Review of Beta 21

[Ether Bot]

(RANDOM NOTES-- There is a window you can hope out of somewhere in the... second [I think?] map. It leads to an invisible wall, and you can't get back inside.)

I just finished E1M7.  So I suppose my general thoughts are probably in order? ... I liked it! I have specific thoughts about the ELEMENTS of the first 5 maps as a whole.
And specific thoughts about the final two maps in their individualities. So I'll start with the first five maps and their elements.

--JUMPING--

First things first, it took me a while to realize that I needed to enable jumping. Maybe like a README that said "enable jumping" might have helped. Or if you presented the
need to jump earlier, and more OBVIOUSLY in the game. And on the topic of jumping, the platforming, while not TERRIBLE, is still pretty broken. I mean, I also forgot to turn
on freelook (or "mouselook" if you're weird `_`), so I couldn't see where I would land in any given jump. And when you DO turn on mouselook, looking down is still distorted
and stretched. It makes me feel sick but there are SO MANY JUMPING PUZZLES in this game. I didn't even hate all of them either, I mean, the timing puzzle in map 5 is pretty
fun and perplexing. And the one in the start of map 2 was interesting at first, but this type of gameplay sort of requires a thirdperson perspective in order to really work
consistently like you want it to.

With that being said, I still kinda like the jumping puzzles looking back on it. They kinda gave the game a more grand scale than the original Chex Quest had. Being able to
-And NEEDING TO- jump just makes this feel more like a VIDEO game. You had more choices. And every jump actually felt like a meaningful choice, because of how easily it would
backfire.




(UNRELATED: You use waaay to many Flem-Mines in the final elevator battle. Maybe dial it down to half?)

--ART--

I found the art in this game really good. You had supposedly made NONE of the textures, but I found the variety of stuff to see really interesting. I liked the way it really
felt like a completely different planet, and STYLE for that matter, than the original games. But it still kept in theme enough to feel properly CHEX-QUEST-TY. I kinda felt
Like an ancient temple. It has a real atmosphere and charm. And it's impossible to find somewhere barren in this game. (Unlike some other fan games in existance.....)

The sprites for your new *EEEEEVIIILLL* flemoids were kinda cool. I admit most of their creepiness comes from the audio, but they look distinct enough to tell apart and focus
on.

--NEW ENEMIES--

(UNRELATED: You use waaay to many Flem-Mines in the final elevator battle. Maybe dial it down to half?)

To focus on them SPECIFICALLY: I have a few problems, and a lot of praise. Nitpicks first though.

1) The upgraded Cycloptis' slime attack cannot be avoided if you try to go in between the three scattershots. Which would've been cool if you could.
2) The upgraded Bipedicus insta kills you? Really? BIPEDICUS? He is the SECOND enemy you meet in the first game!

And for praise.

1) I especially like how you slowly reveal each of them seperately with no enemies around them. It really builds up for the final levels where you finds mixes of them.
2) Those NOISES they made. It was both chilling and awesome at the same time. It just makes you wanna mute the game because it freaks you out so much.
3) That jumpscare where you jump into a hole and get surrounded by them was so trippy.

--MISC--

The levels are super long. And involve a lot of backtracking. Which wouldn't be too bad, after all, games like Super Metroid are made out backtracking, but in SM you were
collecting and hunting down cool powerups. In this you're looking for keys and doors. I'm not sure how you could fix this though, if I'm being honest.

I liked the save boxes on the walls. Nice touch!

Swimming was pretty fun at times.

Your game did a good job at making me relive that sense of adventure that the first game game me as a kid. I'm not joking. It has an authentic old school pc game vibe. Where puzzles have weird unorthodox solutions, and you have to face random, difficult tasks. I love it! Keep up the good work.


I'm reviewing these separately because they feel like a different game than the first five maps are. Not in a bad way though.

--EIM6--

As far as final levels go, this one isn't half bad. I like how it's one giant maze. Full of dungeons and catacombs, and you never really know whether or not something
is going to pop out or not. I would recommend putting some health in here somewhere though. I found like two(?) and that really isn't enough. You CAN properly build
tension by limiting health pickups, but it really only got frustrating. I cannot beat two Maximus' and a bunch of Communus' with only 20% health. I'm not that awesome.
That being said, you still keep a steady line of tension throughout. And a lot of build up toward STUFF happening is being shoved down my throat. It's awesome! I love
it!

And the challenges thrown at the player range from challenging to epic, and they never stop. I personally loved it. It was a fun rush. Just a bit too unforgiving at
times.


--E1M7--

If the previous level was "a bit too unforgiving at times." Than this one is just CRUEL. And the swarm stops being fun to kill when you keep getting caught INSIDE of
it. Unable to move. I ended up using DAVIDBRUS to get past it, but I still beat the actual BOSS with my actual health.

I am absolutely ok with this idea for a finale. But just GET RID OF THESE FLEM MINES. They LITERALLY swarm in, in PACKS. And I can't focus on any-enemies if
every-adversary keeps-cornering me into these fricken-flem-mines....

...It's hectically-horrendous..

I wouldn't say less enemies in WHOLE. But maybe spread them out better. Nothing sounds more fun than mowing down an endless hoard of Flemoids that come in steady
progression. But a LOOT sounds more fun than trying to make any semblance of progress in an endless crowd of things moving on screen, bumping into enemies, and no sign
that you've even killed ANYTHING.

