An excellent speedmap pack that does a great job exploring an interesting (underused?) theme.

smqe08b_lurker.bsp ("Tree of Life") is the overall winner to me. It is surprisingly large, polished and varied for a speedmap, with balanced gameplay and even four secrets.

smqe08b_negke.bsp (no title) is more simplistic, but very original and unique, as negke's speedmaps tend to be. It makes very creative use of scrags and has a great sense of location.

smqe08b_omus.bsp ("Tree Story") is varied in both scenery and gameplay mechanics. It is rather hard, but has a great sense of narrative progression.

smqe08b_textfish.bsp ("WizWood") is a bit like a retro platform jumper and perhaps borders on being overly hard, but like the three maps above, it conveys the forest setting beautifully.

And then there is smqe08bzwiffle.bsp, with the self-deprecatory title “Yes, I know this map is cheap”. It is blocky, bland, repetitive, uninspiring and not really worth playing. Honestly, I don't get it: it does not seem like Zwiffle made any effort to stick to the theme, just like here: https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/sm145pack.html .

With the exception of smqe08b_zwiffle.bsp, this is a wonderful selection of maps.

For a much earlier map that explores the forest theme, see Dark Forest by Reichert: https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/darkfst.html.

Again, the underscore italicized some of the text ... but only some. How odd.

smqe08b_lurker ("Tree of Life") -- excellent. It was just over too soon. I'd have loved to see this developed into a full-sized level.

smqe08b_negke (no title) -- very jolly, but extremely short, even for a speedmap. Considered as a palate-cleaner between more substantial course, very pleasant.

smqe08b_omus ("Tree Story") -- 35/35 kills, but I couldn't figure out what to do after all the shamblers were dead. How do I complete the level?

smqe08b_textfish ("WizWood") -- short but nice.

smqe08bzwiffle ("Yes, I know this map is cheap”) -- actually, I really liked this, apart from the fact that it had nothing to do with the theme. Difficulty was well balanced, with ammunition often low and _just running out at the end of the second stage (I played on medium). And I loved the ending.

All in all, it's hard to assign a single score, but I guess I rate this a high 3, just missing out on a low 4.

Ha, now the underscore is victimising me!

Now you know how it feels. :P

--SPOILER ALERT--

Mike, I'll try and give you an oblique clue:

Take their places, one by one. You have two options.

I think I should remove that markdown parsing. It's purpose was to make links work but this mess is not worth it. :)

It's usually helpful. I like being able to do italics and bold deliberately. It's just its interpretation of embedded underscores that's erratic. Can you disable that feature but leave the rest?

such an excellent mapset! i love the heavy themes. i'm in love