It seems a bit of a cheat to include a map that was previously released stand-alone (Greenwood's Malvirta Station) as part of a speedmap pack. But since I'd enjoyed it when I played it before, I played it again — and enjoyed it again.

I would be fascinated to know how look it took Greenwood to make this map (docs/sm209_greenwood.txt doesn't say). If it really is a "speedmap" by any reasonable definition, then it's very very impressive.

This Town at Night (sm209_ing) was an difficult, and not really for good reasons. Being constantly low on health is a reasonable challenge, but being constantly low on ammo gets frustrating. All the fulldark areas were just irritating: they might contain much-needed ammo or an ambush, and there's no way to figure out which except by walking in. Then the spawn ambush at the end is literally impossible to beat without prior knowledge earned by earlier deaths.

I only got one of the eight secrets, so that obviously didn't help with the ammo; then again, I found myself at the exit with only 81 of 193 kills, so who knows what else I missed?

Boxes with shapes and colours and sounds (sm209_quasiotter) — I have no idea what is going on.

Game Night In A Safe Haven (sm209_konair) was that rarest of things, a genuinely novel experience in Quake. It's has a framing story where you live peacefully in a house where you play Dungeons and Dragons with your friends, but find yourself transported inside the game. Lots of traps ensure, climaxing in a house full of secrets. It's a bit ugly and cramped, but charming and enjoyable.

@Mike Taylor,

Check out the dates again: I made Malvirta originally for this speedmapping session, so it's not a "bit of a cheat." I actually made the vanilla version after the fact, for folks who might prefer playing it that way or with another mod, like Copper. FYI: mappers had 2 weeks to make something for sm209.

@greenwood Ah, got it!

Two weeks is amazing. You guys continue to astonish me.