Hello. As an avid map player and creator, I know the difference between good and bad maps. I know the difference between a 3.5 and 3.6 rating. I will be tough, I will be brutal, but I will not do so if your map is good. Too many "tough" reviewers simply make it impossible to score above a 4. Not me. If your map is good, I will rate it honestly and fairly with respect to the great maps. Submit your map and I will rate it honestly and fairly. But this is not a compliment fishing place, I will tear down any shred of self-respect your map has if it is not up to snuff. That's a promise.
*NEW*: As I am now part of The Redstone Torch team, (A minecraft newspaper), all maps submitted may be put on that newspaper in my segment. This applies to all maps already submitted, and all maps to come.
= 1 star = 0.5 star = 0.25 star
---Reviewed Maps---
Destroy the Diamond Comet by Munchable901
Adventure
Where to begin. I have heard a great deal about this map, and I believe another very tough reviewer listed it as one of his favorites.
You are a scientist who apparently is the only one who can or will stop a diamond comet from crashing into earth and killing everyone. Apparently many rich people believe this comet will somehow spare them and they will harvest the diamond and become even richer.
Let me just say that plot is as flimsy as dog's tail on it's way to be euthanized. But that is not what matters.
This is first and foremost very incorrectly labeled. This is a Puzzle map or at best a hybrid. There is nothing wrong with a puzzle map, I enjoy them very much, but this is not an adventure map. Having a story does not make it an adventure map like how having to collect wool does not make it a CTM.
Most of the puzzles are unique (with a few exceptions) but at the cost of being uninteresting. The trapdoor parkour was just boring, and the trapdoor run was just annoying. The whole "numbers" schtick was quite the bugger. I noticed the sign, but didn't realize they would be floor patterns, so imagine my frustration when I went back through the map just to find the numbers. While this is likely more my fault then mine, this is a perfect example of a tedious difficult puzzle, instead of an EXCITING difficult puzzle.
I found no errors in Spelling or Grammar, and the general structure was appealing.
Redstone work was very good, there were instances where I saw wire, (a big no-no), but it didn't really detract from the experience. I did not like your exhibition of your redstone work through glass after some challenges. I get that you are proud of it and maybe we could learn about redstone a little, but that was honestly just annoying. It detracted form the experience AND I couldn't learn about redstone because I couldn't go up and examine it. I would have walled it up.
The minecart idea, while not original (I independently came up with it myself as well), is appreciated and definitely helped the overall spirit of the map.
The parkour was fine, nothing too exciting and it felt a little out of place, but it was nice.
The water challenge was SO ANNOYING. It nearly ruined the map it was so annoying. Maybe its just me, but I would AXE THAT.
The end was a flimsy one story-wise, but then again so was the whole thing, But if there is one truth in this world, its that the best way to end an adventure map is with TNT.
Overall, this is a short, fun map that is worth a play. It is a good map, nothing more, nothing less. Looking forward to the sequel.
Through The Gate by Utenan
Adventure
No rating
I will not rate this one because either this map is completely broken or I messed up big time. I followed the path read the signs with a cliche opening and eventually saw the gate. However the path lead me elsewhere, more specific, a dock with boats that i took down the river where I got off at another dock and found a ruined tower with a bed and stairs leading upwards. I took these stairs and ladders and found a ruined roof. Nothing else. I looked around and saw a staute with a man and a sword and an entrance, so I went off the trail to enter, it was nothing but a view. I said screw it and went back to the gate and broke my way through. There was a large elaborate pathway with oblivion on all edges. I followed and in many places the bridge was broken, I saw some pressure pads but could not reach them so I spawned in some dirt with TMI and built my way across. I found an absolutely enormous and beautiful castle that I entered with strange fixtures and a single sign. R.I.P. Gate Builders. On some of the tombs(?) I found some levers I pulled every one and they did nothing. Except for 1 which just slid a piston in an extremely uninteresting and inconsequential way.
At this point I looked around some more and saw some stuff in the distance but no way to get anywhere. I gave up. I quit and deleted the map.
The structures were simply breathtaking, but the map sucked. (or maybe I just ballsed it up)
Levi's Nightmare by Kmilley
Adventure
Well, this map has been lulling around on the front page for a while. The request for a review was an interesting challenge, because am I going to have to reveal how horrible the map truly is? Or will I just really enjoy this map?
The answer is number 2.
A cliche but satisfactory opening of amnesia was also made more interesting by the fact you start at night. This is not the best idea, I would recommend Sunset, as it gives players a chance to get their bearings, but nevertheless, it was an interesting opening.
It is an open-world linear adventure map. Contradictory? No, it is open world on the basis that it is exploration based, but with a linear story. This is a balance many game studios have been trying to achieve for decades so congrats on that little feat.
You are Levi, who wakes up with absolutely no knowledge of anything. The only reason you know your own name is it is stitched into your coat. You walk through deserted villages and towns with strange black mold everywhere. This mold, according to diaries of townspeople (which apparently EVERYONE has) is killing everything and turning them into zombies.
This is not exactly an adventure map the same way the Jal' Poi island series isn't a puzzle map. It is a movie with minecraft as its medium. There is 0 interactivity, no puzzles, challenges, or trials. And if you're lucky (or unlucky) you might have to fend off a zombie or two. There is near 0 combat.
What? A dark, zombie themed map with no combat? Surprised me too.
Redstone was a little broken, some of the "Test Chambers" didn't work and the sheep one dropped two wolves.
Another mistake is in the spoiler
Leaving the Portal, into the nether, the pressure pads didn't blow up the portal at first. I think one of them doesn't work but the other one does. I had to go back and step on that one.
I HATED how far you had to travel between stations. I actually gave up and flew across the lake with SPC just to hurry things along.
This is a tedious map with an interesting story. The architecture is meh. The atmosphere is meh. The general feel is very meh. But the story is fantastic. All three stars are directly from the story.
This is something you should do as a viewer, not as a player.
PS: It is not nearly as dark as everyone says it is.
Paradox by Ad134 and Tomdm134
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.
Dark Forest by kingjaylin
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
World of Zombies by Smelly Dom
Combat
This is a map that is bad but only because of a few problems! This has potential to be a very good map, but for now, it is a two star. Also: Fun Fact. I played this map IRONMAN.
I couldn't help but notice that this is called beta. That is a great word to use because there are still problems. Big problems that detract from the experience.
There is no backstory or anything, but there shouldn't be. It is a pure combat map. Something I have yet to experience.
Note: I'm not too big on combat maps and because I'm a wuss I played on Easy.
You wake up on the roof and are asked to go down. (Can't have moved the spawn point to inside?) And you are immediately asked to enter through the doors and start your first challenge. Why did we have to flip both levers? Lazy redstone? Can't do a double door? Or does that start the challenge? Regardless, The first rooms are very easy. Killed maybe 3 zombies before the door opened. That is an interesting mechanic though, having the doors open after a period of time, could be easily exploited, but still interesting.
You don't get swarmed or anything as you pass through the rooms, they are VERY easy.
After each room you get rewarded by getting a better sword/other weapon or armor, and some food, increasing in value. This is definitely over-preparing the player for the first rooms. Also, an interesting twist is the addition of "Challenge Rooms".
These challenge rooms have different trials or puzzles that will give you advanced armor or weapons or food or arrows (Which is your score)
BTW, I got 74 arrows
These challenges however, were simplistic and unoriginal (with the exception of the wood-placing one, which while easy was original). And you could just hide out there until the door opens. (I didn't do that because I'm an honest person)(well, fine I did for one of them)
***BIG ISSUE***
On one of the rooms (I think it was a medium difficulty), I fended off zombies for several minutes and nothing happened. I thought "I have more maps to review" and spawned in a pick to break through the cobble around the door. I noticed that the redstone was poweed, meaning that the doors SHOULD have opened. Check out that issue
***END BIG ISSUE***
There several spelling errors (such as objection instead of objective), and grammar was not perfect. To the extent that one of the rooms was ridiculous. You said "...find all 4 of them. ..." What is "them"? I broke through the door on this one too.
The "Hell Run" was the easiest part of the map. There was 1 zombie.
I eventually got to the final prep room and saw the challenge room. The parkour was difficult, The maze was SO RIDICULOUSLY EASY. MAKE IT 10X AS HARD! And I finally got to the quiz.
***BIG ISSUE***
The second question is how many overworld neutral mobs are there. There is 1, wolf. Oh, did you mean Passive? Then there are 5, Squid, Chicken, Cow, Sheep, and Porky. I threw a brick on 5, and it blew up. WHY? I AM RIGHT!
***End Big Issue***
And in the final temple I made it through several rooms before getting swarmed and dying. I would like to illustrate the rise in difficulty.
***SORRY GRAPH BROKEN****
____________________
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______________________________
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^^^^^That is the Temple
****SORRY GRAPH BROKEN****
If something went wrong with the graph (which it did) the gist of it is that before the temple is way too easy and the temple is way too hard.
Overall a very beta map with the potential to become the quintessential Combat Map.
A Coconut Friend by mask99
Survival
Well, my first Surv map to review. Let me lay down some ground rules. I will probs play survival for about a half-hour and do decent exploration and creation. I will not devote any more then an hour to these maps (unless I really enjoy it) because that is how long it should take to get the main idea of the map and decent experience of build quality. Please don't go whining that that is not long enough. The whole point of maps are to keep me interested and if after an hour I still haven't gotten into it, I probs won't. Also, I use probs instead of probably alot.
Now to the map.
In the wake of the hit yogscast mini-series survival island, Survival Island downloads skyrocketed, as did copies, clones, "improvements", and spin-offs. This is one of them. That does not in any way mean that this map is bad. Or at least not for that reason. It is a good concept that was around long before the official "Survival Island" and will be around for a long time. This map supposedly makes it much more challenging, but in actuality, not so much. Sure the island is made up of 5 sand blocks 3 fenceposts, some leaves and a chest, but that does not make it harder. It makes it more annoying, but not harder.
One thing about survival island, (the original), is that it made you really appreciate the most basic materials such as dirt, wood and coal. This map says SCREW THAT and disappoints me in many ways. More on that later.
You apparently were in the phillipines when your plane went down and you swam to the nearest plot of dry land. You find a chest with saplings, bonemeal, and a dirt block. Hmm! Whatever will I do with these. Imma just put this useless dirt block down, plant a sapling and use bonemeal and then repeat three times. What will that do? Oh yeah, give me a stack of wooden planks. Creator, go watch the yogscast surv island series. See how they agonize over the decision to take a single wood block from their sole tree? Yeah, they don't have a bunch of saplings and bonemeal and can go around all willy nilly making torches and swords and picks and stuff.
Oh, and it doesn't stop there.
While it was a little difficult getting a starting hole, I crafted a door and started digging down. OMG! I thought. I FOUND COAL! LUCKY ME!
No.
There was SO MUCH COAL. IT WAS LIKE A 12x12 CUBE OF COAL ORE. If you were going for a natural-looking deposit, you failed.
Soon I had a stack and a half of torches. A full set of stone tools (excluding hoes of course because they're stupid) And still MORE WOOD.
I eventually found the first cavern. It had a zombie spawner that I quickly took out (Who needs feathers anyways) and some zombies that I took out from above. There was also a lava flow. I lit up the whole cavern (With my inventory full of torches(slight exaggeration)), and found the "reward". The reason that is in quotes is because its not a proper reward for clearing the cavern, just a benefit from doing so.
An iron deposit. SO MUCH IRON. (Noticing a trend?) Still very unnatural looking, very square. So I mine the iron and find, guess what?, MORE FREAKIN COAL. THIS IS GETTING RIDICULOUS.
So now I have a full set of IRON tools plus a chestplate.
I kept exploring and found another cavern and MORE COAL and expanded the island some and found MORE COAL and crafted some chests and found MORE COAL and I actually got alot of gunpowder, feathers, saplings, and MORE COAL.
Overall, a waste of time.
I might have exaggerated a little, but not much.
Zombie Forest by Piplup10
Zombie Map
You might notice I call this a zombie map, as if that is a genre. Well in my eyes it is. Its not really just survival, and it is very focused.
I actually had similar problems with this map that I did with my last review.
You are a lumberjack who wakes up to hear zombies beating down his door (There were none) and I had to repair it (Didn't need to) and go down to the basement and gather supplies and venture out. However, I was smart and went to bed first.
Woke up to the sound of burning zombies. Just how I like my mornings.
That is the problem with zombie themed maps, I f they are outdoors you can just sleep at night and wake up in the morning to have no zombies.
I played this map on normal.
(And I'm not saying I didn't go out at night, I did once, but it seemed silly that I can just sleep through the night)
There was no shortage of supplies and I had a cake, an iron sword, a full set of stone tools, and a full set of leather armor. And I didn't kill a single passive mob! Or cut down any trees! Or mine any ores!
This is over-preparation.
I did like the general atmosphere of the map, felt very real. The scattered homes, the forest, its hard to put my finger on it.
The Architecture however was horrid. If the homes weren't inside hills, they were boxes. I would suggest putting a want ad for a home builder in your thread. Its not that big of a deal! Homes are hard to get right. And some people can make them look fantastic. I don't think you are one of those people.
I found "Zombie Cave #2" (very official huh?) and killed quite a few of the buggers.
I liked the addition of quests, too bad the quests were bad.
The first one I found was to follow a trail of blood. That is it. I was rewarded with a full set a stone tools and some armor.
The second one was to give a piece of food to Mr. Pressure Plate, err, umm, I mean, uhh... Don? Yeah, Don. (Right?) I was rewarded with more armor and an iron sword.
After looking around I found some more buildings, including one that looked like it was burned down, a general store (with MORE supplies) (like MORE COAL), and a testing place that clearly stated that that place was the source of the T-Virus (reference maybe? I don't know) that turned people into zombies. Also with empty chambers with signs that said things like "spider" and "Horrible pig version", were these chambers supposed to have things in them? Just curious.
I also found a little deck on a mountain with a sign that said "sign no longer able read" and a button that I pressed and it blew up the place. It revealed a chest with a dirt block over it which I destroyed to get into it and it had MORE COAL. JK, just more supplies and gold.
Grammar and spelling on several signs was horrid.
Overall pretty boring but can be made into anything you want really. It is exactly what it says it is A zombie survival map. It does not aspire to be any more, and it shouldn't, because it doesn't.
Spherecraft #2 by Jep3
CTM (Complete the Monument)
This map has somewhat of a following and someone will likely flame me for giving it only a 3.5. Well A: that's one of the best scores I've given and B: just read the review.
I had mixed expectations upon beginning this map. On the one hand, (likely the left one), his thread id alive and well with many commenters that love his map. ON the other hand, most commenters are idiots and this looks like the planetoids map generator. (Except of course for commenters that comment on THIS thread)
So I downloaded it and began.
You start in a little sphere inside an (apparently) infinite ocean. Inside this vast ocean are several spheres which are largely composed of a single material and some glowstone. You are given some starting tools and torches and stuff, and you are out to find the metal blocks, the tnt, the cactus, and other stuff I don't remember.
Well it was well put together, and I only drowned once!
I first decided to explore, primarily the completion monument. There was a lot of stuff to get.
I then saw a sphere in the distance that looked like stone. I used the sandstone in the spawn sphere (plus I used the sand to make sandstone), to build a tunnel to that. It took me FOREVER. When I got there I realized it was clay.
"Silly synthion! How can you, such an experienced minecraft player, not realize the difference between stone and clay?" Well I'll tell you. I used a texture pack and that water is murky! I would have used the clear water mod but the link was broken. I even used /clearwater in SPC and it didn't do much.
So that proves that you will be disappointed often.
Also in that clay sphere was a sign that said "I heard you liek clay so I put signs in yo clay U mad?". Way to take all my least favorite memes and put them in one sign.
Not wanting to bore you with my trivial, tedious misadventures, I'll summarize the important stuff.
****WARNING DO NOT USE MO CREATURES OR ELEMENTAL CREEPERS ON THIS MAP IT IS A MISTAKE I MADE AND DO NOT WISH IT UPON YOU****
I found the first dungeon sphere and killed some zombies before getting flooded by a water creeper, walled up by an earth creeper, and I was then attacked by a wraith. I considered that dungeon RUINED!
I found the "Destruction Sphere" with some parkour (which I just build a bridge across) and at the top (expecting TNT) I found Mushrooms. And a button that said "Self-Destruction Button". I clicked and got the hell out of there, when I returned it was still intact. I realized that some lava flow opened up but they didn't actually flow out. Jep! Look at that!
Then I found "Challenge Sphere #3". It had a whole lot of nothing but soul sand and glowstone, until a creeper came out of nowhere and blew up the corridor. It revealed a large room of nothing but creeper which blew up and destroyed the sphere. Curse you for that. I almost had a heart attack.
I looked around some more and found more things but no monument materials. This is clearly a long-term map.
So is this like planetoids? Yes. Very much so, just with some challenges and interesting features. That doesn't make it bad! In fact, its one of the better non-Vech's CTM maps I've seen. Its tedious and unoriginal but it is interesting and well put together.
I don't know how to improve this map (apart from the bugs and problems) which means it is a fulfilled concept. Its just not all that great of a concept.
