The amount of detail on this level boggles the mind, 'amazing' doesn't even begin to describe it.

yep, enjoyed it as well, will play it again!

Enjoyed this very much and will play again. Refreshing to know that there is still interest in producing quality Q1 maps. Thanks, Sock.

P.S. Too short! Maybe a followup map?

This one gets even better over time.. Sock is a machine, i´m glad he´s putting his blessed hands on our favorite game!! May he never stop it..

"Your neck is like an ivory tower" Solomon 7,4

Very beautiful -- such a strong sense of place, and of exploration and discovery. And such build quality. It's humbling.

I never figured out how to get up to the shambler-gun on the floor above the area behind the silver key door. Anyone got it?

Positives: Brush work, scaled well. Shows a great deal of quality. Nice rock formation. Some interesting design choices in the wall construction. Monsters well positioned. Not wasted on easily killable ones facing the wrong direction.

Negatives: Tedious game play. Very tedious. Little in the way of direction signifiers. Players would not have tolerated this in 96-02, now its called 'non linear'. Didn't actually finish it, and I gave it as fair a chance as I could tolerate for now.

Brush work simplified to a manneristic fault. Wood bars shouldn't appear that block like as they do in many places. More appropriate in a Doom I or II map than a Quake one.

The wizmet texture on the interior walls needed some variation. Even simple contrast like a classic Tiddles map could have been very effective here as not to draw attention to the lack of surface variation.

Could use more of a monster challenge in normal mode to make getting lost more interesting.

Players would not have tolerated this in 96-02, now its called 'non linear'.

I would actually say the opposite. Think of Doom or some of the glorious FPS from that time. Open, non-linear levels were not uncommon back then.

Non linear is fine in levels where progression is evident, or becomes so with a little exploration. I don't recall a single other level in the tons of Quake and Doom games I've played where it is possible to go nearly ten minutes wondering around with absolutely nothing to do but fiddle with buttons and ride elevators. There is one possibility that did not occur to me, the prog.dat may be broken in Dark Places. Even some vanilla quak levels wont work correctly with that engine, like BNT2 (now there is some fine 'non-linear' exploration). I originally attempted this in Fitzquake, don't like using DP where it isn't intended, but it spat out an error message related to the custom Ogre used in the pak files.

This guy is awesome. I'd buy any commercial map pack from him if that was possible.

This was really awesome. Playing it with original soundtrack after reading the story blurb helps complete the atmosphere.

Video playthrough with commentary

Great map once again! I'm starting to like your love for crushers! <3

Beautiful, flawless though somewhat small map (i.e. very short, albeit somewhat less so if you go secret-hunting).

I did not find the map difficult to navigate, in contrast to User1048 above. On the contrary, to me it was always fairly clear where to go next, without gameplay feeling forced or scripted -- a difficult balance to strike, yet this map does so perfectly.

And I certainly would not describe the map as tedious. Notably, the final battle is challenging while avoiding common pitfalls of boss fights or end battles. The crushers (a familiar element from Sock's excellent Backsteingotik) are used to great effect here, turning the final battle into a rewarding tactical experience, rather than a boring and repetitive dodge-and-shoot affair.

Awesome map. Great level design, wonderful architecture. Maybe a bit short but still much fun playing.

Superb old-school feeling, lovely details all around, strong sense of place with enough distinct areas that helps with navigation and balanced gameplay that offers great fights and enjoyable exploration. A must play.

First-time play-through video here, parts 1 and 2: http://youtu.be/FmYG0b5DT7A http://youtu.be/HwPib7cZkiw

Pure old school! Loved it. Man after my own heart this designer here. Sock rocks!

Nothing I can add that hasn't been stated above already. Everything is so detailled and precisely arranged (e.g. broken steps of staircases, stones sticking out of walls, crate stacks) that it's hard to believe you are still playing a Quake map. And yet again, this IS Quake, at its best, looking more beautiful than ever. All of Sock's releases in 2013 are amazing actually, so don't miss out Midnight Stalker, Backsteingotik and The Horde of Zendar if you liked this one - and believe me, you WILL!

How do I get that rocket launcher?

Thanks for the video Daz. Got my rocket launcher :)

The rocket launcher is actually one of the easiest secrets I've ever seen :-)

Replayed this, and loved it again. Yes, it's truly non-linear, as in not just offering a choice of what order to do areas that get you the keys but as in allowing you to reach different areas from different directions. To me, that's a plus -- though I wouldn't want all Quake maps to be that way. (Hordes of Zendar by the same author takes this to an extreme.)

I am usually pretty terrible at final battles, and don't enjoy them much -- I'm more of a sniper. But this one if anything I found too easy. Just running round and round the outside, pressing the crusher buttons as I went past, was enough to deal with almost all the enemies. Then rocket a few vores, nail a few shamblers, and done.

Loved that final room with the traps, I suck at secrets though, had to beat it with both sotguns and chaingun (not difficult anyway)

Found only 3 secrets... Could have been worse. Really loved the final room, but I got a little lost with all these elevators :(

A great looking map, a great layout and great gameplay go together to make this, well, great! I really enjoyed the attention to detail with the visuals in this map. Where an elevator could easily have been a simple stone platform, it was instead detailed and intricate (by Quake standards) and little touches like that really help to take the map to the next level.

I wish I could comment more about the gameplay of the map, but really I can't think of anything in particular to say. My mouse was flaking out on me as I played at points, which made certain areas harder than they should have been, but the actual difficulty of the map was great. Especially challenging was the final arena, which easily chewed through the majority of my supplies and left me struggling towards the end, which was a great experience.

