Dibs on the first comment! :D Copy/pasted my review from the Func_Msgboard page.

Great jam overall, with only good to great maps, not even a "meh" one. Thanks to OTP for organizing it. Played on skill 2 in Darkplaces. No demos, sorry... In playing order:

Breezeep: Very good but very tough map, with one particularly vicious arena fight. A bit stingy on ammo and armor. I wish there was at least one secret. [SPOILER] I couldn't figure out what triggered the spawning fiends at the beginning, it seemed somewhat randomized.[END SPOILER] Issues: 1) I got stuck once on the inner side of the second turn in the first wind tunnel, but it didn't happen again upon reload. 2) I had one missing frag but couldn't find the last monster even after thoroughly re-exploring the map several times. I suspect it somehow fell out of the map.

Qmaster: A very intricate layout with nice verticality but monotonous texturing - then again, one can do so much in a week's time, so I don't hold it against Qmaster. The theme was wind tunnels and IMHO the bill is only half-fitted: there's wind "pads" but where are the tunnels? Issues: 1) the first wind pad on the second floor seems to activate on its own when the player simply walks over it, thus greatly impairing walking speed - this can be a problem when you have [SPOILER]a vore shooting her balls at you from the other side of the central pit![END SPOILER] 2) the exit teleporter points to a non-existing retrojam5_start.bsp while OTP explicitly stated that he wouldn't provide a start map.

Shambler (or OTP, according to Shambler): Wow! Incredible on all accounts! You won't have me believe you made such a large, detailed and visually stunning map in just one week, even if you'd worked on it 24/7. You even took the time to add a couple funny centerprints. The carefully crafted lighting gives it a great atmosphere, even better with an extra .lit file. The action is very tough and frantic, especially that final horde fight in a much too small arena, which was a bit unfair. This one took me "a few" tries but I eventually managed to survive it. Secrets are nice. Issues: 1) I had to turn RTworld off, otherwise the map would be drenched in overbrights. 2) I got stuck on the remnants of bars at the end of the second wind tunnel. The trigger_push prevented me from moving and I had to noclip out of there. The issue did repeat upon retries.

Shamblernaut: A fun smallish map with some boxy rooms. I liked the large scale of the main rooms and the gameplay mechanic in the second room that allowed to dispose of the monsters without even shooting once. The very wide tunnels were a nice variation on the usual wind tunnel design, with these large fans that would fit in industrial complexes. As others have pointed out, the lighting is very flat. Issue: like with Shambler/OTP's map, RTworld has to be turned off.

ItEndsWithTens: What does the title mean? This one takes the concept of "retro" even further: it's as fugly as a 96/97 custom map! If this was the intent, it's awesome. Gameplay-wise, it's good but I wish the wind tunnel served as more than an excuse to delay the ending for a few seconds.

MJB: Loved it! Even when Bloughsburgh does something "retro", he manages to bring in fresh ideas. These upside down torches were neat and looked much better than expected with Seven's particle flame, as if fire was sprayed downwards and then went back up. Missed secret #5 but I tend to disregard flickering lights (because they're also used as simple decoration), especially when there are so many around! A shootable button might have been better. The inclusion of a skill selection area was a nice touch, given the absence of a start map.

NewHouse: I first played the original version but found it way too easy, so I tried the updated one and it was much better. A fun and rather short map with, as usual, nice atmosphere and attention to detail (the open lid of the well at the start). I would voice the same criticism than for Qmaster's map regarding the absence of actual wind tunnels. Issue: same as Shambler & Shamblernaut.

There's no top-level README for this package -- only map-specific files for four of the seven maps. So I am not sure how to unpack this -- e.g. whether I need to put the maps in my quoth directory. Seems like an oversight.

Mike,

Extract the maps folder to your id1 directory. This uses vanilla Quake gameplay.

Hope that helps!

Thanks -- but I'd already extracted them to their own retrojam4 directory -- seemed the safest. Anyway, it's working fine.

Anger Ventilation Shaft (retrojam7_breezeep) is just brutally difficult, even on Normal. Having finally fought my way through massed shamblers, fiends, vores and death-knights to reach the base of the first wind tunnel, I jumped through it only to find myself in the midst of another nowhere-to-run shamblerfest, and quit. Not my idea of a good time, however finely the level may be crafted.

In case NewHouse's map is too easy, he has released a harder version that wasn't included in this pack. Download here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwxYkKdSD855S1lGQ05JeU9ZMW8/view?usp=sharing

Airing of Grievances (retrojam5_mjb) is much better -- very solidly engineered, and fun to play. I only found two of the seven secrets, and exited the level despite the warning that "You left something behind". I will go back now and work through the secrets guide thgat MJB thoughtfully included in the documentation.

