Download my Ritual Application – Salv.bsp and Timebomb.bsp for Quake 1: Scourge of Armagon. You don’t need Scourge to play them, but a few items are missing if you don’t.

My very first attempt to get into the industry was applying to 3D Realms in one of their contests for a position on Prey in early 1997. At the time I was accomplished with the build engine but had never used the Quake engine. I learned it and built a map in about a week (skipping many classes as a result). Naturally this map wasn’t very good, but I felt confident I could do it so I tried again later and was one of the 3 finalists for a spot at 3D Realms on Prey. During this time I was working on the add-ons and Sunstorm Interactive and very active in the mod community. I’m providing these maps for download purely for historical reasons, but do not wish them to be representations of work I’m proud of and wish to represent me. One map, the one that got me into the final 3, is lost to the hard drive sands unfortunately. This is disappointing to me as I still remember it fondly.

One of my friends sent my second 3DR map to Ritual without me knowing… and they wound up contacting me asking to see more. They wanted something that showed a “functional place with a story” so I started hard on a new map that became Timebomb.bsp. There was enough in the map that they were willing to bring me on site for an interview, but in the mean time they wanted me to create another map that showed scripting and puzzles/traps. This became salv.bsp and is one of my favorite maps I’ve built.

- Timebomb (timebomb.bsp)

Timebomb was the first time I started to get my Quake legs, but I still had a long way to go before I felt truly comfortable building in it. I did start to enjoy the minor scripting abilities and put it to use with the ending sequence where the player kicks off a missile launch and must escape before it turns back around and blows up the facility.

The scale is all out of whack (chairs are too large), the texturing is sloppy, and the geometry is a mish mash. However what it did show in the couple of weeks of work that were available for it… was I could use the geometry to build things differently than in the original game, and use the triggers/scripting to do more than id originally intended. This was the first 3D map where I felt I could do it professionally with more practice… and practice is what I did. The next round was a solid step forward with salv.bsp.

- Salvation (salv.bsp)

This is a very difficult map to play… but it was meant to cram as much scripting and puzzles or traps as possible into a tight space so it could be easily reviewed by the Ritual level designers. They also wanted me to try a different visual style, but also improve on the visuals compared to Timebomb.bsp. I feel I succeeded on both counts.

The only thing I would really do to this map is go back and tone down some of the timing puzzles to be more player friendly, and give the player better cues for the rather unconventional puzzles (such as jumping into the lit up faces for a teleporter). The txt file included gives you clues, but it could be made more approachable. It was primarily meant to show technical capability and had one focus tester… me. :0

I like the premise of every puzzle and trap in this map and was pleased to find a discussion online from 2006 about traps where my map was being discussed (9 years later!). Quotes:

salv.bsp (Salvation) by Charlie Wiederhold probably is “the” Quake map with traps. I love the map, many hate it. You should save after each trap/room. I just played it again and died about 10 times. But it is fun. The level also is a “puzzle” level, especially at the beginning you are totally stuck until you get an idea and can proceed.

Just Played Through Salv. Interesting, mainly because it breaks all the rules. If some of them were toned down slightly then it would’ve been much better – i used a rocket jump to cross the lava near the end and get the feeling i missed something there. also the crushers moved a it too quickly to be genuinely fun. but a neat little map overall.

I really enjoyed Salv. The traps were gruesome and required a combination of agility and consideration to get past, but they weren’t so complex that they ruined the flow of the game. Afterall, Quake should be a fairly fast paced game, so you don’t want to die too many times as a result of traps, but you do want to be kept on edge by the knowledge that something potentially more lethal than a Shambler might be waiting round the corner.

A while ago I put up a video on Google of me playing through the map successfully getting all secrets, killing all enemies, and surviving all traps/puzzles. There is a demo file included in the above download if you would like to see it more clearly. Instructions to view are included in the download.