Hello! Welcome to our map reviews. Our goal for this topic is to create organized, trustworthy reviews. Our reviews are thorough, highlighting negative and positive aspects of each map. We will also rate it out of 10, based on the criteria found below. We have a growing team of quality-tested reviewers who give experienced, objective reviews for both the average player, and the prestigious map maker. Thanks for checking out our reviews! I hope you enjoy.
The Team
So far we have five reviewers, myself (Kmilley), StreamofAdventure, Fangride, Jemlee, and Zres. I started this thread a while ago and have created many reviews since then. After getting an overwhelming amount of map requests, I decided to ask some reviewers to help me out. Now, our team delivers reviews on a semi-regular basis, and we try to give the best reviews we can for those who wish to read them. Also, if you see any reviews from people that are not shown above, they were once a part of the reviews, but are not anymore from whatever reason. The reviews remain, as they are all good quality reviews that follow the thread's standards.
How We Rate Maps
Section 1- Review
In this section we write about what is good and bad with the map. This is done based on the reviewer's experience and perspective. We will give suggestions and point out bugs we find. We will talk about how well executed the map is, and how much effort we believe was put in. We will usually end it by saying if it is worth looking at, playing, or to be ignored.
Section 2- Rating
We will rate all maps out of 10. Why did that map get a 5? Read below to see the guidelines. Please note: These are just guidelines, and there are always exceptions.
0-1 - The map was unplayable. It was so confusing that I could not figure out how to play or what to do.
1-2 - The map was bad. Little effort was put into it. The map looked very unprofessional overall.
2-3 - The map was fairly bad. Some effort was shown, but it looked very choppy in all.
3-4 - The map was not good. I found many errors, but it made sense. Not good, but not terrible.
4-5 - The map was very "meh". I found some parts to be interesting, It was not a waste of time, but not exactly time well spent.
5 - An average map.
5-6 - A decent map. I found it interesting. Overall, I liked it.
6-7 - A good map. It was interesting and effort is clearly shown.
7-8 - A very good map. The map kept me entertained throughout, and I found it very fun and interesting.
8-9 - A great map. I looked back after playing this map and thought "wow, now that's a map."
9-10 - An excellent map. This map blew my mind. Stood out from the rest. This map was unique and very fun.
10 - The best map I have ever played by far. This map was perfect in every way. This map is game changing.
Please note: We may be brutally honest with our reviews and ratings. If it is a good map, we will tell you, if it is a bad map, we will tell you. If you do note feel like you can take that kind of criticism, then don't submit your map.
After We Review...
If after we review you do not understand why you got the score you got, or you just feel you deserved better, feel free to tell us. Just leave a reply in the comments, and whoever reviewed your map will further explain why they gave you the score you got. In a rare experience, it is possible your reviewer misunderstood something in your map and gave you score you didn't deserve. This is rare though, so don't count on it.
Join The Team
Intro
Want to help review maps on this thread? Now you can! Right now we have three people doing reviews on the thread. My vision is that we will have a team of 5+ intelligent reviewers, all helping to give consistent reviews, that will be based of the criteria and style we are using currently. Open up the spoiler to learn more!
Reviewing Criteria
Before you even think of applying, note that reviews on this thread all have to meet a certain standard. Make sure that you realize what it takes to make an good review. A good review, in terms of this threads standards, has the following-
-Good writing, no spelling mistakes, everything is grammatically correct.
-USE THE RUBRIC. I have made a rubric for a reason. You must follow it when rating your maps out of 10.
-Be a good analyzer. Look for the good things. Look for the bad things. Find the bugs and write them down, and then clearly write them in your review.
-Do not be biased because of the genre of minecraft. Even if you do not like parkour, think of how fun it would be for other people, do not rate it down because of its genre.
-Make your reviews thorough. Make them about 3-5 paragraphs long. Remember that you need to fill up your review with quality information, that helps the reader understand what the map is all about.
-Be critical, but not ruthless.
-Use all of the necessary components of a review in this thread, including the bugs/tips section.
-Does not go through the events of a map one by one, but instead reviews the map through different sections (story, architecture, ect.) in paragraph form.
-Make the review for the reader, not the creator. If you have any tips or bugs for the creator, put them in the bugs/tips section.
