I can't argue with a review that's comprehensive and well thought out. Thanks for looking it over. It's the first review to find Green Hill to be so-so, so I'm just wrapping my mind around the details. It seems like the main reason was confusion. I don't know whether you played under a time constraint, but I apologize if the story became more of a distraction for you in the map.
The good news is that all the recommendations you listed have already been placed. The story is only specific in 3 areas. Otherwise, it's basically overlaying generic details. The "ending" is past four-square, which is only unlocked after reaching another area. If you have some left over time, I would play this map slowly on your own time. It may clear things up a bit. It's not a brain-busting map, I just prefer not to hold the player's hand through obstacles.
But like I said in the beginning, I understand reviews can be positive and negative, and I always listen to feedback. I think the story is pretty generic and easy to understand, but I can see if some people can't balance CTM and a story. It's a bummer that you felt confused while playing the map. Maybe there are too many elements at play.
Well, don't get me wrong, I would never call it so-so. I definitely admire what you've done. I'm trying not to judge by the experience after I started cheating, because that's hardly fair, but that first experience really ruined some things. Without any cheating, without even placing a block I think, I had gotten lost and found one of the signs telling me to kill Tom before finding the place I was supposed to meet him at. That sort of ruined the story element. But conceptually, the map is fantastic, just not my experience with it. I tried to get that sentiment across in the review. I really like the idea of it. That 5 diamonds is the max uniqueness score.
I guess brain-busting was a bad term for what I meant. It didn't break my brain because it was so difficult or confusing. My mind just got tired from being perpetully lost underground, if you know what I mean. I wasn't a mental 100 meter dash, it was a mental 3 hours of walking up stairs.
I might come back and play it again eventually, but I probably won't get back to it for some combinations of reasons: I've already cheated out of the map and seen everything and I'm probably not going to do much map-playing just for my own enjoyment while I have a queue up. I probably will continue to play your maps after this, though.
I feel the best way for me to introduce this map is a brief narrative of my experience with it. I downloaded the map, stuck on the playlist (awww yeeaah!), went in, read the rules, followed along with the map until the sign "meet you at hallowed grounds." My response to that sign was "well where the hell is that supposed to be?" Within about 15 minutes I was completely lost and finally found another NPC sign, but this one was a different character telling me to help in her plot to murder the one that talked to me before. At this point I determined that I should probably start over.
So the next day, I redownloaded the map, stuck on the playlist (awww yeeaah!), went in, breezed past what I had already seen, and started looking for hallowed grounds. It took me about 15 minutes to find the hole into there, but once I did I finally knew what was going on in the map. 2 hours later I had 5 music discs and enough ore to decorate a jewelry shop. At that point I decided I didn't feel like giving this the 8 hours it seemed like it would take to finish, so I cheated and flipped over to creative mode. In the next hour, I got 3 more music discs and ended up back at that murder plot sign I had found on my first attempt. I figured that even though I still hadn't found where this NPC introduces this murder plot in the first place, I would follow along with it. Somehow from there I ended up at a destroyed pathway leading to a room full of pixel art and signs telling me the map was over. I figured even though I hadn't completed the monument, I was thoroughly confused and mentally drained enough to call it quits.
Function:
I honestly don't know if this functions or not. I see what this is trying to do (a story based CTM map), and I completely encourage it, but when I can get lost right away and start finding signs that depend on signs I haven't read to make sense, the story becomes more of a burden than an asset. And how can I find the ending without completing the monument? This map utterly confused me, and that's not good. The music disc defense areas were good. Ender pass, bad dreams, these places terrified the crap out of me and that's spectacular. And the color-coded chests were very nice, functional organization. But the map wasn't functionally organized to go with it. Perhaps in the future, the introductions should all come before the player is let free to explore and the ending elements should be blocked off until after they finish exploring. The complete the monument elements worked, the story elements didn't quite get there, and finding the end before finishing the map is not really acceptable.
4/10
Form:
Don't worry, it's all praise in this section. The map is beautiful. The map (in game item) even caught my attention. The way it frames in the map area is awesome. The background music playlist adds wonderfully to the experience. The pixel art is very well made. The sheer cliffs with forest on top makes a very nice backdrop for the map. The caverns are caverns, there's not much you can do with that, but the places with chests were unique and pleasant to view. I do think the music disc chests could have a little more of a pedestal to them though; some are floating prominently over lava while others are just sort of sitting in the corner. In the end, the map just comes across as very professional when you look at it.
9/10
It's a complete the monument map with a story, I'm obligated to try get in a good flavor score here. I don't know why there were floating gems (maybe that was explained and I just missed that sign), I don't know why I helped kill a character (I'm positive I just missed that sign), and I'm not sure why there are all these lairs underground defending music discs (I doubt there's an explanation for that one). But the story was supposed to be going through caverns finding secret records and that certainly plays out in the action of it. I really can't get over finding the end of a plot that I never found the beginning of, and that being the end of the map.
5/10
Uniqueness:
This map is unique. Story and adventure integrated into completing the monument. The map with a frame around the play area. Background music playlist! (awwww yeeaah!) The ideas here are great and new (at least from what I've played) and there's clearly a future going forward with what this does. This map did not quite execute what it was trying to do, but what it was trying to do is very original and very good, and luckily for us, the maker seems to have a lot more coming in the future.
Overall Score: 18 and
Would I recommend it?
- The map pretty much broke my brain, so I can't say I will recommend this to anyone; but I know there is an audience for brain-breaking maps out there, it just doesn't include me.
I feel the best way for me to introduce this map is a brief narrative of my experience with it. I downloaded the map, stuck on the playlist (awww yeeaah!), went in, read the rules, followed along with the map until the sign "meet you at hallowed grounds." My response to that sign was "well where the hell is that supposed to be?" Within about 15 minutes I was completely lost and finally found another NPC sign, but this one was a different character telling me to help in her plot to murder the one that talked to me before. At this point I determined that I should probably start over.
So the next day, I redownloaded the map, stuck on the playlist (awww yeeaah!), went in, breezed past what I had already seen, and started looking for hallowed grounds. It took me about 15 minutes to find the hole into there, but once I did I finally knew what was going on in the map. 2 hours later I had 5 music discs and enough ore to decorate a jewelry shop. At that point I decided I didn't feel like giving this the 8 hours it seemed like it would take to finish, so I cheated and flipped over to creative mode. In the next hour, I got 3 more music discs and ended up back at that murder plot sign I had found on my first attempt. I figured that even though I still hadn't found where this NPC introduces this murder plot in the first place, I would follow along with it. Somehow from there I ended up at a destroyed pathway leading to a room full of pixel art and signs telling me the map was over. I figured even though I hadn't completed the monument, I was thoroughly confused and mentally drained enough to call it quits.
