It Seemed to Devour light on The Quake Grave

I really enjoyed this map! It's fun, it has great pacing, cool horde rooms, plenty of variety in the gameplay for just one map... but it's just so dark! If there was a tinge more light I would enjoy it that much more! That's about my only gripe with it and I'm not even sure that I can hold it against the map due to the name of it. It warns you right off the bat!

Regardless of the light situation, I really enjoyed my time playing this one. Check it out! I'll have videos for the other 2 maps shortly.

Also, Ionous really likes Scraggs. ;)

Skacky's map is really lovely; enjoyed it much more than his Retro Jam 3 map (which was of course good and very impressive for a jam map, but not as much fun to me as FifthElephant's). I was afraid that this was going to be an expanded version of retrojam3_skacky, but it's a completely new experience.

The secrets I found to be very rewarding: they all make sense and strike that perfect balance between too easy and frustratingly obscure (in this respect the map reminded me of sock's work, or one of mfx's later maps). I found a fair number on my first playthrough, and the rest on my second or third.

Minor SPOILERS

Ionous's map was a lot of fun too, and I found it to be one of those that get better upon a second or third playthrough.

The visuals are extremely busy, which is a little overwhelming. It also makes secret hunting a little daunting. I did not find a single secret on my first playthough, but managed to find most on my second playthrough, once I felt a bit more comfortable with the map's layout. The fact that the secrets were numbered helped a lot, and made finding them feel more like a meta-game. I particularly liked the SNG and QD secrets. The LG secret had me stumped for a long time, though, and I believe it was the direct result of the excessive detail everywhere -- everything looks like a secret button!

A minor nitpick is that I did not like the way the player was required to hop up to the exit right at the end. The descending steps made for a nice visual finish, but carefully hopping upwards felt like more of a chore than a reward for having completed the map.

Minor SPOILERS

I was very excited to play a new release by negke, who is one of my favourite mappers. I found the map somewhat frustrating to navigate, though. I spent a lot of time going in circles and retracing my steps trying to figure out where I was and where I was supposed to be going, possibly as a result of the curly/winding layout and the lack of visual differentiation between areas.

The secrets in this map were likewise really tough to find, being mostly a matter of trying to spot extremely well camouflaged buttons or out-of-place textures. I did like the super-secret reward, tough!

What I usually love about negke's maps is that they are not only very well-crafted, but unusual and stimulating, pushing Quake gameplay and visuals in unexpected directions. What I often find less enjoyable, though, is that progression can be very obscure (almost in a 1990s adventure game sense). This map unfortunately has more of the latter than the former.

If I had to rate these maps, I'd probably give retrojam3dlc_skacky a 4.5, retrojam3dlc_ionous a 4 and retrojam3dlc_negke a 3.5. All very subjective, of course.

Oth on The Quake Grave

This is another solid entry in the Retro Jam 3 DLC pack! I like a lot about this map. I think my favorite thing about it though is the pacing. It's outstanding! My experience had me scraping by at the beginning only to build up and feel like I was running the place later on. Though there was just enough ammo for me to scrape by to the end with the final fight.

My only nitpick with the map is that navigation is a little confusing some times. There is a section towards the middle of my playthrough where I had no idea where to go. I think the vertical layout of the map has a lot to do with that, as it's several floors of different things happening so it can be a little hard to gauge what a button just did. However, there are some areas with a button and a window and the window shows you what is changing right in front of you. I thought this was a great touch!

All in all, this is a really fun and great map to play so check it out!

Last video for Skacky's map coming shortly!

Oblivionaut on The Quake Grave

I very much enjoyed playing Oblivionaut. It's a well paced, some times surprising, some times disorienting and daunting looking quake map.

When I say daunting, I don't mean in terms of challenge. This map, though challenging at times, I feel is really well tuned so that in every situation there are a couple of strategies you could employ to deal with the task at hand. Daunting is more in reference to the feel of scale in the map.

When you start the map, you get a fight almost immediately but it's inside a small room. This is cool because this room is sort of distracting you from the fact that as soon as you go up that elevator, you're going to see a huge map with several floors going up in the middle of...well...Oblivion!

