Single Player Maps/Episodes

[Baker]

Until about the middle of last year, I had little awareness of single player Quake mods. I ended up meeting Spirit from Quaddicted.com and I wanted to be more familiar with single player so I knew the technical issues involved, particular with JoeQuake (which I have historically tried to help with at that forum).

I went to the Underworldfan site and downloaded a couple of single player mods from the "all time Hall of Fame" and without any exaggeration, some of the ones I tried blew my mind.

I had in my head a stereotype of boxy Quake maps like the old skool stuff expansion packs (Scourge of Armagon, Dissolution of Eternity).

These maps were nothing like that all.

Here are some of the ones that are my personal favorites, most (but not all) are consensus "best ever" maps.



Lunaran SP1. A single hightech map that is both beautiful and hard to unravel. It was released in July 2005. Download page.



Marcher Fortress. This enormous map is generally considered the 2005 map of year by most mappers. It will not run in WinQuake, you must use GL and I don't think the original GLQuake can run it. It works fine in JoeQuake and therefore certainly QRack. Download page.



Duke of Ontranto. Released in late 2004, it is really different. It has an ending that reminds one of a Doom-style fight. It was very enjoyable and what makes it different is that it has settings in swamps and underground. Download page.



Once upon Atrocity. A castle map that has an eerie calm to it. The encounters are few and far between, but the landscape is fascinating and the encounters always are shocking despite having a good idea of when they will occur. Download page.



Insomnia. Considered by most to be the all-time best single player Quake episode. You can tell it was someone inspired by Half-Life. Download page.



Cheyenne Mountain Complex. This map was released last year, and while probably not on many's all-time best list, it is a very well designed base map that is quite different from most others out there. Download page.

If high quality single player episodes and maps interest you, the following sites are an excellent source of numerous, high quality downloads.

http://www.planetquake.com/underworld/ (still active reviewing maps)
http://www.planetquake.com/teamshambler/
http://www.celephais.net/forum (Single player released often announced there).

[Solecord]

I really should try these single player maps. I just find it much more fun to play online...

[distrans]

Good Idea...

...SP is why I bother with Quake, so I'm glad you've included this thread.

If you like JPL's stuff it might interest you to know that since 'CMC' JPL also released Castle of the Dark Ages (CDA) and is about to release a DKT themed base level called Event Horizon. Both of these are worth the download.

All going well, I (along with scragbait, Leviathan, Preach and Asaki) will be releasing a new SP mission mid year

[Baker]

I personally plan on doing some emphasis on single player, especially as this site grows.

I've played the Castle of Dark Ages map and it's outstanding. In fact, there are so many outstanding ones I feel bad in not mentioning them all, but listing 20-25 is too many for a post.

I don't think enough people are aware of just how outstanding a lot of the single player releases are and I think more needs done to publicize it.

All of the outstanding single player releases are far too great to not be so widely known about. Many of us, including myself before I discovered the single player development community @ func_msgboard/quaddicted, think of Quake as solely a multiplayer game.

Castle of the Dark Ages


A screenshot of this map was on the Singed.Net homepage for a couple of months.

One thing I have been working on for several months now, is a front-end for JoeQuake. One feature I hope to have well-implemented is plug and play ez install/menu for single player add-ons.



Here is an old mock-up (concept drawing) of the single player mod menu.



I haven't coded it to look exactly like the above, in fact it is much more streamlined. It does show author and preview screenshots of the mod, but not much else. There are some more asterisks to it, but I'll save that for when I release it.

[Monster]

I have played all of those maps except about one. They are ALL great, and thats what I do when I need a break from fast-paced multiplayer. Kick back and relax with good SP. I especially like the castle-style maps, it is amazing how much better the architecture is than the ID ones. I also regularly go to UnderworldFans and download map after map.

And yes, I agree that single player Quake is highly underestimated.

[Yellow No. 5]

Perhaps we should add a bit of polish to your original post Baker and add it as a guide?

[Monster]

PERFECT idea. Would be very nice and maybe we could even set up a singleplayer server running custom maps!!! I get goosebumps just thinking about how fun it could be...

[underworldfan]

hi guys, just wanted to register and say hello.

Thanks Baker for linking to my site. As you can see i have attempted to collect in an easy format for reference and download, all the classic Q1SP maps/episodes.

the two main pages you should look are:

my "hall of Fame" page (all time best)
http://www.planetquake.com/underworld/qclassics.html

in addition, my "q1sp recommended maps page"
http://www.planetquake.com/underworl...commended.html

thanks
UWF.

[Baker]

Welcome to the forums, underworldfan.

I would say that without your site, I never would have known what single player episodes to even try.

I think everyone who enjoys single player is grateful for your site and the ongoing map reviews by yourself and Tronyn.

Recent single player reviews:

http://www.planetquake.com/underworld/quakereviews.html

[Monster]

Sup underworldfan! I was actually going to e-mail you with the first map that I ever made, but it turned out that it was full of leaks and all of this other stuff I have no idea how to fix. So I just gave up on mapping for then. I'm only 14 by the way... I thought my map was pretty damn sweet too, LOL.