Function:
I honestly don't know if this functions or not. I see what this is trying to do (a story based CTM map), and I completely encourage it, but when I can get lost right away and start finding signs that depend on signs I haven't read to make sense, the story becomes more of a burden than an asset. And how can I find the ending without completing the monument? This map utterly confused me, and that's not good. The music disc defense areas were good. Ender pass, bad dreams, these places terrified the crap out of me and that's spectacular. And the color-coded chests were very nice, functional organization. But the map wasn't functionally organized to go with it. Perhaps in the future, the introductions should all come before the player is let free to explore and the ending elements should be blocked off until after they finish exploring. The complete the monument elements worked, the story elements didn't quite get there, and finding the end before finishing the map is not really acceptable.
4/10
Form:
Don't worry, it's all praise in this section. The map is beautiful. The map (in game item) even caught my attention. The way it frames in the map area is awesome. The background music playlist adds wonderfully to the experience. The pixel art is very well made. The sheer cliffs with forest on top makes a very nice backdrop for the map. The caverns are caverns, there's not much you can do with that, but the places with chests were unique and pleasant to view. I do think the music disc chests could have a little more of a pedestal to them though; some are floating prominently over lava while others are just sort of sitting in the corner. In the end, the map just comes across as very professional when you look at it.
9/10
It's a complete the monument map with a story, I'm obligated to try get in a good flavor score here. I don't know why there were floating gems (maybe that was explained and I just missed that sign), I don't know why I helped kill a character (I'm positive I just missed that sign), and I'm not sure why there are all these lairs underground defending music discs (I doubt there's an explanation for that one). But the story was supposed to be going through caverns finding secret records and that certainly plays out in the action of it. I really can't get over finding the end of a plot that I never found the beginning of, and that being the end of the map.
5/10
Uniqueness:
This map is unique. Story and adventure integrated into completing the monument. The map with a frame around the play area. Background music playlist! (awwww yeeaah!) The ideas here are great and new (at least from what I've played) and there's clearly a future going forward with what this does. This map did not quite execute what it was trying to do, but what it was trying to do is very original and very good, and luckily for us, the maker seems to have a lot more coming in the future.
Overall Score: 18 and
Would I recommend it?
- The map pretty much broke my brain, so I can't say I will recommend this to anyone; but I know there is an audience for brain-breaking maps out there, it just doesn't include me.
Great reviews, excellently done! I'll be coming here every time I'm searching for a new map to play!
I'll not comment on the irony of reading my reviews of everything a map does wrong before playing it. Instead, I'll cross my fingers that someday you'll be inspired and end up back here with a map for me to play.
Parkour Thief non-surprisingly is a parkour map. (Go figure!) While in my reviews I will use the term "parkour" frequently as the accepted term for jumping puzzles, I will admit right now that I am squarely in the camp of people who are annoyed that the Minecraft community decided to rename "platforming" puzzles after decades as the accepted terminology. It'd be like renaming "fighting" games something like "MMA" games. Or it's like when kids go out and play "manhunt" in the woods because to them it sounds cooler than "cops and robbers" even though the rules are the same. Anyway, parkour thief earns its parkour label because the theme is really parkour. You are a thief that is climbing through ceilings, scaling walls, and leaping off of rooftops to get a stolen diamond back to your boss. It takes you through various cityscapes moving through and over every building around to complete the task.
Function:
The map worked very nicely. Nothing it it was too hard and little was too easy. There were even some parts where, despite parkour being the only challenge, it made you think to solve the room in a "hole-in-the-wall" sort of way ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hole_in_the_Wall_(U.S._game_show) ). I didn't like the timed jumping. It was very fast-paced, and I got there during rain, so the lag ate my jumping skills away. Not to mention, they were in a tunnel supposedly dug with a sppon, I don't see why there would be pistons there anyway. When I got to the last city, I was not as sure as I had been the rest of the time with where I was supposed to go; I knew where to start, but after that it became unclear and I just explored any building I could get in until I eventually (and quite suddenly) found the right way to go. And the testificates opening and closing iron doors freely can mess things up, like letting you in doors you shouldn't be able to get in or closing checkpoints you've already opened. On the positive side, the jumping puzzles that were the real function of the map were intricate, well-balanced, often original, and very fun to play.
As a neutral comment, I just want you to know that by a certain point, I was slaughtering every living thing in the map on sight for annoying me while I was jumping. (including the blue sheep and the dog.)
8/10
Form:
The urban areas are very nicely built and have some nice details. Almost everything is built in a specifically stylized way, and every city has it's own decorative theme. The addition of record players gave the map a more enjoyable atmosphere. The story maps were a bit plain, but they did their job. The choice of texture pack seemed a little bit arbitrary though. Overall, it was a pleasant place to spend an hour or two in minecraft.
7/10
Flavor:
The flavor of the map, a thief moving through cities with a stolen jewel, fits very nicely with the challenge, jumping through buildings. What I don't like is the lack of reason for the rediculous routes taken. I think the map would be better made if instead of telling the player where to start the jumping puzzles and guiding them to the finish, you could tell the player the objective and let them reverse engineer a way to meet the goal. It makes more sense to have a thief know where they're going to end up and have to figure out how to get there than it does to put them at the start of a guided jumping chain and say go. I've already addressed the moving platforms in the tunnel that don't really make sense. Mostly, the map doesn't really try and get the player involved in the process of stealing and escaping, and rather focuses entirely on having the player involved in the parkour through the cities, and that misses most of half the flavor of the map. It's very parkour and not so much thief.
6/10
Uniqueness:
There have been other maps that try to push the setting into jumping puzzles and make "parkour" into real parkour, so it's not super unique for that, but I do think this map does that pretty nicely and is overall its own experience in the world of custom maps.
Overall Score: 21 and
Would I recommend it?
- I know this is not the highest percentage of Minecrafters, but I'd recommend this map just to people who like parkour.
Parkour Thief non-surprisingly is a parkour map. (Go figure!) While in my reviews I will use the term "parkour" frequently as the accepted term for jumping puzzles, I will admit right now that I am squarely in the camp of people who are annoyed that the Minecraft community decided to rename "platforming" puzzles after decades as the accepted terminology. It'd be like renaming "fighting" games something like "MMA" games. Or it's like when kids go out and play "manhunt" in the woods because to them it sounds cooler than "cops and robbers" even though the rules are the same. Anyway, parkour thief earns its parkour label because the theme is really parkour. You are a thief that is climbing through ceilings, scaling walls, and leaping off of rooftops to get a stolen diamond back to your boss. It takes you through various cityscapes moving through and over every building around to complete the task.
