#map jam

[bltngames]

On Quake Halloween Jam 3

I remember really liking Quake Halloween Jam 2. But with the way things in my life have been since Jam 2, plus my general forgetfulness, it did not even occur to me that there may have been a Quake Halloween Jam 3 or even a 4.

So I've spent a few hours tonight trying to cure a bad mood with a little catharsis via Halloween Jam 3. It works, too. I first figured it out over a decade ago -- I was fooling around in a Garry's Mod zombie slaughter map, just zoning out while I busted props and blew stuff up. When I was done, I realized the grouchy mood I'd been suffering for most of that day was gone and I felt a lot better. It sounds weird, but sometimes you just have pent up anger for whatever reason and video games can be a healthy outlet.

Back to the Halloween Jam, I really enjoyed Jam 2 because it was just a lot of pretty decent Quake maps, but set in places like... a spooky farm during harvest season.

Or a village sieged by neon green acid underneath a purple sky, two of Halloween's signature colors.

Or even a map set inside and around a gigantic jack-o-lantern.

Jam 3's maps are kind of just... regular Quake maps, to some degree. I guess they're sometimes a little darker than usual, but after playing over half of them, there aren't very many that evoke the feeling of Halloween specifically. That's not entirely the Jam's fault, I guess. Until Doom 3, I'd say Quake 1 was the game that felt like it bore the most of iD's horror sensibilities -- its mixture of gothic, sci-fi and cosmic horror gave it a very strange tone, which lends itself very well to spooky maps.

Ironically, one of the very first maps I picked in the Jam was something called "Hall-o-Win" which both demonstrates my point and also acts as maximum catharsis: it's mostly just a series of very long hallways with power-ups at the end and a lot of monsters along the way. A slaughter map in other words, though it does gradually start asking you for more strategy than "blast everything and never stop moving."

But a theme in a lot of these maps is less Halloween and more just, like, complex mazes. It's probably the pressure of a deadline talking, but a lot of these maps seem to orbit around a single central room that must be scaled, solved, and traversed. Take "Blackvenom Retreat," the greenish map seen at the top of the post. Most of the map is in one central lake area, with three big cubist structures sitting above the water. It plays out like climbing a construction site, as you go up ladders and leap between buildings in search of crystals to power whatever this thing does.

Or "Abbeytoir", a candle lit mansion that feels more like it fell out of Wrath: Aeon of Ruin with its endless hallways and side rooms that all confusingly loop back in on each other. It's not a very big map, but combined with how dark it is, how similar a lot of the rooms look, and how everything has at least 3-5 exits, as I opened up most of the doors near the end of the map I completely lost my ability to navigate when everything blurred into endless stairs, hallways, and switches.

And then there's "Us," a conceptually haunting map where the map creator's body has been disassembled and scattered amongst Quake's brushes. A texture for his head and hair unwrap along the skyline, you'll find nipples you can push like buttons, and floating eyes that watch your every step. "Strange" is putting it mildly, but it too is mainly one big room where the puzzle is to climb up ramps and platforms in order to reach the exit.

But there is one map I unexpectedly fell in love with -- "Approach of the Second Sun." This map is good enough it practically feels like it's own whole separate game.

The story is that a second, dark sun is approaching our reality, casting its curse on the land. This provides the map with its unique visual style, where the fog is used to invert the light. Effectively, the closer something is to you, the darker it gets. As objects get further away, they fade into the white fog, making for a game of low visibility and eerie silhouettes. The map uses this in its favor, as you spend most of it navigating a ritual site littered with statues, with the twist being that not everything you encounter is actually a statue.

There are tells, of course. Living monsters have subtle idle animations, so if you pay attention closely, you can pick out what's inanimate and what's alive. But the map also knows this, and plays with that expectation sometimes, bringing certain statues to life when you least expect it. It makes you jumpy and paranoid every time you turn a corner and see the outline of a monster and wait for a worst case scenario that doesn't always happen. It's masterclass stuff, and the map is big enough that it took me almost an hour to ultimately solve (like a lot of the other maps, it is a little easy to get lost).

I've got a few more maps left in Jam 3, and then I've got all of Jam 4 to look forward to. Hopefully there's something a little more seasonally flavorful waiting me.

[thrillerhark]

i massively enjoyed my time with rise/sunbreak and I’ll no doubt keep playing it, but i finally jumped into world and im not trying to be too corny but i am genuinely overwhelmed by how beautiful it all is.

[slavhew]

i like ms paint but i like mspaint-esque pressureless brushes more.

exclusive never before seen art process snapshot under cut.

this is what it actually looks like in the canvas. it was a warmup for a larger thing and took way too long so my frustration is justified i think

[spellboundcities]

Here's what I've been up to btw

[adventurebasscamp]

full map of the new township :D again, use for whatever!

[sexhaver]

why are you interpreting all this robot stuff so literally. just so you can be smug? it’s a sci-fi fantasy, obviously people aren’t talking about actual literal beliefs or hopes. are you going to go up to the werewolf fuckers like “umm actually that’s not how canids mate 🤓”

for the last fucking time, the reason im talking about this "literally" and "like it's real life" is because unlike werewolf-fucking, robot-fucking will be possible in real life one day in the future. i am discussing how things would happen in that future and comparing/contrasting them with the current fantasies people have to see how well those fantasies would actually map onto this future (which, to be clear, will exist one day). if you cannot grasp this concept then just giggle to yourself and move on instead of sending an anon or leaving a reply completely missing the point and accusing me of shit i never said

[i-feel-odd]

WHAT FOLLOWS IS A RECOVERED PIECE OF COMPANION MEDIA FOR THE UNRELEASED PC TITLE COMPLEX NOCTURNA. 

by ifeelodd and @devours-the-world !!!

made for the TRANS ORACULAR JAM

[animaljam]

flower shop ^__^

[collabwithmyself]

More fake MV thumbnails, featuring ✨️ships✨️

Macee belongs to @maxmmpow

Jack belongs to @randomgooberness

Lantern belongs to @wizardmolars

Falling For You • Agnes • Creep cover

[makkon]

I'll be hosting the Quake Brutalist Jam 2, on Slipseer and the QM discord. Slipseer thread Slipseer thread Slipseer thread

New and veteran mappers are welcome; if you've been wanting to learn Trenchbroom, this would be a good mapping jam to cut your teeth on. Last year we had a total of 35 entries and it was a fantastic map pack. Some indie gamedevs have been using Trenchbroom with Godot using an addon called Qodot. I haven't used it myself, but I've seen what some of my peers are doing with it and they recommend it.

[jaminthoseanimals]

Plants, am I right?

My most recent den. Really proud of this one

[oldmemoria]

I am cooking

[gradling]

I might have been trying to fit too many things into this conference paper, which is a great sign for the eventual diss chapter but aaaaaaa? for this moment exactly

[faultywiringaj]

Garden Treehouse Den Map

I made a den map finally, it took me forever but yay. Also hi animal jam tumblr

[adventurebasscamp]

ah, forgot to post this as well - i finished a map of the current jamaaliday township! (use however you like no credit needed etc etc)

when we get to march i'll finally have maps of all the seasonal townships

[darkxwolf17]

Crystal Garden