My favourite maps were Airing of Grievances and Deterritorialization, hands down.

In general, I'd say AoG had the best overall balance with gameplay/architecture. I liked the clever secrets, in particular.

Deterritorialization was visually the best, and I liked the parts where I got to gib wave after wave of monsters under the influence of Quad damage. >:D

The Flying Obelisk was quite a fun and funny little map. It had some cool visual stuff going on with it, especially the beginning before you go outside to the graves. It was quite fun to make the Death Knights fight the Zombies. It was also quite endearing to have mere Enforcers be the required triggers for reaching the obelisk

'Good Map' Pipe Dreams and Bethel Ekon-Lin were visually quiiite different from vanilla wind tunnels, but I kind of liked the architecture in both. I especially liked how the wind tunnels were executed in the former, in a medieval themed map. The room with the spike traps had the idea in it that you were supposed to follow the trails to not trigger the spike traps, but it was too easy to just run around the edges and then press the buttons.

Come to think of it, the overall fragmented and vertical style of Trick Bricks kind of made me think of how the Citadel in Half-Life 2 looked like. xD

Anger Ventilation Shaft was just so tough, with its low resources, that at times I was forced to just make a run for it. Visually I'd say it's in the top three of the bunch. I also wish there were secrets, though.

Retro Jam 5 on The Quake Grave

Bloughsburgh (MJB): This map has a great flow to it and for such a small map, it's pretty impressive how many secrets were crammed in here! Nice job on this one, this maps is feels better than a 5 day jam map.

Breezeep: I love the look of this one, architecture looks great! Unfortunately I didn't have time to take it in as I had to run my ass off to get away from all the enemies and find the exit! My play-through proves that it can be finished, however this map is so chocked full of enemies that the only way to finish it (at least for me) is to just run for it!

ItEndsWithTens: I love the difference in textures from the rest, breaking it up with some blue is never a bad thing. I thought that this map was paced great and perfectly emulates that of a '96-'97 era community made map. This one also houses my favorite wind tunnel in the pack. Woo!

NewHouse: This is a great little map! It may be short, but it accomplishes a lot in that short time! I love the changes in the look of the map as you progress and I really like the last bit where you're using a little wind gust/tunnel to propel yourself up through unlockable doors. Cool idea!

Qmaster: I liked the verticality of this map, but feel it could've used a little more player guidance. I'm not sure that this one connected with me. I wasn't ultimately sure how to climb the bricks without killing myself, then once I got to the top I wasn't sure how to get the door open.

Shambler: It's hard to believe that this map was built in 5 days! It looks really great and has such a huge sense of scale compared to the rest. I'm not sure that the gameplay is my favorite, as it houses larges rooms with tons of enemies in each. Maybe I just need to give it another go? Nonetheless, it's a very interesting and fun map in it's own right!

Shamblernaut: This map also has a huge sense of scale to it with big rooms. My favorite part of this map is the big fans that propel you around, though I think a fan was missing from the last room you enter. Also, with the fan at the beginning in the floor, it suggests that you're riding in a big air ship or something which I think is a great effect.

Great work everyone!

I replayed Airing of Grievances (retrojam5_mjb), following the secrets guide that Blousburgh thoughtfully included in the documentation -- but still finished with only 55 of 65 kills (and all seven secrets, of course). What gives? Where are the last ten bad-guys hiding?

Mike,

Near the bottom section of the readme, where monster kill counts per difficulty are stated there is a blurb about the rotfish being counted twice for the kill total.

The actual numbers I have in the readme are correct. 55 is 100% kills on Hard. :)

It wouldn't be retro without the fish kill count bug!

There's a problem with this in quakeinjector - the folder gets created with a trailing backslash (or similar) in it so the launched engine doesn't correctly look in the folder.

There's a problem with this in quakeinjector - the folder gets created with a trailing backslash (or similar) in it so the launched engine doesn't correctly look in the folder.

Bloughsburgh, thank you! Silly me.

I enjoyed The Flying Obelisk (retrojam5_newhouse) but it was all over much too quickly. That's because of the quad near the start -- usually I play levels slowly and carefully, but of course once you're quadded up you want to get the most value from the quad that you can, so I went sprinting through, only to find I was pretty much finished by the time the quad expired. Short, then; but short and sweet.

Mike, as I mentioned somewhere above, there's an updated, harder version of NewHouse's map with more enemies = more play time. He's also working on an expanded standalone version.

