Quake Halloween Jam 2 Finished on: 2019.11.07 Start map ignored as it's the same as the last year one.

hwjam2artistical - Oblivion - 5/5 hwjam2burnham - When Evil Is Exalted 4/5 hwjam2captaincam - The Trail Of Blood 3/5 hwjam2chedap - The Worship Condensate 4/5 hwjam2chrisholden - In The Walls Of The Ziggurat 4/5 hwjam2comradebeep - Candles Of The Damned 4/5 hwjam2greenwood - Misadventure Galley 4/5 hwjam2here - Honey I Shrank The Ranger ! 4/5 hwjam2jcr - The Black Reincarnation 5/5 hwjam2kayne - Husks Of The Past 4/5 hwjam2maxx - Outhouse 3/5 hwjam2pinchy - The School Of Dark Magic 3/5 hwjam2thulsa - Trick Or Treat 1/5 hwjam2yoder - Into The Hall Of Stolen Faces 3/5 5 + 4 + 3 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 5 + 4 + 3 + 3 + 1 + 3 = 51 51 / 14 = 3.64 Rounding up.

Final verdict: 4/5

Okay, I'm really enjoying this set.

Misadventure Gallery was cool, with a humorous atmosphere.

School of Dark Magic was confusing at times, but fun.

Black Reincarnation was an A+ for nostalgia, as I could remember enjoying the original as I played the new one.

Honey I Shrunk the Ranger was fun, but I'll nitpick one thing... don't give me places I can jump to, then place invisible walls to prevent me from fully using the space. It detracts from the suspension of disbelief.

When Evil is Exalted was a good, solid level; can't say much more than that.

Outhouse was... weird. Amazing, but so, so weird.

More commentary:

Trail of Blood is solid, but unremarkable IMO.

Husks of the Past has an amazing atmosphere, and is so different from other maps. Hiding inside the house as various monsters shot at me through the broken windows was cool.

Into the Hall of Stolen Faces was a fun romp through a weird dungeon.

Now for my favorite: Worship Condensate is AMAZING. The darkness is just enough to make you uneasy, but not so much as to make it impossible; the design is weird, in a disquieting way, and it all just works.

Much to my surprise I was able to exit Pinchy's map with 57 / 210 kills without even trying to cut corners ... is this another case of a map leaving a lot to exploration or was that accidental?

Yeah, Pinchy's map is highly nonlinear in that pretty much everything's a side area. I got the plasma gun and opened the exit before I got virtually all the other weapons. It's one of those maps that's a little weird on the first play but a fun one to replay once you know the layout.

It's an overall 5. The only map that really didn't get me was the one with a hell theme, really dark, noisy and not fun. Maybe it was intended to be this way.

Won't be repeating what everyone said, so thanks to all the mappers

In The Walls Of The Ziggurat and Candles Of The Damned are spectacular, and are easily my favorites.

Not sure how to beat trick or treat though...

There is updated version: http://www.celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=61786#5

these are amazing maps but one small gripe,arcane dimensions is under the GNU gpl and you cant say the mod "may NOT be modified IN ANY WAY" cause thats a violation (think of this as equal to me violating a proprietary license).

(and you cant change the license either)

Start map: Man, this is so good. Love the idea of entering each map be jumping into a spooky painting, and coming straight out of a grave a la Blood. The piano playing itself. Cliche-ridden in the absolute best way possible. High expectations are set.

Husks of the Past, Kayne. Quite an unconventional map. I enjoyed it, although my path made it quite hard (I found nailgun first then went straight into the basement -- meaning I was reliant on melee and infighting mostly). Being chased through the corn by those flying laser hosepipes was tense in just the right way. It felt oddly open-worldy. Good fun and lots of awesome little horror nods in one map.

When Evil Is Exalted, Burnham. This is... very blocky. So the visuals are quite arse, and the gameplay is also a bit compromised by the scale of everything. I liked the climb up to blue key at the start, and the kind of huge emptiness gave it a weird quiet atmosphere. The drop into the billiard room was probably my favourite moment. I jumped!

Captain Cam, Trail of Blood. A weird map. The enormous, low-poly nature of it kind of reminds me of how things were made in the original Unreal -- it's lit well and you have kind of set-piece based architecture so it looks better than than it should in principle. Cool little touches around as well, like the candles lighting as you approach them into the alternate universe church area. Combat is lacklustre, in large part due to the flat, convex-shape encounter spaces. Some good traps here though, and imaginative movement physics based secrets too (though I only found 4). Wish I'd got to that little island in the lava!

In the Walls of the Ziggurat, Chris Holden. Wow, this is pro work. This level is a fucking study in texture economy, the area after the atmospheric prison start looks amazing and features a near-monotextured architectural theme so brazenly and cleverly that it becomes a style. This section in particular is one of the most atmospheric and memorable I think I've ever seen in Quake. This sort of emergent structure out of such simple shapes is really beautiful and suits the runic blue metal textures to a tee. It's so strong you could play an entire episode in this theme and not get tired. Criticism then. First, it's a good thing the visuals are incredible because the combat is... only okay. Mostly monodirectional and with enemy arrangements that don't require much more of you than strafing left and right to get by. Throw in plentiful ammo and it was a doozy on Nightmare. Second, what's this got to do with Halloween?! :P

Misadventure Galley, Greenwood. What a fun map! Featuring the biggest textaaaahhres you've ever seen in Quake. Most likely, anyway. I usually detest swimming in FPS games with the same intensity with which I love it in real life, but this is the very rare exception. A lot of cool little secrets tucked around in the rocks, and cool touches including hot springs and a nod to Greek antiquity with columns and an aphrodite style statue that appears to have, siren-like, called one unfortunate ranger to his doom. Gameplay is fun too, a little on the easy side for me but still always interesting being very multidirectional due to the nature of the map. Haha, endcam with the secret in the crow's nest was a nice touch. I missed so many secrets in this one.