Its worth trying out, even if you delete after an hour or so. Like I did.
Escape the Facility by guy1234567890 (what a name)
Adventure/Puzzle
Wow. This guy I can tell has spent a lot of time on this map. Kudos to you. We need more map makers with your dedication. But why did I only get 2.5 stars?! Well, the map is a broken in a few places, the entire map seems schizophrenic, and you don't seem to understand you own map. Don't worry, just work on it. I might actually consider re-reviewing it in a more developed version. And remember, my review is based off MY experience. Not others, or yours, but mine.
Despite being marketed as an Adv/Puz, this is definitely a Puz. You want to see a good hybrid? Look at Paradox. (I really liked that map, in case you couldn't tell) Is this review reminding you of something? Diamond Comet maybe? Same score, same issue with marketing it as an adventure, both similar atmospheres, it is really similar isn't it. Looking back at Diamond Comet, I think I gave it too low of a score, maybe it deserves a 3 star, because it is similar to Portal, short, fun, tight, and well put together. This is not anything like that. It is tedious, enormous, desperately trying to fill in gaps, (usually by repeating puzzles).
I come into this map expecting to have fun with advanced redstone-powered puzzles, high-tension dynamic parkour, and maybe some open-world exploration. And I was expecting a great story.
Guess what I didn't get.
You wake up in a room. You see some rules, but no story. By the name I understand I have to escape, but couldn't have added anything else?
The first couple of puzzles are parkour. Really? I don't mind a few original parkour puzzles (note I said puzzles, not just challenges) in a map, but there's a reason I don't do Parkour maps. They are repetitive, tedious, and annoying. Especially without a checkpoint system. At least yours had one, no matter how rudimentary it was.
There are several "puzzles" including more then one example of my LEAST favorite type of challenge. The "Explore this environment for a single chest/spot of clay". Are these fun for people? Are they? ARE THEY?! Because I can't stand them. To me it screams laziness and/or "I'm running out of ideas", and considering it was only the very beginning, I sure as hell was hoping it wasn't the second one.
The maze where we had to find cobble was actually kind of fun, I love well-constructed, multi-point mazes. And this was one of them. However, most people hate mazes. So I guess you also lose at this one too. Sorry.
You know what, let me skip to where I got lost and could not move forward. A strange outside complex of buildings. Seemed like a dead-end. So do I just suck? Or is this a genuine problem? You know what, I probs just suck.
So I flew around, and let me just say this thing is frickin COLOSSAL. One of the largest maps I've ever seen. And this means you have to fill these rooms. And I think you ran out of ideas.
I broke into several places, and did the puzzles until I got lost again (happened a few times). And it was very repetitive. Same old boring parkour, search, and maze puzzles.
All this is going on, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it at certain times. It had the right atmosphere. The environments were complimentary and not jagged like so many other maps. The creator is one hell of an evironment designer and logistics expert, but not so much with puzzle design, storyline creation, or anything else. If was gonna make a collaboration, I would probs want you on my team. But this feels like if there was only one Beatle, or if only one guy made the Aether. It feels dark, lonely, and unfinished.
It also doesn't help with how unoriginal the idea is.
I go on the maps forum page often to check my thread's status. There are really only 3 types of posts. ~32% of them are Survival Island Maps, ~32% are escape the facility/prison maps, and ~32% are looking for people to be in a youtube series like the yogscast. That last 4% are the things I notice. Yours would have just faded in with the background.
In addition, making maps so ridiculously long, but still so repetitive is a good way to make sure NO ONE sees the ending.
I know I didn't.
Village on the Horizon by Trixionics
Adventure/RPG
(iron is a quarter star now)
I really enjoyed this! You have single handedly turned minecraft into a true RPG. I invented the quarter-star just so this wouldn't be a two star. The reason it is a two star is because of all the problems. That seems to be a plague around here, good maps with a lot of bugs.
You wake up outside your house, having just said goodbye to your father. He went off to market to buy some goods, he would be back tomorrow. Meanwhile, you are given a list of chores to do. The whole map is divided into quests. I also used Dokucraft. This is just SCREAMING RPG. I did my chores like a good boy, and went to bed.
Wait, I'm gonna stop myself right here, I'm gonna role-play through this review, this'll be fun. *Lines between asterisks are non-role-playing comments*
I woke up the next morning and realized father had not returned, I checked his room to be sure, the bed was still made! He obviously never returned from last night.
After a little while I decided to go off to the little town over on the horizon where the market is to see if for some reason he is still there.
I had no idea which way to go. *This is with render distance on normal* *I checked the thread* Ah! I now know. I traveled across the bridge leading to town and it was quite creaky. It then exploded! I guess I wasn't getting back that way. I traveled throughout the town and and rummaged through shops and offices, no one was around, and found several logs and diaries of strange occurences, as well as a strange man that admitted to pushing a local girl off a cliff. And strange creatures killing, killing everyone.
***NON ROLE PLAYING REVIEW***
I never saw any ship or anything, but looking on the notes, I guess I should have, so I just skipped right to jumping down the hole.
Overall you should make things more visible. Maybe a road from your cottage to town? A more noticeable ship? I never found the ship. Was there even a ship? I read the sign that said "All the ships are gone, wait, what's that?" or whatever at the docks. So yeah I just jumped down the hole.
***BACK TO ROLE-PLAYING***
***CAUTION SPOILERS AHEAD***
I found an odd crevice in the ground. I decided it was worth exploring, an ocean current swept me through a pitch-black cave system, and I came out in some sort of laboratory or something. There were cobwebs everywhere, I brought my sword with me so I machete-ed through most of it. I found that somehow these hostile, mutant spiders escaped and destroyed the town. Upon further investigation, I find a large empty room that I jump down to, can't get back up. I see my father's mangled body. I am devastated. As I hear the spiders coming for me, I lay down, ready to rejoin my father.
***END ROLE-PLAY***
This is SO much darker then Levi's nightmare. I'm glad to see though that this is so well put together. But looking at the notes from the supposed ship (which was never found), my father was on the ship! How did he get down there? Maybe I missed something but that seems like a big plot hole. And what did the strange man murdering the girl have to do with anything? The more I think about it, the less the story makes sense.
On a brighter note, you have just NAILED creating an environment that matches the story. Everything fits! There are a lot of places where you could have added little fun things like in the home's chests? I checked every house looking for goodies.
Architecture is very good, but nothing made me go wow. But then again, it really shouldn't in this type of map.
This is very much a storyline, low-interactivity map similar to Levi's nightmare. I enjoyed it, it's short, its worth a play. OR you could just read the spoilers. It is still a little buggy, but fix those and it would be like a 3 star in my books.
Crazy by Coram
Puzzle? Combat? I really don't know.
Coram. I appreciate the fact that you've stuck around waiting for the review, and contributed to the thread so much. But you've gone and done it. Made a worse map the Dark Forest. I invented the Iron star for something else, but I swear I would have for this one it is so bad. This is without a doubt the worst map I've ever played. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings, I'm stating facts.
I know you are not a native english speaker, but the spelling and grammar are so bad I can't even understand what you are saying. Something about a prison made out of sponges, having to escape, and you are crazy. You are equipped like crazy though. At the very beginning you get a diamond helmet, chain pants, iron chestplate, and leather boots. A diamond pick, iron shovel, and a stone sword are also given, along with Flint&Steel, 2 cooked porkchops, 2 cooked Fish, a GOLDEN-FRICKIN APPLE, A GD CAKE, and more.
You then walk through some weird piston thing. Into a room with spider, skele, and zombie pigmen spawners. I use the word room generously, because there are holes in the floor that take you below the map. And no ceiling.
There is wire everywhere. Random things like combo locks that do nothing. A weird track. And a nether portal. I walked through that one and followed a series of torches until I stepped on some pressure plate and being locked in by lava. Trapped in the nether. That is way too common in maps.
This map is absolutely horrid and I would sooner play through zombie forest then this. DND. DND. DND. I cannot put into words how bad this map is.
Sorry Coram. You seem like a nice guy.
Quest for the Lost City of Adlez by Aarow
Adventure
Wow. I love this map. This could give Paradox a run for its money in my books. BUT, so much wasted potential. This map was perfect in so many ways. In the ways it wasn't (which while few) were horrible.
You are after a long lost treasure by an ancient civilization, (a bit cliche, but whatever), and you start at some old man's house. You gather some supplies, and a map, you then follow the map to a boat house, where you receive a full map and you are just sent out into the world with no immediate objectives. Interesting, I thought, this could either be genius or idiotic. It was genius.
It reminded me a lot of the map I'm currently working on, but mine is more survival focused.
I came across a tiny island with a fencepost tree. Oh, I'm sorry, a Palm Tree. There was a ring of sandstone with sand in the middle. I had to check the list of blocks I could break. A long and confusing list. I would fix that. Sand was on there. I broke through and found a chest with a lapis block. Odd. I'll keep it with me.
I boated around the large lake to find the base of the civilization. I was actually given the clue of the water dragon's maw. I have no idea what a "maw" is, so I just randomly wandered about. I came across a huge hole in the ocean which I promptly dived into. ( I then looked at my map and realized the water waas in the shape of a dragon-ish thing!) There was an entrance to a large hub. This hub had places to put blocks of certain types. Lapis, Iron, Gold, Diamond, Snow, Glowstone, and, uhh, I think thats it. I might be wrong. That's all I can remember.
I immediately thought that this is a lot like a CTM. And really, it is. There is much combat, you must scour the world for special blocks, I wish you could break blocks though. Obviously outside of the challenges, but instead of scrambling for shelter, I could make myself a little shack for the night. But no, I am an honest player. (pfhthfht, yeah right.)
ANYWAY, I placed the lapis block and went on my way.
I couldn't get out of the hole. I must be missing something. I just flew out. I did that the whole time, flew out. Add a ladder or something.
Normally I would talk abut my wonderful misadventures throughout places like the Dwarven City, The Elven Forest, the Lava Falls, the Desert Pyramid, and more, but alas, it would take far too long. Plus, I would rather you all see it for yourselves.
I will just address problems.
This is a very open world, non-linear map, so enjoy that! This also means a lot of travelling is involved, and you can get lost. DO NOT LOSE YOUR MAP. I didn't, but I could only imagine if you did.
The trials were interesting, and overall, many were well done. Cosmos Village and the Dwarven city stick out in my mind as well done challenges. But the rest seemed unfulfilled. Boring. Nothing interesting. No neat puzzles or original ideas.
So much wasted potential. This could be the map of maps, but the complete lack of originality when it got down to the actual challenges, is very, very disappointing.
Lets skip to the end.
The fantastic end.
After some of the WORST challenges EVER through the door once I placed all the blocks, completely redo those, just, unsalvageable, come up with new puzzles.
You see a twisty, fake-out, spectacular finish, which while I saw the ultimate end coming, was satisfying nonetheless.
The end, the credits, the final huzzah, simply spectacular. But honestly, I would have preferred you spend more time on the actual game, then the wonderful ending.
Play it, if only for those few moments of joy.
Make better actual puzzles, and this would be a freakin PERFECT yogscast map.
Peace out.
zDark's Antarctic Survival by zDark
Survival
Alright. More Survival Island fun. This is probably the maximum score I would give any Survival Island, so don't be disappointed. However, when it said Antarctic survival, I expected, well, snow. And Ice. And the general feel of something "Antarctic". Spawning on a patch of ice does not make it Antarctic anymore then, can't think of an analogy, maybe I'll add one in later...
This is a fairly large island with A tree, a cactus, and a sugarcane. Much dirt though, So I had no issue when I began to mine. No dealing with falling sand or anything.
You start at sunset, so I quickly dug myself a hole in the ground and stayed there for about half the night, then I got out and started killing mobs, then I realized I was in over my head and went back to my hole. Not an easy night. So points for that I guess...
Finally morning came and I harvested the tree and set to work. I had a fairly large mine within 15 minutes and the small patch of coal I found lasted me through until I found the next deposit.
This is a VERY interesting and effective mechanic IMO, There is a coal deposit that you waste no time in mining, and on the other side is a cavern with all sorts of horrible creatures of the night. Not a dungeon mind you, a cavern. Brilliant idea with the basically forcing you to run into that cavern.
So after I cleared that cavern I found some more coal, note, not MORE COAL like the last island map, I was genuinely happy to see this coal. You seem to have the perfect distance between deposits to make the game challenging but possible.
Unrelated note: I HATE THAT GREEN NINJA GHOST WRAITH THING WHATEVER IN THE YOGBOX. HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE IT. WORSE THEN ISRAPHEL. NOT BY MUCH, BUT WORSE.
Back to the map, I found iron in the same cavern and smelted it and made myself a pick. I saved the rest. I had stone tools for the rest of the tools though. Still no hoe.
I eventually came across the zombie dungeon. No chests, just a spawner. Sad really. Wasn't very difficult.
I continued on and did more things. Not many more things, just expanded the mine and explored a bit, found another cavern with a waterfall and some ores, reminded me of 404 a bit.
I then *Cheater Alert* used strongestcraft x-ray texture pack to spot out some other caverns, they were surprisingly rare, this really is a bare bones survival island I guess.
So all in all, is it good? Yes. Is it better then the original Survival Island? No. Worse? No. Different, but not distinguishably better or worse. See, this was a neat idea, but it has been milked to its grave. (Does that make sense? Not really, I really am bad with analogies lately, sorry readers)
My advice, STOP MAKING SURVIVAL ISLAND MAPS. THEY'RE FUN THE FIRST FEW TIMES, I ENJOYED THIS ONE A LITTLE, BUT WHY CAN'T ALL THESE MAP-MAKERS PUT THEIR TIME INTO SOMETHING NOVEL?
So unless there is a significant new addition that revolutionizes gameplay,
READ MY LIPS, NO NEW SURVIVALISLANDMAPS!
(Bush reference to those that don't get it)
CUBEception by piecia997
Adventure
I love it when people stick around to see what I say about their map instead of just dropping it off and leaving like an unwilling mother at an orphanage. Hmm, that was a more depressing analogy then I intended. So thanks piecia! Now the map, it is good. It reminded me a lot of Escape the Facility, IN A GOOD WAY! BTW: I used LAST DAYS texture pack with this, and it was SO GOOD, I recommend you make that the recommended TP for this map.
You wake up in a prison (I guess?) that has been broken down by lava and earthquakes. You escape from your cell through some parkour over a lave flow, and it was an interesting parkour puzzle, not unoriginal and stupid like most parkour. So you get to a bloc of cells, and one is open, yo meet Gustav through his notes he left behind. BUT, this confused me, later he referred to us as "we", are we actually together? Or are you being inconsistent with his notes? Or am I stupid? Or is it all of the above?
The map is divided into 5 chapters, 1 chapter 0, and an epilogue. I'll be perfectly honest. I got totally lost in chapter 2. :dry.gif: Apparently others could make it through, but I got lost just past the library. However, that doesn't stop me from trying to get a feel for this map!
I flew around and dropped myself in random places, enjoying the adventure. Now, you didn't include many real puzzles, but I still enjoyed myself. Odd. The atmosphere you created was awesome.
Oh god I got sidetracked, BACK TO THE STORY
You are in a CUBE, sorry THE CUBE. Apparently there was a great disaster and the managers of THE CUBE abducted people, wiped their memories, and dropped them in prison cells inside THE CUBE.
Some sort of disaster happened in THE CUBE and you and Gustav see this as a perfect chance to escape.
The escape route is literally right outside the spawn point, but shucks, there is a 3 block wide gap. I guess I'll have to trek around the ENTIRE CUBE. If I could have I would have found a dirt block, placed it, and jumped across to freedom. NO.
This is a POP map (Play-on-peaceful) so there is 0 combat. Usually a good thing. Usually. But honestly, a good zombie fight would have been pretty cool inside THE CUBE. Unfortunately the whole map is pitch black. I guess no monster fight.
The escape trek has al sorts of innovative parkour and runaround escape quests.
BTW: As much as I hated how you implemented it, thanks for including the checkpoint system, most maps either don't bother or are so short you can complete it by noon and go make yourself a skull fortress in a nearby mountain. (Zero Punctuation Game Review reference. If you have never watched Zero Punctuation Reviews clear your plans for tomorrow and sit on your butt and watch every single one. Your laughing muscles will thank me. DO IT. DO IT NAUGH!)
Frankly, as much as it reminded me of Escape the Facility in a good way, it also reminded me of EtF in the bad ways. As enormous as it is, it feels like several different but similar maps glued together. And it got incredibly tedious. Scale only works if you have content to fill it with.
The ending bothered me because you get out and Gustav says "I knew they were lying!" Our world is still here!" or some other nonsense. Well guess what. THE ENTIRE WORLD IS FILLED WITH WATER. OBVIOUSLY IT IS NOT FINE. You made it on a water flatmap I understand, but why does Gustav think that is a good thing?
Oh well. This map deserved more time then I was willing to devote to it. Sad really. Hopefully you will pull more enjoyment out of it then I did.
Seriously though, watch Zero Punctuation.
Faction Archives by Flamer189
Adventure
This map has a lot going for it. But when you get right down to it, I didn't have fun.
