The second seasonal phase of my e2 remake project (see Crypt of the Day) did not go brilliantly. I originally planned to do E2M4 at this point, but by three weeks into Autumn I'd barely started; I was torn how to approach that map and too much other stuff was distracting me, so I swapped to E2M5 given I'd already done some work on it earlier in the year and figured it wouldn't take as much work to finish it. I might have even been right, but the next two months were plagued by illness and busy periods at work so I didn't spend nearly enough time on it, and much remains unfinished. By the final week the objective became "do enough to get eight screenshots".

It started out as a hastily retextured version of The Lizard's Trance with an added boss arena, and was almost playable in that state back in 2010. Opening it up in 2024, however, was horrifying. The Q3A gothic textures in e2m5rmx did a great job of masking the lack of detail; this version looked so bland and messy that I ended up gutting almost every room to a hollow shell and redesigning them from scratch. It's a lot more interesting now at least, with the main rooms having some kind of character rather than being vast empty spaces. I also opened up the start area into a massive canyon that surrounds half the map, which took a ton of work but is kind of cool.

There is at least a few more weeks' work here but I'm sticking to my plan and moving on. The next four maps will be smaller, so I'm hopeful of avoiding a repeat, and the final two phases in 2026 should have enough spare time for me to finish this and rje2m3 off.