quake things ever. The atmosphere and environmental progression is just utterly top-notch, all the maps synergize with each other really well, and Aleks's soundtrack ties everything together perfectly - I'm always amazed at how good music can set the tone for a map. Also, the powerups and new weapons are absurdly fun, and fit the world so well, especially with how they can be combined. Markie's sounds really elevate them a ton too, berserking makes you feel truly powerful, and the ticking with haste was so good. These were genuinely all amazing, but a few notes on individual ones:

Under a Funeral Moon by Voidforce is quite visually unique, especially through its expert use of lighting. The colored minlight adds a ton, along with the red highlights you see here and there. Figuring out the fights was also a welcome challenge - especially the last one. Seeing the leaping enforcers on the platform you had to stay on was wild + figuring out how to get away from the two shamblers on one side/bombers on the other side when the fight first starts. Also, I love the rapid-fire button shooting secret, and I wanted to wander out into the desert forever in the outdoor section

Ankhs for the Memories by Fairweather put a smile on my face for the entire time. Jesus christ that was good. The music synergizes especially well, and going through all the intermission areas, each themed around a new powerup, was an absolute blast. The map is visually flawless, idk, I can't say enough good things about this, and it's a well-deserving finale to episode 1. Some of the most fun I've had in Quake. Fairweather is always so good at keeping the adrenaline going in really creative ways

That We Should Voyage So Far by Bal is the first map I've played that gave me the same feeling Tears of the False God did, which I guess is appropriate given the author. The music/lighting/skybox/everything just feels so beautifully sad and mystical at the same time. The secrets were fun to find, and the gameplay was exciting/challenging, especially with a shotgun start, but what truly sells it is the atmosphere, which is uncontested. I've noticed that about a lot of Bal maps - they tend to have a very melancholic and alien feeling to them that is very difficult to find anywhere else - that sort of creeping/slow atmosphere is often overlooked, but it feels absolutely magical. One of my new favorite maps - it's absolutely beautiful, to the point that it was honestly making me a little weepy lol. It's maps like this where every element comes together perfectly, and really shows how special Quake can be. This also has my favorite music track on it, and I love the snails

Abyss of the Troglodytes was one of the most inventive maps I've played. The encounters are so well thought out, and I loved all the jumping puzzles! That's so rare in Quake, and I wish it was wasn't, because Quake has the best movement out there. The secrets also incorporate these, and were really creative as per usual with Mazu, particularly the mirrored room one. I just want to munch all the Mazu secrets like a jar of cookies, there are just so many! It's addictive. Also, the entire gold key sequence was insane, and learning all the ins and outs of it was a real treat, especially with how it constantly forced you forward and kept the adrenaline going. This has been the hardest map I've done deathless so far, which took some doing, but I loved every moment of optimizing the run and figuring out the best ways of going through everything, and I'm looking forward to trying it again on coop. On that note, I also really love how open-ended this is. There are so many ways of routing through the map, that basically no two playthrough are going to be the same, especially combined with the orb doors around the water temple. Mazu is truly amazing at gameplay, and his maps are very inspiring.

Apeirohedron by Bal and Fairweather was visually stunning, especially how the caves vanish off into the blue distance - I don't think I'll ever forget that image. The boss on top of it was super fun to fight - you don't get too many challenging bosses in Quake, but both of Dwell's bosses thus far have absolutely knocked it out of the park, and they both look so amazing. I still have to find the mailbox here, though. I forgot, and I'm assuming there is one, and I'm going to find it, and I'm going to smack it with my axe.

That being said, every map in here is fantastic and was an absolute pleasure to go through, but I don't want to write an essay, so all I'll say is I'm looking forward to going through them all again and again. Thank you to the entire Dwell team for this, it truly is special.

That's one of the most beautiful reviews I've read.

Fucking PERFECT

Absolutely delicious

D2M4 might be the first time I'm seeing someone caring about the horizon in a Quake map. I don't know what the trick is, but thank you.

Masterpiece <<<

A true masterpiece. Well considered in every way. Atmosphere for days AND fantastic gameplay scenarios. Play it!

man... could possibly be my favorite quake journey I've ever taken. Soundtrack is absolutely awesome too. All around just a great episode. Thank you and can't wait for more.

6/5

I feel like the Serious Sam kamikazes are a little out of place and their screaming is more humourous in tone instead of fitting the horror-action themes of the project. For new enemies I was expecting to see something amphibious like the Lovecraftian Deep Ones we see in statue form in Episode 2, but instead all their ruins are inhabited by standard Quake enemies. Likewise for Episode 1, maybe the knights should have jackal heads and lamellar armour or something Egyptian instead of their European plate and chainmail.

That being said, the level architecture, pacing, difficulty, aesthetics, music and damn near everything else is incredible. The praise above is true, this really is a tremendous achievement.

The tone definitely fluctuates a bit. Case in point: those silly terminal messages in M1. Unfortunately, it's not even all that surprising in a modern community project. People don't seem to take these games very seriously.

5/5 at least. Thank you very much for making this happen. Can't wait for the next Expisode. Cool Sounstrack, too.

