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Right from the start, I started liking this map. The “starting area” (with the rules and title), looks amazingly good and friendly. The altars and pillars add a whimsical touch to the whole area. There were also some trees scattered around, which made me wonder if I was allwed to gather ressources fromhere.
In hindsight, I should have. Instead, I walked into the one way teleporter that sent me to the actual start.

The Eroded Canyon

What a start ! And I mean it in both good and bad ways. The TP sent me in range of a skeleton spawner. It wasn't primed but I didn't react in time and had to run out like a scaredy cat. When I finally gathered some wood, I found that the difficulty of this area, with skeletons, silverfish and zombie spawners, was quite balanced and fun. The area also looks great, with its lonely trees, lava falls and lakes, good builds and well matched color palette.

There was a tower at the middle of the lava lake, which contained a chest that was EMPTY ! I have empty chests. Especially in a place guarded by a BLAZE spawner. Seriously ? At this point, all we have are wooden tools and zombie flesh. Seems a bit odd to put such a dangerous spawner here.

There was 2 loot chests in that area, containing some nice stuff to pass the area without any major issue.

Deaths : 3 (stupid lava fall, stupid blaze hug, and stupid lava fall again)

First intersection and monument

In this map, you collect discs instead of wools. The monument in itself is small but beautiful. It offers you a pig spawner, which I found to be an amazing idea and a very useful reward. Never be hungry again !

You also have a nice little base with way too many chests for the stuff you have, and the intersection looks really nice. It's, you can say, a little fancy !

Flooded caves

The area starts with a lenghty corridor full of gravel, prismarine and spawners. While the hallway loks great, that's just what it is – a hallway.

It reminded me a lot of the bathroom level of the Harry Potter Nintendo game, which is great because I love this game (ah... nostalgia).

Then you reach a big cavern with an Aqua Affinity helmet and guardians. Again, the design is great and the palette is skillfully mastered. I took a path on the right which led me to the top of the cavern. There, I got a bit confused. I had jumped in the water, thinking I needed to swim to get to the box (due to the helmet), which was located in another pipe rising from the water. But it was surrouned by barrier blocks. Why ? Finally, I jumped from the same place than before onto the pipe, which killed me the first time but I made it safely the second time. At least the barrier blocks kept all my stuff in one place.

Deaths : 1

Mini mines

A fun little area, with iron and coal everywhere ! The spawners on the railway weren't very threatening, but once you reach the 2^nd part of the area, a big dark plain with all the types of spawners (except spiders, which would have provided me the thread I needed to make a bow ! Argh !). a house in the middle makes for a nice base while you run around collecting tons of xp from the spawners. The area, once again, looked good, coherent with its theme, whimsical with all the glowstone and emerald ore, the only downside would be the railways that led to nowhere. I would have appreciated a little exploration reward here and there.

A great ressourceful area, despite being a bit spammy with the spawners.

Deaths : 1

Spire abyss

This area is a hugs spiral dug inside a hollow cylinder, with grass and life having seemingly taken back their rights inside of the carvings. The area looks great and menacing, enhanced by the numerous pillars providing some lights.
Some of the mobs were customized, I liked the fire spiders but not so much the skeletons with Punch 2 bows when you're 10 blocks away from the Void. At least they dropped them for me to use.

The progression was slow but entertaining, sometimes difiult, never rage-inducing. An area how I like them most.

But the downside, again, no loot chests. And unfortunately, this is not going to improve.

Oracle Kingdom

This is where the map started to lose its appeal. First, this area is ugly. I don't know what went wrong, but up until there the palettes were great and harmonious, and quite unique especially within Flooded Caves. But the mix of red sandstone and mossy cobble really didn't make for a great view.

The area in itself, after a minecart ride, is a 2 level plain with a huge waterfall to swim up. And again, no loot chests. I won't expand on why not having loot is an unforgivable mistake in CTM maps, and even in other games, as TT2000 skillfully explained it in its Eye of the Storm review.

But in short, I had nothing motivating me not to just make a run for it. So I did. There were Ghasts spawners, but I barely saw any, just heard them around, as I got the disc and ran away.

Deaths : 1 (unfortunate Creeper ambush at the end of the minecart ride)

Freezy Lands

This is the area where not having loot was the most damaging. This area is just a hallway, sprinkled with Ghasts and invisible charged creepers spawners. I died twice before deciding to, once again, make a run for it. Nothing much else to say, it's just a hallway.

Deaths : 2

Scorched River

This area looked interesting at first. The oxymoron in its title hinted towards a burning lava river, and the map gleefully delivered.

Unfortunately, the unreachable blaze spawners in the middle of the lava, and the fact that I had to arrows left from previous skeletons, not knowing I would have needed so to grind way more, made it so I just walked as high as I could on the side of the walls, barely aggroing any spawners.

I take this moment to talk about one of the map's biggest issues : the complete lack of natural spawns. Checking with F3, I saw that the entire map took place in The Void biome, which disable all natural spawns. I don't know if this was intentional or not, but it prevented me from having a single skeleton
to restock my arrows, and not a single cow, not a rabbit, to make leather and craft books for the incoming enchanting table.