You are an adventurer looking for the lost "Faction-4" team that went missing doing something or another. Your ship or whatever crashes and you must find them by following clues one of them left behind. It takes you to underground cities and volcanoes and obsidian tombs, but the whole thing was tedious, boring, and not fun.
There were no puzzles or challenges (excluding a single parkour challenge, which was boring, lazy, and not fun), and it was simply go here, read note, now go here, follow the glowstone, read note, go here. Incredibly dull. I thought this may have been some elaborate intro to the real map, but no.
There is not to much to say about this map, it doesn't have anything to critique, it is literally nothing.
The architecture is nice. I'll give you that.
Oh yeah, in the Underground city, there was no priest or reverend or anything to get the key from! I spawned in a lever.
Its possible I missed it, but can you make it more obvious then? Cause I saw nothing.
This map is just really boring.
The end was very inconclusive. I got to the obsidian tomb. There was no way out, there were no notes left, but the note said I should keep going. What? Something about following explosions? There was no way out of the room flamer189! There were patches of non obsidian (dirt, stone and the like) that I dug out, but that just led me to the redstone wiring.
There was one part I kinda almost enjoyed. There was an iron door leading to the obsidian room, there was a lever next to it, I pulled it and the floor was ripped from under me and I fell on a glass platform.Then there was that one stupid jumping puzzle. That surprised me a little.
So overall, a very dull map. DND.
CUBE Inc. by CWHunt456
Adventure
This map is, whew, uh, well, the word "good" comes to mind, but I am hesitant to use that word because this map, it has thoroughly exhausted the minecraft right out of me. I don't know how, but man, I might need to take a break. This map took up a good 2 hours or so, AND I DIDN'T EVEN FINISH! That's right, I got stuck. More on that later. This map is different in a way I can't put my finger on, and I don't think I like it. Or maybe I love it... I'm not sure anymore.
Uhh, I don't even know how to start this, a million thoughts are whizzing through my brain, (a good 50% or so are about this map), and I have no idea how to begin.
Well how about the beginning?
You are a worker at Cube Inc. (Not a scientist, a worker, a grunt, a grunt in WAY over your head), and from somewhere in Cube Inc., deep in the bowels of experimental research, the nether is discovered, and Cube Inc. is aiming to capitalize off of the Glowstone, Netherrack, and Soul Sand unique to the netherthat only they have access to. Well, as usual, a bad thing happens. The nether releases a disease. A disease that when contracted kills you, but not by conventional means.
If you catch the illness you are murdered by someone around you soon after contracting it. And the murderers are perfectly pleasant normal people, until they see someone with the taint.
Cube Inc. facilities, factories, and labs are shut down and abandoned, and the nearby communities are evacuated. You are the last worker and are sonn to head out forever, when you see something that catches your eye. (I forgot the acronym, AARGH, lets call it the ABCD. I can't remember what it is called.)
The ABCD is a secretive project that you have only heard about and you know it has SOMETHING to do with the disease. So naturally before you leave, you snoop around to see what's what. You enter a room and push a button. Hundreds of TNT explode and you die. I was literally about to put the "BUGGED" hammer on this map and go watch Kotaku's Minecraft 1.8 vid, but I clicked "Respawn" out of courtesy. Then it hit me. "THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN?" I was greeted with some nonsense about "Congratulations" and "You are in a safe place". Interesting mechanic, but, for the record, I could have offed myself at the start and skipped a good portion of the map.
You are given two choices. Leave. Or do some tests and find out just how deep the Rabbit-hole goes. (In case you are wondering. Pretty freakin deep)
Me, the rebellious spirit I am, chose leave. Wrong choice. I went on a minecart ride straight through pool of lava. Luckily, I respawned right outside the two choices. I was tempted to try and leave again, but for the sake of YOU CWHunt, I chose test.
Some parkour, blah, nothing special.
Oh wait, did you think everything up to this point was the plot? Oh nononononononono. That was the intro.
Eventually you find out the ABCD isn't really working, so you are taken to the Cube Inc. Standard testing area, where they test blocks for safety and effectiveness. There is a door to leave. I leave. "Bad Ending" That's what the sign said.
I break back in to do more testing. Hey! Guess what! There is an AI to monitor testing! HMMM! What VALVe game does this remind you of? I'll give you a hint, it's not TF2, or Half-Life, or Left 4 Dead, or DOTA, or Counter-Strike. Beyond that, the AI is some weird mutated child of Wheatley and GLADoS.
Beyond that you snuck in a Fallout reference. Very impressive. (It might have been unintentional)
So much testing. So much. An hour's worth of testing at least. This is almost as long as actual Portal.
You find out that the AI, *gasp*, is corrupt and evil and is gonna kill you! I'm surprised it didn't try to kill you via monorail platform to fire pit.
But even then more testing is required, and then you have to go through caves, and then you are in a bubble then you have to dig to a mine then you have to find a really creepy undrground environment with a house in it then there is something about poison gas then apparently everything you come into contact with is a hallucination then you wake up then you have to kill the AI then you go into a cryogenic sleep chamber then you wake up to an enormous explosion created cavern AND THAT'S WHERE I GOT STUCK. More on that later.
If any of you are thinking "What the hell?", I'm with you. For a map that is so story-driven your story makes NO FREAKIN SENSE. You have less focus then trying to look at fine print with a pair of binoculars. With a piece of wax paper between the binocular lenses.
This is 50 different maps glued together with the saliva of Gabe Newell.
Let's talk about the bad things.
-It's too long. Yes, WAY too long. Its ridiculous. It is comical how long this map is. I got to chapter seven. How many are there? Stay focused, make multiple maps. You have enough material to make like 4 good, short maps.
-You need more original puzzles. This has so much parkour it could be a Adventure/Parkour Map. Normally that's a bad thing. And it still kind of is. But you did it well. You just made too much. And THAT is why I don't do pure Parkour maps. There is only so much you can do with parkour. Possibilities are very limited.
-You are obviously taking a lot from Portal. Why leave out the Comedy? I don't mean "The cake is a lie.", I mean the genuine billiards cue to the balls humor from Portal. Adlez was funny! THis isn't. I think I saw you trying to be funny though, you just failed.
-The weird, natural-themed combat is weird, and out of place.
-Are you trying to crash my computer? HUGE environments with little purpose? Constant, pointless movement? (Particularly in long Minecart rides (speaking of which, I got my "On A Rail" achievement.)) SO MUCH TNT? Which brings me to my last point.
-Ahhh, finally, where I got stuck. Chapter 7, Cryo-chamber. I pressed the button, TNT everywhere but no way to leave the room. I eventually fly out and see the cave of caves. This thing is enormous. And utilizing my render distance, I saw an entrance to a rectangular hole miles away. I flew towards it, sadly, I never found it.
Honestly, play at your own risk. I didn't talk too much about the GOOD aspects of the map, but the rating says it all.
Corruption of Hades by TLBF
Adventure
An interesting theme was chosen for this map, Greek mythology. The only reason I know what the hell any of the notes mean is because of that movie, Percy Jackson. Never read the book, seemed a little childish. Despite being incredibly linear, this map was interesting, unique, and actually intrigued me so I was was ready to finish. Shame I couldn't.
You are Lucio. A wandering demi-god. (Demi-god means half-man, half-god, again, the only reason I know that is from that movie) You come across a village that has been cursed, all leaves are now wooden planks! That people have built houses in! Why is that bad? Wooden planks are hella lot more useful then leaves. And living in them seems like a pretty sweet deal. AND, apparently only a few trees are affected, because looking into the distance, I saw plenty of leafy trees. Its details like that map makers, its details like that... that make the difference between a good map, and an awesome map.
Anywho, wandering around I eventually found the entrance to the complex of wooden-hut-tree-houses-neighborhood-village-thing. I then realized I was just wandering around the winding series of tunnels, hallways and rooms with a wooden shovel looking for brown wool. Only brown, I saw some grey, but not yet! I need a stone shovel first. I finally found a patch of brown wool. YES! I thought... oh, just a little bonus room with some stew and a sword. I eventually found a stone shovel lying around. What was the purpose of the wooden shovel? To trick me? TO DRIVE ME INSANE? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT? IS IT? HUH??!!
Sorry about that, erm... back to the review
I broke through a great wall of grey wool to reveal a 2x1 glass hallway. My memory is fuzzy here, but I remember a combat-maze, a combat tree made out of gold and diamond, and then I went to the nether for some parkour action. The story seems to have no idea where its going, like it is greek-themed for the hell of it.
Oh yeah, despite misleading assumptions, this is a very combat-heavy map.
In the maze, I found blue wool, which can only be broken by a diamond shovel. ooohhhh. But I never found one. Looking back I realized I had some diamonds, but it didn't occur to me to craft one because A. The previous shovels were given to me, and B. you don't usually craft in adventure maps. But if that wasn't the solution, then I never found the shovel. So I used my fist!
I am close to the part where I died because of a map flaw.
Apparently at some point you are asked some questions about who you are with iron doors. I had no way to open them. SO using trusty single-player commands, I turned on instant mine and answered the questions THAT way.
And don't say "You did it wrong", because this map is WAY too linear for me to mess up at all.
I eventually found the diary of Persephone, (In a chest with some rose red dye in the shape of a heart), which I know (Because of that movie) is Hades' wife. Apparently I am Hades and I am hallucinating vividly and I went on a killing spree and there was no curse, people just built on trees because of flooding, and all this weird stuff. This is SO SCREWED UP. Yeah its a twist, but so is pouring mountain dew inside your car as anti-freeze, that doesn't mean you should do it! Then there was a hole with some wa-wa at the bottom, so I jumped. Wheee!
YOU DIED!
SCORE: &%$#
What?
eh-emm?
What?
This map also has no checkpoint save so I am stuck. Either I start over or RAGE-QUIT -IT-it -it-it
I did the latter.
This map, besides being broken, is rather tedious, despite having a unique theme. The story up until that "twist" was simple and pure, so it was a nice plot.
Honestly, I would not recommend it, but hey, there are worse maps then that out there.
Eronev Mansion Adventure by Jigarbov
Adventure (at its finest)
Yeah, I just did that.
This map is intriguing, fun, funny, long, (but not too long), diverse, original, has multiple endings, dynamic NPC's (No mods required), holy crap this list is long. Its pure epicness. (Is it epicity? IDK) You deserve so much praise, but, you are not without flaws. Review time.
The plot origins are a play off of the minecraft journey itself, which I thought was quite interesting. Apparently you have gone out to have some adventure, mining, crafting, building, and so forth, and now, more mature, you come back to your hometown. Unfortunately, people are disappearing, and everyone suspects the old man who owns this enormous mansion.
The story itself is a bit out there, and it twists in on itself creating a very strained ending sequence, but what's cool about it is that there are multiple endings. Spoiler Alert: I got the WORST ONE. There are all sorts of gold bars everywhere, and those are your score, I got Explorer Jr., which is the 3rd rank up. So... yay?
You may have noticed that I did not summarize the plot, this is for two reasons.
1: I do not know all the endings
2: You really should just play this yourself
There are several features that make this map easy to love. Redstone work is absolutely STELLAR. Just the little things make it SO AWESOME. The specialized too feature was interesting, basically you need a sword to cut through cobwebs, a diamond pick to break through Mossy Cobble, a diamond Shovel to break through clay, and a diamond axe to break through Birch. This was very interesting because it created a progression of sorts while saving space. THe corruption of Hades did a similar thing, but yours was much more finely executed.
The feature that pushed me over the edge? The NPC's.
Yes they are pumpkins on sticks, that is not what matters. What matters is that the old man will actually have different signs after you do certain tasks, I guess its done using explosions? Or pistons? I really don't know, I didn't investigate because I didn't want to lose the immersion I experienced.
There are flaws believe it or not. Besides some typos, your tasks were often unclear, and ill-defined. I usually just wandered around (finding a lot of gold) until I saw signs. The minecart room could have been done a little better, it was confusing at its best, and downright ugly and bothersome at its worst. Don't criss-cross all your tracks! Keep them isolated. There were a few areas where I fell into the redstone chambers, but that was probably my fault in retrospect.
The combat seemed like a "For the hell of it" addition. Yeah, it was fun, but it felt a little out of place.
This is a great balance of Linear gameplay and Open world exploration and choice. Speaking of which, I decided to not save any of the people, and I brutally mrdered the captured ones with lava... (BY ACCIDENT MIND YOU!) So, maybe I could have done a little better.
This is an RPG reminiscent of Fallout or Elder Scrolls. (That is a BIG complement mind you.) More people should play this. Its no wonder Albarel(?) recommended this to me. Simply Fantastic.
Play this. If you play nothing else, play this.
Paradox = toppled. This is now the map to beat.
Shattered Earth by Nantang
Adventure
(Hey, tough luck being right after eronev mansion adventure)
Alright, I have finally got around to playing another map! I glad it wasn't a fluke, (See: Crazy or Dark Forest), and it held my interest... for a while.
Its a basic, generic map beginning with a guy in a village sent off to do some quest. Except this is the year 3011. 1000 years ago, scientists destroyed the world because it was corrupt (?!) and blew it up. Unfortunately (for them anyway) a magical tower, lets call it Crazy Glue tower, helped the world stick together. (DO U SEE WAT I DID TER?) This plot point bothers me because you just went from science to magic with no stops in-between. Pick a side!
Anyway, Crazy Glue tower is experiencing some trouble, (maybe it ran out of horses... I kid, I kid), and it is up to YOU random villager to fix it!
You go through some some people's houses to gather material and you set off on Storyteller Morgan's orders. You come to a small city whose purpose is to guard the tower, and apparently they suck at their jobs because they need you. Evil things called Wind Walkers (I immediately thought Zelda, but no, there is an "l" there), want to finish what the scientists started by destroying the Crazy Glue tower, (remember that is not it's real name). But hey! Before you can do that, go into a monster infested mine and get a stupid sword! Yeah, that'll waste a lot of time!
Anyway, you finally "prove yourself" and get to go. Wait! Things are stolen! Go to the Wind Walker Castle wich is literally 30 SECONDS AWAY. It's like TF2, the bases are right next to each other! You go through their castle filled with monsters doing stupid math puzzles and some pathetic parkour to find the things. And then you find out the guy telling you to do this has been dead for ten years! So that means he is an impostor!
Oh and you're village is destroyed.
You go back and see that he conveniently left the tools for you to get to the crazy glue tower. After getting there, Surprise! More parkour.
Finally get to the top and you see that he is already there and he stole the heart of the Crazy Glue tower, and he escapes! You follow him beneath the lava-filled crater that the tower hovers over, and he falls to his death and you take the netherrack heart back up to the tower (doing the parkour over again) and light it. Finishing the game.
All "NPC" work is just different note being read at different times, not dynamic like a certain other map.
I expected to see more awesomely destroyed landscape like I saw at one bridge, but it was surprisingly natural. This is the perfect map to put soem awesome stuff. Just blow TNT up everywhere! It would look better then it does...
It's a bit boring, scratch that, it's pretty boring. There are no interesting puzzles to hold your interest, and the story is "meh" at best. I am not even sure why I enjoyed your map as much as I did, (which while not a lot, it was substantial), I guess it's greater then the some of it's parts.
This is one of those maps I guess, there is nothing really wrong with it... its just not that great.
Floating Island by Waber3
Adventure
For a map I couldn't finish this is a pretty good score.
This is a very average adventure map, not great, not terrible, just good. Puzzles weren't boring, but nor were they impressive. It's a tad long... I think I got to a point where I almost finished, before giving up at one point, and it took me a good hour or so.
Hey, and I played this all 1.8.1 style! I'll bring that up often...
The general structure is what I like to call a Templar Map. A Templar Map usually revolves around a few big "trials", usually elemental in nature, for instance, the Trial of Fire, The Fortress of Air, The Temple of Water, a few famous examples of Templar Maps are; Grizwald and the Restonians, Sunny Springs, and even Lost City of Adlez.
This map is based around you completing 4 of these temples, and then facing the fortress on the Floating Island.
The plot starts with you returning from some adventure or something back to your village, and there is a big floating island, (BOOM! We have a title!), that is sending "things" down to capture the villagers. Your uncle (Because apparently all protagonists are orphans), is one of the captured. You must go through two temples to get an iron ingot and piece of flint, respectively, to create flint and steel, to get past 1 block of white wool. The temples are basic parkour, and a little combat. And by a little, I mean a good amount.
Each temple also has a "Boss" Battle. Not the stupid AdventureCraft Boss which is a big skeleton with a gun, but this might be even worse.
There are two types of "Boss Battles" in video games, the Behemoth, usually used in first person shooters, one giant monster or otherwise that you must kill. This can be anything from a huge zombie to GLaDOS. The other is the Swarm, a bunch of smaller enemies is a giant wave. This is usually used in third-person games (think Diablo) and perhaps more famously, the zombie waves in Plants vs. Zombies.
Well the bosses here are swarms. Large Dungeons with multiple spawners in a themed room. You run in, find and pull a lever, and wait for about a minute. The door will then open. When I got to the ghast and pigmen room, I said "HELL TO THE NO" and switched to peaceful.
This map is rather combat focused, so don't think this is a POP (Play-On-Peaceful) map. (On an unrelated note, I decipher these acronyms to make sure everyone gets them, but they are pretty common, so do I even need to? Comment!)
