(I've not played this yet.)

It's always great to see a new map, and especially a new jam. But it's obviously disappointing that this one contains only two maps. Surely that wasn't the expectation when it was launched. Does anyone know the story here? Should we expect belated jam entries to turn up as their own maps in the next few weeks?

the story was "x-mas plus a hd crash". Like that.

Very understandable that things sometimes take longer than expected, especially around Christmas/New Year. But I think that I, at least, would have preferred to wait longer and get a more substantial pack.

Still, this is quibbling in the details. Here's my main response: YAY, NEW FREE MAPS!

Nice maps!

Contains spoilers! English is not my language so bare with me. Two maps only? I'm very grateful for what maps I get but.. Yes ok.

Fifth's map: That's what I call a new experience. Starting from the top, working down to the bottom. The Doom3 skybox works really great here. Surroundings where really cool. Had great fun sniping th monsters. Could use a few more tho'.

Rapowke: Lovely map despite a few hiccups in the brushes, and it was very boxy. Had lots of fun jumping on the lava walls, and sniping the monsters. The Falling intro was awesome gave me a very good iden on how to Progress in the map.

Overall: I really loved the "hugeness" of the maps, and the fact that I was very free to explore freely. Definetly going to play both these maps a lot. Would love to see more maps created this style.

This is a theme I enjoy but I am gutted that the other maps were lost or not finished in time. I planned to create so much more content but real life got in the way of my vision of the map.

Although it is a shame that it is only two maps, i really enjoyed building for this theme. Fifths map is really awesome and i hope people enjoy mine, too (even with all the errors).

Zigguroids on The Quake Grave

I thought Fifth did an excellent job with his map! It has great pacing and I love the feeling of scale in it. One of my favorite things was the location of the key and how it's sort of tucked away but not hard to find.

One of the odd things about it though was judging distance to jump up to something. It was a bit weird trying to jump up to something only to just fall back down as this wasn't reachable. Probably my fault, but platform height was hard to judge for me I guess.

A Part 2 video with Rapowke's map is coming later this week.

Untitled (Map 2 by Rapowke) on The Quake Grave

I have to say that Rapowke's first map is pretty impressive for a first timer! It's very big in scope and the beginning and first area had me excited for the rest of the map. I thought the platforming area was pretty fun and a creative way to go about getting to the exit.

A couple of critiques from my end, but I think the second area with the platforming is very brown yet bright and is really hard on the eyes. The look of this area felt rushed, and I know this can happen during jams because of the time limit but definitely could've used a bit of color variation in such a large area. Saw a lot of weird texture issues too but not sure if that was the quake engine I'm using or not. Again the platforming area was pretty cool but could've used a little polish as well. Maybe some guidance lights or something to clue you into where to jump to next. As it is with the colors the way they were, it was a little hard to see where to go next.

But for a first map, this seems pretty ambitious to me, especially since it's low gravity quake and not normal quake. I look forward to future maps. =)

I played Rapowke's untitled map (jam4_rapowke). FOr a first map, it's very impressive -- I would be very pleased with myself if I could create something this good -- but by the standards or recent maps, of course, it falls far short.

My advice to Rapowke would be:

1. The rooms felt very big, but lacked either the play-density or the atmosphere to carry it off. I'd recommend smaller rooms for most of the map, and just the one big room for the set piece at the end.

2. Atmosphere of the big hall at the end could have been much better had it been gloomy, spot-lit from several places. The lava ceiling and walls don't really work at all.

3. I literally blundered into the secret by accident, and would never have found it by looking. Maybe I missed a clue, but if there is one then it's not obvious enough (especially in light of how very valuable the stash is!)

4. Give more thought to monster placement, and particularly to the ways the various monsters interact with their environment.

I hope this is helpful, and that we can look forward to more maps by this new contributor.

FifthElephant's map, Zigguroids (jam4_fifth) is a lovely piece of work, as expected. Combining ziggurat gravity with coagula architecture and a Zerstörer skybox yields a unique atmosphere. I found four secrets, mostly quite satisfying -- thought I think there must be some better way to use the pent/quad combo than just to shoot the scrags that appear. If I were to criticise the map, it would be only that the ending feels rather sudden.

All in all, I rate this release at four stars; it's just a shame there weren't more maps included, and I hope we'll eventually see the other ones that people were preparing for inclusion but that missed the cut-off date.