You'll see in the play through, when I took in my surroundings and first realized the atmosphere and scale of the map, I was kind of blown away. This definitely threw me off for a second. However, despite all that, once you get into the groove with this map, it's so much fun. Everything feels huge yet it's a well paced and a pretty easy to navigate single level. I love that you can feel that way, shake it off and then run in and give these monsters the business. Great stuff!

There is only one room that I wasn't too thrilled with and it's the one you teleport to and there are 2 Hell Knights waiting for you and you have nowhere to go. Feels more like a punishing trap than anything else. But considering this is a small footnote in an otherwise great map, It really doesn't bother me.

Play this one now! Watching out for the Shamblers. ;)

As a final note for the whole pack, I think everyone made a great map and I enjoyed them all. Congratulations everyone! Great job!

I finished Ionous's It Seemed to Devour Light (retrojam3DLC_ionous.bsp) -- a marvellous, beautiful and very atmospheric piece of work. I got at 152/152 kills on Hard, but only 2/6 secrets. More impressively (to me, anyway) I finished with 0 armour, 1 health, 0 shells, 0 nails and 0 cells. I had to kill the last two beasies (scrag and fiend) with grenades. Perfectly judged, and left me with a real sense of achievement.

Only three quibbles (and they really are only quibbles). 1, it was hard sometimes to tell where I was, because all the areas had the same look -- perhaps some subtle coloured lighting or something might have helped. 2, I lost health several times by elevators mashing me into bits of decoration, which is always annoying. 3, several times I had to get down from high places that elevators had taken me to, but there was (as far as I could make out) no way of doing that other than falling and taking damage.

But like I said, just quibbles. A lovely play.

Oh, man, I am having so much trouble figuring out what to do next in Oth.

Well, I finally flogged through to the end of Oth, with 84/90 kills and only 1/7 secrets. I assume that the missing six kills were inside the secrets I missed, since I killed everything I saw (including going back for the zombies when I finally found the grenade launcher).

While I have tremendous respect for the skill that went into this map, I'm not sure I actually enjoyed playing it all that much. The combats were brutal, which is fine; the supplies were meagre, which is also fine. What dragged the map down for me was that I spent so much of my time trying to figure out what to do next -- running around already-cleared areas of the map, desperately hoping to spot something that had changed. (For one of these points, I gave up and grenade-jumped up to a ledge. Only by doing so did I subsequently find the lift that I should have taken to the other end of that area.)

So I'd score this a five for build quality, but only a two for gameplay, so frustrating did I find it. (The cosmetic similarity of most areas of the map also added to the confusion, and the lack of a sense of progression.) All in all, then I'd score this map 3.5* in isolation.

I finished Skacky's Oblivionaut (retrojam3dlc_skacky.bsp) with all 78 kills and all 6 secrets on hard -- the first map I've played in a long, long time where I found all the secrets! Although this is the easiest of the three maps in this pack, I enjoyed it the most. The architecture is very beautiful and flamboyant without ever becoming inconvenient (I never got stuck) and the combats are judged perfectly. A really lovely level, and well worth the full five stars.

(And needless to say, I awarded a 5* rating to the pack as a whole.)

It's been great to play these maps -- my deep thanks to the wonderful mappers who make this possible.

Words cannot express my gratitude for these people making these awesome maps. This is what I call art.

Didn't like Ionous' map - too many copy-pasted details that dont add anything except visual noise (and when they're on the floor, interfere with player and AI movement). 2/5

Negke's map is much better, a bit too mazelike and cramped but pretty interesting. 3/5.

I liked Skacky's map the most - gorgeous visuals, abundance of ammo and fun to play, 4/5.

I loved all three of these maps!!

Ive only played Ionous's so far, and good job!

I just cant figure out how to reach the trigger for the 1st secret. Its out of jumping range AFAIK, and I could only reach it via noclip. Other than that good show!

Mecheye:

Gurer ner fbzr uvqqra fgrcf gb gur evtug bs gur ohggba (jura lbh'er ybbxvat ng vg). Gur ohggba bcraf n tengr arkg gb gur fgnvef va gur svefg ebbz.