Luckily, 1.8 brought crits, sprinting, gradual health repletion, and awesomer bow n arrow stuffs.
After passing those temples, I got to move on to a water temple which was rather simple, and finally a darkness temple, where I got lost in the obsidian maze.
Now to critique.
The Wood Temple was fine. No complaints there. It was parkour with a twist, spiders and skeletons. I enjoyed that one.
The Volcano Temple was rather nightmare-ish. The parkour was dull, and the maze where I had one block of netherrack to walk on between lava falls was absolutely nerve-wracking. I made it though. That temple needs to be redone completely. While I'm here, in the Creepingtons (cause I went there, LIKE A BAUSS), I fell through the hole, but didn't die. I spent 15 minutes digging out stone with my fists to get to the top again. No mobs would spawn for some reason... Make that hole 20 times depper, or send it to the void!
The Water Temple was also pretty bad, in the underwater maze, if it weren't for a glitch where I can randomly get air by pushing up against the ceiling, I would have given up then and there. But the floating water boat parkour jumpy thing was neat, but I swam it because I hate boats.
The darkness temple was OK until the point of the Obsidian maze. (I LOL'd at yog-golf)
Which brings me to the my next point, this map is funny. Quite funny actually. It had this sort of "Whatever! LOL!" feel about it. And the constant talking about the map broke the fourth wall and turned immersion into a joke! A funny one too!
Overall, this map is very OK. That's not a bad thing! If you are bored and have played all the good maps then OK maps are just dandy! So this might be worth a play, but I have to admit, the length-to-fun ratio is disappointing.
Elemental by Golgot100
Adventure
Remember my reviews are based off of my own experience, this could just be a spot of bad luck for you, (though I doubt it). Elemental's "story" seems to be only relayed to you through the forum post, and some gibberish in Map note form. THere is nothing to hold your interest or even move forward. In fact, I don't understand why other people gave this map such high reviews!
You start out in a room with no story or anything. I went to the forum post and found some nonsense about you failed to capture "Nemi Siss" (yeah I get it, Nemi Siss, Nemesis, It's not clever) and now you are shamed. Your mentor is now testing you.(?) OH HEY! What do you know! A map based around testing! How Original! (not)
The first "challenges" are not even challenges, running through lava, following a current, meh. Eventually it got ridiculously broken looking. I ended up breaking a lot of blocks, because no direction was given. THe puzzle philosophy here seems to be I'll throw you in a room with some features, there is a door, open it by going through more random rooms with no purpose. Some might say this is an escapecraft-esque approach, it's not. Escapecraft was focused, attainable, and most importantly, fun. This was none of those.
I didn't actually finish the map, in fact I don't even think I got very far. I got to a point where I was in a canal of water that seemed to go nowhere, but it stretched down pretty far as I could tell, so I took a big breath, and dived down. got to the botom where I saw some boats, I tried to get in them, but it was useless, I drowned, and didn't go back.
The architecture is point of maps some people say I overlook, so here goes it.
The buildings in this map are pretty bland too!. Nothing impressive, very basic structures and what looks like some basic MCEdit. Honestly I was thoroughly disappointed in this map.
Would I recommend? No? No. No I would not. Perhaps I have been spoiled by the likes of Eronev Mansion and Paradox, but that shows how much division there is the mapping community.There are great maps, and then there are bad maps. Very few in-between.
Sorry Golgot. I love how active you've been!
Escape Room 234 by VKRxbetterthanyou
Adventure/Combat????
This map is pretty terrible. It is about escaping from a sciencey-lab-type-testing-experimenty-thing. By the way, that hasn't been original since Portal 1. Oh, and guess what, there are zombies. Of course there are.
Basically this map is set up in a way where there are a bunch of rooms you have to travel through, revealing a story, some combat, and some parkour over deadly pools of lava. Hey, guess what, again, pathetic, unoriginal, and boring.
Apparently you are a person who wakes up in a sciencey-lab-type-testing-experimenty-thing to find two people around you, that you need to work with to escape. You get through a room with some zombies, and that is the last combat you see for a while. You basically travel through hallways with each room having nothing but some signs talking about these two people Mike and Mindy, or whatever, I don't remember their names. Blah Blah blah, 10 rooms later you find out mike is the one who caused the zombie, well, I hazard to call it an infestation because theere actually aren't that many zombies. Then you go through a room with 3 zombie spawners and an iron door on the other side with a chest next to it. I open the chest, LO AND BEHOLD! A LEVER! I place it next to the door and leave. I'm outside. "Thanks for playing!" Yeah, thanks for wasting my time.
The redstone is ATROCIOUS. SO HORRIBLE. I WANT TO PUT REDSTONE TORCHES IN MY EYES! AAAAAAAHHHHH! A double piston door with two levers on each side of the room. One lever opens one side of the door, one side opens the other. You make 0 attempts to cover-up your redstone, and hidden piston doors are supposed to be, well, hidden. USE FRICKEN STICKY PISTONS! FOR GOD'S SAKE!
Overall, a terrible map. DND DND DND
Starburst by megahostile123
CTM
For a CTM? Meh... For a Non-Vechs CTM? Not bad.
CTM's are the lovable half-genre created when survival maps were given meaning and purpose by Vechs. I have yet to see any CTM that can hold its own against the original CTM creator, Vechs. I love Vech's Maps, and I hate how all AdvSurv/CTM maps must be compared to his because frankly, they are all maggots in comparison.
So starburst, I originally thought the candy, maybe because its halloween and a bunch of little kids in monster and insect costumes are going to coming around to kick down my door for sugar. Ahh, tis the season. Well at least there are TF2 updates, (speaking of which, I got haunted metal today in TF2, awesome!)
I cannot focus on the map, sorry, mm, sorry, that was a fun board game...
STAY FOCUSED SYNTHION
When I first loaded up this map my screen was raped by signs, signs everywhere, at least 20 signs, most of it nonsense, considering the creator's vicious rape and murder of grammar on the forums, I didn't expect much better in the map.
I then realized I was on a planetoid, a sphere, and I said OH GOD ITS SPHERECRAFT. I was right, this is very much like spherecraft, so please refer to my review of that for more details. I was also given many starting materials, including 64 torches, a stone sword and pick, and more.
I turn around and lo and behold a great creeper statue made of different colored wool that bleeds zombies. Yay. THe first thing I did is collect all the different wool from the creeper, and say, wow, I already have 5 colours of wool! I then said to myself fine, I'll get it the right way, despite this obvious issue.
The creeper had dungeons within it that leaked zombies to the outside world. INstead of doing the dungeons correctly, I did them the CTM way, I dug under, and destroyed the spawner and looted the chests from underneath, then going to kill the remaining zombies. This was the first sign of a recurring issue I will discuss later.
So white wool collected, I decided to collect materials from the sphere and make a home. And by home I mean 3x3x2 hole in the ground with a door and a chest. Ahhhh, CTMs. I found coal, wood, and a whole lot of dirt. I then built a wool bridge across to the the nearest sphere, one made out of clay.
There was a giant spaceship, bleeding spiders and skeletons. My experience with this one was largely similar, except I got orange wool, and met a ton more spiders, skeletons, and guess what, a SPIDER JOCKEY! DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!
I explored a few more spheres and then quit to play some tf2. So review time?
It's freakin spherecraft with some sightseeing tours and a crap-load of spawners. What can I say?
Architecture was nice, but the thing is, I should rarely ever say that in a CTM, CTMs aren't about architecture, they are about survival in EXTREME environments that are original and creative. WHich brings me to my main point, the creator of this map doesn't seem to understand how to make a CTM. I bet if he put his mind to it he could build a linear, combat focused adventure map, or a themed survival map, but this person is obviously a novice CTM maker, don't worry though, stick to it and you'll get better. I haven't played his other map, so I can't vouch for that one.
But behind all of this is still the fact that it's FREAKIN SPHERECRAFT.
Would Irecommend? Maybe. But let me put it this way, if Vech's maps (anyone of them) are delicious, rich Devil's food cakes, this is a cold banana-nut mini muffin at best. I don't like banana-nut.
Hell's Highway by MistaGrinch
CTM
More CTM fun. Yay. :dry.gif: Regardless, I was pleasantly surprised by this. I daresay I enjoyed it. It's a very different kind of map, it feels more like an adventure map despite it being clearly a CTM. So review time?
I RAN OUT OF ROOM. DARN. Review on page 27
---To-Do--- (in order)
Mars Mission
Garfield
Bloodycross Castle 2
CastleAge Adventures
Mineton City
Spherecraft #4
Wappantamwa
The Clock
Desert of Death
Poor Pete's Pumpkin Problem
Assault of the Mobs
The Forest of Silence
The Mystery of Zephyr Fields
The Lie
The End
Minecraft Town
The Cure
Escape Through Trials
Reach
Survival Islands
The Unrealistically Impossible CTM Series
Curse of the Monolith
Enigma Island
Ball Survival
Escape the Puzzlemaster
Ravine Survival
Monarch of Madness
Tests in nowhere
Lux Perpetua
Bipolar playmate
The Institution
Fetch Quest
The Runner
The Goldmine
Meteor Mash
Assassin's Creep
The Warehouse Challenge
Puzzle Runner
Castle-Vania Rebirth
Pixel Survival
The Alchemical Portal
The Floating Island Survival Map
Nehr's Funhouse (of no return)
Land of Wool
Drowned World
The Bridge
Foursand Survival
--------ATTENTION--------
As regular readers know, I tragically have to turn down multiplayer maps.
So, I am looking for a partner. Now this is not an easy position, in fact I would be surprised if anyone fits the description.
-Must provide server
-Flexible Schedule
-Skype, (for chat, not actual voice)
-Preferably a map maker or fellow reviewer
-If your map is currently in queue I will not allow you to partner to make sure I'm not biased.
-If your map has already been played through,and you got ABOVE a 2-star rating, I would be happy to have you on board
If YOU, RANDOM VIEWER, think you have what it takes, then apply!
Application
IGN:
What you want me to call you:
Age (optional):
Experience:
Have you made any maps?:
Have you reviewed maps?:
What is your server like?:
Would you be willing to co-review?:
Thanks, and Good luck!
Why I Don't Do Pure Parkour Maps
I accept nearly all maps that come my way, with two glaring exceptions. Co-op, (which I'm working on), and Parkour. I judge maps on execution, aesthetic, originality, and perhaps most importantly, the "WOW" feature. Be it Eronev's Dynamic NPCs, or Paradaox's Time-Travelling, there must be something that sticks out at you. Unfortunately, there is only so much you can do with parkour. You can jump across gaps and climb ladders. Perhaps excellent map-makers may find more stuff to put in, but that is just delaying the issue.
Parkour is very limited, and it just cannot be compared to other CTMs or Adventure maps. You can basically copy-paste parkour sections into different maps and no one would know the difference.
Most adventure maps have at least some parkour, (even mine do), but that cannot be stretched out into a whole map. It's like taking the cheese off of a burger and selling it as it's own sandwich.
Destroy the Diamond Comet by Munchable901
Adventure
Where to begin. I have heard a great deal about this map, and I believe another very tough reviewer listed it as one of his favorites.
You are a scientist who apparently is the only one who can or will stop a diamond comet from crashing into earth and killing everyone. Apparently many rich people believe this comet will somehow spare them and they will harvest the diamond and become even richer.
Let me just say that plot is as flimsy as dog's tail on it's way to be euthanized. But that is not what matters.
This is first and foremost very incorrectly labeled. This is a Puzzle map or at best a hybrid. There is nothing wrong with a puzzle map, I enjoy them very much, but this is not an adventure map. Having a story does not make it an adventure map like how having to collect wool does not make it a CTM.
Most of the puzzles are unique (with a few exceptions) but at the cost of being uninteresting. The trapdoor parkour was just boring, and the trapdoor run was just annoying. The whole "numbers" schtick was quite the bugger. I noticed the sign, but didn't realize they would be floor patterns, so imagine my frustration when I went back through the map just to find the numbers. While this is likely more my fault then mine, this is a perfect example of a tedious difficult puzzle, instead of an EXCITING difficult puzzle.
I found no errors in Spelling or Grammar, and the general structure was appealing.
Redstone work was very good, there were instances where I saw wire, (a big no-no), but it didn't really detract from the experience. I did not like your exhibition of your redstone work through glass after some challenges. I get that you are proud of it and maybe we could learn about redstone a little, but that was honestly just annoying. It detracted form the experience AND I couldn't learn about redstone because I couldn't go up and examine it. I would have walled it up.
The minecart idea, while not original (I independently came up with it myself as well), is appreciated and definitely helped the overall spirit of the map.
The parkour was fine, nothing too exciting and it felt a little out of place, but it was nice.
The water challenge was SO ANNOYING. It nearly ruined the map it was so annoying. Maybe its just me, but I would AXE THAT.
The end was a flimsy one story-wise, but then again so was the whole thing, But if there is one truth in this world, its that the best way to end an adventure map is with TNT.
Overall, this is a short, fun map that is worth a play. It is a good map, nothing more, nothing less. Looking forward to the sequel.
Destroy the Diamond Comet by Munchable901
Adventure
Where to begin. I have heard a great deal about this map, and I believe another very tough reviewer listed it as one of his favorites.
You are a scientist who apparently is the only one who can or will stop a diamond comet from crashing into earth and killing everyone. Apparently many rich people believe this comet will somehow spare them and they will harvest the diamond and become even richer.
Let me just say that plot is as flimsy as dog's tail on it's way to be euthanized. But that is not what matters.
This is first and foremost very incorrectly labeled. This is a Puzzle map or at best a hybrid. There is nothing wrong with a puzzle map, I enjoy them very much, but this is not an adventure map. Having a story does not make it an adventure map like how having to collect wool does not make it a CTM.
Most of the puzzles are unique (with a few exceptions) but at the cost of being uninteresting. The trapdoor parkour was just boring, and the trapdoor run was just annoying. The whole "numbers" schtick was quite the bugger. I noticed the sign, but didn't realize they would be floor patterns, so imagine my frustration when I went back through the map just to find the numbers. While this is likely more my fault then mine, this is a perfect example of a tedious difficult puzzle, instead of an EXCITING difficult puzzle.
I found no errors in Spelling or Grammar, and the general structure was appealing.
Redstone work was very good, there were instances where I saw wire, (a big no-no), but it didn't really detract from the experience. I did not like your exhibition of your redstone work through glass after some challenges. I get that you are proud of it and maybe we could learn about redstone a little, but that was honestly just annoying. It detracted form the experience AND I couldn't learn about redstone because I couldn't go up and examine it. I would have walled it up.
The minecart idea, while not original (I independently came up with it myself as well), is appreciated and definitely helped the overall spirit of the map.
The parkour was fine, nothing too exciting and it felt a little out of place, but it was nice.
The water challenge was SO ANNOYING. It nearly ruined the map it was so annoying. Maybe its just me, but I would AXE THAT.
The end was a flimsy one story-wise, but then again so was the whole thing, But if there is one truth in this world, its that the best way to end an adventure map is with TNT.
Overall, this is a short, fun map that is worth a play. It is a good map, nothing more, nothing less. Looking forward to the sequel.
Thanks for the review! Yes the story is a bit flimsy, I'm not the best at storytelling, (practically failed at it at school). Anyways, I thank you for taking your time reviewing my map! I'm taking in your points and hopefully make the sequel better.
I will not rate this one because either this map is completely broken or I messed up big time. I followed the path read the signs with a cliche opening and eventually saw the gate. However the path lead me elsewhere, more specific, a dock with boats that i took down the river where I got off at another dock and found a ruined tower with a bed and stairs leading upwards. I took these stairs and ladders and found a ruined roof. Nothing else. I looked around and saw a staute with a man and a sword and an entrance, so I went off the trail to enter, it was nothing but a view. I said screw it and went back to the gate and broke my way through. There was a large elaborate pathway with oblivion on all edges. I followed and in many places the bridge was broken, I saw some pressure pads but could not reach them so I spawned in some dirt with TMI and built my way across. I found an absolutely enormous and beautiful castle that I entered with strange fixtures and a single sign. R.I.P. Gate Builders. On some of the tombs(?) I found some levers I pulled every one and they did nothing. Except for 1 which just slid a piston in an extremely uninteresting and inconsequential way.
At this point I looked around some more and saw some stuff in the distance but no way to get anywhere. I gave up. I quit and deleted the map.
The structures were simply breathtaking, but the map sucked. (or maybe I just ballsed it up)
So right now, Levi's Nightmare is on Deck to be reviewed, and the rest of the line-up is in the OP. I will not give priority to any maps, but I do 4-5 a week so you'll move up the line quickly.
Well, this map has been lulling around on the front page for a while. The request for a review was an interesting challenge, because am I going to have to reveal how horrible the map truly is? Or will I just really enjoy this map?
The answer is number 2.
A cliche but satisfactory opening of amnesia was also made more interesting by the fact you start at night. This is not the best idea, I would recommend Sunset, as it gives players a chance to get their bearings, but nevertheless, it was an interesting opening.