Function:
The map worked very nicely. Nothing it it was too hard and little was too easy. There were even some parts where, despite parkour being the only challenge, it made you think to solve the room in a "hole-in-the-wall" sort of way ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hole_in_the_Wall_(U.S._game_show) ). I didn't like the timed jumping. It was very fast-paced, and I got there during rain, so the lag ate my jumping skills away. Not to mention, they were in a tunnel supposedly dug with a sppon, I don't see why there would be pistons there anyway. When I got to the last city, I was not as sure as I had been the rest of the time with where I was supposed to go; I knew where to start, but after that it became unclear and I just explored any building I could get in until I eventually (and quite suddenly) found the right way to go. And the testificates opening and closing iron doors freely can mess things up, like letting you in doors you shouldn't be able to get in or closing checkpoints you've already opened. On the positive side, the jumping puzzles that were the real function of the map were intricate, well-balanced, often original, and very fun to play.
As a neutral comment, I just want you to know that by a certain point, I was slaughtering every living thing in the map on sight for annoying me while I was jumping. (including the blue sheep and the dog.)
8/10
Form:
The urban areas are very nicely built and have some nice details. Almost everything is built in a specifically stylized way, and every city has it's own decorative theme. The addition of record players gave the map a more enjoyable atmosphere. The story maps were a bit plain, but they did their job. The choice of texture pack seemed a little bit arbitrary though. Overall, it was a pleasant place to spend an hour or two in minecraft.
7/10
Flavor:
The flavor of the map, a thief moving through cities with a stolen jewel, fits very nicely with the challenge, jumping through buildings. What I don't like is the lack of reason for the rediculous routes taken. I think the map would be better made if instead of telling the player where to start the jumping puzzles and guiding them to the finish, you could tell the player the objective and let them reverse engineer a way to meet the goal. It makes more sense to have a thief know where they're going to end up and have to figure out how to get there than it does to put them at the start of a guided jumping chain and say go. I've already addressed the moving platforms in the tunnel that don't really make sense. Mostly, the map doesn't really try and get the player involved in the process of stealing and escaping, and rather focuses entirely on having the player involved in the parkour through the cities, and that misses most of half the flavor of the map. It's very parkour and not so much thief.
6/10
Uniqueness:
There have been other maps that try to push the setting into jumping puzzles and make "parkour" into real parkour, so it's not super unique for that, but I do think this map does that pretty nicely and is overall its own experience in the world of custom maps.
Overall Score: 21 and
Would I recommend it?
- I know this is not the highest percentage of Minecrafters, but I'd recommend this map just to people who like parkour.
The map Levels has recently undergone a major update. This is not a full review, just commentary on the changes.
The lava maze was replaced with a large amount of new and good content. There were some bugs in the new puzzles, but that's to be expected of fresh content. The wood bridge over lava is sort of luck dependant, so the stacks to build with could probably be a little larger to make it more consistent. The testificate that you punch should trigger the redstone permanently since it continually tries to jump back up off the pressure plate. The parkour is still mountains more difficult than the enderpearl maze, though both have been greatly improved upon. Overall, the content of the beginning has improved up to the quality at the end.
The frogger game in the version I played is broken and has 2 minecarts on a couple tracks and none on others. I'll just assume these bugs will get ironed out and give the map back a function point. +1 FUNCTION
The area that was added in looks very clean, so form was improved as well.
The ending was made to mesh a bit more with the starting premise. There's a clear improvement here as well. I don't know if it's enough to gain points, but qualitatively I can say the map works better in every way.
New Overall Score: 20/30 and
Would I recommend it?
- Definitely more than before the overhaul. The map is much improved.
Levi's Nightmare is essentially a survival-horror game. You are guided through the aftermath of a terrible disease that obliterates the population of the local towns and leaves nothing but empty houses and hoardes of zombies behind. It's a fantastically dark map and visually made to match the horror feel of the story.
Function:
There are only really 2 challenges in the map. The primary challenge is to follow the story to find out what happened without getting murdered by zombies. The secondary challenge was to collect gold ingots to represent your score. The creator gives a hint that travelling at night is dangerous (it is; there seem to be zombie spawners hidden just underground EVERYWHERE outside) but you may see things better at night. This is true, you need to wander outside at night to find all the ingots, and admittedly I wasn't trying too hard to get all of them (got 27/50, and I think that's still pretty good. Some of them are outrageously hidden). So if you're going for 100%, this won't make a huge difference for you, but I think putting beds in was a mistake. The horror aspect really cuts out when you can just take a nap in the loft and eliminate all the zombies. I don't think it would be too offensive, and I think it would add to the suspense, if the player trying to hide inside had to wait out the whole night to the sounds of zombies. Sleeping away the danger is much less fun than my second night in the map spent on a two high ledge like this
So I chop one point off for being able to avoid all the danger in a horror map and one point for the interactivity of the map being sort of limited (explore a wooden house, avoid zombies, explore another wooden house, avoid some more zombies). The map did go off without any real glitches.
8/10
Form:
The map is very dark to match its very dark feel. There is just enough visual variety to fit the setting of a pair of small towns. On the note of the towns, they were enjoyably large enough to support the hypothetical populations, meaning this map was not one that had the Pokemon 100 NPCs, 10 beds effect. The text files did start to feel repetitive, I didn't like leaving the game that often, but the content of each was unique and had it's own story to tell. The texture pack worked very well with the map. I once again just need to comment that being able to sleep away the night in the local loft kills not just the challenge of the map but also the atmosphere.
9/10
Flavor:
I'm sure you can tell that I really liked the flavor here. I want to comment on how it's the magical land of Journalia, where one person in every household must keep a journal until the day they die, but that would be unfair of me. I have not held any other map story to that kind of scrutiny, and the fact that I'm treating it almost more like literature than an adventure map speaks volumes about the story quality.
I don't need to go into more detail on how well the story and map reflected and complemented one another, because it really was a very enveloping experience... until the end. I honestly did not like the use of the nether here for three reasons. SPOILERS 1) The idea of a zombie virus spreading from research into capturing souls was very nice, and then somehow trying to transition that into building portals seemed like you were trying too hard to wedge the nether in. 2) The portal construction testing chamber just incidentally broke the 4th wall, and that clashed heavily with the rest of the map. 3) I don't like that you can jump out of hell, die, and get back to the real world. I think an inescapable bedrock prison would be a more appropriate and functional hell for Levi.
