bal: Whoa, sexy!

dans: Short but fun! Really liked the Serious Sam vibes at the beginning.

fairweather: Most fun gameplay! I loved the "agility puzzle" part, this kind of stuff is way too rare and rarely done so well. Also on-point monster encounters. I am looking forward to playing more from this mapper!

ing: Not sure... I loved the plain brushwork for the moving parts parts. But then I reached those two teleporters, went through one, had to backtrack a LOT and now I am all out of ammo and there are tons of monsters. Gotta try again but I am not sure the progression works if the map is meant to be played for perfection (again and again). The start part would be too normal for me then. Please don't ever use the Quake intro/demo track for a proper map again...

I don't usually comment on a speedmapping pack until I've played all of it... but bal! WHAT a map! I loved it!

Ack. Another map by Danzadan where I can't save the game without crashing Quakespasm. If Darkplaces worked better on my system, I'd be happy.

Fairweather: Nice map. I couldn't find the extra key needed to enter the Forgotten Grotto, so I cheated my way in... and in my opinion, it's the best part of that map. Almost too bad that you can finish the map without visiting it.

Shambler's map is really nice; love the giant-sized, nay, cyclopean aspect of it. But I ran into an issue leaving the level... riding the last lift up to the teleport thingy, I kept "hitting" something and the lift would go back down. No idea what I was hitting.

OKAY, so one last comment... uKKo's map is beautiful! I loved the last bit in the theater; even though the level was basically over, it was kind of surreal and cool.

What means "speedmapping"? I very often see strange packs without preview, but I dont know, what I have to expect from them. Maps for speedrun? But here I dont see unique speedrun-features. Fastly builded maps? But here I see maps with a lot of details on big objects, they dont see as fastly-builded. What means "speed"?

It means maps made within a short time frame. Originally two hours, then a couple of hours. The last few packs were made in a couple of days.

Modern quake editors allow to create so big and detailed maps so fast? Very nice. Ish, caverns and switches looks like early versions of Tomb Raider, very nostalgic. Ing, please, twice more powerups... healths, ammo etc...

Greate pack! Bal and Ish maps alone are 5 stars!

Playthrough of Upturning the Jeweled Chalice by ionous:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYcKynvBobM

Worth playing for Bal's map alone. It's gorgeous, has this unusual, blissed out atmospheric track, and plays well too - despite the openess of the starting area. Make sure you check it out!

Every map in here is very ambitious!

1. @Vasya shkolnik speedmapping is about making maps fast unhinged by player expectations, both speedmaps and turtlemaps, but there was some issues and last years we get only some of any of those on these packs, and it is mostly jam maps. You have it explained here https://celephais.net/board/viewthread.php?id=10196&start=1148 and here https://quake.fandom.com/wiki/Typesofcustommapsandevents_(Community)

2. The maps were done over the course of 8 full days and several mappers used them all, plus Bal used one scrapped map he had around, that's why some are so huge or have so much work behind, and some mappers even had the time to create new textures for them.

Played on skill 2.

Interesting pack with a mix of turtlemaps, jam maps, and speedmaps.

*Bal: Interesting jam map, or beta of a full release, given he wrote it was some half-done one he reused and it looks very similar to one or two of his later releases. Looks wise it is gorgeous due to scale and coherence but gameplay wise is a bit bland, till getting inside.

• Danz: Short speedmap made with modified textures of his own specifically for it. Straightforward combats and a cramped arena on a simple 2d layout.

• Fairweather: Solid jam map with linear layout, several cramped arenas, some variety in 2d straighforward combats with some evil teleporting of enemies, sometimes lacking ammo, and linear layout. Spoiler: It also includes a big secret.

• Ing: Two points less for the music track choice haha. Long turtlemap with a good amount of traps and jumping, some arenas, variety in gameplay, a single secret for progression on a mostly linear 2d layout. There is a trap i had to cheat because i had no idea how to progress.

• Ionous: turtlemap-ish map made around a huge room. Combat is all straightforward on a linear layout with two choices on huge scaled rooms.

*Ish: He said it is Tomb Raider inspired. Long turtlemap with some interesting progression and lots of slope jumping and going up and down. It also seems that at a single point expect the player to know how to do bunny hopping. Surprisingly given it doesn't handheld the player i barely got lost. The encounters are quite varied and never gets boring. The secrets are well done and with well chosen rewards.

• Jcr: short jam map in a two floor layout with lots of colour in textures, straightforward combats with a big arena encounter.

• Kamp: nice speedmap with simple in big scale rooms, 2d layout and straightforward combats.

• Marandal: short speedmap which relies on two cramped DPS arenas for gameplay.

• Naitelveni: not much white jam map with some good looks, straightfoward 2d encounters on a 2d layout, and some teleporting in the face.

• Newhouse: almost not white speedmap which relies for progression on a mechanic well executed, jumping and traps. There is two choices for progression, There is a good number of Quads but not that many enemies to use each of them on.

*Onetruepurple: speedmap with very straightfoward combats, some good humour, and an evil Shambler teleporting.

• Pinchy: jam map with a very interesting use of textures and brushwork for a visual style in a mostly open layout for a half of the map and some side areas in the second, where as expected, getting the weapons soon and not waking up too many enemies is key at the beginning. Unfortunately the music added do not blend well with the atmosphere of the map.

• Shambler: speedmap with simple repetitive vertical layout and arenas, which do NOT feel much repetitive when playing. The last encounter seems that it is one of those that surviving is up mostly to luck, as there is almost no cover, that the type of enemy requires, or a Quad.

• Ukko: long jam map with a unique and varied gameplay due to a simple change, on a mostly 2d layout well intertwined, with good coherent looks and atmosphere and mostly straightforward combats.