It is an open-world linear adventure map. Contradictory? No, it is open world on the basis that it is exploration based, but with a linear story. This is a balance many game studios have been trying to achieve for decades so congrats on that little feat.
You are Levi, who wakes up with absolutely no knowledge of anything. The only reason you know your own name is it is stitched into your coat. You walk through deserted villages and towns with strange black mold everywhere. This mold, according to diaries of townspeople (which apparently EVERYONE has) is killing everything and turning them into zombies.
This is not exactly an adventure map the same way the Jal' Poi island series isn't a puzzle map. It is a movie with minecraft as its medium. There is 0 interactivity, no puzzles, challenges, or trials. And if you're lucky (or unlucky) you might have to fend off a zombie or two. There is near 0 combat.
What? A dark, zombie themed map with no combat? Surprised me too.
Redstone was a little broken, some of the "Test Chambers" didn't work and the sheep one dropped two wolves.
Another mistake is in the spoiler
Leaving the Portal, into the nether, the pressure pads didn't blow up the portal at first. I think one of them doesn't work but the other one does. I had to go back and step on that one.
I HATED how far you had to travel between stations. I actually gave up and flew across the lake with SPC just to hurry things along.
This is a tedious map with an interesting story. The architecture is meh. The atmosphere is meh. The general feel is very meh. But the story is fantastic. All three stars are directly from the story.
This is something you should do as a viewer, not as a player.
PS: It is not nearly as dark as everyone says it is.
*NEW*: As I am now part of The Redstone Torch team, (A minecraft newspaper), all maps submitted may be put on that newspaper in my segment. This applies to all maps already submitted, and all maps to come.
---Reviewed Maps---
Destroy the Diamond Comet by Munchable901
Adventure
You are a scientist who apparently is the only one who can or will stop a diamond comet from crashing into earth and killing everyone. Apparently many rich people believe this comet will somehow spare them and they will harvest the diamond and become even richer.
Let me just say that plot is as flimsy as dog's tail on it's way to be euthanized. But that is not what matters.
This is first and foremost very incorrectly labeled. This is a Puzzle map or at best a hybrid. There is nothing wrong with a puzzle map, I enjoy them very much, but this is not an adventure map. Having a story does not make it an adventure map like how having to collect wool does not make it a CTM.
Most of the puzzles are unique (with a few exceptions) but at the cost of being uninteresting. The trapdoor parkour was just boring, and the trapdoor run was just annoying. The whole "numbers" schtick was quite the bugger. I noticed the sign, but didn't realize they would be floor patterns, so imagine my frustration when I went back through the map just to find the numbers. While this is likely more my fault then mine, this is a perfect example of a tedious difficult puzzle, instead of an EXCITING difficult puzzle.
I found no errors in Spelling or Grammar, and the general structure was appealing.
Redstone work was very good, there were instances where I saw wire, (a big no-no), but it didn't really detract from the experience. I did not like your exhibition of your redstone work through glass after some challenges. I get that you are proud of it and maybe we could learn about redstone a little, but that was honestly just annoying. It detracted form the experience AND I couldn't learn about redstone because I couldn't go up and examine it. I would have walled it up.
The minecart idea, while not original (I independently came up with it myself as well), is appreciated and definitely helped the overall spirit of the map.
The parkour was fine, nothing too exciting and it felt a little out of place, but it was nice.
The water challenge was SO ANNOYING. It nearly ruined the map it was so annoying. Maybe its just me, but I would AXE THAT.
The end was a flimsy one story-wise, but then again so was the whole thing, But if there is one truth in this world, its that the best way to end an adventure map is with TNT.
Overall, this is a short, fun map that is worth a play. It is a good map, nothing more, nothing less. Looking forward to the sequel.
Through The Gate by Utenan
Adventure
No rating
I will not rate this one because either this map is completely broken or I messed up big time. I followed the path read the signs with a cliche opening and eventually saw the gate. However the path lead me elsewhere, more specific, a dock with boats that i took down the river where I got off at another dock and found a ruined tower with a bed and stairs leading upwards. I took these stairs and ladders and found a ruined roof. Nothing else. I looked around and saw a staute with a man and a sword and an entrance, so I went off the trail to enter, it was nothing but a view. I said screw it and went back to the gate and broke my way through. There was a large elaborate pathway with oblivion on all edges. I followed and in many places the bridge was broken, I saw some pressure pads but could not reach them so I spawned in some dirt with TMI and built my way across. I found an absolutely enormous and beautiful castle that I entered with strange fixtures and a single sign. R.I.P. Gate Builders. On some of the tombs(?) I found some levers I pulled every one and they did nothing. Except for 1 which just slid a piston in an extremely uninteresting and inconsequential way.
At this point I looked around some more and saw some stuff in the distance but no way to get anywhere. I gave up. I quit and deleted the map.
The structures were simply breathtaking, but the map sucked. (or maybe I just ballsed it up)
Levi's Nightmare by Kmilley
Adventure
Well, this map has been lulling around on the front page for a while. The request for a review was an interesting challenge, because am I going to have to reveal how horrible the map truly is? Or will I just really enjoy this map?
The answer is number 2.
A cliche but satisfactory opening of amnesia was also made more interesting by the fact you start at night. This is not the best idea, I would recommend Sunset, as it gives players a chance to get their bearings, but nevertheless, it was an interesting opening.
It is an open-world linear adventure map. Contradictory? No, it is open world on the basis that it is exploration based, but with a linear story. This is a balance many game studios have been trying to achieve for decades so congrats on that little feat.
You are Levi, who wakes up with absolutely no knowledge of anything. The only reason you know your own name is it is stitched into your coat. You walk through deserted villages and towns with strange black mold everywhere. This mold, according to diaries of townspeople (which apparently EVERYONE has) is killing everything and turning them into zombies.
This is not exactly an adventure map the same way the Jal' Poi island series isn't a puzzle map. It is a movie with minecraft as its medium. There is 0 interactivity, no puzzles, challenges, or trials. And if you're lucky (or unlucky) you might have to fend off a zombie or two. There is near 0 combat.
What? A dark, zombie themed map with no combat? Surprised me too.
Redstone was a little broken, some of the "Test Chambers" didn't work and the sheep one dropped two wolves.
Another mistake is in the spoiler
Leaving the Portal, into the nether, the pressure pads didn't blow up the portal at first. I think one of them doesn't work but the other one does. I had to go back and step on that one.
I HATED how far you had to travel between stations. I actually gave up and flew across the lake with SPC just to hurry things along.
This is a tedious map with an interesting story. The architecture is meh. The atmosphere is meh. The general feel is very meh. But the story is fantastic. All three stars are directly from the story.
This is something you should do as a viewer, not as a player.
PS: It is not nearly as dark as everyone says it is.
Paradox by Ad134 and Tomdm134
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.
Dark Forest by kingjaylin
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
World of Zombies by Smelly Dom
Combat
This is a map that is bad but only because of a few problems! This has potential to be a very good map, but for now, it is a two star. Also: Fun Fact. I played this map IRONMAN.
I couldn't help but notice that this is called beta. That is a great word to use because there are still problems. Big problems that detract from the experience.
There is no backstory or anything, but there shouldn't be. It is a pure combat map. Something I have yet to experience.
Note: I'm not too big on combat maps and because I'm a wuss I played on Easy.
You wake up on the roof and are asked to go down. (Can't have moved the spawn point to inside?) And you are immediately asked to enter through the doors and start your first challenge. Why did we have to flip both levers? Lazy redstone? Can't do a double door? Or does that start the challenge? Regardless, The first rooms are very easy. Killed maybe 3 zombies before the door opened. That is an interesting mechanic though, having the doors open after a period of time, could be easily exploited, but still interesting.
You don't get swarmed or anything as you pass through the rooms, they are VERY easy.
After each room you get rewarded by getting a better sword/other weapon or armor, and some food, increasing in value. This is definitely over-preparing the player for the first rooms. Also, an interesting twist is the addition of "Challenge Rooms".
These challenge rooms have different trials or puzzles that will give you advanced armor or weapons or food or arrows (Which is your score)
BTW, I got 74 arrows
These challenges however, were simplistic and unoriginal (with the exception of the wood-placing one, which while easy was original). And you could just hide out there until the door opens. (I didn't do that because I'm an honest person)(well, fine I did for one of them)
***BIG ISSUE***
On one of the rooms (I think it was a medium difficulty), I fended off zombies for several minutes and nothing happened. I thought "I have more maps to review" and spawned in a pick to break through the cobble around the door. I noticed that the redstone was poweed, meaning that the doors SHOULD have opened. Check out that issue
***END BIG ISSUE***
There several spelling errors (such as objection instead of objective), and grammar was not perfect. To the extent that one of the rooms was ridiculous. You said "...find all 4 of them. ..." What is "them"? I broke through the door on this one too.
The "Hell Run" was the easiest part of the map. There was 1 zombie.
I eventually got to the final prep room and saw the challenge room. The parkour was difficult, The maze was SO RIDICULOUSLY EASY. MAKE IT 10X AS HARD! And I finally got to the quiz.
***BIG ISSUE***
The second question is how many overworld neutral mobs are there. There is 1, wolf. Oh, did you mean Passive? Then there are 5, Squid, Chicken, Cow, Sheep, and Porky. I threw a brick on 5, and it blew up. WHY? I AM RIGHT!
***End Big Issue***
And in the final temple I made it through several rooms before getting swarmed and dying. I would like to illustrate the rise in difficulty.
***SORRY GRAPH BROKEN****
____________________
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______________________________
___________
^^^^^That is the Temple
****SORRY GRAPH BROKEN****
If something went wrong with the graph (which it did) the gist of it is that before the temple is way too easy and the temple is way too hard.
Overall a very beta map with the potential to become the quintessential Combat Map.
A Coconut Friend by mask99
Survival
Well, my first Surv map to review. Let me lay down some ground rules. I will probs play survival for about a half-hour and do decent exploration and creation. I will not devote any more then an hour to these maps (unless I really enjoy it) because that is how long it should take to get the main idea of the map and decent experience of build quality. Please don't go whining that that is not long enough. The whole point of maps are to keep me interested and if after an hour I still haven't gotten into it, I probs won't. Also, I use probs instead of probably alot.
Now to the map.
In the wake of the hit yogscast mini-series survival island, Survival Island downloads skyrocketed, as did copies, clones, "improvements", and spin-offs. This is one of them. That does not in any way mean that this map is bad. Or at least not for that reason. It is a good concept that was around long before the official "Survival Island" and will be around for a long time. This map supposedly makes it much more challenging, but in actuality, not so much. Sure the island is made up of 5 sand blocks 3 fenceposts, some leaves and a chest, but that does not make it harder. It makes it more annoying, but not harder.
One thing about survival island, (the original), is that it made you really appreciate the most basic materials such as dirt, wood and coal. This map says SCREW THAT and disappoints me in many ways. More on that later.
You apparently were in the phillipines when your plane went down and you swam to the nearest plot of dry land. You find a chest with saplings, bonemeal, and a dirt block. Hmm! Whatever will I do with these. Imma just put this useless dirt block down, plant a sapling and use bonemeal and then repeat three times. What will that do? Oh yeah, give me a stack of wooden planks. Creator, go watch the yogscast surv island series. See how they agonize over the decision to take a single wood block from their sole tree? Yeah, they don't have a bunch of saplings and bonemeal and can go around all willy nilly making torches and swords and picks and stuff.
Oh, and it doesn't stop there.
While it was a little difficult getting a starting hole, I crafted a door and started digging down. OMG! I thought. I FOUND COAL! LUCKY ME!
No.
There was SO MUCH COAL. IT WAS LIKE A 12x12 CUBE OF COAL ORE. If you were going for a natural-looking deposit, you failed.
Soon I had a stack and a half of torches. A full set of stone tools (excluding hoes of course because they're stupid) And still MORE WOOD.
I eventually found the first cavern. It had a zombie spawner that I quickly took out (Who needs feathers anyways) and some zombies that I took out from above. There was also a lava flow. I lit up the whole cavern (With my inventory full of torches(slight exaggeration)), and found the "reward". The reason that is in quotes is because its not a proper reward for clearing the cavern, just a benefit from doing so.
An iron deposit. SO MUCH IRON. (Noticing a trend?) Still very unnatural looking, very square. So I mine the iron and find, guess what?, MORE FREAKIN COAL. THIS IS GETTING RIDICULOUS.
So now I have a full set of IRON tools plus a chestplate.
I kept exploring and found another cavern and MORE COAL and expanded the island some and found MORE COAL and crafted some chests and found MORE COAL and I actually got alot of gunpowder, feathers, saplings, and MORE COAL.
Overall, a waste of time.
I might have exaggerated a little, but not much.
Zombie Forest by Piplup10
Zombie Map
You might notice I call this a zombie map, as if that is a genre. Well in my eyes it is. Its not really just survival, and it is very focused.
I actually had similar problems with this map that I did with my last review.
You are a lumberjack who wakes up to hear zombies beating down his door (There were none) and I had to repair it (Didn't need to) and go down to the basement and gather supplies and venture out. However, I was smart and went to bed first.
Woke up to the sound of burning zombies. Just how I like my mornings.
That is the problem with zombie themed maps, I f they are outdoors you can just sleep at night and wake up in the morning to have no zombies.
I played this map on normal.
(And I'm not saying I didn't go out at night, I did once, but it seemed silly that I can just sleep through the night)
There was no shortage of supplies and I had a cake, an iron sword, a full set of stone tools, and a full set of leather armor. And I didn't kill a single passive mob! Or cut down any trees! Or mine any ores!
This is over-preparation.
I did like the general atmosphere of the map, felt very real. The scattered homes, the forest, its hard to put my finger on it.
The Architecture however was horrid. If the homes weren't inside hills, they were boxes. I would suggest putting a want ad for a home builder in your thread. Its not that big of a deal! Homes are hard to get right. And some people can make them look fantastic. I don't think you are one of those people.
I found "Zombie Cave #2" (very official huh?) and killed quite a few of the buggers.
I liked the addition of quests, too bad the quests were bad.
The first one I found was to follow a trail of blood. That is it. I was rewarded with a full set a stone tools and some armor.
The second one was to give a piece of food to Mr. Pressure Plate, err, umm, I mean, uhh... Don? Yeah, Don. (Right?) I was rewarded with more armor and an iron sword.
After looking around I found some more buildings, including one that looked like it was burned down, a general store (with MORE supplies) (like MORE COAL), and a testing place that clearly stated that that place was the source of the T-Virus (reference maybe? I don't know) that turned people into zombies. Also with empty chambers with signs that said things like "spider" and "Horrible pig version", were these chambers supposed to have things in them? Just curious.
I also found a little deck on a mountain with a sign that said "sign no longer able read" and a button that I pressed and it blew up the place. It revealed a chest with a dirt block over it which I destroyed to get into it and it had MORE COAL. JK, just more supplies and gold.
Grammar and spelling on several signs was horrid.
Overall pretty boring but can be made into anything you want really. It is exactly what it says it is A zombie survival map. It does not aspire to be any more, and it shouldn't, because it doesn't.
Spherecraft #2 by Jep3
CTM (Complete the Monument)
This map has somewhat of a following and someone will likely flame me for giving it only a 3.5. Well A: that's one of the best scores I've given and B: just read the review.
I had mixed expectations upon beginning this map. On the one hand, (likely the left one), his thread id alive and well with many commenters that love his map. ON the other hand, most commenters are idiots and this looks like the planetoids map generator. (Except of course for commenters that comment on THIS thread)
So I downloaded it and began.
You start in a little sphere inside an (apparently) infinite ocean. Inside this vast ocean are several spheres which are largely composed of a single material and some glowstone. You are given some starting tools and torches and stuff, and you are out to find the metal blocks, the tnt, the cactus, and other stuff I don't remember.
Well it was well put together, and I only drowned once!
I first decided to explore, primarily the completion monument. There was a lot of stuff to get.
I then saw a sphere in the distance that looked like stone. I used the sandstone in the spawn sphere (plus I used the sand to make sandstone), to build a tunnel to that. It took me FOREVER. When I got there I realized it was clay.
"Silly synthion! How can you, such an experienced minecraft player, not realize the difference between stone and clay?" Well I'll tell you. I used a texture pack and that water is murky! I would have used the clear water mod but the link was broken. I even used /clearwater in SPC and it didn't do much.
So that proves that you will be disappointed often.
Also in that clay sphere was a sign that said "I heard you liek clay so I put signs in yo clay U mad?". Way to take all my least favorite memes and put them in one sign.
Not wanting to bore you with my trivial, tedious misadventures, I'll summarize the important stuff.
****WARNING DO NOT USE MO CREATURES OR ELEMENTAL CREEPERS ON THIS MAP IT IS A MISTAKE I MADE AND DO NOT WISH IT UPON YOU****
I found the first dungeon sphere and killed some zombies before getting flooded by a water creeper, walled up by an earth creeper, and I was then attacked by a wraith. I considered that dungeon RUINED!
I found the "Destruction Sphere" with some parkour (which I just build a bridge across) and at the top (expecting TNT) I found Mushrooms. And a button that said "Self-Destruction Button". I clicked and got the hell out of there, when I returned it was still intact. I realized that some lava flow opened up but they didn't actually flow out. Jep! Look at that!