(Encrypted with rot13 to avoid spoilers.)

skacky's map is the one that really stands out here. The other two, though not bad, I found too confusing and difficult to traverse due to their maze-like design, which made both finding the exit and hunting for secrets a real drag at times, mostly on ionous' map (as someone pointed earlier, there were too many decorative panels and motifs that might trigger a secret area, thus it's a hell of a chore to shoot every single one of them just to find out). Skacky's map has a pretty linear layout and a reasonable amount of secrets which aren't difficult to find (I actually managed to find all six of them), and the architecture and enviroment are great. I'd say my biggest and possibly only gripe against this map is the same issue that's so common to all void maps: The sense of being in a massive structure floating in space is gone as soon as an enemy falls into the void and its corpse simply stays there on an invisible floor. The same happens if you fall yourself, you die instantly by hitting a bottom that for painfully obvious reasons isn't supposed to be there, it's quite unrealistic.

Kinda funny when the DLC is 3+ times bigger than the original content! Will give opinion when played through.

Now this is DLC I can get behind!

Ionous's level was a spectacle to behold. It felt like some of crazy area you would see in a Dark Souls game. But this is Quake, and this just shows what visual marvels Quake can pull off. It is a bit easy to get lost to all of the sameness of the place but I think the major selling point of this map was the visual design and I am okay with that.

Oth is on the other end of the spectrum. I didn't find it be visually stimulating but I did find the gameplay and flow to be top notch. Such an oppressive atmosphere this place conveys. The flickering light Shambler with his back turned was a very tense moment! I love how the vertical space is utilized 110% and it was a blast to play!

Skacky's map is somewhere in the middle of visuals and gameplay and once again earning the aware of my favorite of the bunch. Love the runic temples floating in the void smoke sky and the place really gives off a retro vibe in a modern way. Secrets were fun, but some moments feel a bit unfair like spawning right into a fiend and corner ogres instantly spraying their hot pineapple love. The vertical layering is great, and the sense of this otherworldly place is present.

Again, good stuff and I fully recommend to play these gems!

WARNING: minor spoiler ahead.

Skacky's map felt a bit unfair to me upon visiting the room with tarbabys and a pipe. However, it is possible to escape this conundrum and then suddenly feel a little bit sorry for the shamblers up above. I've been able to cheese them with an ssg and height difference abuse. It may be a bug though, since the other part of this particularly nasty surprise jumped down on me without any hesitation.

The level by ionous is just really boring. It gets interesting at the very end, but for the most part it is the same looking hallways that you have to go in circles. The secrets are nice, but by the time you find them they're useless.

The level by negke is all right, but very confusing. It is unclear as where to go after you press the next button. Usually there's text stating "Access to graveyard granted" or something like that, here you just hear some walls/doors move. After pressing the n-th button I just couldn't find where to go (couldn't find the way to the golden key). I also have to mention that the beginning of this level is very hard; if you get to pass those zombies and the shambler with only a shotgun, the rest will be easy.

The level by skacky is probable the best out of the three to my taste. The best thing about it is that you can choose different paths to progress since the level is located in the void, it's easy to jump from one level to another. The secrets are obvious but nice, the quad secret comes in handy the most. Enemy placement is fair, the ammo amount is overwhelming, I think there's too many boxes with shells and nails.

Someone should archive RJ3 with RJ3DLC together... Anyway DLC is even better thatn RJ3 itself. Negke's map is mazey labyrinthine and very hard to navigate. But I have to admit the layout is ingeniously tricky good. Not my fav map out of jam but it's unique & personally I dig uniqueness alone... Ionous map is cool as always. Basically he didn't make a single bad map; all of them vary from 8 to 10 points (out of 10). None is mediocre. And this map is no exclusion. It goes for 9 because lighting was a bit over contrasty, too many of those fullbright square lanterns and it was a bit hard to look around because of that, pain for eyes... And skacky's map is all good perfect. Along with Ionous none of his maps are mediocre, all vary from 8 to 10. This one goes for 10. Anyway jam is recommended to everyone, really cool close to vanilla experience (close because maps are much-much complexier & intricate)