If you are going to disable all natural spawns in your map, make sure the player still has a way of getting these items, either through loot chests, trading, or custom loot tables.

Deaths : 1

3^rd intersection

Only mentioning this intersection because I love it ! It's a very simple intersection with enchanting table, anvil and ender chest all making a small useful base before the final areas. There was also a great supply of lapis lazuli underneath.

The area reminded me a lot of old traditional CTM maps, with the glowstone veins, simple designs and practical appliances. Nostalgia got the best of me. I love this intersection.

Mushroomian Lands

This area is the land of a small mushroom village inhabited by hostile pigmen that ain't letting you taking their diamonds scattered around ! The area looks great and doesn't need a lore book for you to understand the story of it, that's how well made it is.

Unfortunately, once again, not a single loot chest, not even in the buildings. However, the piles of diamond ores made for a nice exploration reward and makes you eager to stay and look around instead of sprinting through. There are ghasts spawners at the top of the houses, but they aren't very threatening as they don't seem to spot you under the mushrooms.

You could also find harming potion spawners inside of said mushrooms. It's a nice little idea, and adds to the lore of the place : such huge mushrooms can certainly emanate toxic fumes which can harm you the closer you walk to it.

At the end of the area, you reach a teleporter sending you to the prison. I liked the fact that you also get sent to prison if you retrieve the disc from the first box, as if you were a thief. Once again, nice way to show-not-tell a story.

But the prison in itself makes no sense ! While it wasn't ugly at all, it didn't look like a prison either. More like the inside of a steel factory.

The custom mobs here are tons of invisible zombies with chestplates. I don't really understand that choice, are they ghosts ?

Anyway, they made for a quite effective way to grind xp.

Deaths : 1 (mushroomian gang-bang)

Stinky swamp

This area is a long, looong hallway containing a swamp biome and poisonous water. The idea of poison when you enter the water is great, but the area was way too long and way too monotonous to keep the player entertained. You keep fighting the same type of mobs over and over again, have fun watching the occasonal witch in-fighting, and collect so many diamonds you could craft a house out of diamond blocks.

And again, not a single chest.

All fight and no loot makes the fun path an unrewarding one.

Deaths : 1 (hello zombie)

Angelical Shrine

The area is a descent inside a cave with an interesting palette and giant chains erupting from the ceiling. At the beginning, hurray ! You get loot !

And enchanted diamond armor and sword and shield, which I all already had, but allowed me to have even stronger armor thanks to the anvil.

Reaching the Shrine isn't hard, and it looks great building wise. Despite its small size, it had a feeling of strength and power.

Inside was the second to last disc, barely guarded by 4 spawners.

But behind was hidden the true last area : a 3 block wide pathway above the Void, with skeletons spawners and charged creepers dropping from the ceiling.

What could possibly go wrong ?

Well, not a lot, to be honest.
Once you get to the skelly spawners and block the one hole creepers were falling through, you're safe. I wasn't expecting this area to be so easy. And that was after falling once and losing all my stuff, which I quickly crafted back with all the diamonds I had.

Deaths : 2

And we are done !

I love to work on this one ! 2nd zone starting house.

Revamped first zone under construction

Slowly chiseling the walls...

At the start i picked the Guardian class. The stuff was awesome and i was pleasantly impressed ! It really looked like a true RPG starting stuff. The cave also looked good !

But as soon as i started something made me tick : the tutorial mob is too hard to kill. Well to say that better, it takes way too long to die. When it finally died, i had used HALF of my sword's durability. Really not a good start.

The boat looks good, and i have to admit the use of End stone on the beach (i think it's End stone ? looked like it) is peculiar but looks great. The valley is quite bland, but in hindsight i realise that this smoothed out look you gave to the terrain makes me think of old arcade games where you run forward and kill monsters. A bit of nostalgia maybe ?

Thanks to the mob loot i was able to cross this part easily, and i had fun doing so. But i was still in survival mode (instead of adventure mode) and ended up several times throughout the game destroying blocks instead of the spawner, that's also a problem that needs to be fixed.

A third minor prblem is that the commands are visible. I don't know how to fix it but i know it's possible.

Then i arrived at the village, which in itself looks good, and i lve the fact that the enchanting table is freely available and its building looks great. The inside of the houses also looks good, cosy and friendly. Unfortunately, one of the villagers decided to suicide in Tim's fireplace and the noise of him burning indefinitely (because of the regen) drove me nuts until i put it out.

The abandoned house really intrigued me but i used the mayor teleport before finishing the visit, stupid me !

Now, the areas with actual PVE were thought like a battleground and i really enjoyed pretending i was at war while fighting them. Overall i don't have anything to say on these areas, except the sand dungeon : this one is way too hard for singleplayer. The maze is creative but leads to spawner going off in the next rooms way before you reach them, which resulted in about 15 blazes and skeletons in the dungeon at all times and the area took me a very long time to get through, and became repetitive after a while.