Anyways, that's just me being picky, and I'm sure there are others who loved the use of the nether and would hate my idea.
9/10
Uniqueness:
I have not seen a map work in horror like this before. The atmosphere is very nice and very original. The zombie swarming method, while being a bit obvious method, has not been used for this purpose to this extent, I believe. It made the dramatized night/day mechanic a very unique experience. What a horrible night to have a curse...
Overall Score: 26/30 and
Would I recommend it?
- Yes. It's a great, dark experience.
Levi's Nightmare is essentially a survival-horror game. You are guided through the aftermath of a terrible disease that obliterates the population of the local towns and leaves nothing but empty houses and hoardes of zombies behind. It's a fantastically dark map and visually made to match the horror feel of the story.
Function:
There are only really 2 challenges in the map. The primary challenge is to follow the story to find out what happened without getting murdered by zombies. The secondary challenge was to collect gold ingots to represent your score. The creator gives a hint that travelling at night is dangerous (it is; there seem to be zombie spawners hidden just underground EVERYWHERE outside) but you may see things better at night. This is true, you need to wander outside at night to find all the ingots, and admittedly I wasn't trying too hard to get all of them (got 27/50, and I think that's still pretty good. Some of them are outrageously hidden). So if you're going for 100%, this won't make a huge difference for you, but I think putting beds in was a mistake. The horror aspect really cuts out when you can just take a nap in the loft and eliminate all the zombies. I don't think it would be too offensive, and I think it would add to the suspense, if the player trying to hide inside had to wait out the whole night to the sounds of zombies. Sleeping away the danger is much less fun than my second night in the map spent on a two high ledge like this
So I chop one point off for being able to avoid all the danger in a horror map and one point for the interactivity of the map being sort of limited (explore a wooden house, avoid zombies, explore another wooden house, avoid some more zombies). The map did go off without any real glitches.
8/10
Form:
The map is very dark to match its very dark feel. There is just enough visual variety to fit the setting of a pair of small towns. On the note of the towns, they were enjoyably large enough to support the hypothetical populations, meaning this map was not one that had the Pokemon 100 NPCs, 10 beds effect. The text files did start to feel repetitive, I didn't like leaving the game that often, but the content of each was unique and had it's own story to tell. The texture pack worked very well with the map. I once again just need to comment that being able to sleep away the night in the local loft kills not just the challenge of the map but also the atmosphere.
9/10
Flavor:
I'm sure you can tell that I really liked the flavor here. I want to comment on how it's the magical land of Journalia, where one person in every household must keep a journal until the day they die, but that would be unfair of me. I have not held any other map story to that kind of scrutiny, and the fact that I'm treating it almost more like literature than an adventure map speaks volumes about the story quality.
I don't need to go into more detail on how well the story and map reflected and complemented one another, because it really was a very enveloping experience... until the end. I honestly did not like the use of the nether here for three reasons. SPOILERS 1) The idea of a zombie virus spreading from research into capturing souls was very nice, and then somehow trying to transition that into building portals seemed like you were trying too hard to wedge the nether in. 2) The portal construction testing chamber just incidentally broke the 4th wall, and that clashed heavily with the rest of the map. 3) I don't like that you can jump out of hell, die, and get back to the real world. I think an inescapable bedrock prison would be a more appropriate and functional hell for Levi.
Anyways, that's just me being picky, and I'm sure there are others who loved the use of the nether and would hate my idea.
9/10
Uniqueness:
I have not seen a map work in horror like this before. The atmosphere is very nice and very original. The zombie swarming method, while being a bit obvious method, has not been used for this purpose to this extent, I believe. It made the dramatized night/day mechanic a very unique experience. What a horrible night to have a curse...
Overall Score: 26/30 and
Would I recommend it?
- Yes. It's a great, dark experience.
The King of Hrothgara is an adventure map where you play a youth who had become talented with a sword and gained prestige so that you are given a chance to prove yourself through challenges and take the place of the belated King of Hrothgara. The map send you out and back from a central hub to the various testing locations spread around it. You gather the keys that unlock the prompts for further tasks. The map is very smoothly structured, and is a fun playthrough.
Function-
This map is young at the time of this writing and doesn't quite have its glossy finish yet. Bug list: The map title in Minecraft world select is "world," one of the signs has incorrect your/you're usage, at least 1 door has exposed wiring to open it, the first key altar has decorative ditches to either side that the player could get trapped in pretty easily, the parkour ravine checkpoint system allows for skipping most of that challenge, the sign saying the wall is weak where there is clay comes after the first place you need to break through the clay which means the only way to see that hint is to figure out the puzzle already, the houses in the dock down set on fire at random intervals, the burn the wool puzzle doesn't immediately burn out completely making the burning process take a fair amount of time and most of the flint and steel, and the locked path to the castle should really be able to open from the other side to make a checkpoint. Most of these are just bugs that can be ironed out pretty easily. As far as functional problems inherent to the map itself, my only big issue is with the "their lives or yours" room, because if you choose the villagers you actually do just lose the map permanently and that seems wrong. Everything else was enjoyable puzzles of appropriate difficulty. I especially enjoyed the ship destroying part.
6/10
Form-
The forest was beautiful, the snowy mountaintop was a nice touch, the ships were convincing, the castle was impressive. Dissappointingly, the least attractive area was the actual testing area you start in. The hub building is a bit plain, a bit cramped, and a bit unattractive. Everything else was very nice. I need to say though, that when you recommend the texture pack for the map, you don't mention the use of a patch to make it work, so I played with the water constantly reminding me to google the patch to make it look right.
8/10
Flavor-
The map did a nice job of addressing all the picky plot questions I had. Why does nobody oppose this appointment of King? That had somewhat of an answer. Why is a person leaving journals in the testing chamber that say he's going to report things to the king? Also sort of answered. But every answer brings new questions, and the map literally ends on more unanswered questions than it began with. What started as a simple "prove yourself to be king" story ended with an unexplained cultist rebellion movement, a facility of unexplained higher technology than the rest of the world, and an antagonist that is almost completely unexplained. The map does less to make it's own plot than it does to set up cliffhangers, and it's hard to hang on a cliffhanger when the story hasn't made you interested in the plot yet. Also, the 6 set trials works, and the plot driven trials works, but it's an internal conflict when the seemingly well-established testing process interacts exactly with supposedly sudden shocking events. It would have worked better with a distinct seperation between the way the "planned" trials worked and the "helping people with current issues" worked.
6/10
Uniqueness-
A medieval-themed hub/trial based adventure map. No big distinguishing factors, though I must re-state that I did really like the ship destruction. It makes me wanna play a completely pyro themed map.
