intense! played it on skill 2 Got blown away by vents into "stuck" areas couple of times but that didn't spoil my experience playing it. ...and those fiends were scouting like alligators waiting for meat ) - nice. my secret search score is average like 4 out of 7. Solid stuff

Great fun but felt much too cramped for handling all of the denizens of Quake. I also got stuck a few times from the pushes. I also had some bounding box issues where I can grab things or enter teleports before they were opened.

However, knowing the history behind this map it is still quite a marvel to behold...the visual style is very pleasing and it is cool to have scrags navigating through the many metal bars to reach you. Spawns are used very well as they are there to invoke panic and not just frustrate the player. This has one of the more creative uses of trigger_pushes and monster jumps that I have seen in a great while. A great use of a small space...I find Ionous does that quite well when you consider his retrojam 6 entry.

Congrats on the release!

Der Wanderer über dem Säuremeer on The Quake Grave

I thought that Ionous's first single release map was a great success! I will agree that it felt cramped at times, but it sort of has that haunted house feel to it because of that. What he accomplishes in such a small space was very impressive! Absolutely loved the platforming part towards the end because it was so original with the wind tunnels.

The only part that got to me was the silver key part. There was a disconnect for me because as you grab the key, a bio suit appears, suggesting it's time to go for a swim for the next portion. I spent some time hunting under the slime to find the next leg of the map, only to find the silver key door was up near the start. Probably a bonehead move on my part, but it did confuse me (not that that is hard to do =).

Great example of a fresh aesthetic using old textures, and an amazingly tight layout. I tried it first on skill 2 and found it absolutely brutal. I made it past the gold key door and got nearly to the end, but got caught in one of the air vents and pushed into the gang of fiends below. I almost got through without falling on my second try, but was caught in the end. I found skill 1 much more manageable, but still quite tough.

Props on the difficulty, it's getting too often that I breeze through most of a map on skill 2. My only sort-of problem with the gameplay is the air vents. It was too easy for really wonky shit to happen with them and I even almost got stuck a couple times. I'm not sure how much if any is the mapper's fault so much as a function of how awkward and unrealistic the physics of Quake's push brushes are. Still, kinks aside, it presents a unique challenge and I'd rather see these ideas tried than not tried.

what to do file .lit in zip-archive - it is usefull?

.lit files contains colored lighting; you can copy it into your "maps" directory along with the .bsp.

ericw - thanx! ericw who make binaries for render!

I hacked my way through to the end of this one. But although I admire it greatly, especially for its re-use of the same areas under different conditions, I can't honestly say I enjoyed it. It all felt too cramped and arbitrary for someone who, like me, prizes exploration and discovery above other aspects of gameplay. It deserves more than two stars, because of the sheer craftsmanship; but that's what I'm awarding because in the end I finished only out of bloody-mindedness. Sorry, Ionous!

I love this map's unique, distinctive aesthetic. It looks very different from most other custom maps while at the same time being instantly recognizable as a Quake creation.

I found some aspects of the gameplay frustrating, particularly the part with the air vents and acid-pool platforms. But as Lane Powell said above, it's great to see experimentation with new ideas, even if they aren't quite to my taste.

I enjoyed the first minute or two of this map, but by the ten minute mark when I finished it a lot of its charm had worn off. The signs were there from the beginning - Crossing over the air vent at the start of the map to activate it with its button was quite annoying, as moving over the sizeable gap always felt clunky. Having to do it so many times over was a big part of why I grew to hate falling down.

The map certainly has a unique architectural style, and in general terms I quite enjoyed it. I found the number of floors/ceilings that I couldn't shoot through to be a bit of a nuisance though - at one point I found myself standing a floor above a grunt, if you could even call it a floor - where I was standing was far more air than solid ground, yet it blocked my shotgun pellets all the same.

Speaking of grunts, almost every enemy type seems to be included in this map. I enjoyed the variety, but at times monster placement felt a bit hit and miss. There were some very nice sequences, but at other times it felt like enemies were being hidden or spawned in places designed simply to keep players on their toes and guessing.

I also often found myself confused and feeling lost, although part of me wants to blame myself for that - I never really slowed down to think about what was actually going on as I ran around and pushed whatever buttons I could find. Some technical issues annoyed me as well though - towards the end of the level, there's an air vent that you have to use to get up through a floor grate, much like at the start of the map. This somehow became synchronized or something, as I kept getting stuck against the underside of the grate as it closed right before I got through. Again, slowing down and waiting for it to reset itself let me continue the level.

