The puzzles were original, creative, and exciting.
The storyline was a bit out there but its affect on gameplay was overwhelmingly positive.
And I'm a sucker for any map that involves the nether.
But now time for some serious review.
You wake up in a prison cell for changing the past. But you didn't do it! That is literally all you are given to work with. I would have added a bit of a background. Also the ending was a bit ridiculous, but I'll get to that later. You are imprisoned not only in space but in time, you are in ancient egypt. Woah, That struck me like a lightning bolt, a futuristic time-travel basedstory in ancient egypt? That's different! Too bad you are wrong.
You complete a series of challenges in the pyramid before you escape and go through a "portal" (it is really just a non-activated portal that you walk through) taking you to a portal hub with several portals going to many different places. However, all but one is inactivated (blocked off). There are several hubs throughout the story.
Your next destination is the ice age. This is when it clicks in my head that challenges are spread across space and time. WHY HAS NO ONE THOUGHT OF THIS BEFORE? Genius. Then you complete several Icy trials. It was here I realized to put it on peaceful. A wraith attacked me. (mo creatures) Anyway, these are full of interesting and great puzzles despite some being unoriginal. Here you find out the person who actually changed time is creating a paradox which would destroy the space-time continuum. Cliche? Maybe. Fun? Yes.You continue acreoss to the Iron Age through another hub. I would like to give you two a big hug for making the iron age the way it is. It is full of optional puzzles and fun, funny attractions. It is like a break from the story. However, just because they are optional doesn't mean you can slack off. Many of these puzzles were broken and they got repetitive.
You really only had to finish the lavaworks puzzle which I HATED. It was poorly constructed, objectives were not spelled out, I randomly walked around until I found the "descent control room" (easy redstone puzzle) and went down. I found the water and got through the door but with no way to enter so I broke the door and another one after it just to get through. I must have messed up somewhere because the gates were still closed so I broke through them as well. The metro was neat. The hole was so unexpected I thought it was a world hole at first! (But for the record I have been getting alot of those in SP so I was suspicious)
After this it gets boring with no real interesting puzzles or storyline. Apparently you sacrifice your life to save the Space-Time Continuum or something but get stuck in the nether forever.
CLICHE MUCH? LITERALLY THE LAST MAP I PLAYED HAD ALMOST THE SAME ENDING! (Levi's Nightmare)
Whatever happened to the bad guy? Is he there with you? That ending was pretty bad, but it does set you up for a sequel.
PARADOX II: Escape from the Nether
This was an expansive, beautiful map that took me about 1 hour to complete.
I got 112 Ingots. (IS THAT GOOD?)
Definitely worth a play, this map should be more popular and I would love to see the yogscast get their hands on this one.
Hello readers. You probably came here for honest, brutal reviews, (as said in the title), but you find the reviews to all be rather positive! How odd! Well I can assure you these were exceptional maps and that they received good reviews for a reason. This map is a good example of a bad map. I almost want to thank the creator for giving me a map to bash if it weren't for all the wasted time.
You wake up with no story. You have to read the forum post I guess. The first signs make me queasy because of all the bad spelling and grammar. If you are bad at the beginning, you'll be bad the whole way through. Boy was I right. The creator singlehandedly butchered the english language to an extent I thought impossible. The disgrace of language is matched only by youtube comments.
Each of the puzzle "rooms" are actually outdoor environments walled up by logs. This is a novel idea but it is SO UGLY.
Beyond that the signs provided 0 information about the challenge, map, or situation. This is certainly not an adventure map. This is barely a map at all. The first challenge had a sign that had some nonsense about a button, a door, and trees. I gave up after 15 minutes searching the place and broke through the door.
The next "room" is the EXACT SAME THING. Except this time, right before giving up, I found the chest in the ground behind a tree containing the button. Is this your idea of a puzzle? Searching a woody environment for a chest in the ground? I also found several empty chest. Forgot to fill those with goodies?
Also apparently you have to jump across tree leaves and branches. There was a clear path but I could not find a way to get up there. So I broke a leaf block to allow me to jump up there.
After this there was some nonsense about a bomb shelter (non-sequiter) and when I finally reached it is was blown up by a creeper an I went through the gaping hole to the next area which had a ship in the middle of the forest. Let me just say WHAT THE HELL? Anyway I found some arrows and a bunch of chests that were blocked off by wood above them. Intentional? Or careless? I sure hope it was intentional, but I don't think so. Then I went into an environment similar to the first two rooms only this time there was a double door and I was expected to somehow find two redstone torches. At which point I said NO WAY I'M NOT DOING THIS AGAIN and cheated by spawning in 2 torches from toomanyitems. I got through and saw another double door.