Candles of the Damned, Comrade Beep. Lovely remix of E1M2, it treads the line between novel and familiar wonderfully with a mahooooosive visual upgrade. It really looks great, and the titular candles add so much atmosphere (the spiral staircase up to the vore was a real standout here). It's in general just a beautifully crafted map. Th level of care where even a corner connecting room will have some great architecture in the ceiling above you that you might miss 9 times out of 10. Gameplay's fun, I found the ammo was balanced very nicely for me in this one - there was always enough to carry on in the next room, just not the one I'm currently in. I like it when ammo is used to push the player forward and keep the pace in this way.

Pinchy: School of Dark Magic. Not one of the best looking and it has a minimalist aesthetic going on that verges on bland once you're far into a level of this size. BUT. Amazing metroid-esque free form gameplay and layout in this level. The spiral staircase sandwich with suicide bombers was a superb bit of encounter design. But I don't feel like this level is about any one moment -- I enjoyed this map so much as a whole. The pro-exploration layout, scale and intricate verticality and interconnectedness of it all brought to mind Thief's design philosophy more than anything. Gameplay wise this is a fave, despite the relaxing level of difficulty. Lab section seemed to me a bizarre half-life nod. I enjoyed it, but so out of nowhere. Great map!

The Black Reincarnation, JCR. Woah, atmosphere. The initial area is the standout and the way the level constantly loops you back to it right up to the end struck me as a clever use of the space. After the intense, underequpped start the combat was so so. The level of visual polish is high, but somehow the map left me a little cold, despite some good moments like the crumbling floor in the caves. Level endcam having essentially a fade to black from the closing doors was such a cool touch.

The Worship Condensate, Chedap. MOODY. This start: Quake does survival horror, I really liked the swim down as well, cool start. The effective lighting and superb Ogro texture set give the level a heavy, oppressive and alien feel. This and In The Walls... are standouts in the pack for visual theme so far. An odd flaw of this map is that the level of visual sophistication is matched by the level of primitism in the layout: a flat, mostly room-corridor-room setup. That said, while I prefer more interconnected level flow, it does do a good job with the arena setup. The room with the two jump pads and especially the rising floor panels in LG area have some interesting dynamics. Also, as a hallway shape nerd of many years' experience, this map's hallways are fantastically shaped. Even better, these shapely hallways are capped with maybe the greatest door design in Quake history. Bravo!

Gap of a few days so next write-ups a bit short because I couldn't remember everything.

Into The Hall of Stolen Faces, Andrew Yoder. Another Blood reference with the boat at the start, or just me? I enjoyed this one, nice texture set and a wild colour palette that should be too garish to actually work yet does. The combat is a bit on the easy side, but the level had a flow to it and a good sense of place with the way it was built out beyond only those areas you could reach.

Outhouse, Maxx. Very cool start to this map. The opening area looks great, and then you've got that unexpected gape into the green void as the outhouse door swings open. Sweet artificial green skybox. I'm a sucker for abstract maps so this whole lead-in to the map was right up my alley. The glass smashing mechanic looked so awesome! Beyond that, it's a fun map although surprisingly vanilla given the gonzo start. Vertical layout and I enjoyed how casually it transitioned out to the barn exit.

Trick or Treat didn't work due to pumpkin.mdl errors.

Honey I Shrunk the Ranger, Here. Another fun gimmick setting in the spirit of Kayne and Greenwood's maps. This one has scale, and I love how you have this intricate, windy castle stuffed into a pumpkin, with the first flash of realisation when you pop out of the lift to be confronted. The gnarly, organic interior texture gives it such an awesome witchy feeling. Getting outside and seeing how much bigger the level was than it appeared was unexpected too. I appreciate moments like these in games, when your expectations and understanding of the context are suddenly shock-treated into alignment with reality. Very cool. Speaking of violating player expectations, what the hell is up with the invisible walls? Terrible!

Oblivion, Artistical. Not much to say about this one. With no combat and not really any platforming Quake is stripped of much of the stuff that makes it fun. But the progressive slices through the start area looked really striking! CSG subtract gone wild. I pity anyone who tried to get through this in a port without fullbrights...

My favourite of the bunch overall was School of Dark Magic, it hit a real gameplay and exploration sweet-spot for me. Visually, got to be In the Walls...

These are really cool! Pinchy's is just barely too nonlinear for me, though, I'll have to retry it with fresh eyes later. I also get a pumpkin.mdl missing error on Thulsa's map and the link mentioned above didn't seem different.

Just have to say that the Candles Of The Damned is so impressive, this small type of level with such intricate detail I love. In The Walls Of The Ziggurat was great too in presenting a completely different style and architecture. Would love to see a much larger (not mapjam) levels in this style. And Honey I Shrank The Ranger was awesome too - such a unique idea when I saw the giant pumpkin! Look forward to more maps from these guys.

A few other maps were good too but these 3 really were top notch.

Really nice map pack. There's one or two maps where you can totally tell it was their first Quake map, but they're not that bad and overall it's a strong offering. The good maps really shine.

I love the maps that take advantage of the AD setting (I assume that's what's the basis). There's few creative maps that don't follow that theme like Husks of the Past which would fit right in Dusk.

Trick or Treat stands out as the sole puzzle map. Gotta find all the tomes (tricky one is right behind the starting fence - jump down into the cave) and jump on and crush the pumpkins (couldn't figure this out).