Map D2m4 was one favorite of mine, settled on a beautiful sunset island and D2m8 was by far the most complicated and largest Map I've ever played. So many locations, so many secrets, tons of Monsters to send back to hell... huge, even tho I don't enjoy unterwater... it took me alone 4+ hours to make it to the End, whilst just found 30% of the Secrets within. The Endlevel looked gorgeous. The overall Design of this huge Project is very pretty well done. The Egypt Part in the first Episode for sure reminded me of Serious Sam, you wonder why ;-) So, this took me over a week to play through in daily Sessions. I had lots of fun, smile, riddle, depaired. Again, thank you

Hey everyone, thanks for all of the kind words and criticism! The team is ecstatic over the feedback we've received, every critique and analysis is appreciated greatly. We've been group-watching streams and vods every few days, it's a great time seeing people's reactions to everything. Thought I'd make a big ole reply post to things that stood out here:

On the topic of things being non-serious, I totally agree. You can probably tell from projects I've helmed in the past (CTSJ2, Snack Pack 1/2, Bored) that I'm personally not super indebted to making everything super serious, but I hope that difference in outlook doesn't detract too hard from the rest of the pack's qualities! I've been quite surprised at the (puzzling, honestly) positive reactions to the Kamikaze, so it's good to hear at least some other people find that shit annoying! At least you can sleep well knowing that Kamikaze are going to be around a might less in D3, I am hearing that fucking AAAAAAAAA loop in my sleep.

On the horizon in D2M4, it's done using a banded set of circular water textured func_illusionary brushes that fade out from the center, and a fog colour + density that fades well with the skybox's solid colour at the bottom, along with a decently low value of skyfog. Hope that is a solid enough explanation to help mappers who wanna try it out. The actual water volume is a waterskip brush.

On the comment by "mellotronworker" on the damage output... nope! Nothing's been changed on our end. We just generally use a lot more monsters in more challenging locations, so it ends up 'doing more damage' in reality, while keeping the same values.

And one last special-thanks to Comfy for the detailed reviews of her favourite maps, it's well appreciated.

Cheers all.

It's hard to detract from those qualities due to how pronounced they are. The soundtrack in particular is surprising. Once again, it gets a little somber for what the rest of the mod is trying to do, but it's hard to complain about something being high-quality and evocative.

Damn I hate those Kamikazes. Good thing you plan on using them more sparingly.

I could've sworn that scrags' projectiles were faster in this. Maybe I just haven't played regular Quake for too long.

By the way, is this supposed to be played with fullbrights on or off? Episode 1 gets very polka-dotty once the red flesh walls become common.

I've been a fan of this since the first episode was released, and I'm even more so now.

It really is difficult to say just what a treat it was to play both episodes and also the bonus maps. Every aspect of these levels including the music is epic.

My hat's off to everyone involved in this project. Your efforts are greatly appreciated! Bravo!

It's almost Impossible not to give this a 5/5. The amount of work is unthinkable, and the quality and ambition are legendary.

Yet I still think some maps are indeed so big and ambitious that they somehow lack a bit of balance and tend to feel too repetitive and monotonous. Especially in episode 2 later maps I find too many monster traps and some fight arenas, despite their gorgeous looks and breathtaking scenery, are too simplistic and just throw tons of monsters at you.

I will give this release a solid 5/5 in pretty much all categories except in gameplay. Putting a bit more care in combat balance and relying less on monster hoards will have made this release sublime and stand in its own league.

Of course overall it is way better than most entry level maps here so maybe we need a different scoring scale for epic releases like this one.

5/5, of cause.

For the bunch of maps.

A little spoiler here:

D2M4:

at last I managed to reach the flat roof of the pyramid using two rocket jumps at the protruding stones. Jumping alone didn't work.

"This sunset sure is long!" I decided not to be annoyed, a little bit of kidding is okay, of cause.

But I would be very interested to know if there's a real secret on this roof.

I have secrets 6/8 now, and can't find the last two ones.

What a wonderful map.

Cheers, ludicrous.

So, whose idea it was that Quake needed a tankier ogre that floods the area with even more grenades?

I'm having a little trouble on D1M7 Darkstar Triumvirate. At the blue key area I can't seem to find a way out, I have collected the key and grenade launcher, but the metal grid that blocks the elevator will not disappear...

I feel mixed about this. If we're going by general art design and music, then it's easily one of the best mapsets I've played, no small feat considering how good the average Quake map is these days. D2M4 was especially beautiful with the sunset illuminating the ruins and the cliffside passages.

I loved the new weapons, the auto shotgun is fantastic and a lot of fun to use, and the crystal lance is a satisfying railgun analogue that packs the kind of hefty punch you'd want and expect from such a weapon. It makes a real mess of monsters and it brought a big smile to my face every time I was allowed to let loose with it.

But the real issue lies with the maps themselves. Most of them are fine, brilliant in fact. But both episodes feature a map 8 that's an absolute slog to get through, containing a ridiculous number of enemies and are chore to play due to the insane length and endless ambushes. These kinds of levels are perfectly fine for hubs or standalone releases because you know what you're getting into, but for an episodic structure it kills the pacing stone dead. I also wasn't a fan of D1M7 because the teleports got a bit confusing, even though I liked the concept of the level itself.

I'm also so-so on the new enemies. The Construct isn't much fun to fight, with the worst part being its introduction. Putting one underwater in a tight space is fine, but you did this for the very first encounter with it. The player has no idea what it is or how it acts and they need to handle this new monster with impaired movement on top of all this, which doesn't give a good first impression. The beefier Ogre also feels a bit overkill, but I must admit whoever modeled it did an astounding job. He looks incredible.

I can see a lot of promise in Dwell, you've captured the Lovecraftian atmosphere better than most releases (hell, even more so than Arcane Dimensions and I don't say this lightly) but I think maybe some of the later maps could do with some serious trimming for the set to be at its best.