Overall Score: 20 and
Would I recommend it?
- Not actively, but I clearly expect a sequel.
0
Well, don't get me wrong, I would never call it so-so. I definitely admire what you've done. I'm trying not to judge by the experience after I started cheating, because that's hardly fair, but that first experience really ruined some things. Without any cheating, without even placing a block I think, I had gotten lost and found one of the signs telling me to kill Tom before finding the place I was supposed to meet him at. That sort of ruined the story element. But conceptually, the map is fantastic, just not my experience with it. I tried to get that sentiment across in the review. I really like the idea of it. That 5 diamonds is the max uniqueness score.
I guess brain-busting was a bad term for what I meant. It didn't break my brain because it was so difficult or confusing. My mind just got tired from being perpetully lost underground, if you know what I mean. I wasn't a mental 100 meter dash, it was a mental 3 hours of walking up stairs.
I might come back and play it again eventually, but I probably won't get back to it for some combinations of reasons: I've already cheated out of the map and seen everything and I'm probably not going to do much map-playing just for my own enjoyment while I have a queue up. I probably will continue to play your maps after this, though.
1
by Kerblah
Thread: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/828869-
I feel the best way for me to introduce this map is a brief narrative of my experience with it. I downloaded the map, stuck on the playlist (awww yeeaah!), went in, read the rules, followed along with the map until the sign "meet you at hallowed grounds." My response to that sign was "well where the hell is that supposed to be?" Within about 15 minutes I was completely lost and finally found another NPC sign, but this one was a different character telling me to help in her plot to murder the one that talked to me before. At this point I determined that I should probably start over.
So the next day, I redownloaded the map, stuck on the playlist (awww yeeaah!), went in, breezed past what I had already seen, and started looking for hallowed grounds. It took me about 15 minutes to find the hole into there, but once I did I finally knew what was going on in the map. 2 hours later I had 5 music discs and enough ore to decorate a jewelry shop. At that point I decided I didn't feel like giving this the 8 hours it seemed like it would take to finish, so I cheated and flipped over to creative mode. In the next hour, I got 3 more music discs and ended up back at that murder plot sign I had found on my first attempt. I figured that even though I still hadn't found where this NPC introduces this murder plot in the first place, I would follow along with it. Somehow from there I ended up at a destroyed pathway leading to a room full of pixel art and signs telling me the map was over. I figured even though I hadn't completed the monument, I was thoroughly confused and mentally drained enough to call it quits.
Function:
I honestly don't know if this functions or not. I see what this is trying to do (a story based CTM map), and I completely encourage it, but when I can get lost right away and start finding signs that depend on signs I haven't read to make sense, the story becomes more of a burden than an asset. And how can I find the ending without completing the monument? This map utterly confused me, and that's not good. The music disc defense areas were good. Ender pass, bad dreams, these places terrified the crap out of me and that's spectacular. And the color-coded chests were very nice, functional organization. But the map wasn't functionally organized to go with it. Perhaps in the future, the introductions should all come before the player is let free to explore and the ending elements should be blocked off until after they finish exploring. The complete the monument elements worked, the story elements didn't quite get there, and finding the end before finishing the map is not really acceptable.
4/10
Form:
Don't worry, it's all praise in this section. The map is beautiful. The map (in game item) even caught my attention. The way it frames in the map area is awesome. The background music playlist adds wonderfully to the experience. The pixel art is very well made. The sheer cliffs with forest on top makes a very nice backdrop for the map. The caverns are caverns, there's not much you can do with that, but the places with chests were unique and pleasant to view. I do think the music disc chests could have a little more of a pedestal to them though; some are floating prominently over lava while others are just sort of sitting in the corner. In the end, the map just comes across as very professional when you look at it.
9/10
It's a complete the monument map with a story, I'm obligated to try get in a good flavor score here. I don't know why there were floating gems (maybe that was explained and I just missed that sign), I don't know why I helped kill a character (I'm positive I just missed that sign), and I'm not sure why there are all these lairs underground defending music discs (I doubt there's an explanation for that one). But the story was supposed to be going through caverns finding secret records and that certainly plays out in the action of it. I really can't get over finding the end of a plot that I never found the beginning of, and that being the end of the map.
5/10
Uniqueness:
This map is unique. Story and adventure integrated into completing the monument. The map with a frame around the play area. Background music playlist! (awwww yeeaah!) The ideas here are great and new (at least from what I've played) and there's clearly a future going forward with what this does. This map did not quite execute what it was trying to do, but what it was trying to do is very original and very good, and luckily for us, the maker seems to have a lot more coming in the future.
Overall Score: 18 and
Would I recommend it?
- The map pretty much broke my brain, so I can't say I will recommend this to anyone; but I know there is an audience for brain-breaking maps out there, it just doesn't include me.
0
by Kerblah
Thread: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/828869-
I feel the best way for me to introduce this map is a brief narrative of my experience with it. I downloaded the map, stuck on the playlist (awww yeeaah!), went in, read the rules, followed along with the map until the sign "meet you at hallowed grounds." My response to that sign was "well where the hell is that supposed to be?" Within about 15 minutes I was completely lost and finally found another NPC sign, but this one was a different character telling me to help in her plot to murder the one that talked to me before. At this point I determined that I should probably start over.
So the next day, I redownloaded the map, stuck on the playlist (awww yeeaah!), went in, breezed past what I had already seen, and started looking for hallowed grounds. It took me about 15 minutes to find the hole into there, but once I did I finally knew what was going on in the map. 2 hours later I had 5 music discs and enough ore to decorate a jewelry shop. At that point I decided I didn't feel like giving this the 8 hours it seemed like it would take to finish, so I cheated and flipped over to creative mode. In the next hour, I got 3 more music discs and ended up back at that murder plot sign I had found on my first attempt. I figured that even though I still hadn't found where this NPC introduces this murder plot in the first place, I would follow along with it. Somehow from there I ended up at a destroyed pathway leading to a room full of pixel art and signs telling me the map was over. I figured even though I hadn't completed the monument, I was thoroughly confused and mentally drained enough to call it quits.
Function:
I honestly don't know if this functions or not. I see what this is trying to do (a story based CTM map), and I completely encourage it, but when I can get lost right away and start finding signs that depend on signs I haven't read to make sense, the story becomes more of a burden than an asset. And how can I find the ending without completing the monument? This map utterly confused me, and that's not good. The music disc defense areas were good. Ender pass, bad dreams, these places terrified the crap out of me and that's spectacular. And the color-coded chests were very nice, functional organization. But the map wasn't functionally organized to go with it. Perhaps in the future, the introductions should all come before the player is let free to explore and the ending elements should be blocked off until after they finish exploring. The complete the monument elements worked, the story elements didn't quite get there, and finding the end before finishing the map is not really acceptable.