Reviewer Submissions
Think you have what it takes? Fill out this application-
Username:
Age (optional):
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Map maker? (if yes, provide a link to map(s)):
Writing experience:
Review experience:
Have you read the entire "Join The Team" section of this thread?:
Additional info:
If I (kmilley) accept you, that does not mean you get to immediately start writing reviews for this thread. It means I will privately give you a test review to do. After that, I may give you more reviews to do, along with suggestions on how to improve your reviews. Once I feel you are ready, you will begin writing reviews for the thread, and will be given full credit for each review.
Map Submissions
What We Will Review
We will review a few genres of minecraft maps including...
Adventure
Puzzle
Parkour
WIP
AdventureCraft
Application
To submit a map just post the following application with all the appropriate information. We will not review maps that do not use this format. If accepted, you will be assigned a reviewer based on their availability. Once a reviewer has been assigned to your map, his name will be shown in brackets beside your map in the "To Be Reviewed" section.
After we review 15 maps in the "Latest Reviews" section, we create a review pack. We have three review packs finished, which can be found by clicking the link below:
I find that there are generally two categories of bad maps in the mapping community. There are the maps who try very hard to accomplish something grand and epic and fail to succeed. A majority of the less-than-exciting maps out there fall here. But there are also adventures that just don't seem to try. They go for what they think is "good enough," and leave it at that. The River is one of these maps, one that just doesn't seem to care about what it contains. It pains me to say that it is one of the weakest adventures I've played in Minecraft.
The map has an interesting premise. It sets out to be a role-playing adventure that allows you to retain the elements of Minecraft that you love (i.e. mining, crafting, farming, etc.), and gives you quests along a river that you seem to be following. Well, it sounds good on the surface. What could go wrong? Well, as it turns out, quite a bit.
I'll outline my playthrough before getting to the meat of my criticisms. I began in a shack with a rather large supply of expensive items, including iron and stone tools to start with. It tells me to follow the path of the river, and sets me off. I quickly found my way to a visually displeasing hallway of stone that just lay bare on the sand. I shrugged it off and then found my way into a large tree which had some mild appeal. The story within the tree revolved around a man who was trying to rid the area of a disease and commanded you to destroy the tree. After doing so, I continued on my path and came across a naturally spawning village right next to the river, which should never be included in any map whatsoever, let alone an adventure map. No story explanation was given either, giving me the impression that the creator didn't care. Adjacent to that was a very disruptive and awfully constructive "castle" that was completely hollow. I climbed the inside, switched sides, found myself underground, and then ended up at a deck just outside. The map then ended.
So... what happened? I can't say that I know myself, even after analysing what I could from the map. The story makes absolutely no sense, as you are given no explanation as to why you are even following this river in the first place. The segment involving the large tree is shoe-horned in, and although somewhat decent, it has no place in the storyline. The castle and the village beside it are never explained, leading to what is the most disconnected story I've ever seen.
The mapper also seemed to create the map without any regard for how the player would progress and enjoy what the map offered. Gameplay and progression were never put to the forefront of the mapper's concerns, as while playing the map I realized that the creator was only hell-bent on making the builds of the map. It's a shame, really, because the builds were also some of the least appealing I've seen in an adventure map yet.
Sadly enough, all that is left are the creator's buildings. The only half-decent creation I noticed was the large tree toward the start of the map. The village should have been removed and the castle reconstructed, as it feels very hollow, empty, and uneventful.
It is a pain to so harshly critique a map that seemed to at least try a fair bit, but I find myself reasonable in the comments I've offered. I think the mapper realized his creation wasn't strong but released it anyway without regard for whether it would be enjoyable. That was a mistake, and as a result The River is essentially half an hour of my life I would like to have back.
Bugs/tips -redesign the castle, add fences to outline its top, and include diversity in the form of towers
-scrap the natural village
-give a backstory as to why the player is following the river in the first place
-you need more than one side quest, as the included tree-quest wasn't very satisfying
-explain the appearance of the castle and its dock
The Convenience series has long been one of my favorite Minecraft creations, and for good reason. The first map was a decent, enjoyable map with plenty enough to thrill. The second stepped up the game, bringing much more to the table and delivering a stronger, more focused and solid story than the first. Now it's time for Lord of Bloodycross, the final chapter, to end the series in epic fashion without compromising the unique horror and thrill we've come to enjoy from the series. It's a joy to announce that map creator daDonn has done everything he's promised, and that Lord of Bloodycross will leave you breathless.
