Hey Gotshun! I've been waiting for your release and here it is. Wow, I was expecting just one map and you give us a whole episode! Cool... Downloading this tonight, I'll let you know what I think. And if you love Honey so much, you should check Map Jam 1, there's another whole slew of Honey-inspired maps by various authors.

Hey bfg666. I did play the Jam 1 pack and it kicked arce. I am making a new map as we speak. And yes............the map in inspired by the Jam 1 pack. Sorry , but only one map this time. So maybe a bonus for the Jam 1 maps, just had to wait for this one to come out! I hope you Enjoy the maps. Good or bad input gives me a better idea on what you guys are looking for. I'm glad I found Quaddicted. This site has a great bunch of people. So enjoy and thanks again bfg.

                               Pete(Gotshun_ D.

Great to see new mappers!

The start map is especially delicious and actually feels like a mini level on its own with all of the exploration involved. pdsp1 is a nice homage to the classic honey maps and I enjoyed sinking back into the vast under temples.

pdsp2 and pdsp3 however felt almost like copy and paste work with different textures applied. I am not going to over analyze and compare but I have some serious deja vu on these levels.

Finally pdsp4 is odd because it's basically Gloom Keep but with some pretty windows and a few more nefarious monster spawns (and green sky!). Nothing wrong with tributes and remixes but this also feels to be a high percentage of copy and paste work. If you actually remade these levels from scratch than kudos to you but for these reasons my rating is 3 stars.

Looking forward to more original work from you Gotshun! :)

I've played the first map, Insanity, happily finishing with all 89 kills and both secrets on Hard. Very enjoyable, and a fascinating progression that mostly makes pretty good sense -- though it does become increasingly arbitrary towards the end, as the magically-appearing direction signs indicate.

To criticise Isanity for being not as good as Sheer Hellish Miasma would be terribly unfair -- like criticising a band for not being as good as the Beatles -- but the similarity of progression, with the grenade and rocket locks, does invite the comparison, and there is no doubt that the original remains the better map: it's bigger, more atmospheric, more logical and coherent. But that's not to say that Insanity isn't a great experience, too. It is, and coming from a first-time mapper it's nothing short of astonishing.

BTW., Hard on this level is hard! Lots of vores and shamblers, often in difficult-to-hanlde places. But health and ammo are bothj plentiful, so it doesn't feel ike a slog.

I would score this map a very high four in isolation -- which bodes very well for the pack as a whole!

OK, so I've played your episode and here are my thoughts. Since you've asked for input to improve yourself, I'm gonna go into detail so be warned this is gonna be a long read.

First things first, the start map: it's not bad, fairly large for what it is, would have been incredible in 1997 but has a quite basic design by 2016 standards and is visually a little monotonous. It could benefit from some detail and more lights (or brighter ones) to enhance it. Nightmare skill should be more hidden. Maybe you should put walls around it instead of a cage. As it is, the player immediately understands that he has to hop along the wall with the big lights and therefore it's not much of a puzzle. Also, it's a pity that the map's not at all in the Honey style. I suggest you make a more fitting one for this episode and rework this for a future release. 3/5

INSANITY: The map is very linear and could use some junctions and alternative routes. Even when there is a junction, there's only really one way to go to progress. Difficulty seems OK until the map lives up to its name when you jump down to a button to open a door and immediately get cornered by 3 (!) shamblers while having no SNG or LG yet. AND THIS IS ON SKILL 1! I can't imagine what hard and nightmare are like... I had to activate god mode to get out of this insane ambush alive. Of course, the SNG is just behind these shamblers, and of course you can't rush past them as they fill the whole width of the corridor... Maybe only one shambler would be enough at this skill level? The final combat with two shamblers is OK if you run like hell when they appear and take them down one at a time. Nail ammo seems a little tight with all those shamblers. I had to finish the last one with some SSG shots. Also, I couldn't figure out how to access the red armor secret.