4/10
Form:
Don't worry, it's all praise in this section. The map is beautiful. The map (in game item) even caught my attention. The way it frames in the map area is awesome. The background music playlist adds wonderfully to the experience. The pixel art is very well made. The sheer cliffs with forest on top makes a very nice backdrop for the map. The caverns are caverns, there's not much you can do with that, but the places with chests were unique and pleasant to view. I do think the music disc chests could have a little more of a pedestal to them though; some are floating prominently over lava while others are just sort of sitting in the corner. In the end, the map just comes across as very professional when you look at it.
9/10
It's a complete the monument map with a story, I'm obligated to try get in a good flavor score here. I don't know why there were floating gems (maybe that was explained and I just missed that sign), I don't know why I helped kill a character (I'm positive I just missed that sign), and I'm not sure why there are all these lairs underground defending music discs (I doubt there's an explanation for that one). But the story was supposed to be going through caverns finding secret records and that certainly plays out in the action of it. I really can't get over finding the end of a plot that I never found the beginning of, and that being the end of the map.
5/10
Uniqueness:
This map is unique. Story and adventure integrated into completing the monument. The map with a frame around the play area. Background music playlist! (awwww yeeaah!) The ideas here are great and new (at least from what I've played) and there's clearly a future going forward with what this does. This map did not quite execute what it was trying to do, but what it was trying to do is very original and very good, and luckily for us, the maker seems to have a lot more coming in the future.
Overall Score: 18 and
Would I recommend it?
- The map pretty much broke my brain, so I can't say I will recommend this to anyone; but I know there is an audience for brain-breaking maps out there, it just doesn't include me.
0
0
The maps section could really use an easy way to measure community feedback from the list.
0
I'll not comment on the irony of reading my reviews of everything a map does wrong before playing it. Instead, I'll cross my fingers that someday you'll be inspired and end up back here with a map for me to play.
0
By Cheesefrycook
Thread: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1012881-
Parkour Thief non-surprisingly is a parkour map. (Go figure!) While in my reviews I will use the term "parkour" frequently as the accepted term for jumping puzzles, I will admit right now that I am squarely in the camp of people who are annoyed that the Minecraft community decided to rename "platforming" puzzles after decades as the accepted terminology. It'd be like renaming "fighting" games something like "MMA" games. Or it's like when kids go out and play "manhunt" in the woods because to them it sounds cooler than "cops and robbers" even though the rules are the same. Anyway, parkour thief earns its parkour label because the theme is really parkour. You are a thief that is climbing through ceilings, scaling walls, and leaping off of rooftops to get a stolen diamond back to your boss. It takes you through various cityscapes moving through and over every building around to complete the task.
Function:
The map worked very nicely. Nothing it it was too hard and little was too easy. There were even some parts where, despite parkour being the only challenge, it made you think to solve the room in a "hole-in-the-wall" sort of way ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hole_in_the_Wall_(U.S._game_show) ). I didn't like the timed jumping. It was very fast-paced, and I got there during rain, so the lag ate my jumping skills away. Not to mention, they were in a tunnel supposedly dug with a sppon, I don't see why there would be pistons there anyway. When I got to the last city, I was not as sure as I had been the rest of the time with where I was supposed to go; I knew where to start, but after that it became unclear and I just explored any building I could get in until I eventually (and quite suddenly) found the right way to go. And the testificates opening and closing iron doors freely can mess things up, like letting you in doors you shouldn't be able to get in or closing checkpoints you've already opened. On the positive side, the jumping puzzles that were the real function of the map were intricate, well-balanced, often original, and very fun to play.
As a neutral comment, I just want you to know that by a certain point, I was slaughtering every living thing in the map on sight for annoying me while I was jumping. (including the blue sheep and the dog.)
8/10
Form:
The urban areas are very nicely built and have some nice details. Almost everything is built in a specifically stylized way, and every city has it's own decorative theme. The addition of record players gave the map a more enjoyable atmosphere. The story maps were a bit plain, but they did their job. The choice of texture pack seemed a little bit arbitrary though. Overall, it was a pleasant place to spend an hour or two in minecraft.
7/10
Flavor:
The flavor of the map, a thief moving through cities with a stolen jewel, fits very nicely with the challenge, jumping through buildings. What I don't like is the lack of reason for the rediculous routes taken. I think the map would be better made if instead of telling the player where to start the jumping puzzles and guiding them to the finish, you could tell the player the objective and let them reverse engineer a way to meet the goal. It makes more sense to have a thief know where they're going to end up and have to figure out how to get there than it does to put them at the start of a guided jumping chain and say go. I've already addressed the moving platforms in the tunnel that don't really make sense. Mostly, the map doesn't really try and get the player involved in the process of stealing and escaping, and rather focuses entirely on having the player involved in the parkour through the cities, and that misses most of half the flavor of the map. It's very parkour and not so much thief.
6/10
Uniqueness:
There have been other maps that try to push the setting into jumping puzzles and make "parkour" into real parkour, so it's not super unique for that, but I do think this map does that pretty nicely and is overall its own experience in the world of custom maps.
Overall Score: 21 and
Would I recommend it?
- I know this is not the highest percentage of Minecrafters, but I'd recommend this map just to people who like parkour.
0
By Cheesefrycook
Thread: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1012881-
Parkour Thief non-surprisingly is a parkour map. (Go figure!) While in my reviews I will use the term "parkour" frequently as the accepted term for jumping puzzles, I will admit right now that I am squarely in the camp of people who are annoyed that the Minecraft community decided to rename "platforming" puzzles after decades as the accepted terminology. It'd be like renaming "fighting" games something like "MMA" games. Or it's like when kids go out and play "manhunt" in the woods because to them it sounds cooler than "cops and robbers" even though the rules are the same. Anyway, parkour thief earns its parkour label because the theme is really parkour. You are a thief that is climbing through ceilings, scaling walls, and leaping off of rooftops to get a stolen diamond back to your boss. It takes you through various cityscapes moving through and over every building around to complete the task.