The adventure is adventure mapping at some of its finest. If you've played the previous adventures, you'll find the plot of the map very familiar. It won't be long before you realize that the map actually contains all three parts of the Convenience story arc in one adventure, and although the stories feel a little distant from each other, daDonn weaves all story bits from the previous two maps together in an almost seamless creation. The horror-suspense vibe of the previous adventures returns and is stronger than ever, with the storyline impressing throughout. The third chapter, or map, also impresses with the strongest story of the three chapters and multiple moral choices. The plot of the map is overall very well laid out, and quite commendable.
However, when you progress through the story, you most likely won't be marvelling at the plot itself. You'll be in awe at just how you are told the story. DaDonn perfects BlameTheController's already excellent method of using audio narration to convey the story. He mixes soundtracks from many a site with sound effects and really makes the world of the Bloodycross series come to life. The narration is easy to understand, dark, sounds professional, and never misses a beat. It is a very refreshing way to rediscover the plot of the first two maps and marvel at that of the third, even if you already know where the twists and turns are.
The difficulty of the map is kept at a safe level where the map can be finished, but a challenge is ensured. It relies quite heavily on combat but isn't light on puzzles and logic involving Minecraft mechanics (e.g. two seemingly-identical rooms may not function the same way). It involves a good mix of everything, even sprinkling in smaller bits of parkour when needed. However, the best parts of the map remain the puzzles, and daDonn knows this, so he keeps them at the forefront of obstacles delaying your progress.
Nevertheless, difficult challenges are never what propel you through the map. As with many role-playing style adventure maps, exploration and character motivation are put at the head of the map. Although the storyline is strictly linear, and there aren't side quests, it feels a great deal like the Cubeception series. You get the feeling that the world is whole, and even though you are only sticking to a certain path, you could leave and come across another castle or town. You can begin to relate with your character, and can liken yourself to him while exploring, because you really become the hero you are playing. The explorative aspect of the map is truly wonderful, because it gives you so much reason to believe in your hero and his world.
All in all, progressing through the map was one hell of a time, and so without a doubt the gameplay of the map was spot on. It is impeccably hard to nail the gameplay of a role-playing map without disrupting the atmosphere and still allowing for enough interaction between the player and the environment, but daDonn handles the challenge with ease. Moral choices in the third chapter are great to play through and feel much like content you'd get out of a professionally designed RPG game.
Role-playing adventures don't always require a great amount of detail or good visual appeal on a micro level, but it isn't surprising when daDonn includes fine furniture and medieval flare. The map is also beautiful when looked at on a macro level, as the castles, towns, and halls all look phenomenal.
The map relies heavily on the dark tones of horror, suspense, thrill, and obscure discovery, so it needs support from all aspects to uphold the adventure. The atmosphere is held secure by a dark story and creepily recorded narration, which really set the mood and help deliver a backing for character motivation. Exploring further strengthens the player's connection with the character he controls, and journeying through a visually impressive landscape solidifies the atmospheric suspense. The atmosphere also justifies the moral choices within the confines of the story, and although some seem a bit like they were thrown in there for the hell of it (the character is supposed to be strong-willed and good until the third chapter, so considering evil as a path to follow doesn't really seem realistic), nothing is overly awkward. The atmosphere is as strong as it needs to be, and is the sole reason you can immerse yourself in the world of Bloodycross.
Lord of Bloodycross provides a fine ending to a fantastic trilogy, one that has now changed how I look at Minecraft maps. It has its flaws, and although certain minor mistakes might pull you out of the experience for a short time period, you'll be back in the universe of Bloodycross within the minute. The map will leave you speechless after the experience, and so I without a doubt recommend it to any map player out there.
Bugs/tips -in Chapter 1, Scene 8 is a little hard to find. A little more prominence might make keep me in the experience instead of scrambling around to find what to do.
-adding a hint of selfishness or evil depth to the character in the first two chapters might help justify the player's consideration of evil in the final chapter.
It boggles the mind that an adventure can become so much more enjoyable when one simply takes the time to create a believable and immersive setting.