Issues like the one above are the sort of things that can be solved mostly through patience on the player's part. But asking the player to be patient in order for the map to work properly is not a good thing, as far as I'm concerned.

It is the second I take from Ionous and the second which deserves to be called, tight, cram-full and acid-moist. Following his Carcinogen one, wet and dark, this also lets any average player with some metallic aftertaste all along your throat, thinking at which point you started to make poor decissions, while quickloading or restaring again.

In fact after a recent replay, I think there is no poor decissions as long as there are no safe moves. Every door, key, elevator or item is a deadly trap as well as any movement in that siver cage in which you are trapped and in which you push yourself more and more into that abrasive environement as you climb up to the scaffold with great pain and sorrow.

And if you decide not to move, be sure some scragg will be glad to push you in the right direction, the right direction to crash into a Vore or a Shambler. One of the most unpleasant maps I played in a long time. So congratulations because I guess this was the whole point.

Taking any new design idea to the bitter end has always some kind of backfire, in this scenario the progress clues are there (you grab things, open doors and so) but not being any safe ground behind you always give the feeling you are not closer to the end that you were at the beginning. In fact, you are at the starting point many times. This kind of thing is essential to this map but I would rather have a taller building but not having to restart from ground zero everytime. Gold and Silver keys are somehow useless since there is no way to break the linearity at least as I played this one.

Also, it fails to maintain some progress in the gameplay itself, it is almost impossible to gain experience and speed-up as you learn the new situation, so it is a neat combination of boring exploration and some instants of sheer terror and breathless runaway to nowhere.

Finally, while finding the final battle very exciting, I managed to waste all my shells so I had to finish them all via grenade-bombing and screwing the last shambler via Quad-Axe. So maybe I failed to grab something or there is some unbalance to fix here and there.

Nonetheless I think some of the ideas are quite good and can be exported and exploited in many setups with great success and give new ideas to anyone who dare to play it. Only the time can say if this was an evolutionary dead-end or a not-so-brilliant experiment that opened some siver doors to other brilliat maps to come. At the present time, I have to admit that "unpleasant" and "nerve-breaking" are part of the game and they are good. Otherwise this game would be another sadistic grand tour like GTA.

Score: 3/5

Not much to add to the previous comments. You can clearly tell that a lot of time went into crafting this nice looking map.

I kind of liked the panic that unseen enemy spawning caused, and the abundance of bars provided many chances for Scrags to take potshots at you.

I also liked the lack of resources which caused me to strategize and use enemy infighting, like this one time I helped two Scrags kill off a Vore with the few shells I had still available for my shotgun.

The wall mounted air vents pushing me down, that one glitchy upwards pushing vent and the occasional lack of knowing where to go were my main causes of frustration, I'd say, but nothing too big. I guess being disoriented was one of the key contributors to instilling panic and allowing enemies to ambush me, though.

A couple of stats:

I died once on hard difficulty, thanks to a nasty Spawn that I couldn't dodge much in the claustrophobic space.

I found only 2/7 secrets. I've got a lot of work ahead of me, if I want to find the rest. :)

Runtime on my second attempt was about 17 minutes.

Overall score: 4/5

Could use some skip brushes to block teleports and better item placement to prevent picking them up through doors on 45 degree angles.

Fun interconnected cool pillar of a map!

To be honest, I prefer the earlier version from Explore Jam 2... The map is well crafted but very cramped. It's fine in the context of a monster-free puzzle challenge but not so much with monsters thrown in.

At one point a fiend appears at the bottom of a staircase. This is something to avoid since fiends can't navigate stairs properly. And as others have noted, you can take the teleporter that leads to the top and grab the GL before their accesses are opened.

I don't recall the original to have been so disorienting: the multiple reconfigurations with triggered doors opening new paths and the lack of distinctive areas (the whole map looks more or less the same from start to finish) make it difficult to get a good sense of my surroundings and memorize the map. The result is that when I need to go back to a specific point, I often stumble upon it by accident after having roamed for a while instead of just going straight to it.

Notwithstanding these flaws, it's still an interesting map to play, with nice architecture and a distinctive visual style despite using classic textures, but if I replay it I probably will do in explore mode (skill 0, no monsters).