Again, the lighting in this map is very dark and could be beefed up a notch. Look at what CZG did with Honey: though his maps are not brightly lit either, the fog makes them much brighter than yours in the end and highlights his design much better than pitch black darkness. Although the architecture is very similar to Honey, I don't find the same atmosphere because of said prevalent darkness and absence of that distinctive fog. I chuckled at the one touch of humor ("I hate jumping on boxes") and wouldn't mind if Ranger made more comments like that. Re-reading what I've just typed, it all seems really negative but besides these issues, it's a rather pleasant map. It fails to live up to its model, but emulating genius is a very hard job anyway... ;) 3/5

THE MANARAXABLE: OK, first off, does that weird name actually mean anything? It doesn't sound bad, quite the contrary in fact. It's just puzzling.

Man, what's your problem with light?! Doom 3 looks like a Christmas tree in comparison to Requiem! Especially if you run it in Darkplaces. It's a little better in Quakespasm, notably if you use the latest version with the contrast setting, but it's still much too dark. The tall scaffolding with all the girders near the start would look gorgeous with proper lighting. Some dark areas in a map aren't a bad thing, but when it's constant it gets a bit tiresome and like I said for Insanity, it fails to showcase your architecture, which is a shame when you build something grandiose like that.

Anyway, when you make an episode, it is a good idea to match the starting point of the next map with the end of the previous one. Insanity ends with a castle type double door but this one starts with one of these large bone archways. This kind of discrepancy tends to break immersion and you should try to be more coherent.

Regarding gameplay, this map is more balanced and fares much better than the first. It's a little less linear and combat is more fair, thanks to the weapons the player carries over from the previous map and the absence of impossible fights. It also seems to have a bit more ammo. I missed 2 secrets but I don't know if it's because they're too well hidden or if I just failed to see them. Speaking of, it would be a good idea to include a secrets guide in your readme. Very few mappers do it but it would be very useful if they did. 4/5

SKID ROW: Again, there's a mismatch: the player ends the previous map in an underwater tunnel and starts this one in a small corridor with no water in sight. Think of your episode as one big world sliced into sections. This map is better lit. It's still a bit overly dark but the brighter and better placed point lights that you put here and there make it much more enjoyable to play and to look at. You're on the right track here.

The ruined architecture is very good, hands down the best in this episode. Did you build your maps in sequential order? I feel like you did because there's definitely an improvement between maps 1, 2 & 3. Sadly, the player's path is still too linear (but more winding and intricate, so it's slightly less noticeable), so that's what you need to work on next. Make multiple routes, interconnect them, stuff like that. The last half of the map is mostly one long backtracking, it would have been better if you took the player along a different route.

Also, try to avoid triggering monster teleport by picking up a goodie (I'm talking about the yellow armor in the huge room that spawns 2 fiends when the player picks it up). If the player doesn't need it, he will miss some kills and might search in vain for these monsters he didn't kill. Actually, try to avoid monster teleport in general. Teleport is cheap, it's better to place them cleverly to ambush the player. Alternatively, you can also build maps for Arcane Dimensions, which has a very cool feature: breakables. You can then hide monsters behind breakable walls or ceilings and they'll jump on the player when he walks over a certain spot.

One other thing you'll want to avoid: forcing the player to grenade/rocket jump when there's no alternative route. If he's too low on health, he won't be able to continue without noclipping. I'm referring to a specific part of a platforming section (the rest of which I liked very much) where I was inches short from making the jump normally and had to grenade jump the gap. I didn't die because I was at full health but this kind of things shouldn't happen. 4/5

DAY-ZA-VU: To be honest, this remix of Gloom Keep could have used more work. The architecture is 95% identical to the original. I feel like all you did on this one was turn down the lights (that's it, you're definitely a vampire!), recolor the sky, remove one secret and add a bunch of monsters (skill 1 has 25% more than the original in skill 3!). To see what a proper remix map should look like, I suggest you take a look at Gloomier Keep or The Slipgate Triplex. 1/5

Conclusion: Though my criticisms may seem harsh, they're not made to discourage you but to help you. Keep on practicing, take my advice into account in your future projects and I'm sure you can become as good as Sock, CZG or Necros. Even if sometimes clumsy, you're off to a good start. Many great mappers have begun their "careers" more poorly than you. One final note: your episode is lacking an end screen text, it's always nice when we have one. Oh and don't forget, as a certain bearded imaginary friend in the sky would say: "Let there be light!"