King of Hrothgaria is an adventure map that takes place in the fictional realm of Hrothgaria. The king mysteriously passes away, and with no hereditary heirs to the throne, the kingdom decides to hold a set of rigorous trials for potential candidates of the throne, testing their physical prowess and abilities in combat. The player is one of said candidates, and is vying for the title of king.
The first thing I notice in this map is that it is absolutely beautiful and full of visual detail. The creator obviously made much effort in creating pleasant aesthetics. The builds are massive; the points of interest being the royal castle and the stunningly large and gorgeous forest. The entire map may have been a pleasure to play simply because of how good it looked. I often found myself just stopping to smell the roses while walking down one of the paths!
The challenges themselves seemed fairly cookie-cutter. Fighting off zombies and destroying a monster's lair seems fairly standard for any adventure. What I found good, though, was that there was a very tangible consistency between challenges. Not once did I feel put off by the pacing of this map, and I never saw anything in this map that stuck out like a sore thumb from the rest. There were no random or badly-placed puzzles; the challenges made SENSE in the map's world. I found them rather difficult, but not frustrating. This was key: it was all strung together quite nicely and never became annoying or tedious for me. It wasn't just the challenges that had a nice progression, either. The storyline itself moved along in such a way that made for a very intriguing and believable experience. Still, I couldn't help but feel that the adventure as a whole was fairly unremarkable. In regards to what the player has to do to beat the map, it isn't anything special. However, it makes up for this greatly by simply being well-done in every way.
Overall, there are so many things that King of Hrothgaria excels at. The standards of this map are so high all around that I can't think of a single aspect that it was lacking in. It manages to have everything that an adventure map needs, and does it well. It's a solid map. Simply put, this map is GOOD, and I mean that sincerely. While not necessarily outstanding in terms of gameplay, this map still does everything right. With a world rich with detail, a good story, and fun challenges, this is a fantastic example of what an adventure map should be like. Go give it a shot, will you? And expect a sequel, because King of Hrothgaria 2 is in the works!
Bugs/Tips
-Check on your grammar and spelling mistakes. Really nitpicky here, I know, but try to make the map as polished as you can!
-There was a really deep open pit somewhere inside Castle Hrothgar's walls. I fell into it, nearly died, and got trapped until I switched to creative and had to fly back up.
I don't have much to say about It Never Ends. It's a work in progress, and I can infer by the most recent version's two levels and its version number (0.2) that it is missing 80 percent of the full production. That's quite a bit of work that is missing to even be considered to be uploaded, I think.
For what little there actually is, the map consists of two bland and frustrating mazes. They both are rather large, and they both are tedious. Combining these two elements turns the entire experience rather tiresome and stale. There aren't any interesting builds, no original gameplay, and an extremely weak story (about a guy being trapped in a maze, naturally.)
There is nothing redeemable about this map, if it can even be considered a map at all. There isn't enough material in it, and the material that IS in it is far more annoying than it is fun. Perhaps infinitely so.
Bugs/tips
-Think about how your players might feel when they play your map. Sympathy is a fantastic skill in mapping and, well, everything!
-Come up with a significant amount of work before you upload it for everyone.
-Large and winding mazes could be a refreshing change of pace, but it tires people out very quickly. They're confusing, and confusion leads to frustration. Unless you can find a way to make mazes interesting, I personally don't recommend making them your entire map.
Hybrids between mapping genres are always a bit messy. That's how the CTM genre began with Vechs, as a minor survival/adventure crossover. Look at how far those crossovers have come. Despite this, I had my doubts about a hybrid bridging parkour and adventure. Would it be self-sustaining, interesting enough to keep me engaged without puzzles or combat? I didn't think so when I first came across this adventure in its early stages. But Cubeception proved me wrong, with its strong story and well integrated jumping puzzles. It was forgettable, however, and I wasn't absolutely thrilled by what it accomplished, instead opting to view it as merely a step in the right direction. But just a few months ago I rediscovered it and decided to see where it had gone since then. After playing through it once more, I must say how far it has gone since those first childish steps. Geminos and Piecia997 have creatively crafted one of the most memorable Minecraft adventures I've ever embarked on.