Then I found "Challenge Sphere #3". It had a whole lot of nothing but soul sand and glowstone, until a creeper came out of nowhere and blew up the corridor. It revealed a large room of nothing but creeper which blew up and destroyed the sphere. Curse you for that. I almost had a heart attack.
I looked around some more and found more things but no monument materials. This is clearly a long-term map.
So is this like planetoids? Yes. Very much so, just with some challenges and interesting features. That doesn't make it bad! In fact, its one of the better non-Vech's CTM maps I've seen. Its tedious and unoriginal but it is interesting and well put together.
I don't know how to improve this map (apart from the bugs and problems) which means it is a fulfilled concept. Its just not all that great of a concept.
Its worth trying out, even if you delete after an hour or so. Like I did.
Escape the Facility by guy1234567890 (what a name)
Adventure/Puzzle
Wow. This guy I can tell has spent a lot of time on this map. Kudos to you. We need more map makers with your dedication. But why did I only get 2.5 stars?! Well, the map is a broken in a few places, the entire map seems schizophrenic, and you don't seem to understand you own map. Don't worry, just work on it. I might actually consider re-reviewing it in a more developed version. And remember, my review is based off MY experience. Not others, or yours, but mine.
Despite being marketed as an Adv/Puz, this is definitely a Puz. You want to see a good hybrid? Look at Paradox. (I really liked that map, in case you couldn't tell) Is this review reminding you of something? Diamond Comet maybe? Same score, same issue with marketing it as an adventure, both similar atmospheres, it is really similar isn't it. Looking back at Diamond Comet, I think I gave it too low of a score, maybe it deserves a 3 star, because it is similar to Portal, short, fun, tight, and well put together. This is not anything like that. It is tedious, enormous, desperately trying to fill in gaps, (usually by repeating puzzles).
I come into this map expecting to have fun with advanced redstone-powered puzzles, high-tension dynamic parkour, and maybe some open-world exploration. And I was expecting a great story.
Guess what I didn't get.
You wake up in a room. You see some rules, but no story. By the name I understand I have to escape, but couldn't have added anything else?
The first couple of puzzles are parkour. Really? I don't mind a few original parkour puzzles (note I said puzzles, not just challenges) in a map, but there's a reason I don't do Parkour maps. They are repetitive, tedious, and annoying. Especially without a checkpoint system. At least yours had one, no matter how rudimentary it was.
There are several "puzzles" including more then one example of my LEAST favorite type of challenge. The "Explore this environment for a single chest/spot of clay". Are these fun for people? Are they? ARE THEY?! Because I can't stand them. To me it screams laziness and/or "I'm running out of ideas", and considering it was only the very beginning, I sure as hell was hoping it wasn't the second one.
The maze where we had to find cobble was actually kind of fun, I love well-constructed, multi-point mazes. And this was one of them. However, most people hate mazes. So I guess you also lose at this one too. Sorry.
You know what, let me skip to where I got lost and could not move forward. A strange outside complex of buildings. Seemed like a dead-end. So do I just suck? Or is this a genuine problem? You know what, I probs just suck.
So I flew around, and let me just say this thing is frickin COLOSSAL. One of the largest maps I've ever seen. And this means you have to fill these rooms. And I think you ran out of ideas.
I broke into several places, and did the puzzles until I got lost again (happened a few times). And it was very repetitive. Same old boring parkour, search, and maze puzzles.
All this is going on, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it at certain times. It had the right atmosphere. The environments were complimentary and not jagged like so many other maps. The creator is one hell of an evironment designer and logistics expert, but not so much with puzzle design, storyline creation, or anything else. If was gonna make a collaboration, I would probs want you on my team. But this feels like if there was only one Beatle, or if only one guy made the Aether. It feels dark, lonely, and unfinished.
It also doesn't help with how unoriginal the idea is.
I go on the maps forum page often to check my thread's status. There are really only 3 types of posts. ~32% of them are Survival Island Maps, ~32% are escape the facility/prison maps, and ~32% are looking for people to be in a youtube series like the yogscast. That last 4% are the things I notice. Yours would have just faded in with the background.
In addition, making maps so ridiculously long, but still so repetitive is a good way to make sure NO ONE sees the ending.
I know I didn't.
Village on the Horizon by Trixionics
Adventure/RPG
(iron is a quarter star now)
I really enjoyed this! You have single handedly turned minecraft into a true RPG. I invented the quarter-star just so this wouldn't be a two star. The reason it is a two star is because of all the problems. That seems to be a plague around here, good maps with a lot of bugs.
You wake up outside your house, having just said goodbye to your father. He went off to market to buy some goods, he would be back tomorrow. Meanwhile, you are given a list of chores to do. The whole map is divided into quests. I also used Dokucraft. This is just SCREAMING RPG. I did my chores like a good boy, and went to bed.
Wait, I'm gonna stop myself right here, I'm gonna role-play through this review, this'll be fun. *Lines between asterisks are non-role-playing comments*
I woke up the next morning and realized father had not returned, I checked his room to be sure, the bed was still made! He obviously never returned from last night.
After a little while I decided to go off to the little town over on the horizon where the market is to see if for some reason he is still there.
I had no idea which way to go. *This is with render distance on normal* *I checked the thread* Ah! I now know. I traveled across the bridge leading to town and it was quite creaky. It then exploded! I guess I wasn't getting back that way. I traveled throughout the town and and rummaged through shops and offices, no one was around, and found several logs and diaries of strange occurences, as well as a strange man that admitted to pushing a local girl off a cliff. And strange creatures killing, killing everyone.
***NON ROLE PLAYING REVIEW***
I never saw any ship or anything, but looking on the notes, I guess I should have, so I just skipped right to jumping down the hole.
Overall you should make things more visible. Maybe a road from your cottage to town? A more noticeable ship? I never found the ship. Was there even a ship? I read the sign that said "All the ships are gone, wait, what's that?" or whatever at the docks. So yeah I just jumped down the hole.
***BACK TO ROLE-PLAYING***
***CAUTION SPOILERS AHEAD***
I found an odd crevice in the ground. I decided it was worth exploring, an ocean current swept me through a pitch-black cave system, and I came out in some sort of laboratory or something. There were cobwebs everywhere, I brought my sword with me so I machete-ed through most of it. I found that somehow these hostile, mutant spiders escaped and destroyed the town. Upon further investigation, I find a large empty room that I jump down to, can't get back up. I see my father's mangled body. I am devastated. As I hear the spiders coming for me, I lay down, ready to rejoin my father.
This is SO much darker then Levi's nightmare. I'm glad to see though that this is so well put together. But looking at the notes from the supposed ship (which was never found), my father was on the ship! How did he get down there? Maybe I missed something but that seems like a big plot hole. And what did the strange man murdering the girl have to do with anything? The more I think about it, the less the story makes sense.
On a brighter note, you have just NAILED creating an environment that matches the story. Everything fits! There are a lot of places where you could have added little fun things like in the home's chests? I checked every house looking for goodies.
Architecture is very good, but nothing made me go wow. But then again, it really shouldn't in this type of map.
This is very much a storyline, low-interactivity map similar to Levi's nightmare. I enjoyed it, it's short, its worth a play. OR you could just read the spoilers. It is still a little buggy, but fix those and it would be like a 3 star in my books.
Crazy by Coram
Puzzle? Combat? I really don't know.
Coram. I appreciate the fact that you've stuck around waiting for the review, and contributed to the thread so much. But you've gone and done it. Made a worse map the Dark Forest. I invented the Iron star for something else, but I swear I would have for this one it is so bad. This is without a doubt the worst map I've ever played. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings, I'm stating facts.
I know you are not a native english speaker, but the spelling and grammar are so bad I can't even understand what you are saying. Something about a prison made out of sponges, having to escape, and you are crazy. You are equipped like crazy though. At the very beginning you get a diamond helmet, chain pants, iron chestplate, and leather boots. A diamond pick, iron shovel, and a stone sword are also given, along with Flint&Steel, 2 cooked porkchops, 2 cooked Fish, a GOLDEN-FRICKIN APPLE, A GD CAKE, and more.
You then walk through some weird piston thing. Into a room with spider, skele, and zombie pigmen spawners. I use the word room generously, because there are holes in the floor that take you below the map. And no ceiling.
There is wire everywhere. Random things like combo locks that do nothing. A weird track. And a nether portal. I walked through that one and followed a series of torches until I stepped on some pressure plate and being locked in by lava. Trapped in the nether. That is way too common in maps.
This map is absolutely horrid and I would sooner play through zombie forest then this. DND. DND. DND. I cannot put into words how bad this map is.
Sorry Coram. You seem like a nice guy.
Quest for the Lost City of Adlez by Aarow
Adventure
Wow. I love this map. This could give Paradox a run for its money in my books. BUT, so much wasted potential. This map was perfect in so many ways. In the ways it wasn't (which while few) were horrible.
You are after a long lost treasure by an ancient civilization, (a bit cliche, but whatever), and you start at some old man's house. You gather some supplies, and a map, you then follow the map to a boat house, where you receive a full map and you are just sent out into the world with no immediate objectives. Interesting, I thought, this could either be genius or idiotic. It was genius.
It reminded me a lot of the map I'm currently working on, but mine is more survival focused.
I came across a tiny island with a fencepost tree. Oh, I'm sorry, a Palm Tree. There was a ring of sandstone with sand in the middle. I had to check the list of blocks I could break. A long and confusing list. I would fix that. Sand was on there. I broke through and found a chest with a lapis block. Odd. I'll keep it with me.
I boated around the large lake to find the base of the civilization. I was actually given the clue of the water dragon's maw. I have no idea what a "maw" is, so I just randomly wandered about. I came across a huge hole in the ocean which I promptly dived into. ( I then looked at my map and realized the water waas in the shape of a dragon-ish thing!) There was an entrance to a large hub. This hub had places to put blocks of certain types. Lapis, Iron, Gold, Diamond, Snow, Glowstone, and, uhh, I think thats it. I might be wrong. That's all I can remember.
I immediately thought that this is a lot like a CTM. And really, it is. There is much combat, you must scour the world for special blocks, I wish you could break blocks though. Obviously outside of the challenges, but instead of scrambling for shelter, I could make myself a little shack for the night. But no, I am an honest player. (pfhthfht, yeah right.)
ANYWAY, I placed the lapis block and went on my way.
I couldn't get out of the hole. I must be missing something. I just flew out. I did that the whole time, flew out. Add a ladder or something.
Normally I would talk abut my wonderful misadventures throughout places like the Dwarven City, The Elven Forest, the Lava Falls, the Desert Pyramid, and more, but alas, it would take far too long. Plus, I would rather you all see it for yourselves.
I will just address problems.
This is a very open world, non-linear map, so enjoy that! This also means a lot of travelling is involved, and you can get lost. DO NOT LOSE YOUR MAP. I didn't, but I could only imagine if you did.
The trials were interesting, and overall, many were well done. Cosmos Village and the Dwarven city stick out in my mind as well done challenges. But the rest seemed unfulfilled. Boring. Nothing interesting. No neat puzzles or original ideas.
So much wasted potential. This could be the map of maps, but the complete lack of originality when it got down to the actual challenges, is very, very disappointing.
Lets skip to the end.
The fantastic end.
After some of the WORST challenges EVER through the door once I placed all the blocks, completely redo those, just, unsalvageable, come up with new puzzles.
You see a twisty, fake-out, spectacular finish, which while I saw the ultimate end coming, was satisfying nonetheless.
The end, the credits, the final huzzah, simply spectacular. But honestly, I would have preferred you spend more time on the actual game, then the wonderful ending.
Play it, if only for those few moments of joy.
Make better actual puzzles, and this would be a freakin PERFECT yogscast map.
Peace out.
zDark's Antarctic Survival by zDark
Survival
Alright. More Survival Island fun. This is probably the maximum score I would give any Survival Island, so don't be disappointed. However, when it said Antarctic survival, I expected, well, snow. And Ice. And the general feel of something "Antarctic". Spawning on a patch of ice does not make it Antarctic anymore then, can't think of an analogy, maybe I'll add one in later...
This is a fairly large island with A tree, a cactus, and a sugarcane. Much dirt though, So I had no issue when I began to mine. No dealing with falling sand or anything.
You start at sunset, so I quickly dug myself a hole in the ground and stayed there for about half the night, then I got out and started killing mobs, then I realized I was in over my head and went back to my hole. Not an easy night. So points for that I guess...
Finally morning came and I harvested the tree and set to work. I had a fairly large mine within 15 minutes and the small patch of coal I found lasted me through until I found the next deposit.
This is a VERY interesting and effective mechanic IMO, There is a coal deposit that you waste no time in mining, and on the other side is a cavern with all sorts of horrible creatures of the night. Not a dungeon mind you, a cavern. Brilliant idea with the basically forcing you to run into that cavern.
So after I cleared that cavern I found some more coal, note, not MORE COAL like the last island map, I was genuinely happy to see this coal. You seem to have the perfect distance between deposits to make the game challenging but possible.
Unrelated note: I HATE THAT GREEN NINJA GHOST WRAITH THING WHATEVER IN THE YOGBOX. HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE IT. WORSE THEN ISRAPHEL. NOT BY MUCH, BUT WORSE.
Back to the map, I found iron in the same cavern and smelted it and made myself a pick. I saved the rest. I had stone tools for the rest of the tools though. Still no hoe.
I eventually came across the zombie dungeon. No chests, just a spawner. Sad really. Wasn't very difficult.
I continued on and did more things. Not many more things, just expanded the mine and explored a bit, found another cavern with a waterfall and some ores, reminded me of 404 a bit.
I then *Cheater Alert* used strongestcraft x-ray texture pack to spot out some other caverns, they were surprisingly rare, this really is a bare bones survival island I guess.
So all in all, is it good? Yes. Is it better then the original Survival Island? No. Worse? No. Different, but not distinguishably better or worse. See, this was a neat idea, but it has been milked to its grave. (Does that make sense? Not really, I really am bad with analogies lately, sorry readers)
My advice, STOP MAKING SURVIVAL ISLAND MAPS. THEY'RE FUN THE FIRST FEW TIMES, I ENJOYED THIS ONE A LITTLE, BUT WHY CAN'T ALL THESE MAP-MAKERS PUT THEIR TIME INTO SOMETHING NOVEL?
So unless there is a significant new addition that revolutionizes gameplay,
READ MY LIPS, NO NEW SURVIVALISLANDMAPS!
(Bush reference to those that don't get it)
CUBEception by piecia997
Adventure
I love it when people stick around to see what I say about their map instead of just dropping it off and leaving like an unwilling mother at an orphanage. Hmm, that was a more depressing analogy then I intended. So thanks piecia! Now the map, it is good. It reminded me a lot of Escape the Facility, IN A GOOD WAY! BTW: I used LAST DAYS texture pack with this, and it was SO GOOD, I recommend you make that the recommended TP for this map.
You wake up in a prison (I guess?) that has been broken down by lava and earthquakes. You escape from your cell through some parkour over a lave flow, and it was an interesting parkour puzzle, not unoriginal and stupid like most parkour. So you get to a bloc of cells, and one is open, yo meet Gustav through his notes he left behind. BUT, this confused me, later he referred to us as "we", are we actually together? Or are you being inconsistent with his notes? Or am I stupid? Or is it all of the above?
The map is divided into 5 chapters, 1 chapter 0, and an epilogue. I'll be perfectly honest. I got totally lost in chapter 2. :dry.gif: Apparently others could make it through, but I got lost just past the library. However, that doesn't stop me from trying to get a feel for this map!
I flew around and dropped myself in random places, enjoying the adventure. Now, you didn't include many real puzzles, but I still enjoyed myself. Odd. The atmosphere you created was awesome.
Oh god I got sidetracked, BACK TO THE STORY
You are in a CUBE, sorry THE CUBE. Apparently there was a great disaster and the managers of THE CUBE abducted people, wiped their memories, and dropped them in prison cells inside THE CUBE.
Some sort of disaster happened in THE CUBE and you and Gustav see this as a perfect chance to escape.
The escape route is literally right outside the spawn point, but shucks, there is a 3 block wide gap. I guess I'll have to trek around the ENTIRE CUBE. If I could have I would have found a dirt block, placed it, and jumped across to freedom. NO.
This is a POP map (Play-on-peaceful) so there is 0 combat. Usually a good thing. Usually. But honestly, a good zombie fight would have been pretty cool inside THE CUBE. Unfortunately the whole map is pitch black. I guess no monster fight.
The escape trek has al sorts of innovative parkour and runaround escape quests.
BTW: As much as I hated how you implemented it, thanks for including the checkpoint system, most maps either don't bother or are so short you can complete it by noon and go make yourself a skull fortress in a nearby mountain. (Zero Punctuation Game Review reference. If you have never watched Zero Punctuation Reviews clear your plans for tomorrow and sit on your butt and watch every single one. Your laughing muscles will thank me. DO IT. DO IT NAUGH!)
Frankly, as much as it reminded me of Escape the Facility in a good way, it also reminded me of EtF in the bad ways. As enormous as it is, it feels like several different but similar maps glued together. And it got incredibly tedious. Scale only works if you have content to fill it with.