Layout wise, I'd say one of my favourite parts of the map is actually the shortcuts. Not because I used them, which I didn't really do, but because they represent a great care to look after the player experience and cut down on the frustration that can come from falling in such a layered map. Other than that, everything flowed together really well, and at no point did I ever feel lost or confused as to where I was supposed to go to any significant degree.

That`a one of best levels i played

It is a rare thing to start hating a map, to the point to F10 mid-game, to later discover that it is one of the best maps I had and I could not see it.

I got this game directly downloaded from this site because I said "wow, such a big score, this will be great", but I also downloaded several single map bsp-only files in a very random way, searching by keywords like "runic", "labirynth", "classic" or whatever. No time to understand this rating system. Just give me a fresh map now!

But after playing a couple of boring ones and getting to this one I find it too frustrating to spend too much time on it. I just got lost many times, trying to remember which elevator went in which direction, trying to figure mylself the overall architecture of the place, to the point to quit it, thinking it was an abandoned project. (Unfonrtunatelly I played before some maps that really had serious flaws as I could have learn in advance if I spended some time reading the reviews in here or the readme.txt ) I think there is a similar compaint above in this same page.

So I had a very big surprise when reinstalling my Q1 setup in another computer some time later. I went again to this repo (BTW congratulations, it is one of the best I could find, it's a pitty your main title banner looks like it belongs to a polytoxicomane anorexic teenager emo personal blog) and to my uttermost surprise I start reading not good but excelent reviews of this map. At that time I had already played "The Horde of Zendar" and "1000cuts", so I was familiar with both the name and the virtues of Sock and his trademark maps. So I start wondering if I really missed some obvious clue the first time (like a hidden path near the starting point or a button so big I mistaken it for a building) so I decided to give this map a second chance. (a very uncommon thing, see below)

For my big surprise, In less than 3 minutes I have reached the Gold Key and made my way straight to the final stage without the Silver Key , but with a Quad Damage, a Red Armor and a Rocket Launcher. ¿some glitch in the Matrix? Yes, It's name is Sock and he is here to remember us that not all those who wander are lost, and all that is gold does not wither. (hope you got it). Of course I managed to kill myself a few minutes after in a new, creative and unsuspected way , but this time knowing that, in the sense your guts on the floor can know something, there would be a glorious comeback ... someday ... or just in a few minutes after a coffee refill.

After this epiphany I took a new approach to explore for secrets and increase the killcount before facing the final round again. It was astonishing easy because, after all, at this point I already played tHoZ several times and I know how to handle the conundrum of the Many Vores and Too Many Death Knights. And I've got the Rocker Launcher. But I better stop talking about my game and let's grenade jump go to the scores.

This map is not as good as other works from Sock just because it is too difficult to realize it prima facie: some reused textures here and there and another ugly green mine with elevators that does not go anywhere. So for people that, like me, do not spend many time reading all the reviews (or skeptically you do not believe everything on the internet, specially if there is a pink syringe on that page, blink blink) it is easy to get lost and disoriented and you may think you are playing a poorly planned rookie map not worth of your time. After all this is not 1996 and I have not a full night to play videogames in my parent's basement. The span of attention I have between two vibs on my phone is quite limited and some of those vibs could be really important. (They never are, but, you know.. maybe)

SO, baseline: If you do a mf damn good map, please be sure everybody gots it from the first time. Like tHoZ or 1000cuts. Because this is like cinema or sex: You don't often get a replay in a couch if your premiere was an F10. (*)

Score: 5/5. It Was Greeeat.

(*) PS: this also entirely applies to websites with awful head banners. (nudge nudge). I couldn't possibly promote this site among my friends, not even with a ring of shadows. They already think there's something fundamentally wrong with people that still plays Q1 and that pink syringe you couldn't possibly find in a mad dentist's lair will not help to disprove it. Hope it Helps. Sincerely Yours, A.

Wow, that has to be the most eccentric review I have read. A very in-depth review to be sure and glad you decided to come back to it!

But be careful because a fiend may curl up in bed with you one night and inject you with that pink syringe!

The fact you are coming here to play these maps might mean you have already been injected and don't know it yet!

Embrace your weirdness!

Shotgunning death knights in very cramped environments isn't very fun. Really takes a while to kill them this way. Yet all the better weapons are hidden in the secret areas.

Which brings me to... This map has a lot of secrets. I found about half, and some of those were grenade/rocket jumped to. Made another sweep of the map before calling it, and I've no idea where's the rest.

I liked how the author combined the skill selection section into the map itself. The actual start of the map even looks like the skill selection area, but with monsters and items instead.

It's an above average map, but it won't blow your socks off (pun intended). Still pretty fun though.

Very good map, highly enjoyable, especially the end. Not as genius as Zendar, but still a decent map from sock.

I initially avoided this map for sometime because I had already played the whole set of (brilliant!) maps that Arcane Dimensions had to offer, and given the release date and the screenshot I expected this to be some sort of a demo, warm-up, preview of what was in AD.

To some extent this was true, because many elements reminded me of things I experienced in AD (for instance the final room). But to say that this great map is still worth playing is an understatement. It has a lot of secrets, great looks and details, and varied areas (the mine was a great - but unfortunately too small - idea), and it did indeed remind me of some of my favourite moments from AD (which will never receive enough praise). So do yourself a favour and go play this one!

Our 'simonoc' at his best. "The Ivory Tower", is complex - but sticks together. It is carefully crafted, complete - as a 'Quake' standard level, should be - well paced in terms of combat; the difficulty balance, feels just right. The aesthetic theme, appears properly coherent. The final combat, is fun in own way and not a headache, which is a major merit. Two thumbs up!