Great remake! Sickest secret area I've seen yet from you Kell :) Took me a while to find it but the reward was worth it.

Level playthrough http://youtu.be/Qf7Hcb_8Kxo

This one.

Holy hell this one.

Where to start? This is the first map since 2000 that had me running in terror from something. People just don't know how to balance supplies anymore, and being mostly dead and running into something you're actually not expecting is one of Quake's classic joys that was long lost to predictable monster placement. You brought it back with a vengeance. I know the original map backwards and you still made me jump.

I found your secret purely by chance and a curious rocket jump led to one of my favorite easter eggs to date, mostly because most easter eggs are some joke or the author's initials (including the one in Quake's original maps). Yours was unexpected and unsettling. It worked because you didn't explain one bit of it, and didn't use it for a monster spawn. Perfect.

What in the name of hell was that buzzsaw monster? First time I've seen it in a map and I was not even slightly prepared for it. Once I was used to it it's a decent monster. The health is a bit low and the damage is a bit high, but these are tiny nitpicks on a pretty great enemy.

You made the fiend pit scary again. The doorway required you to hit the ground INSIDE of the drole pit. That was utter genius. I openly hate Droles because they simply aren't threatening (or balanced), but you managed to make one scare me. You know that feeling where you're running with your face twisted in anticipation of that hit from behind you KNOW is coming? You brought that back for me.


This is one of the best custom maps I've seen in a long time. It's not an original idea, or an original layout, but your pacing and item distribution are perfect. Those may seem like minor factors but they make every last bit of difference, and you have them completely mastered.


One last thing worth mentioning, THANK YOU for not including those floating green slimes. Dear god, those are the worst monsters ever created.

Much better level playthrough: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyqiHqEDAmY !

KELL!!!!
Welcome back I love your work!!!!

Once again a superb recreation of a classic, and once again your secrets add a whole extra 'behind the scenes' to the entire level!
(I don't even need to say anything about the monsters, they are brilliantly incorporated, exactly where they fit perfectly!)
Hell, also nice to see more Flak Ogres around I might add! I don't get enough of those things!

Also, guys, I found the "real" entrance to that secret area- and you don't need rockets :P
You know that secret passage in the end room opposite the exit? That door swings for a reason ;)
Just wait in the room for a few seconds and the door swings back- revealing a second passage (like E1M6's secret descending stairway)

(admittedly I only found it because first time I was stupid enough to play it through plain non-Quoth Quake and it wasn't hidden due to the Quoth code missing ><)

I thoroughly enjoyed this. It is beautiful, and even though it follows the layout and gameplay of the original pretty much exactly, it still manages to feel new and different thanks to the textures and Quoth monsters – which are very well used here. Love the attention to little details such as underwater foliage.

The easter egg area is nice, but it is a little jarring that the player receives the lightning gun with nothing left to shoot. From what I've read elsewhere, I gather that the map is not entirely finished, but were it not for the lighting gun, I would probably not have noticed. One more minor nitpick is that said hidden area gives one a peek at the edges of the map in a way that ruins the illusion of solidity somewhat.

Awesome remix map that warrants replaying. I especially loved that hidden area (I too got to it by rocket jumping rather than the "correct" route). Makes me wish more mappers included faux-secrets for immersion or atmospheric effect rather than to hide pick-ups.

Finding that hidden area was the eeriest Quake moment for me.

A beautiful map indeed, and one that combines nostalgia with novelty perfectly. It's a real shame that the project to remake all of Quake (or at least all of Episode 1) as Quoth maps seems to have stalled out. It would be just marvellous to play through the whole of that episode. which we all know like the backs of our hands, in modern mapping style.

I had to knock one star off my score for Gloomier Keep despite all the awesomeness, because of the lack of monsters in the secret area at the end. As others have noted, being given a lightning gun and nothing to use it on is just too frustrating. So four stars for me.