That's not to say it's without flaws. The somewhat lackluster visuals on a large scale and some confusing pathfinding predicaments are proof of that. But all of my complaints are uneventful and meaningless when you realize exactly just what Geminos and Piecia997 have accomplished. You'll find a phenomenal story waiting for you, incredible details, a mysterious and well thought-out atmosphere, and more if you're willing to begin the adventure. But trust me, you really want to play this map.
As I mentioned earlier, I was concerned with how the parkour and adventure hybrid would work, and thusly how the story would manage with no puzzles or combat-oriented experiences to boot. But the intricate tale these two prestegious map makers weave into the parkour is absolutely stunning. It is strong by any standards, and while it begins slowly, you begin to remember things from your past before too long. The whole plot feels like a puzzle whose pieces are scattered around, and while trying to complete it, you stumble upon new pieces of information that make you reconsider what you thought was certainly correct before. It all leads down an incredibly long four hour journey that rarely misses a beat, and finishes on a strong note that you won't see coming.
While playing through the adventure, you'll also stumble upon many gameplay techniques that are present. If you too are a map maker, I suggest you take notes. The layout of the overall plot is intelligently obscure, and so you discover new pieces of information along with consecutive parkour at intervals that are unusual and yet moving at the same time. The whole off-beat gameplay style of Cubeception plays out very similarly to Gloria, and so you are constantly awaiting new areas and story bits to complete your understanding of the map.
However, there are certain things regarding the gameplay that I felt Cubeception could improve on. For one, certain areas felt shoe-horned into the environment for the sake of simply providing more time in the map, and so as a result the adventure ended up carrying on for just a little too long. As someone who has played the map's sequel, I know that after playing certain maps the length of this one will be no problem, but it still feels a little dragged out. Thank God for the plot.
Pathfinding errors were a large portion of the problem here. Often I'd find myself lost or confused in certain areas, and while most often that sense of lostness was enjoyable, towards the end of the map it began to devolve into a problematic element. Yes, I'd want to continue, but I wouldn't exactly be happy during that relatively long time period.
Thankfully Geminos and Piecia997 have provided an in-depth walkthrough to guide new users into the complex nature of Cubeception. I am certainly happy to have such a guide to refer to, but at the same time I wish it wasn't necessary.
And yet despite all of this, you'll never feel like there's much out of place in the adventure. Most of the complaints read like afterthoughts, and they truly are, not to mention those of a critic. The average Minecraft player will likely never come across such flaws unless they go looking for them. That's exactly what a Minecraft map should play like, with appeal for everyone and flaws only if you endeavor to spot them.
Which is why the successes flaunted in the adventure are so much more prominent. Take the aesthetics for example. Builds are so-so on a large scale, as there's only so much you can do with a cube, but the minor details like furniture, sewer systems, the interiors of villages, and the like are fantastic. And they really give the feeling that while the map is strictly linear, you could get lost in its complex web of builds. No two areas look the same, so you'll constantly be surrounded by refreshing visual appeal.
Atmospherically, the map really shines. The story is largely to thank for this, because it vastly helps the overall feel of the map, but every aspect contributes. The overly long playtime of the map and those occasional poorly thought-out areas where you can get lost certainly make their mark, but there's always new great content around the corner. As a player embarking on this adventure, you'll realize this, and so character motivation is brought to the next level. I'm happy to say this adventure's atmosphere is one to remember.
All map players who've made it this far, think of the score this map received as the appeal of the map to a reviewer, not a simple player. I'm obligated to address its content in a critical way, and so I hope what you've read reflects that. As a player, I really loved the adventure. As a critic, I recognize the way the map adds up and notice its flaws, but can't stop myself from still thoroughly enjoying it. That's precisely why you need to pick up this map from its thread. You need to play it and realize all that it brings to the table. I highly recommend it to any fan of parkour, adventure, and certainly anyone in between.
Bugs/tips -there are some minor grammatical errors and spelling errors toward the beginning of the map
-some background music would be very nice, and would boost the already solid atmosphere even higher
-I like that sense of lostness until it gets too repetitive, so I'd recommended making a few areas easier to find
-it's a little too late to fix this now, but for future reference, don't make the map 4 hours long (and Cubeception 2 was freakin 6 hours, for Christ's sake) because it wears out the story to a degree where it just is stretched out too far
Maxwell’s escape was a truly enjoyable map. The story, while starting out as a quite generic escape mission stands out from the many other maps with the same baseline, evolving into an immersive story the player craves to complete. The puzzles were generally clever but not spectacular. What was best about them was that they blended in with the map so that the gameplay wasn’t like in a typical Minecraft puzzle map: 1. Get into a room 2. Solve the puzzle 3. Get into the next room 4. Rinse and repeat. The difficulty of the puzzles also got harder further you get in the map and they never failed to provide the player with something new and challenging and the player must remember to remain alert and aware of their surroundings and subtle hints for the puzzles.
