I disagree; these are all really good maps (with Hrimfaxi's and negke's maps being a notch or two above the rest). This is the most consistently high quality I have seen in a speedmap pack so far. What is really amazing is how well-thought-out the puzzles/secrets are. Most of them manage to strike that fine balance between overly easy and frustratingly hard – something which regular maps rarely pull off this well.

sm104_hrim (“A saucerful of secrets.”): Absolutely astounding.

sm104_negke (“The Ebon Outpost”): Likewise: absolutely brilliant.

sm104_drew (“Booooriiiing!”): Anything but boring. Not quite as impressive as Hrimfaxi's and negke's maps, but still very nice, pretty and with entertaining on-screen messages. Contains a few optional secrets too (i.e. non-essential to progression). The very last room could perhaps have used a bit more detail (as the on-screen message seems to acknowledge).

sm104_generic (“Backdoor Base”): A simpler, smaller map than the three above, but also very nice.

sm104_chop (“Strangest journey”): The puzzles were perhaps a little more obvious than in the four maps above, but they were quite varied in nature, and the map is very unique in terms of both looks and atmosphere – the latter in part thanks to the complete absence of monsters, which somehow enhanced the abstract ambience.

sm104_tron (no title): Also fairly unusual in appearance and interesting, though my least favourite. Not sure if I did everything correctly, as I had to rocket jump at one point – perhaps there is a different and better route?

In short: highly recommended – provided you enjoy secret-hunting and puzzles, of course.

i concur with icantthinkonanickname's assessments. as a whole, 3/5. neg!ke and Hrimfaxi's maps stand out both in gameplay & secrets to me, and i'd rate them 4/5 individually.

I think this pack has the least informative screenshot I've seen :-)

Drew's Booooriiiing! is, as Icantthinkofanickname rightly notes, interesting. It pitches its secrets just right, so that it makes me feel clever for having found them. (Sometimes I think game designers can forget that the purpose of a game is to make players happy!) Although progression is mostly by finding secrets, I somehow finished with only 5/6, and just 15/17 kills -- so I guess I missed an optional side-secret that contained two monsters. Very enjoyable, and well worth 3* as a standalone.

Voodoochopskiks's Strangest Journey is less satisfying. I found the first puzzle arbitrary, the second mundane, the third obvious, the maze unsurprising and the end anticlimactic. Because there are no monsters and no official secrets, it's impossible to tell how far through the map you are. Only 1* for me.

Tron's unnamed level is better, for my money. [Note: please, please, level designers: name your levels. It takes, what, 20 seconds?] The combats are tough but doable (on hard) and it's an interesting novelty to be forced to use rockets on shamblers. Like Icantthinkofanickname, I had to rocket-jump to get up to the level above where the shamblers had been. Has anyone found a better way? I rate this as a 2* map, partly because of the apparent need for a rocket-jump.

In Generic's Backdoor Base, I can't get past the first door that leads to the room with the transporter, field and scrag. What am I missing?

Similarly, in Negke's Ebon Outpost I'm stuck at the start: having killed the fish and ogres, I can't see what else to do. Hint, anyone?

... oh. got it. The Negke one. Still stuck in Backdoor Base, though.

Yes, Negke's map is delicious -- a really well-tuned challenge. My only quibble with it is that I would really have appreciated a secret-count that racked up along the way, to give some sense of progress.

I finished with only 47 of 57 available kills (on hard) despite killing everything I saw. Has anyone found the ten elusive monsters?

Forgot to say, I'll award 4* for The Ebon Outpost.

And finally. Hrimfaxi's Saucerful of Secrets would be a 5* map even without the bonus point for the Pink Floyd reference. Lovely progression (measurable in both kills and secrets), enjoyable combats, well constructed scenery, and some nice surprises. Well, nasty surprises, but I enjoyed them. Superb work, and really does not deserve to be buried in an overlook SpeedMap pack.

I've not awarded Backdoor Base a mark, as I've not got far enough into it to warrant scoring -- see above. (Anyone want to tip me off?) That means that the five marks I've awarded were 3, 1, 2, 4 and 5. Overall, I think this pack merits the full five stars, and I'm delighted to have discovered it.

And finally. Hrimfaxi's Saucerful of Secrets would be a 5* map even without the bonus point for the Pink Floyd reference. Lovely progression (measurable in both kills and secrets), enjoyable combats, well constructed scenery, and some nice surprises. Well, nasty surprises, but I enjoyed them. Superb work, and really does not deserve to be buried in an overlook SpeedMap pack.

I've not awarded Backdoor Base a mark, as I've not got far enough into it to warrant scoring -- see above. (Anyone want to tip me off?) That means that the five marks I've awarded were 3, 1, 2, 4 and 5. Overall, I think this pack merits the full five stars, and I'm delighted to have discovered it.

Mike Taylor, in Backdoor Base, when you reach the door with a look into the room with the slipgate, you have to go back around the corner and shoot a yellow button in the celing. That will lower the floor in front of the door!

Thanks, Hrimfaxi! Having got that button, I was able to complete the rest of Backdoor Base pretty easily. The best part, I think, is the false ending. I guess I'd rate that as a 2* map. But the rating for the pack as a whole remains at 5*.

Mike Taylor. I forgot you asked why you finished with only 47 of 57 available kills (on hard) in Negke's map. I think it is the old fish bug in the ordinary Quake progs.dat, where fish are counted twice, and since I think there are 10 fish in the map, that will account for the missing 10 kills. To avoid this bug you must get a progs.dat with this fixed. I can't tell you where to get one right now but will return if I find a site that have it. else you can try to google after one.

Yes, it's the fish count bug. Here is a fix: http://quaketastic.com/files/misc/q106fishfix.zip

Excellent, thanks!

Spoiler warning:

If you're stuck in the beginning part of negke's map, there's a very tiny red button on the castle near the top of the map.

Played on skill 2. Found everything besides in generic's map.

The maps are nice 100min speedmaps, all good and the secrets, while not easy, they are all fair, save one in neg!ke's, which relies on knowing some not well known feature in Quake.

• Chop: simple and straightforward mostly but too short.

• Drew: very good secrets, maybe the best in the pack, but could be the last encounter is a bit unfair.

• Generic: fine secrets, but got stuck not knowing what to do after the false exit.

Hrimfaxi: quite solid in looks too, varied secrets.

Neg!ke: more combat oriented than secret, i would say. The secrets were of an interesting kind, as they were coherent in their incoherence. Still, the last one, i do not think is fair, as most people do not know about that feature, but given that back then most of us where mappers and speedmap packs were geared towards us unlike in last five years ... could be fine.

Tron: as he wrote himself his map is not about secrets or puzzles, but i am struggling to understand what the combat with the Shamblers has to do with the going slowly and try other approaches theme. I also had to to rocket jump to progress, which i do not know if it was intended, but the GL's placement seems to say there is another way.