Post Scriptum: Reading Bloughsburgh's opinion after having written this wall of text, I don't have the courage to rewrite it all so I'll just add this: I decided to take a fresh look at Honey again and he's right, rather than "inspired by", your maps feel more like a remix of Honey, with a lot of cut and paste and rearranging of CZG's original work. That's not to say that you didn't put a lot of hard work into it, but it makes the start map your only truly original work in this episode, which is a bit sad. I hope your next map will be 100% original content built from scratch.

@bfg666: Insanity red armour secret: just drop down from the far right corner of the area where the SNG is. You'll land on a wooden platform, and from there you can jump across to the armour. You can see the SNG-above-red-armour arrangement from some distance away earlier in the map.

Thanks, Mike.

For a little extra atmosphere, here's .lit files for Requiem made using MHColour. As usual, unpack in id1\maps alongside the .bsp files. Enjoy!

http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=02066670550393012014

Only 3 stars. Why? I hate floating over void levels :/

Hi! Thanks for epic map! ..or episode really.

I'm stuck in a first map "insanity". I haven't got that grenade launcher, so I'm stuck in the platforms. Have been searching everywhere, also re-started the map but no launcher. Do I have a bug(Quakespasm) or should I search more..?

Pasi, FInland

ok (answering my own question-) I found it immediately after I wrote aforementioned question... Pasi, Finland

Hey Pasi

The grenade launcher is at the end of the broken bridge oppisite the boxes. I haven't heard of the grenade launcher not being there. After you step on all three switches go back up stairs and through the door.If you still have a problem finding it, send a post to func_msgboard at the the top of this page. I can help better explain.

                 Pete(Gotshun)D.

I tol ya I could help!! HeHe

           Pete(Gotshun)D.

O.K. So some of you guys are having a little bit of a problem with the 3 shamblers.

When you drop your last grenade into the hole , the platform starts to move. This is a sneaky way to get you to jump down and press the button.....right!

Well....DON'T JUMP DOWN YET!!

Go to the other side of the corridor, there you'll find goodies and plenty of room to fight the shamblers.

After you take out the 2 shamblers, then you can go down the corridor and press the button.

Now you only have ONE shambler to fight.

If you still have a problem get at FUNC_MSGBOARD.

                             Pete(Gotshun) D.

I finished the pack. Unfortunately, the first map proved to be the highlight, not due to build-quality problems but the extreme level of copying in the other three. Levels 2 and 3 are not just tributes to Honey but remakes. As technical exercises they impress, but as art they are insubstantial. The fourth level is essentially indistinguishable from the original Gloom Keep -- unlike for example the Quoth remake Gloomier Keep, https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/e1m5quotha.html

What I take away from this is that Gotshun is off to a great start in his mapping career, and has shown good technical skills as well as the ability to be creative when he wants to. But I hope he'll push on from here with maps that are truly his own, borrowing from various inspirations (Honey included) but not dominated again by any one of them.

This release feels a little weird for Quake. Hard to dodge stuff on these small ramps and half-bridges with a constant fear of falling down and monsters spawning constantly on perches. A more suitable gameplay for this would be the original Thief game. I have not played the mentioned Honey map, though.

The good: pdsp1 is a great map. Pure and simple - it's an obvious homage to czg's Honey but it's an original layout and pretty cleverly designed.

Unfortunately it's all downhill from there. pdsp2 seems a bit more copy-and-paste than sp1, heavily lifting some large areas from czg's maps. I actually got frustrated with the gameplay early on, getting lost after picking up the gold key, and decided to skip it and try the next map.

sp3 is quite bad because it's obviously just a tweaked version of czg's saint.map. The lighting is terrible and I just noclipped around a bit to look at it before skipping to the next one.

sp4 is a pointless version of gloom keep with just a different monster setup. Skipped.

My advice? forget trying to copy/remix existing maps - think back to the creativity you used when designing pdsp1 and I'm sure we'll see great things from you (with some different architectural styles hopefully!)