Function:
The map worked very nicely. Nothing it it was too hard and little was too easy. There were even some parts where, despite parkour being the only challenge, it made you think to solve the room in a "hole-in-the-wall" sort of way ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hole_in_the_Wall_(U.S._game_show) ). I didn't like the timed jumping. It was very fast-paced, and I got there during rain, so the lag ate my jumping skills away. Not to mention, they were in a tunnel supposedly dug with a sppon, I don't see why there would be pistons there anyway. When I got to the last city, I was not as sure as I had been the rest of the time with where I was supposed to go; I knew where to start, but after that it became unclear and I just explored any building I could get in until I eventually (and quite suddenly) found the right way to go. And the testificates opening and closing iron doors freely can mess things up, like letting you in doors you shouldn't be able to get in or closing checkpoints you've already opened. On the positive side, the jumping puzzles that were the real function of the map were intricate, well-balanced, often original, and very fun to play.
As a neutral comment, I just want you to know that by a certain point, I was slaughtering every living thing in the map on sight for annoying me while I was jumping. (including the blue sheep and the dog.)
8/10
Form:
The urban areas are very nicely built and have some nice details. Almost everything is built in a specifically stylized way, and every city has it's own decorative theme. The addition of record players gave the map a more enjoyable atmosphere. The story maps were a bit plain, but they did their job. The choice of texture pack seemed a little bit arbitrary though. Overall, it was a pleasant place to spend an hour or two in minecraft.
7/10
Flavor:
The flavor of the map, a thief moving through cities with a stolen jewel, fits very nicely with the challenge, jumping through buildings. What I don't like is the lack of reason for the rediculous routes taken. I think the map would be better made if instead of telling the player where to start the jumping puzzles and guiding them to the finish, you could tell the player the objective and let them reverse engineer a way to meet the goal. It makes more sense to have a thief know where they're going to end up and have to figure out how to get there than it does to put them at the start of a guided jumping chain and say go. I've already addressed the moving platforms in the tunnel that don't really make sense. Mostly, the map doesn't really try and get the player involved in the process of stealing and escaping, and rather focuses entirely on having the player involved in the parkour through the cities, and that misses most of half the flavor of the map. It's very parkour and not so much thief.
6/10
Uniqueness:
There have been other maps that try to push the setting into jumping puzzles and make "parkour" into real parkour, so it's not super unique for that, but I do think this map does that pretty nicely and is overall its own experience in the world of custom maps.
Overall Score: 21 and
Would I recommend it?
- I know this is not the highest percentage of Minecrafters, but I'd recommend this map just to people who like parkour.
0
by: Kinglau3
Thread: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/748105-
The map Levels has recently undergone a major update. This is not a full review, just commentary on the changes.
The lava maze was replaced with a large amount of new and good content. There were some bugs in the new puzzles, but that's to be expected of fresh content. The wood bridge over lava is sort of luck dependant, so the stacks to build with could probably be a little larger to make it more consistent. The testificate that you punch should trigger the redstone permanently since it continually tries to jump back up off the pressure plate. The parkour is still mountains more difficult than the enderpearl maze, though both have been greatly improved upon. Overall, the content of the beginning has improved up to the quality at the end.
The frogger game in the version I played is broken and has 2 minecarts on a couple tracks and none on others. I'll just assume these bugs will get ironed out and give the map back a function point. +1 FUNCTION
The area that was added in looks very clean, so form was improved as well.
The ending was made to mesh a bit more with the starting premise. There's a clear improvement here as well. I don't know if it's enough to gain points, but qualitatively I can say the map works better in every way.
New Overall Score: 20/30 and
Would I recommend it?
- Definitely more than before the overhaul. The map is much improved.
0
Number 4 is better than number 2, but yes.
0
by Kmilley
Thread:http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/526227-
Levi's Nightmare is essentially a survival-horror game. You are guided through the aftermath of a terrible disease that obliterates the population of the local towns and leaves nothing but empty houses and hoardes of zombies behind. It's a fantastically dark map and visually made to match the horror feel of the story.
Function:
There are only really 2 challenges in the map. The primary challenge is to follow the story to find out what happened without getting murdered by zombies. The secondary challenge was to collect gold ingots to represent your score. The creator gives a hint that travelling at night is dangerous (it is; there seem to be zombie spawners hidden just underground EVERYWHERE outside) but you may see things better at night. This is true, you need to wander outside at night to find all the ingots, and admittedly I wasn't trying too hard to get all of them (got 27/50, and I think that's still pretty good. Some of them are outrageously hidden). So if you're going for 100%, this won't make a huge difference for you, but I think putting beds in was a mistake. The horror aspect really cuts out when you can just take a nap in the loft and eliminate all the zombies. I don't think it would be too offensive, and I think it would add to the suspense, if the player trying to hide inside had to wait out the whole night to the sounds of zombies. Sleeping away the danger is much less fun than my second night in the map spent on a two high ledge like this
So I chop one point off for being able to avoid all the danger in a horror map and one point for the interactivity of the map being sort of limited (explore a wooden house, avoid zombies, explore another wooden house, avoid some more zombies). The map did go off without any real glitches.
8/10
Form:
The map is very dark to match its very dark feel. There is just enough visual variety to fit the setting of a pair of small towns. On the note of the towns, they were enjoyably large enough to support the hypothetical populations, meaning this map was not one that had the Pokemon 100 NPCs, 10 beds effect. The text files did start to feel repetitive, I didn't like leaving the game that often, but the content of each was unique and had it's own story to tell. The texture pack worked very well with the map. I once again just need to comment that being able to sleep away the night in the local loft kills not just the challenge of the map but also the atmosphere.
9/10
Flavor:
I'm sure you can tell that I really liked the flavor here. I want to comment on how it's the magical land of Journalia, where one person in every household must keep a journal until the day they die, but that would be unfair of me. I have not held any other map story to that kind of scrutiny, and the fact that I'm treating it almost more like literature than an adventure map speaks volumes about the story quality.
I don't need to go into more detail on how well the story and map reflected and complemented one another, because it really was a very enveloping experience... until the end. I honestly did not like the use of the nether here for three reasons. SPOILERS 1) The idea of a zombie virus spreading from research into capturing souls was very nice, and then somehow trying to transition that into building portals seemed like you were trying too hard to wedge the nether in. 2) The portal construction testing chamber just incidentally broke the 4th wall, and that clashed heavily with the rest of the map. 3) I don't like that you can jump out of hell, die, and get back to the real world. I think an inescapable bedrock prison would be a more appropriate and functional hell for Levi.
Anyways, that's just me being picky, and I'm sure there are others who loved the use of the nether and would hate my idea.
9/10
Uniqueness:
I have not seen a map work in horror like this before. The atmosphere is very nice and very original. The zombie swarming method, while being a bit obvious method, has not been used for this purpose to this extent, I believe. It made the dramatized night/day mechanic a very unique experience. What a horrible night to have a curse...
Overall Score: 26/30 and
Would I recommend it?
- Yes. It's a great, dark experience.