The ending bothered me because you get out and Gustav says "I knew they were lying!" Our world is still here!" or some other nonsense. Well guess what. THE ENTIRE WORLD IS FILLED WITH WATER. OBVIOUSLY IT IS NOT FINE. You made it on a water flatmap I understand, but why does Gustav think that is a good thing?
Oh well. This map deserved more time then I was willing to devote to it. Sad really. Hopefully you will pull more enjoyment out of it then I did.
Seriously though, watch Zero Punctuation.
Faction Archives by Flamer189
Adventure
This map has a lot going for it. But when you get right down to it, I didn't have fun.
You are an adventurer looking for the lost "Faction-4" team that went missing doing something or another. Your ship or whatever crashes and you must find them by following clues one of them left behind. It takes you to underground cities and volcanoes and obsidian tombs, but the whole thing was tedious, boring, and not fun.
There were no puzzles or challenges (excluding a single parkour challenge, which was boring, lazy, and not fun), and it was simply go here, read note, now go here, follow the glowstone, read note, go here. Incredibly dull. I thought this may have been some elaborate intro to the real map, but no.
There is not to much to say about this map, it doesn't have anything to critique, it is literally nothing.
The architecture is nice. I'll give you that.
Oh yeah, in the Underground city, there was no priest or reverend or anything to get the key from! I spawned in a lever.
Its possible I missed it, but can you make it more obvious then? Cause I saw nothing.
This map is just really boring.
The end was very inconclusive. I got to the obsidian tomb. There was no way out, there were no notes left, but the note said I should keep going. What? Something about following explosions? There was no way out of the room flamer189! There were patches of non obsidian (dirt, stone and the like) that I dug out, but that just led me to the redstone wiring.
There was one part I kinda almost enjoyed. There was an iron door leading to the obsidian room, there was a lever next to it, I pulled it and the floor was ripped from under me and I fell on a glass platform.Then there was that one stupid jumping puzzle. That surprised me a little.
So overall, a very dull map. DND.
CUBE Inc. by CWHunt456
Adventure
This map is, whew, uh, well, the word "good" comes to mind, but I am hesitant to use that word because this map, it has thoroughly exhausted the minecraft right out of me. I don't know how, but man, I might need to take a break. This map took up a good 2 hours or so, AND I DIDN'T EVEN FINISH! That's right, I got stuck. More on that later. This map is different in a way I can't put my finger on, and I don't think I like it. Or maybe I love it... I'm not sure anymore.
Uhh, I don't even know how to start this, a million thoughts are whizzing through my brain, (a good 50% or so are about this map), and I have no idea how to begin.
Well how about the beginning?
You are a worker at Cube Inc. (Not a scientist, a worker, a grunt, a grunt in WAY over your head), and from somewhere in Cube Inc., deep in the bowels of experimental research, the nether is discovered, and Cube Inc. is aiming to capitalize off of the Glowstone, Netherrack, and Soul Sand unique to the netherthat only they have access to. Well, as usual, a bad thing happens. The nether releases a disease. A disease that when contracted kills you, but not by conventional means.
If you catch the illness you are murdered by someone around you soon after contracting it. And the murderers are perfectly pleasant normal people, until they see someone with the taint.
Cube Inc. facilities, factories, and labs are shut down and abandoned, and the nearby communities are evacuated. You are the last worker and are sonn to head out forever, when you see something that catches your eye. (I forgot the acronym, AARGH, lets call it the ABCD. I can't remember what it is called.)
The ABCD is a secretive project that you have only heard about and you know it has SOMETHING to do with the disease. So naturally before you leave, you snoop around to see what's what. You enter a room and push a button. Hundreds of
You are given two choices. Leave. Or do some tests and find out just how deep the Rabbit-hole goes. (In case you are wondering. Pretty freakin deep)
Me, the rebellious spirit I am, chose leave. Wrong choice. I went on a minecart ride straight through pool of lava. Luckily, I respawned right outside the two choices. I was tempted to try and leave again, but for the sake of YOU CWHunt, I chose test.
Some parkour, blah, nothing special.
Oh wait, did you think everything up to this point was the plot? Oh nononononononono. That was the intro.
Eventually you find out the ABCD isn't really working, so you are taken to the Cube Inc. Standard testing area, where they test blocks for safety and effectiveness. There is a door to leave. I leave. "Bad Ending" That's what the sign said.
I break back in to do more testing. Hey! Guess what! There is an AI to monitor testing! HMMM! What VALVe game does this remind you of? I'll give you a hint, it's not TF2, or Half-Life, or Left 4 Dead, or DOTA, or Counter-Strike. Beyond that, the AI is some weird mutated child of Wheatley and GLADoS.
Beyond that you snuck in a Fallout reference. Very impressive. (It might have been unintentional)
So much testing. So much. An hour's worth of testing at least. This is almost as long as actual Portal.
You find out that the AI, *gasp*, is corrupt and evil and is gonna kill you! I'm surprised it didn't try to kill you via monorail platform to fire pit.
But even then more testing is required, and then you have to go through caves, and then you are in a bubble then you have to dig to a mine then you have to find a really creepy undrground environment with a house in it then there is something about poison gas then apparently everything you come into contact with is a hallucination then you wake up then you have to kill the AI then you go into a cryogenic sleep chamber then you wake up to an enormous explosion created cavern AND THAT'S WHERE I GOT STUCK. More on that later.
If any of you are thinking "What the hell?", I'm with you. For a map that is so story-driven your story makes NO FREAKIN SENSE. You have less focus then trying to look at fine print with a pair of binoculars. With a piece of wax paper between the binocular lenses.
This is 50 different maps glued together with the saliva of Gabe Newell.
Let's talk about the bad things.
-It's too long. Yes, WAY too long. Its ridiculous. It is comical how long this map is. I got to chapter seven. How many are there? Stay focused, make multiple maps. You have enough material to make like 4 good, short maps.
-You need more original puzzles. This has so much parkour it could be a Adventure/Parkour Map. Normally that's a bad thing. And it still kind of is. But you did it well. You just made too much. And THAT is why I don't do pure Parkour maps. There is only so much you can do with parkour. Possibilities are very limited.
-You are obviously taking a lot from Portal. Why leave out the Comedy? I don't mean "The cake is a lie.", I mean the genuine billiards cue to the balls humor from Portal. Adlez was funny! THis isn't. I think I saw you trying to be funny though, you just failed.
-The weird, natural-themed combat is weird, and out of place.
-Are you trying to crash my computer? HUGE environments with little purpose? Constant, pointless movement? (Particularly in long Minecart rides (speaking of which, I got my "On A Rail" achievement.)) SO MUCH TNT? Which brings me to my last point.
-Ahhh, finally, where I got stuck. Chapter 7, Cryo-chamber. I pressed the button, TNT everywhere but no way to leave the room. I eventually fly out and see the cave of caves. This thing is enormous. And utilizing my render distance, I saw an entrance to a rectangular hole miles away. I flew towards it, sadly, I never found it.
Honestly, play at your own risk. I didn't talk too much about the GOOD aspects of the map, but the rating says it all.
Corruption of Hades by TLBF
Adventure
An interesting theme was chosen for this map, Greek mythology. The only reason I know what the hell any of the notes mean is because of that movie, Percy Jackson. Never read the book, seemed a little childish. Despite being incredibly linear, this map was interesting, unique, and actually intrigued me so I was was ready to finish. Shame I couldn't.
You are Lucio. A wandering demi-god. (Demi-god means half-man, half-god, again, the only reason I know that is from that movie) You come across a village that has been cursed, all leaves are now wooden planks! That people have built houses in! Why is that bad? Wooden planks are hella lot more useful then leaves. And living in them seems like a pretty sweet deal. AND, apparently only a few trees are affected, because looking into the distance, I saw plenty of leafy trees. Its details like that map makers, its details like that... that make the difference between a good map, and an awesome map.
Anywho, wandering around I eventually found the entrance to the complex of wooden-hut-tree-houses-neighborhood-village-thing. I then realized I was just wandering around the winding series of tunnels, hallways and rooms with a wooden shovel looking for brown wool. Only brown, I saw some grey, but not yet! I need a stone shovel first. I finally found a patch of brown wool. YES! I thought... oh, just a little bonus room with some stew and a sword. I eventually found a stone shovel lying around. What was the purpose of the wooden shovel? To trick me? TO DRIVE ME INSANE? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT? IS IT? HUH??!!
Sorry about that, erm... back to the review
I broke through a great wall of grey wool to reveal a 2x1 glass hallway. My memory is fuzzy here, but I remember a combat-maze, a combat tree made out of gold and diamond, and then I went to the nether for some parkour action. The story seems to have no idea where its going, like it is greek-themed for the hell of it.
Oh yeah, despite misleading assumptions, this is a very combat-heavy map.
In the maze, I found blue wool, which can only be broken by a diamond shovel. ooohhhh. But I never found one. Looking back I realized I had some diamonds, but it didn't occur to me to craft one because A. The previous shovels were given to me, and B. you don't usually craft in adventure maps. But if that wasn't the solution, then I never found the shovel. So I used my fist!
I am close to the part where I died because of a map flaw.
Apparently at some point you are asked some questions about who you are with iron doors. I had no way to open them. SO using trusty single-player commands, I turned on instant mine and answered the questions THAT way.
And don't say "You did it wrong", because this map is WAY too linear for me to mess up at all.
I eventually found the diary of Persephone, (In a chest with some rose red dye in the shape of a heart), which I know (Because of that movie) is Hades' wife. Apparently I am Hades and I am hallucinating vividly and I went on a killing spree and there was no curse, people just built on trees because of flooding, and all this weird stuff. This is SO SCREWED UP. Yeah its a twist, but so is pouring mountain dew inside your car as anti-freeze, that doesn't mean you should do it! Then there was a hole with some wa-wa at the bottom, so I jumped. Wheee!
YOU DIED!
SCORE: &%$#
What?
eh-emm?
What?
This map also has no checkpoint save so I am stuck. Either I start over or RAGE-QUIT -IT-it -it -it
I did the latter.
This map, besides being broken, is rather tedious, despite having a unique theme. The story up until that "twist" was simple and pure, so it was a nice plot.
Honestly, I would not recommend it, but hey, there are worse maps then that out there.
Eronev Mansion Adventure by Jigarbov
Adventure (at its finest)
Yeah, I just did that.
This map is intriguing, fun, funny, long, (but not too long), diverse, original, has multiple endings, dynamic NPC's (No mods required), holy crap this list is long. Its pure epicness. (Is it epicity? IDK) You deserve so much praise, but, you are not without flaws. Review time.
The plot origins are a play off of the minecraft journey itself, which I thought was quite interesting. Apparently you have gone out to have some adventure, mining, crafting, building, and so forth, and now, more mature, you come back to your hometown. Unfortunately, people are disappearing, and everyone suspects the old man who owns this enormous mansion.
The story itself is a bit out there, and it twists in on itself creating a very strained ending sequence, but what's cool about it is that there are multiple endings. Spoiler Alert: I got the WORST ONE. There are all sorts of gold bars everywhere, and those are your score, I got Explorer Jr., which is the 3rd rank up. So... yay?
You may have noticed that I did not summarize the plot, this is for two reasons.
1: I do not know all the endings
2: You really should just play this yourself
There are several features that make this map easy to love. Redstone work is absolutely STELLAR. Just the little things make it SO AWESOME. The specialized too feature was interesting, basically you need a sword to cut through cobwebs, a diamond pick to break through Mossy Cobble, a diamond Shovel to break through clay, and a diamond axe to break through Birch. This was very interesting because it created a progression of sorts while saving space. THe corruption of Hades did a similar thing, but yours was much more finely executed.
The feature that pushed me over the edge? The NPC's.
Yes they are pumpkins on sticks, that is not what matters. What matters is that the old man will actually have different signs after you do certain tasks, I guess its done using explosions? Or pistons? I really don't know, I didn't investigate because I didn't want to lose the immersion I experienced.
There are flaws believe it or not. Besides some typos, your tasks were often unclear, and ill-defined. I usually just wandered around (finding a lot of gold) until I saw signs. The minecart room could have been done a little better, it was confusing at its best, and downright ugly and bothersome at its worst. Don't criss-cross all your tracks! Keep them isolated. There were a few areas where I fell into the redstone chambers, but that was probably my fault in retrospect.
The combat seemed like a "For the hell of it" addition. Yeah, it was fun, but it felt a little out of place.
This is a great balance of Linear gameplay and Open world exploration and choice. Speaking of which, I decided to not save any of the people, and I brutally mrdered the captured ones with lava... (BY ACCIDENT MIND YOU!) So, maybe I could have done a little better.
This is an RPG reminiscent of Fallout or Elder Scrolls. (That is a BIG complement mind you.) More people should play this. Its no wonder Albarel(?) recommended this to me. Simply Fantastic.
Play this. If you play nothing else, play this.
Paradox = toppled. This is now the map to beat.
Shattered Earth by Nantang
Adventure
(Hey, tough luck being right after eronev mansion adventure)
Alright, I have finally got around to playing another map! I glad it wasn't a fluke, (See: Crazy or Dark Forest), and it held my interest... for a while.
Its a basic, generic map beginning with a guy in a village sent off to do some quest. Except this is the year 3011. 1000 years ago, scientists destroyed the world because it was corrupt (?!) and blew it up. Unfortunately (for them anyway) a magical tower, lets call it Crazy Glue tower, helped the world stick together. (DO U SEE WAT I DID TER?) This plot point bothers me because you just went from science to magic with no stops in-between. Pick a side!
Anyway, Crazy Glue tower is experiencing some trouble, (maybe it ran out of horses... I kid, I kid), and it is up to YOU random villager to fix it!
You go through some some people's houses to gather material and you set off on Storyteller Morgan's orders. You come to a small city whose purpose is to guard the tower, and apparently they suck at their jobs because they need you. Evil things called Wind Walkers (I immediately thought Zelda, but no, there is an "l" there), want to finish what the scientists started by destroying the Crazy Glue tower, (remember that is not it's real name). But hey! Before you can do that, go into a monster infested mine and get a stupid sword! Yeah, that'll waste a lot of time!
Anyway, you finally "prove yourself" and get to go. Wait! Things are stolen! Go to the Wind Walker Castle wich is literally 30 SECONDS AWAY. It's like TF2, the bases are right next to each other! You go through their castle filled with monsters doing stupid math puzzles and some pathetic parkour to find the things. And then you find out the guy telling you to do this has been dead for ten years! So that means he is an impostor!
Oh and you're village is destroyed.
You go back and see that he conveniently left the tools for you to get to the crazy glue tower. After getting there, Surprise! More parkour.
Finally get to the top and you see that he is already there and he stole the heart of the Crazy Glue tower, and he escapes! You follow him beneath the lava-filled crater that the tower hovers over, and he falls to his death and you take the netherrack heart back up to the tower (doing the parkour over again) and light it. Finishing the game.
All "NPC" work is just different note being read at different times, not dynamic like a certain other map.
I expected to see more awesomely destroyed landscape like I saw at one bridge, but it was surprisingly natural. This is the perfect map to put soem awesome stuff. Just blow TNT up everywhere! It would look better then it does...
It's a bit boring, scratch that, it's pretty boring. There are no interesting puzzles to hold your interest, and the story is "meh" at best. I am not even sure why I enjoyed your map as much as I did, (which while not a lot, it was substantial), I guess it's greater then the some of it's parts.
This is one of those maps I guess, there is nothing really wrong with it... its just not that great.
Floating Island by Waber3
Adventure
For a map I couldn't finish this is a pretty good score.
This is a very average adventure map, not great, not terrible, just good. Puzzles weren't boring, but nor were they impressive. It's a tad long... I think I got to a point where I almost finished, before giving up at one point, and it took me a good hour or so.
Hey, and I played this all 1.8.1 style! I'll bring that up often...
The general structure is what I like to call a Templar Map. A Templar Map usually revolves around a few big "trials", usually elemental in nature, for instance, the Trial of Fire, The Fortress of Air, The Temple of Water, a few famous examples of Templar Maps are; Grizwald and the Restonians, Sunny Springs, and even Lost City of Adlez.
This map is based around you completing 4 of these temples, and then facing the fortress on the Floating Island.
The plot starts with you returning from some adventure or something back to your village, and there is a big floating island, (BOOM! We have a title!), that is sending "things" down to capture the villagers. Your uncle (Because apparently all protagonists are orphans), is one of the captured. You must go through two temples to get an iron ingot and piece of flint, respectively, to create flint and steel, to get past 1 block of white wool. The temples are basic parkour, and a little combat. And by a little, I mean a good amount.
Each temple also has a "Boss" Battle. Not the stupid AdventureCraft Boss which is a big skeleton with a gun, but this might be even worse.
There are two types of "Boss Battles" in video games, the Behemoth, usually used in first person shooters, one giant monster or otherwise that you must kill. This can be anything from a huge zombie to GLaDOS. The other is the Swarm, a bunch of smaller enemies is a giant wave. This is usually used in third-person games (think Diablo) and perhaps more famously, the zombie waves in Plants vs. Zombies.