See, the difference between the two ideas is:

MY EXAMPLE:   If they come in steady waves, then each wave being defeated shows progress. The player knows that what they are doing is
                         actually DOING SOMETHING. It is immediately responding to the player, and it feels genuinely challenging.
--------------------------------
IN GAME:         In the other example, the player feels HOPELESS. Killing a bunch of enemies still leaves the room as packed as it was before. Nothing is responding to the
                         player. Nothing is showing progression. And reaching the bottom doesn't feel like a success. It feels like a relief. And it isn't fun.

I would suggest that change. But it's entirely within your right to stick with your original ending. I just think a steady stream is more fun than an overflow.

I think the actual boss was pretty okay. The build up is MASTERFULLY done, but the actual result is somewhat underwhelming. I mean... two Super CycloptisPLUS's? You have
this massive, AWESOME arena full of detail, and hiding places. Maybe it would have been cooler if you made a *PLUS* version of like.. The Flembomination. Or that Maximus
that had a tank on his back. Or heck, maybe even a Lord SnotfulusPLUS.


Still though, I generally liked the ending. I know I wrote a lot of complaints, but all of my praises were addressed in the first post. Just assume that all of those praises
hold true here.




...And-also-alliteration-as-awesome-as-any-apple-ay?   

[Ether Bot]

*EDIT *I moved the entire review to the first post.

[MajorSlime]

Which engine were you playing on? This was designed for GZDoom, which should relieve most if not all of the issues with looking up and down, if your properly running in Hardware Mode.

Also, I don't know if this critique will be worth anything, because arch doesn't really frequent this forum much anymore. He said he's still working on TLQ, but I think he might have also said something about a complete redo and/or moving to a different base game platform.

[Awesomedude249]

@CM: I have hardware mode enabled, and that stretchy distortion thing happens to me.
@Ether Bot: Yeaaah, this review probably won't be seen by the creator any time soon.

[Ether Bot]

Well what did YOU guys think then?

I worked pretty hard on this review, and I'd rather it didn't just get ignored.

It would be GREAT if Arch read my review, but I didn't really expect him to to begin with.

Either way though. Do you guys have similar thoughts about the game? Different?

[Awesomedude249]

To be honest, I haven't really played it past E1M3.

[MajorSlime]

*for shame*

--------------------

If your using a newer engine, jumping is pretty much going to be a given. Especially when you start using 3D floors and whatnot. For that one, I disagree with you, because if you've played any sort of mod made well for the GZDoom engine, you'll already know that you'll probably need to jump.

As for the rest, the only commentary I have to add is that yes those last couple of levels get to be WAAAAAY too hard ._. especially the elevator.

[Ether Bot]

If your using a newer engine, jumping is pretty much going to be a given. Especially when you start using 3D floors and whatnot. For that one, I disagree with you, because if you've played any sort of mod made well for the GZDoom engine, you'll already know that you'll probably need to jump.

But still, when designing a game, it should be in your safest assumption that the player has no clue what a videogame is. That is a designers JOB. Let alone the fact that starting up the game has jumping disabled to start with.

[Drwalrustein]

So players have no clue what a videogame is. That makes no sense. I also don't want this to be a debate. Also if you want jumping to be enabled at the start then ask the GZDoom devs or you could bind the key in the options menu. Arch is not a dev for GZDoom he makes maps for chex quest 3 using the GZDoom.

[MajorSlime]

As Drwalrustein attempted to point out, jumping has no keybinding by default in the GZDoom engine; that has nothing to do with TLQ. In truth, if you have already used the GZDoom engine for any reason whatsoever, you should already have jump bound to something.

[Awesomedude249]

Yeah, when I first played this I didn't even know jumping existed, that and I used chex3.exe with chex3 as the IWAD. I didn't look at the engine requirements and didn't care. With that said, once I found out about jump, I enabled it on everything I played. I think jumping is also helpful for speedrunning, say you're in E1M2 and are on the 2nd floor, you can save about 20 seconds jumping out the windows after you get the key.

[Ether Bot]

So players have no clue what a videogame is. That makes no sense. I also don't want this to be a debate. Also if you want jumping to be enabled at the start then ask the GZDoom devs or you could bind the key in the options menu. Arch is not a dev for GZDoom he makes maps for chex quest 3 using the GZDoom.

I am aware that gzdoom presets jumping as disabled. I just said that. I'm just saying that, that being so, and jumping being so important, a proper warning would have been nice.

[Drwalrustein]

I thought you didn't anyways etherbot this isn't the 90s anymore. If you were to compare the old doom levels to new doom levels made by people using GZDoom builder or Doom builder you can see things are more different. The people in the doom community innovate meaning larger levels, better architecture, and new monsters all thanks to ZDoom which is very different from vanilla Doom.

[Awesomedude249]

Also, sorry to be a grammar n*** here, Drwalrustein, but Arch is actually making maps for the original CQ, not Chex 3.
That being said, I don't want this to be a flame war about GZDooM vs. Vanilla DooM, so please, for the love of other people who don't like reading 3 pages to get to the on topic stuff, please stop arguing about it.

[Drwalrustein]

I did not know that he is making that for CQ I thought it was Chex 3.