The best part of the map was indeed the story and how it was told blending well with the gameplay and the puzzles. Overall, the map progressed very fluently and didn’t have much if any trenches of uncertainty and disorientation. The story begins in an unoriginal manner as the player is trapped inside an insert-name-and/or-purpose-here facility and has to escape. However the story evolves quickly, bringing in a vast array of different human relations and conspiracy theories of a small group of escapees in their desperate attempt to achieve freedom. The story was so well built that when finally reaching the end I felt sort of disappointed on how it all finally got to an end, hoping that the final scene would have been more than what seemed to be maybe a little rushed ending. Also in one point during the map there was a sudden lack of storytelling for a while which confused me a little after the more intense earlier parts.
As I already said the puzzles blended great with the flow of the map and the story, usually being subtle enough that the player hardly realizes they are doing one instead of just making progress travelling through the map. While not being wondrously original or well executed the enjoyment factor of the puzzles still rank high at least in my criteria.
While the story and the puzzles were the best parts of the map, the most notable downside was its design and architecture. They aren’t bad per se but they were at their best mediocre. Especially the end area was kind of a “meh” experience for me as I was expecting something more, you know, spectacular? Maybe not the right word to use but I hope you get what I mean. It still shows that the map maker has put some effort for aesthetics but the final outcome isn’t nearly good enough to compete with the story or the puzzles.
Overall the map was very impressive considering that when I downloaded it I really wasn’t expecting much. The sheer enjoyment factor and the flow of the map accompanied with an awesome story and great enjoyable puzzles left me with a big smile in the face (which may have been a little worn out by the end which was in my opinion not in par with the rest of the map) after finishing it. While Maxwell’s Escape may not be visually the most astonishing and pleasing map out there it is still a great pastime. I definitely recommend this map to anyone liking casual, well done custom maps.
Bugs/tips
-The rollercoaster part got me killed.
-After the sewer part there was an odd lack of storytelling as earlier the player had got used to it happening all the time. This might be more of an opinion than a tip/bug.
-The ending was kind of disappointing and I found it a little rushed and bland.
If you are reading this, I can safely assume that you are looking for a good map to play. And if you're like me, you have scoured the entire maps section of this forum in the hopes that you'll stumble across an amazing map. And if you're like me, you may feel disappointed and/or frustrated when you download, play, and finish a map that effectively wasted your time with tedious gameplay or a weak storyline. The Syndicate is yet another example of this, I'm sad to say.
At the beginning of the map, it shows promise. A mystery to solve, a tricky redstone trap, and absolutely malicious signs set a fantastically oppressive mood. Then all of a sudden, a pathway through a world-generated mineshaft, abrupt and out-of-nowhere story exposition, and a nether portal? This is already about the first half of the map, and so far it has only taken me around 15 minutes to get through. This map is unsatisfyingly short!
The only true challenges of this map are small parkour sections, and they are extremely easy and boring. There is no real way to lose or die in this map, as the creator gives the player gratuitous amounts of gear, often providing swords for the occassional monster, and eventually, a full set of diamond armor. I didn't even see any true need for swords or armor anyway, because the only place where monsters could spawn was a tiny cave. I breezed through this map on account of it being far too forgiving. There's no fun in overcoming difficult tasks when they don't exist in the first place.
The story was confusing and rushed. Because the map was so short, the explanation of the story was more or less squished into a single room. This sudden jump in the progression of the plot, I believe, tears the pacing of the rest of the map apart. It barely makes any sense, because the map wasn't making much of an effort to explain it's world beforehand. Sure, the map had notes for me to read, but there were so little of them (five) that they felt thrown in and random. I wasn't able get a feel of the world that I was playing in, and that ruined my experience.