This one had a button so I pushed and fell into lava. I died. What was the purpose there? Upon further investigation by flying (At this point I really had a "oh screw it" attitude about the map) It was a parkour challenge. You couldn't have made it so that I land on a block? I didn't have a chance on that one!
So I just flew around looking at the rest of the map and it was more crap puzzles.
This map has to go through some serious renovation. But honestly, I would throw it out. DND. (Do Not Download)
To Creator:
I hope I didn't hurt your feelings, I just really hated your map.
Ad123? :laugh.gif:
Thanks for the positive review!
We didn't give much backstory on purpose, we wanted the character's mindset (and therefore the player's) to be focused on the now as opposed to the then.
In the lavaworks, there was a chest that gave you a pressure plate. Said pressure plate would open the door, where there is a lever to open the metro doors :wink.gif:
The main room in the lavaworks was designed to be a large, tough, challenge, but in hindsight we should have spelled out the objectives better.
I'm happy you love the iron age city, and big hugs right back at you :smile.gif: You say that some of the puzzles are broken, which ones would you be referring to?
It's nice to see that the drop surprised you, we thought that would be a clever thing to do, give the player an expectation (The Angered Mountains was written on the metro I believe) and change it. The end area was - admittedly - pretty much linear & puzzle-free, but at that point we wanted to bring the story back into the main focus of the map.
The ending was a bit cryptic, so I'll expand on it now:
The protagonist couldn't think of anything else that would have worked, so he decided to shut off the portal to/from the nether. While he has no idea where the escaped prisoner is, shutting off the portal was the only way to stop the paradox situation getting worse. The damage done to the space-time continuum couldn't be undone, but he succeeded in stopping it from worsening.
For all we know the escaped prisoner could have made other changes and corruptions throughout time and space. I guess only time will tell...
112 ingots is pretty decent! There are around 170 :tongue.gif:
Well I enjoyed your map!
I'm sorry about the name.
Yeah I saw the pressure plate but I put it down in a place I thought was right but you need a pick to remove it which I didn't have. I would replace it with a lever.
The minecart challenges in the mining place, some powered rails were spaced too far apart and the minecart stopped. There was one or two others but they don't come to mind.
Adventure
Fantastic. That is a word for this map.
The puzzles were original, creative, and exciting.
The storyline was a bit out there but its affect on gameplay was overwhelmingly positive.
And I'm a sucker for any map that involves the nether.
But now time for some serious review.
You wake up in a prison cell for changing the past. But you didn't do it! That is literally all you are given to work with. I would have added a bit of a background. Also the ending was a bit ridiculous, but I'll get to that later. You are imprisoned not only in space but in time, you are in ancient egypt. Woah, That struck me like a lightning bolt, a futuristic time-travel basedstory in ancient egypt? That's different! Too bad you are wrong.
You complete a series of challenges in the pyramid before you escape and go through a "portal" (it is really just a non-activated portal that you walk through) taking you to a portal hub with several portals going to many different places. However, all but one is inactivated (blocked off). There are several hubs throughout the story.
Your next destination is the ice age. This is when it clicks in my head that challenges are spread across space and time. WHY HAS NO ONE THOUGHT OF THIS BEFORE? Genius. Then you complete several Icy trials. It was here I realized to put it on peaceful. A wraith attacked me. (mo creatures) Anyway, these are full of interesting and great puzzles despite some being unoriginal. Here you find out the person who actually changed time is creating a paradox which would destroy the space-time continuum. Cliche? Maybe. Fun? Yes.You continue acreoss to the Iron Age through another hub. I would like to give you two a big hug for making the iron age the way it is. It is full of optional puzzles and fun, funny attractions. It is like a break from the story. However, just because they are optional doesn't mean you can slack off. Many of these puzzles were broken and they got repetitive.
You really only had to finish the lavaworks puzzle which I HATED. It was poorly constructed, objectives were not spelled out, I randomly walked around until I found the "descent control room" (easy redstone puzzle) and went down. I found the water and got through the door but with no way to enter so I broke the door and another one after it just to get through. I must have messed up somewhere because the gates were still closed so I broke through them as well. The metro was neat. The hole was so unexpected I thought it was a world hole at first! (But for the record I have been getting alot of those in SP so I was suspicious)
After this it gets boring with no real interesting puzzles or storyline. Apparently you sacrifice your life to save the Space-Time Continuum or something but get stuck in the nether forever.