Thanks, bfg666 -- I'll look into it later. I usually avoid reading others' comments on maps before I've played them myself, so as to avoid spoilers and make sure my opinions are my own.

Trick Bricks (retrojam6_qmaster) is very satisfying, a twisting, turning set of platforms that offers different ways of approaching the same areas, some interesting combats to "solve" and a lovelt reconfiguration of the main area to yield a distinct "end game". The only thing I'd suggest is making it clearer what to do after finding the sealed exit. Really good stuff.

I had a great time with Deterritorialization (retrojam5_shambler): interesting exploration early on, and then the mother of all combats at the end. I really enjoyed how that was a combat to be solved rather then won by brute force. My only disappointment, really, was that once that was over, so was the level -- and I couldn't find a way to get back up to the main area, to search for the two secrets and 16 kills that I missed.

'good map' pipe dreams (retrojam5_shamblernaut) is perfectly pleasant, but rather on the bland side and over much too quickly. A rather anticlimatic map as we approach the end of this jam.

Finally, Bethel Ekon-Lin (retrojam6_tens) is a fine way to finish. It's too easy (I finished on Hard without losing a single point of health) and too brightly lit, but interesting enough to make up for that, with the final wind-tunnel ride a particularly fitting climax.

Putting it all together, I found this jam interesting but not striking. Apart from Breezeep's too-hard-to-be-fun map, everything here is at least pretty good; but nothing touches the heights, so four stars seems about right for the pack as a whole.

I don't really like wind-tunnels -- because, like teleporters, they break the internal geometry of a map. One of the nice things about the maps in this pack is that most of them nicely subverted the usual wind-tunnel behaviour in ways that made the maps feel more coherent than I'd expected.

One day I am going to make a definitive list of things I don't like in maps. Teleporters (except short cuts) are on the list; wind-tunnels would have been before this pack, but maybe not now.

Another excellent set! Breezeeps map "Anger Ventilation shaft" was quite challenging and he wasn't generous with ammo either, so I decided to turn the difficulty on Hard for this one. I would really be stoked to see a demo of someone actually finishing this one on NM. That'd be a tough challenge.

Personally "Trick Bricks" by Qmaster was my favourite of the bunch, which is closely followed by "Deterritorialization" by Shambler. The layout of these maps and ofcourse the encounters are very awesome.

Keep up the good stuff guys!

Just on a side-note. Whats up with the demo-upload feature? It lets me upload some and some not. Apparently "Entity is a too large filesize" 50MB is the max, so I don't think that 750kb is to big :p

Big thanks for everyone about your pros and cons. In Sake of future releases, I am planning on making own webpage where I will share all these jam updates or tweaks. Thank you mugswump sharing info about these, but it might be better now on if those will be in an another source and let the jam versions be the main focus here. Other than jam7, these shared tweaks/updates were mainly shared for fans only and doesn't have to do anything with the actually jam releases. So I really suggest everyone first play the original files, before even consider downloading separate files that aren't included to actually pack. Sorry for not announcing about this earlier, this must have been confusing and I am sorry somehow making this a big deal. But now if people let me go, I will go back mapping some maps, and standalone versions will come when they are done.

I usually get lost in wind tunnel maps. Lets see how far i can get in these. :) Screenshots and reviews sounds good.

I'm getting a "Can't spawn server" error in Quakespasm with this one. Any ideas?

Mecheye,

I am not sure from that description but is it happening to all maps or just a specific one in the jam? I would recommend creating a thread in the forums so more people can see and try to help!

Did not like any of the levels. Below are the reasons why:

breezeep - totally unbalanced level. The number of monsters is sky rocketing for such a small level, and you start fighting against a number of vores, shamblers and fiends right away with only a shotgun (played on hard); a lot of effort is needed in order to proceed, therefor a lot of saving a loading is required. mjb - pretty much the same problem as with breezeep - the level is too small for so many monsters, there isn't much space to run around. newhouse - very odd textures, very odd level, which looks kinda strange. qmaster - this level is very crampy. I cannot say for the others, but I did not enjoy climbing up very narrow shafts (sometimes I couldn't ascend right away 'cause I did not fit into the shaft) and slippery stairwells.

And so on (don't want to continue, the same problems are in the rest of the levels). So, I see that lots of people enjoyed this compilation, but IMHO these are far from classic Quake levels: crampy, ammo/health/armour unbalanced, tight on space to run away from monsters, odd-looking (and very short).

Honestly, most of these maps are very unbalanced, at least on hard skill. Only skaky's map was Quake Quality.