I think only sandy should have been allowed to use spawns because theyre a perfect 80s fuck you dungeon kinda monster. They’re literally the only scary monster in any id game. You hear their telltale burble and you start running backwards like a pavlovian dog trained on megadungeons
But they’re only scary in that sandy p map style. Normal mappers can’t use them. They don’t get that spawns aren’t monsters, they’re traps.
Doom II Archviles were pretty scary too. You’d sometimes see the flame filling your screen before you even spotted them. Agoraphobia-inducing
Sure but idk almost every Quake monster is scary and stresses me out!! i never get tired of ogres and fiends and shamblers spawning in and scaring the crap out of me, and then i enjoy fighting them more. I guess i agree theyre even worse when custom mappers try to use them
id also somewhat contest “the only scary id monster” cuz even outside of Quake you got arch-viles, and those guys feel like designed to stress me out right down to their wakeup grunt. (of course shamblers are arch-viles 2.0 in a way)
Ogres get way overused in vanilla quake (until episode 4!!) but man theyre such a good FPS monster, like speaking of wakeup grunt i loooove that theirs sounds almost like a chainsaw
i hope so! i got a bunch of my students to play it during our final class (we had an odd number of playtesters so i was like “hey you can come play my dumb lev while we wait”) and it was very useful for gauging difficulty – one student basically ricocheted around the level without ever stopping to get their bearings and so got lost frequently, whereas another was very deliberate and patient but still got mislead at an elevator which could take you to multiple floors (a strangely unintuitive feature in quake!). all-in-all i think it’s got a good pace and narrative but it definitely needs some cleaning up before it can be released.
wow i dont know anything about these guys but no one being like ACTUALLY I THINK THEY’RE THE BEST EVER is a weird agreement for here
I think what makes spawns so scary to me is that there’s no “right” way to fight them. Its just a pure panic encounter. Shooting and running backwards until one or both of us dies. Archviles? Maybe I feel an oh shit moment if I am low on health or there’s insufficient cover, but I know how I am supposed to fight one.
I think it is because spawns feel fundamentally unfair in ways that nothing else in id games ever has. Its the one monster that doesn’t feel like the matchup is slanted in your favor or playing into the boyish power fantasy of id shooters.
Which can be annoying if people aren’t using them as a seasoning to fuck up your expectations (and they almost never do)
Spawns used well (ie how sandy used them) are like that moment in dark souls where you fall in a pit and immediately get blasted with curse gas by a bunch of googly eyed basilisks. Equal parts hilarious and mortifying
Have there been any map jams centered om spawn? If not, we should do one
I regret to inform you those aren’t eyes
I love that they’re false eyes
Tulpa i appreciate ur Spawn Analysis
There is something to be said for like, inelegantly mean spirited game design. Like the basilisk pit & curse are a good pull cuz for freaks like you and me who need company that might be a genius memorable moment, and for another player psychographic its infuriating and why they stopped playing the game
I will say spawns are not unmemorable in their placement or role in my memory. idk they just stand out to me among the non-slipgate Quake cast as a really boring looking, sounding monster that acts like a living vore projectile and hurts twice as much. I might literally be more into them if they looked cooler
the uncanny way they move esp. in software mode is worth noting tho
they look like a blob that turns into bouncing, burbling, blue sperm. That’s peak monster design imo. Their overall pathetic appearance is a great juxtaposition for how terrifying they are.
Like the opposite of a shambler, who looks all cool and badass but is just a cuddly guy who gets so caught up in trying to hug you he forgets that he can zap you
the spawns are tiny, annoying, revolting and dangerous creatures that bounce around and explode. they’re much more pleasant than the duke 3d drones. now those i can understand hating.
I’ve working really hard on my map InchRevision and basically have 2/3rd of it done at this point. Finishing this most recent wing of the map, the “Lava Tomb”, I’ve realized my new year goal of completing two maps is kind of basically already going to be accomplished when I finish this single map. If only because I didn’t really think, for whatever reason, that designing a Quake level where three mini dungeons spoke off from a hub would involve the labor of basically producing three small maps and finding a way to interlink them with each other. I bit off quite a lot here and I am feeling it right now!!!
I am working on a level design portfolio, so I had to go back to my first map project and transform it from an amateurish incomplete project into a polished amateur work to present it. For the past couple of weeks I built small new additions in the geometry, added scripting, enemy encounters and secrets and weapon placements, and did a whole texture and lighting pass on large swathes of the thing. Now it’s done and playable and feels pretty good for what it is. Check out the demo I recorded of it : )
and I have made it available to download too Nameless Revenge by vodselbt
gets instaflagged with a virus warning for some reason
Eeek!! I’ll look into that. It’s just map files and a prog file I compiled using some well known Quake tools. Thanks for letting me know tho.
yeah its definitely a false warning. Either way, looking forward to trying out your first map!
Thanks Tulpa 