I can see that the creator of The Syndicate tried to do many things with it. I saw a few jumping obstacles, a small semblance of a story, and the slightest hint of world-building. But it's so short, it's so easy, and I hate to say it, but it all felt lazy and sloppy. From the challenges, the story, the pacing, to even the architecture, I did not notice any part of this map that was executed with much effort or simple consideration to gameplay. There was no consistency between the story and the challenges, there was barely any substance to the map, and the entire thing felt like the definition of unremarkable.
If you read through this, I can safely assume that you are looking for a good map to play. And if you're like me, you have become bitter and critical because maps like The Syndicate have become so common to the point of them being considered generic.
Bugs/tips
-The mineshaft area is a mess. Block off areas you don't want people to go, or they just might get lost.
-Stop being so generous with the equipment!
-Pace the map more smoothly. Sudden and full exposition to a story isn't good, and a really short journey with an anticlimactic end is definitely not the way to go. Time these things better. Imagine what a player might think when they play your map. And on that note...
-Get playtesters. This is so that you can have various opinions on certain areas, challenges, and bugs.
-Get more creative with your challenges. Also, make them harder.
-Read articles on game design and level design. Take some time to think about what makes a fun game.
-Don't let this review get you down. There is always room for improvement, especially as this is your first adventure map. Keep trying!
At first, I didn't know how I'd approach Gloria. Its creator, ColdFusionGaming, has been one of my favorite map creators ever since the moment he posted the first Hero's Quest. Then came the second adventure in the series, a far superior glance into the lands above. And then there was the third map. It blew my mind away. Redstone puzzles, traps, a solid story and some monumental visual appeal. It's now been four maps since Hero's Quest I, and ColdFusionGaming's experience shines like a bright star is a sea of black. Gloria is an incredible phenomenon that has taken the community by surprise, and in doing so, has risen above other such mapping feats such as the Kingdom of the Sky series or his own Hero's Quest series. It's not like any other adventure map out there, and instead treads in its own wake. Gloria is not only one of my favorite adventures available on the forums, it's one of the best maps made to date.
It redefines the adventure genre as we know it today, in a way few maps have. It packs the very same punch that made such monstrosities such as Eronev Mansion Adventure or the Paladin's Quest series, both of which brought new gameplay mechanics to the table in a believable and refreshing way. While ColdFusionGaming may not introduce very many new elements to the table, everything it contains is refreshing and wondrous, save for one gripe I have regarding the progression. Whether it be a staggeringly exciting boss battle or inventive ceiling-credits, there's lots to impress you no matter what corner you turn.
The map has an incredibly solid story. It mentions clearly that it was inspired by the television show LOST, and the way the story is textured and layered carefully in separate parts is evidence. CFG doesn't give you the whole story right away the way most adventures do. It carefully plots its storyline to reveal what exactly is going on at just the right moments. You begin as a survivor of a shipwreck, barely alive, with little to guide you. A short introduction finds you helping out fellow survivors, but it isn't very long before you begin to realize things aren't exactly as it seems. A nuclear reactor is found. You begin a treacherous journey through a plethora of interesting locales, and over time you start to realize something. Your character is growing, learning from his mistakes, interacting with the environments with care. He isn't a survivor anymore. He's an explorer. A fighter. Everything you want him to be. A hero.
There is but one gripe I have about the story. It is all well plotted-out, straight-forward, gripping, until you reach the penultimate point of the story. And it falls flat. You are presented with a maze ("The Maze of Insanity", a name it shares with the infamously clever maze from the first Kingdom of the Sky) which doesn't fit the story at all, and while well constructed, ruptures the atmosphere in a place where it really shouldn't have, considering that the adventure had reached the peak of its quality just minutes prior.
But when I played through the adventure, that's not what was in my notes. It was merely an afterthought. And that's great, because it shows truly how much CFG gets right about adventure mapping. Take the visual appeal for example. Gloria is not so much about scale as it is atmosphere, and so it doesn't try to be. The aesthetics you'll encounter in Gloria are refreshingly original and make use of blocks in ways I truly wasn't expecting. They aren't huge and overwhelming or small and pitiful, instead remaining just in line with the way the atmosphere dictates. It is mysteriously science-fiction in a world that shouldn't be that way, and while that may seem contradictory, it falls right into the path the story creates.