CLICHE MUCH? LITERALLY THE LAST MAP I PLAYED HAD ALMOST THE SAME ENDING! (Levi's Nightmare)
Whatever happened to the bad guy? Is he there with you? That ending was pretty bad, but it does set you up for a sequel.
PARADOX II: Escape from the Nether
This was an expansive, beautiful map that took me about 1 hour to complete.
I got 112 Ingots. (IS THAT GOOD?)
Definitely worth a play, this map should be more popular and I would love to see the yogscast get their hands on this one.
Added to the list.
Added
Puzzle/Adventure
Hello readers. You probably came here for honest, brutal reviews, (as said in the title), but you find the reviews to all be rather positive! How odd! Well I can assure you these were exceptional maps and that they received good reviews for a reason. This map is a good example of a bad map. I almost want to thank the creator for giving me a map to bash if it weren't for all the wasted time.
You wake up with no story. You have to read the forum post I guess. The first signs make me queasy because of all the bad spelling and grammar. If you are bad at the beginning, you'll be bad the whole way through. Boy was I right. The creator singlehandedly butchered the english language to an extent I thought impossible. The disgrace of language is matched only by youtube comments.
Each of the puzzle "rooms" are actually outdoor environments walled up by logs. This is a novel idea but it is SO UGLY.
Beyond that the signs provided 0 information about the challenge, map, or situation. This is certainly not an adventure map. This is barely a map at all. The first challenge had a sign that had some nonsense about a button, a door, and trees. I gave up after 15 minutes searching the place and broke through the door.
The next "room" is the EXACT SAME THING. Except this time, right before giving up, I found the chest in the ground behind a tree containing the button. Is this your idea of a puzzle? Searching a woody environment for a chest in the ground? I also found several empty chest. Forgot to fill those with goodies?
Also apparently you have to jump across tree leaves and branches. There was a clear path but I could not find a way to get up there. So I broke a leaf block to allow me to jump up there.
After this there was some nonsense about a bomb shelter (non-sequiter) and when I finally reached it is was blown up by a creeper an I went through the gaping hole to the next area which had a ship in the middle of the forest. Let me just say WHAT THE HELL? Anyway I found some arrows and a bunch of chests that were blocked off by wood above them. Intentional? Or careless? I sure hope it was intentional, but I don't think so. Then I went into an environment similar to the first two rooms only this time there was a double door and I was expected to somehow find two redstone torches. At which point I said NO WAY I'M NOT DOING THIS AGAIN and cheated by spawning in 2 torches from toomanyitems. I got through and saw another double door.
This one had a button so I pushed and fell into lava. I died. What was the purpose there? Upon further investigation by flying (At this point I really had a "oh screw it" attitude about the map) It was a parkour challenge. You couldn't have made it so that I land on a block? I didn't have a chance on that one!
So I just flew around looking at the rest of the map and it was more crap puzzles.
This map has to go through some serious renovation. But honestly, I would throw it out. DND. (Do Not Download)
To Creator:
I hope I didn't hurt your feelings, I just really hated your map.
Sincerely, Synthion
Well I enjoyed your map!
I'm sorry about the name.
Yeah I saw the pressure plate but I put it down in a place I thought was right but you need a pick to remove it which I didn't have. I would replace it with a lever.
The minecart challenges in the mining place, some powered rails were spaced too far apart and the minecart stopped. There was one or two others but they don't come to mind.
Please make a sequel. It is so perfect for one.
It's called Quest for the Lost City of Adlez. Hope you enjoy.
Adding.
It is functional, but limited for now.
More details in the thread.
Feel free to suggest ideas and improvements that I will happily consider when releasing revisions of the map.
Link to thread: Click Me
I consider it a WIP, but its certainly playable.
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/534121-mine-shafted/#entry7044888
That's the spirit!
I do what I can.
Will add to list but I will not be able to play any maps 'til wednesday. So sit tight and know I haven't forgot about this thread.
http://www.mediafire.com/?drl4c73rl4anuio
Sure. Please also link me the forum thread.
Link in sig.
Wow, am I becoming popular?
Sure, added.
Everybody loves a critic who provides informative feedback. :dry.gif:
Also, you actually take the time to play through the maps and provide a good thorough review.
Why not? Added.