Well the bosses here are swarms. Large Dungeons with multiple spawners in a themed room. You run in, find and pull a lever, and wait for about a minute. The door will then open. When I got to the ghast and pigmen room, I said "HELL TO THE NO" and switched to peaceful.
This map is rather combat focused, so don't think this is a POP (Play-On-Peaceful) map. (On an unrelated note, I decipher these acronyms to make sure everyone gets them, but they are pretty common, so do I even need to? Comment!)
Luckily, 1.8 brought crits, sprinting, gradual health repletion, and awesomer bow n arrow stuffs.
After passing those temples, I got to move on to a water temple which was rather simple, and finally a darkness temple, where I got lost in the obsidian maze.
Now to critique.
The Wood Temple was fine. No complaints there. It was parkour with a twist, spiders and skeletons. I enjoyed that one.
The Volcano Temple was rather nightmare-ish. The parkour was dull, and the maze where I had one block of netherrack to walk on between lava falls was absolutely nerve-wracking. I made it though. That temple needs to be redone completely. While I'm here, in the Creepingtons (cause I went there, LIKE A BAUSS), I fell through the hole, but didn't die. I spent 15 minutes digging out stone with my fists to get to the top again. No mobs would spawn for some reason... Make that hole 20 times depper, or send it to the void!
The Water Temple was also pretty bad, in the underwater maze, if it weren't for a glitch where I can randomly get air by pushing up against the ceiling, I would have given up then and there. But the floating water boat parkour jumpy thing was neat, but I swam it because I hate boats.
The darkness temple was OK until the point of the Obsidian maze. (I LOL'd at yog-golf)
Which brings me to the my next point, this map is funny. Quite funny actually. It had this sort of "Whatever! LOL!" feel about it. And the constant talking about the map broke the fourth wall and turned immersion into a joke! A funny one too!
Overall, this map is very OK. That's not a bad thing! If you are bored and have played all the good maps then OK maps are just dandy! So this might be worth a play, but I have to admit, the length-to-fun ratio is disappointing.
Elemental by Golgot100
Adventure
Remember my reviews are based off of my own experience, this could just be a spot of bad luck for you, (though I doubt it). Elemental's "story" seems to be only relayed to you through the forum post, and some gibberish in Map note form. THere is nothing to hold your interest or even move forward. In fact, I don't understand why other people gave this map such high reviews!
You start out in a room with no story or anything. I went to the forum post and found some nonsense about you failed to capture "Nemi Siss" (yeah I get it, Nemi Siss, Nemesis, It's not clever) and now you are shamed. Your mentor is now testing you.(?) OH HEY! What do you know! A map based around testing! How Original! (not)
The first "challenges" are not even challenges, running through lava, following a current, meh. Eventually it got ridiculously broken looking. I ended up breaking a lot of blocks, because no direction was given. THe puzzle philosophy here seems to be I'll throw you in a room with some features, there is a door, open it by going through more random rooms with no purpose. Some might say this is an escapecraft-esque approach, it's not. Escapecraft was focused, attainable, and most importantly, fun. This was none of those.
I didn't actually finish the map, in fact I don't even think I got very far. I got to a point where I was in a canal of water that seemed to go nowhere, but it stretched down pretty far as I could tell, so I took a big breath, and dived down. got to the botom where I saw some boats, I tried to get in them, but it was useless, I drowned, and didn't go back.
The architecture is point of maps some people say I overlook, so here goes it.
The buildings in this map are pretty bland too!. Nothing impressive, very basic structures and what looks like some basic MCEdit. Honestly I was thoroughly disappointed in this map.
Would I recommend? No? No. No I would not. Perhaps I have been spoiled by the likes of Eronev Mansion and Paradox, but that shows how much division there is the mapping community.There are great maps, and then there are bad maps. Very few in-between.
Sorry Golgot. I love how active you've been!
Escape Room 234 by VKRxbetterthanyou
Adventure/Combat????
This map is pretty terrible. It is about escaping from a sciencey-lab-type-testing-experimenty-thing. By the way, that hasn't been original since Portal 1. Oh, and guess what, there are zombies. Of course there are.
Basically this map is set up in a way where there are a bunch of rooms you have to travel through, revealing a story, some combat, and some parkour over deadly pools of lava. Hey, guess what, again, pathetic, unoriginal, and boring.
Apparently you are a person who wakes up in a sciencey-lab-type-testing-experimenty-thing to find two people around you, that you need to work with to escape. You get through a room with some zombies, and that is the last combat you see for a while. You basically travel through hallways with each room having nothing but some signs talking about these two people Mike and Mindy, or whatever, I don't remember their names. Blah Blah blah, 10 rooms later you find out mike is the one who caused the zombie, well, I hazard to call it an infestation because theere actually aren't that many zombies. Then you go through a room with 3 zombie spawners and an iron door on the other side with a chest next to it. I open the chest, LO AND BEHOLD! A LEVER! I place it next to the door and leave. I'm outside. "Thanks for playing!" Yeah, thanks for wasting my time.
The redstone is ATROCIOUS. SO HORRIBLE. I WANT TO PUT REDSTONE TORCHES IN MY EYES! AAAAAAAHHHHH! A double piston door with two levers on each side of the room. One lever opens one side of the door, one side opens the other. You make 0 attempts to cover-up your redstone, and hidden piston doors are supposed to be, well, hidden. USE FRICKEN STICKY PISTONS! FOR GOD'S SAKE!
Overall, a terrible map. DND DND DND
Starburst by megahostile123
CTM
For a CTM? Meh... For a Non-Vechs CTM? Not bad.
CTM's are the lovable half-genre created when survival maps were given meaning and purpose by Vechs. I have yet to see any CTM that can hold its own against the original CTM creator, Vechs. I love Vech's Maps, and I hate how all AdvSurv/CTM maps must be compared to his because frankly, they are all maggots in comparison.
So starburst, I originally thought the candy, maybe because its halloween and a bunch of little kids in monster and insect costumes are going to coming around to kick down my door for sugar. Ahh, tis the season. Well at least there are TF2 updates, (speaking of which, I got haunted metal today in TF2, awesome!)
I cannot focus on the map, sorry, mm, sorry, that was a fun board game...
STAY FOCUSED SYNTHION
When I first loaded up this map my screen was raped by signs, signs everywhere, at least 20 signs, most of it nonsense, considering the creator's vicious rape and murder of grammar on the forums, I didn't expect much better in the map.
I then realized I was on a planetoid, a sphere, and I said OH GOD ITS SPHERECRAFT. I was right, this is very much like spherecraft, so please refer to my review of that for more details. I was also given many starting materials, including 64 torches, a stone sword and pick, and more.
I turn around and lo and behold a great creeper statue made of different colored wool that bleeds zombies. Yay. THe first thing I did is collect all the different wool from the creeper, and say, wow, I already have 5 colours of wool! I then said to myself fine, I'll get it the right way, despite this obvious issue.
The creeper had dungeons within it that leaked zombies to the outside world. INstead of doing the dungeons correctly, I did them the CTM way, I dug under, and destroyed the spawner and looted the chests from underneath, then going to kill the remaining zombies. This was the first sign of a recurring issue I will discuss later.
So white wool collected, I decided to collect materials from the sphere and make a home. And by home I mean 3x3x2 hole in the ground with a door and a chest. Ahhhh, CTMs. I found coal, wood, and a whole lot of dirt. I then built a wool bridge across to the the nearest sphere, one made out of clay.
There was a giant spaceship, bleeding spiders and skeletons. My experience with this one was largely similar, except I got orange wool, and met a ton more spiders, skeletons, and guess what, a SPIDER JOCKEY! DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!
I explored a few more spheres and then quit to play some tf2. So review time?
It's freakin spherecraft with some sightseeing tours and a crap-load of spawners. What can I say?
Architecture was nice, but the thing is, I should rarely ever say that in a CTM, CTMs aren't about architecture, they are about survival in EXTREME environments that are original and creative. WHich brings me to my main point, the creator of this map doesn't seem to understand how to make a CTM. I bet if he put his mind to it he could build a linear, combat focused adventure map, or a themed survival map, but this person is obviously a novice CTM maker, don't worry though, stick to it and you'll get better. I haven't played his other map, so I can't vouch for that one.
But behind all of this is still the fact that it's FREAKIN SPHERECRAFT.
Would Irecommend? Maybe. But let me put it this way, if Vech's maps (anyone of them) are delicious, rich Devil's food cakes, this is a cold banana-nut mini muffin at best. I don't like banana-nut.
Hell's Highway by MistaGrinch
CTM
More CTM fun. Yay. :dry.gif: Regardless, I was pleasantly surprised by this. I daresay I enjoyed it. It's a very different kind of map, it feels more like an adventure map despite it being clearly a CTM. So review time?
I RAN OUT OF ROOM. DARN. Review on page 27
---To-Do--- (in order)
Mars Mission
Garfield
Bloodycross Castle 2
CastleAge Adventures
Mineton City
Spherecraft #4
Wappantamwa
The Clock
Desert of Death
Poor Pete's Pumpkin Problem
Assault of the Mobs
The Forest of Silence
The Mystery of Zephyr Fields
The Lie
The End
Minecraft Town
The Cure
Escape Through Trials
Reach
Survival Islands
The Unrealistically Impossible CTM Series
Curse of the Monolith
Enigma Island
Ball Survival
Escape the Puzzlemaster
Ravine Survival
Monarch of Madness
Tests in nowhere
Lux Perpetua
Bipolar playmate
The Institution
Fetch Quest
The Runner
The Goldmine
Meteor Mash
Assassin's Creep
The Warehouse Challenge
Puzzle Runner
Castle-Vania Rebirth
Pixel Survival
The Alchemical Portal
The Floating Island Survival Map
Nehr's Funhouse (of no return)
Land of Wool
Drowned World
The Bridge
Foursand Survival
As regular readers know, I tragically have to turn down multiplayer maps.
So, I am looking for a partner. Now this is not an easy position, in fact I would be surprised if anyone fits the description.
-Must provide server
-Flexible Schedule
-Skype, (for chat, not actual voice)
-Preferably a map maker or fellow reviewer
-If your map is currently in queue I will not allow you to partner to make sure I'm not biased.
-If your map has already been played through,and you got ABOVE a 2-star rating, I would be happy to have you on board
If YOU, RANDOM VIEWER, think you have what it takes, then apply!
Application
IGN:
What you want me to call you:
Age (optional):
Experience:
Have you made any maps?:
Have you reviewed maps?:
What is your server like?:
Would you be willing to co-review?:
Thanks, and Good luck!
I accept nearly all maps that come my way, with two glaring exceptions. Co-op, (which I'm working on), and Parkour. I judge maps on execution, aesthetic, originality, and perhaps most importantly, the "WOW" feature. Be it Eronev's Dynamic NPCs, or Paradaox's Time-Travelling, there must be something that sticks out at you. Unfortunately, there is only so much you can do with parkour. You can jump across gaps and climb ladders. Perhaps excellent map-makers may find more stuff to put in, but that is just delaying the issue.
Parkour is very limited, and it just cannot be compared to other CTMs or Adventure maps. You can basically copy-paste parkour sections into different maps and no one would know the difference.
Most adventure maps have at least some parkour, (even mine do), but that cannot be stretched out into a whole map. It's like taking the cheese off of a burger and selling it as it's own sandwich.
TL;DR They are limited and boring.
I've heard of your map, on the to do list and will have the honor of the first map I review!
Through The Gate
Levi's Nightmare-
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/526227-adv-levis-nightmare-dark-125-dls-in-1-day/page__p__6938071#entry6938071
Thanks!
Just finished Diamond comet, will write up review.
Maybe if I ever get a partner, but for now no multi player maps. Sorry.
Adventure
Where to begin. I have heard a great deal about this map, and I believe another very tough reviewer listed it as one of his favorites.
You are a scientist who apparently is the only one who can or will stop a diamond comet from crashing into earth and killing everyone. Apparently many rich people believe this comet will somehow spare them and they will harvest the diamond and become even richer.
Let me just say that plot is as flimsy as dog's tail on it's way to be euthanized. But that is not what matters.
This is first and foremost very incorrectly labeled. This is a Puzzle map or at best a hybrid. There is nothing wrong with a puzzle map, I enjoy them very much, but this is not an adventure map. Having a story does not make it an adventure map like how having to collect wool does not make it a CTM.
Most of the puzzles are unique (with a few exceptions) but at the cost of being uninteresting. The trapdoor parkour was just boring, and the trapdoor run was just annoying. The whole "numbers" schtick was quite the bugger. I noticed the sign, but didn't realize they would be floor patterns, so imagine my frustration when I went back through the map just to find the numbers. While this is likely more my fault then mine, this is a perfect example of a tedious difficult puzzle, instead of an EXCITING difficult puzzle.
I found no errors in Spelling or Grammar, and the general structure was appealing.
Redstone work was very good, there were instances where I saw wire, (a big no-no), but it didn't really detract from the experience. I did not like your exhibition of your redstone work through glass after some challenges. I get that you are proud of it and maybe we could learn about redstone a little, but that was honestly just annoying. It detracted form the experience AND I couldn't learn about redstone because I couldn't go up and examine it. I would have walled it up.
The minecart idea, while not original (I independently came up with it myself as well), is appreciated and definitely helped the overall spirit of the map.
The parkour was fine, nothing too exciting and it felt a little out of place, but it was nice.
The water challenge was SO ANNOYING. It nearly ruined the map it was so annoying. Maybe its just me, but I would AXE THAT.
The end was a flimsy one story-wise, but then again so was the whole thing, But if there is one truth in this world, its that the best way to end an adventure map is with TNT.
Overall, this is a short, fun map that is worth a play. It is a good map, nothing more, nothing less. Looking forward to the sequel.
Thanks for the review! Yes the story is a bit flimsy, I'm not the best at storytelling, (practically failed at it at school). Anyways, I thank you for taking your time reviewing my map! I'm taking in your points and hopefully make the sequel better.
I worked on it for hours!!! I just want a simple review.
Added to the to do list.
ALso, "finished" the gate will write, "a review"
Adventure
No rating
I will not rate this one because either this map is completely broken or I messed up big time. I followed the path read the signs with a cliche opening and eventually saw the gate. However the path lead me elsewhere, more specific, a dock with boats that i took down the river where I got off at another dock and found a ruined tower with a bed and stairs leading upwards. I took these stairs and ladders and found a ruined roof. Nothing else. I looked around and saw a staute with a man and a sword and an entrance, so I went off the trail to enter, it was nothing but a view. I said screw it and went back to the gate and broke my way through. There was a large elaborate pathway with oblivion on all edges. I followed and in many places the bridge was broken, I saw some pressure pads but could not reach them so I spawned in some dirt with TMI and built my way across. I found an absolutely enormous and beautiful castle that I entered with strange fixtures and a single sign. R.I.P. Gate Builders. On some of the tombs(?) I found some levers I pulled every one and they did nothing. Except for 1 which just slid a piston in an extremely uninteresting and inconsequential way.
At this point I looked around some more and saw some stuff in the distance but no way to get anywhere. I gave up. I quit and deleted the map.
The structures were simply breathtaking, but the map sucked. (or maybe I just ballsed it up)
Its a survival map called zombie forest.
Click my sig.
Ahh! Spherecraft creator! I'd be happy to review one of your maps! Which one?
And That is a good idea!
Also, zombie forest is added to to-do list as well.
Adventure
Well, this map has been lulling around on the front page for a while. The request for a review was an interesting challenge, because am I going to have to reveal how horrible the map truly is? Or will I just really enjoy this map?
The answer is number 2.
A cliche but satisfactory opening of amnesia was also made more interesting by the fact you start at night. This is not the best idea, I would recommend Sunset, as it gives players a chance to get their bearings, but nevertheless, it was an interesting opening.
It is an open-world linear adventure map. Contradictory? No, it is open world on the basis that it is exploration based, but with a linear story. This is a balance many game studios have been trying to achieve for decades so congrats on that little feat.
You are Levi, who wakes up with absolutely no knowledge of anything. The only reason you know your own name is it is stitched into your coat. You walk through deserted villages and towns with strange black mold everywhere. This mold, according to diaries of townspeople (which apparently EVERYONE has) is killing everything and turning them into zombies.
This is not exactly an adventure map the same way the Jal' Poi island series isn't a puzzle map. It is a movie with minecraft as its medium. There is 0 interactivity, no puzzles, challenges, or trials. And if you're lucky (or unlucky) you might have to fend off a zombie or two. There is near 0 combat.
What? A dark, zombie themed map with no combat? Surprised me too.
Redstone was a little broken, some of the "Test Chambers" didn't work and the sheep one dropped two wolves.
Another mistake is in the spoiler
Leaving the Portal, into the nether, the pressure pads didn't blow up the portal at first. I think one of them doesn't work but the other one does. I had to go back and step on that one.
I HATED how far you had to travel between stations. I actually gave up and flew across the lake with SPC just to hurry things along.
This is a tedious map with an interesting story. The architecture is meh. The atmosphere is meh. The general feel is very meh. But the story is fantastic. All three stars are directly from the story.
This is something you should do as a viewer, not as a player.
PS: It is not nearly as dark as everyone says it is.
Added to the todo list