0
by Kmilley
Thread:http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/526227-
Levi's Nightmare is essentially a survival-horror game. You are guided through the aftermath of a terrible disease that obliterates the population of the local towns and leaves nothing but empty houses and hoardes of zombies behind. It's a fantastically dark map and visually made to match the horror feel of the story.
Function:
There are only really 2 challenges in the map. The primary challenge is to follow the story to find out what happened without getting murdered by zombies. The secondary challenge was to collect gold ingots to represent your score. The creator gives a hint that travelling at night is dangerous (it is; there seem to be zombie spawners hidden just underground EVERYWHERE outside) but you may see things better at night. This is true, you need to wander outside at night to find all the ingots, and admittedly I wasn't trying too hard to get all of them (got 27/50, and I think that's still pretty good. Some of them are outrageously hidden). So if you're going for 100%, this won't make a huge difference for you, but I think putting beds in was a mistake. The horror aspect really cuts out when you can just take a nap in the loft and eliminate all the zombies. I don't think it would be too offensive, and I think it would add to the suspense, if the player trying to hide inside had to wait out the whole night to the sounds of zombies. Sleeping away the danger is much less fun than my second night in the map spent on a two high ledge like this
So I chop one point off for being able to avoid all the danger in a horror map and one point for the interactivity of the map being sort of limited (explore a wooden house, avoid zombies, explore another wooden house, avoid some more zombies). The map did go off without any real glitches.
8/10
Form:
The map is very dark to match its very dark feel. There is just enough visual variety to fit the setting of a pair of small towns. On the note of the towns, they were enjoyably large enough to support the hypothetical populations, meaning this map was not one that had the Pokemon 100 NPCs, 10 beds effect. The text files did start to feel repetitive, I didn't like leaving the game that often, but the content of each was unique and had it's own story to tell. The texture pack worked very well with the map. I once again just need to comment that being able to sleep away the night in the local loft kills not just the challenge of the map but also the atmosphere.
9/10
Flavor:
I'm sure you can tell that I really liked the flavor here. I want to comment on how it's the magical land of Journalia, where one person in every household must keep a journal until the day they die, but that would be unfair of me. I have not held any other map story to that kind of scrutiny, and the fact that I'm treating it almost more like literature than an adventure map speaks volumes about the story quality.
I don't need to go into more detail on how well the story and map reflected and complemented one another, because it really was a very enveloping experience... until the end. I honestly did not like the use of the nether here for three reasons. SPOILERS 1) The idea of a zombie virus spreading from research into capturing souls was very nice, and then somehow trying to transition that into building portals seemed like you were trying too hard to wedge the nether in. 2) The portal construction testing chamber just incidentally broke the 4th wall, and that clashed heavily with the rest of the map. 3) I don't like that you can jump out of hell, die, and get back to the real world. I think an inescapable bedrock prison would be a more appropriate and functional hell for Levi.
Anyways, that's just me being picky, and I'm sure there are others who loved the use of the nether and would hate my idea.
9/10
Uniqueness:
I have not seen a map work in horror like this before. The atmosphere is very nice and very original. The zombie swarming method, while being a bit obvious method, has not been used for this purpose to this extent, I believe. It made the dramatized night/day mechanic a very unique experience. What a horrible night to have a curse...
Overall Score: 26/30 and
Would I recommend it?
- Yes. It's a great, dark experience.
0
Yeah, I'll get the retrospective done right after I write up Levi's Nightmare.
And I saw and already complained about that to most of the people who could get laugh out of it. ROAR! y u no feaure Deja Vu!?
0
I'll start the timer. Aaaaaand........ GO!
1
by Haevo
Thread- http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/835608-
The King of Hrothgara is an adventure map where you play a youth who had become talented with a sword and gained prestige so that you are given a chance to prove yourself through challenges and take the place of the belated King of Hrothgara. The map send you out and back from a central hub to the various testing locations spread around it. You gather the keys that unlock the prompts for further tasks. The map is very smoothly structured, and is a fun playthrough.
Function-
This map is young at the time of this writing and doesn't quite have its glossy finish yet. Bug list: The map title in Minecraft world select is "world," one of the signs has incorrect your/you're usage, at least 1 door has exposed wiring to open it, the first key altar has decorative ditches to either side that the player could get trapped in pretty easily, the parkour ravine checkpoint system allows for skipping most of that challenge, the sign saying the wall is weak where there is clay comes after the first place you need to break through the clay which means the only way to see that hint is to figure out the puzzle already, the houses in the dock down set on fire at random intervals, the burn the wool puzzle doesn't immediately burn out completely making the burning process take a fair amount of time and most of the flint and steel, and the locked path to the castle should really be able to open from the other side to make a checkpoint. Most of these are just bugs that can be ironed out pretty easily. As far as functional problems inherent to the map itself, my only big issue is with the "their lives or yours" room, because if you choose the villagers you actually do just lose the map permanently and that seems wrong. Everything else was enjoyable puzzles of appropriate difficulty. I especially enjoyed the ship destroying part.
6/10
Form-
The forest was beautiful, the snowy mountaintop was a nice touch, the ships were convincing, the castle was impressive. Dissappointingly, the least attractive area was the actual testing area you start in. The hub building is a bit plain, a bit cramped, and a bit unattractive. Everything else was very nice. I need to say though, that when you recommend the texture pack for the map, you don't mention the use of a patch to make it work, so I played with the water constantly reminding me to google the patch to make it look right.
8/10
Flavor-
The map did a nice job of addressing all the picky plot questions I had. Why does nobody oppose this appointment of King? That had somewhat of an answer. Why is a person leaving journals in the testing chamber that say he's going to report things to the king? Also sort of answered. But every answer brings new questions, and the map literally ends on more unanswered questions than it began with. What started as a simple "prove yourself to be king" story ended with an unexplained cultist rebellion movement, a facility of unexplained higher technology than the rest of the world, and an antagonist that is almost completely unexplained. The map does less to make it's own plot than it does to set up cliffhangers, and it's hard to hang on a cliffhanger when the story hasn't made you interested in the plot yet. Also, the 6 set trials works, and the plot driven trials works, but it's an internal conflict when the seemingly well-established testing process interacts exactly with supposedly sudden shocking events. It would have worked better with a distinct seperation between the way the "planned" trials worked and the "helping people with current issues" worked.
6/10
Uniqueness-
A medieval-themed hub/trial based adventure map. No big distinguishing factors, though I must re-state that I did really like the ship destruction. It makes me wanna play a completely pyro themed map.
Overall Score: 20 and
Would I recommend it?
- Not actively, but I clearly expect a sequel.