Oh BTW, I've found the first 5 secrets and I know where the 6th & 7th are but I can't find a way to open them. Anyone?

Jesus, this is a really stupid level!!! All the action happens at a spot 20 by 20 meters wide, you simply keep pushing seemingly endless buttons and then you just come to the same place from the different side of the bars.

All the space is cramped, and there're vores, scraggs, enforcers and knights everywhere. And don't forget shamblers!

But that's not the worst part of this level. The worst part is that there's a button that you cannot push, 'cause you get blown away while trying to reach it. And do you know what you're supposed to do about it? Absolutely nothing! Instead of going for this silly button you're supposed to go for the exit, which is located at the very bottom of the level, but in order to get there you have to jump from the very top, and the exit doesn't look like an exit at all, it just looks like a place where you're gonna die (part of the void around the map).

My suggestion, avoid this "masterpiece", by playing this the only thing you're gonna get is frustration, this level doesn't give you that great feeling that good solid levels do, when you defeat all the enemies and finally step into the exit. The secrets are silly too; why would you need a yellow armour in the secret, when there's already yellow armour just around the corner?

Repus, I'm sorry you didn't like the map, but saying it's "a really stupid level!!!" is uncalled for IMO. The map shows obvious attention to detail and has a novel aesthetic, so even if the gameplay is flawed, it's clear that intelligence and effort went into crafting it.

Repus has consistently been reviewing all maps here with negative, offensive, demented comments. Repus has not commented positively on any map here, despite many of them being absolutely works of art.

Repus seems to completely ignore the fantastic brushwork and technical excellence (this is because Repus has no idea what goes into map making) while making useless and inane comments about monster placement that he feels is too difficult, or boring.

I strongly encourage readers to ignore Repus negative opinions and play all maps, including this one, that Repus deems unworthy.

Well, Mr. Guest (couldn't think of something less banal for the nickname?), I actually did wrote positive comments on some levels, for example The Canal, and I actually do know what goes into map making, 'cause I created a level of my own back in early 2000's.

Your statement about only negative comments shows that you haven't downloaded many levels from this resource, otherwise you would definitely find some positive feedback.

There are no rules on this website allowing only positive comments, and the fact that I don't like some levels that the majority of people adore is, perhaps, I have better refined taste and I don't follow the crowd that just likes 95% of what is posted over here. That's too bad for me, 'cause it's hard for me to find a level to enjoy.

I have better refined taste

Might be Dunning-Kruger effect in action.

I rarely replay maps but this one had some innovative and funky elements that brought me back for a 2nd play thru. Ionous' work is always a treat. Play this one for a unique experience.

Well what to say? Very vertical. Effective enemy placement. Wind-currents that just blow you away. It's a really tough challenge on Nightmare. But how to get to the RA below staircase remains a mystery to me.

For some reason you can enter the Teleporter on the lowest level throught the wall and get right to the top and sequence break in the process. Or is it sequence break? Are you supposed to get the keys first then up top? It's not a smart move to go there right from the beginning anyways.

Ever wondered what it feels like to be an ant inside a clockwork of a kind of clock that rattles when you shake it? This here scripting clusterfuck is the answer. 4/10.

One would think a critical mapper's mistake(?) allowing one to glitch through the solid wall panel to the top of the level, breaking all the scripting on the knee in the process (which is more than likely to happen during the search for secrets, especially considering they are explicitly numbered), could be, oh, I don't know, patched out for example. By, like, making that wall panel a notch thicker, so you wouldn't be able to touch the teleporter through it anymore. It appears, somehow, this is not the case. Whatever.

I don't know what all the negativity is all about with this map. It's very interesting, well thought out, and nicely built. It's not intended to be a run-and-gun map. Play it carefully & methodically and you should be fine. I found the winking shutter/trigger push mechanic particularly clever. The ending was nuts, but definitely doable if you strategically use the right weaponry. I find it amusing when folks clamor for something different and then when a mapper creates something unique, it gets flak. I didn't run into any scripting/sequence breaks; however, I must've played it as intended. I thought it was neat!

Returned to this map after the quakecast#2 with Ionous. This is a high mapping standard for me, both aesthetically and gameplay-wise. I'd say it's quite hard for a beginner.

Sehr toll!