However, none of these reasons are why you'll truly divulge in Gloria's web. Sure, the visuals and plot are great successes, but it all boils down to the atmosphere's strength. And really, not only does the atmospheric value uphold the entire adventure, it lifts it above where it needs to be. Gloria recaptures that feeling of odd and gripping discovery that made LOST so incredible, and improves on such key elements. For one, the background music selection is sound, and yes, pun intended. It is probably the most well-chosen selection of score of incompetech.com that I've seen to date. It does a huge favor to the atmospheric stroke of genius that is Gloria, but it isn't the only element. Gloria is completely unpredictable. You'll never guess where it is going next, and it is for this reason alone that it fails to fall into traditional story clichés.
I won't ramble on further, even if it would be for a good cause. Instead, I'll leave you knowing the following: Gloria is one of the finest blessings ever to fall upon the mapping community. You'll never find another one quite like it, and its only successor I see in true sight is its sequel, set to be released very soon. The adventure is a magnificent triumph, and you'd be doing yourself a huge disservice to not download it. CFG has eventfully crammed all of his knowledge into an hour and a half of his best work.
Bugs/tips -my only major gripe is with the Maze of Insanity and the "added math", neither of which even remotely fit where the story was approaching. Either alter the story at least slightly to compensate, or remove it completely. In either case, get rid of the math, which made no sense and was random in a map that seemed so well thought-out prior to that.
-signs, god darn-it! They got in the way of the inventory space so many times! Any chance you could provide a hole to dispose of them or simply collect them with some fancy redstone? Just a thought.
What does one expect to find when one downloads a parkour map in Minecraft? The parkour in Minecraft is very flimsy at best, as all one has to do in such a map is jump around to get from point A to point B. It's not enough; there has to be more for anyone to have fun in a parkour map. There has to be something interesting amongst the jumps and random ledges. The Parkour Thief manages this to a certain degree.
The map has a simple premise: the player is a thief tasked with stealing a diamond and bringing it back to his or her hideout. Along the way, the player has to navigate through and over buildings and similar obstacles. I enjoyed how this map felt and looked; the towns and cities are definitely a sight for sore eyes, considering that most parkour maps nowadays consist of random floating blocks. This map felt natural to move in, to jump and climb around. It is very important to have the player feel immersed inside the world the map creator makes, and The Parkour Thief does this fairly well. However, despite all of this, there is something I need to bring to attention:
The map felt very short and did not give off the feeling of any real substance. This, I feel, is due to the map's story. With the map being nothing more than the player trying to reach a certain location, the map's creator seemed to struggle with a good progression and pacing of the map. The various cities and towns in the map, while interesting in their own rights, looked to be nothing more than filler and an excuse to have more parkour before the map ended. They were ultimately very arbitrary, having nothing to do with the map's overall experience or story. There wasn't much in this map to tie the world into the player's quest other than the cities being mere obstacles to give the player something to do. The ending felt very abrupt to me because I trekked across a handful of cities only to remember that the story was extremely simple. In reality, I had only accomplished stealing a single diamond despite going through all sorts of random jumping courses that seemed to be building up to something, but actually weren't. This was disappointing. With all of the content in this map, it was still uneventful and plain.
I mentioned before how I enjoyed the map's aesthetics being believable instead of being floating blocks. This is wonderful and shows the mapper's realization of the importance of creating interestingly designed levels for players. My concern here is that even though the map looks the part, the gameplay is still the bare-basics of parkour. With real-life landscapes, there are many opportunities to make traversing the world a very fun and engaging experience. But I was still essentially climbing ledges, jumping over gaps, and just trying to find the next place to go. It's one thing to make a nice visual design such as this map's, and it's one thing to make it fun to play. It's ANOTHER thing to carefully weave the two together. The Parkour Thief did not seem to incorporate game and atmosphere together very well. I noticed elements of this map that really looked like the mapper viewed level and overall game design differently from one another. The entire map experience looks like a mess of different processes of thought that the creator went through as he was mapping, or rather, the map's experience has every single element that a good game needs, but fails to mesh it together into a solid, consistent mix.
All in all, I cannot recommend this map. On the other hand, I can't call it bad. The map looks and feels interesting, and I enjoyed jumping in and around actual buildings for a change, but in the end it was nothing more than a pretty parkour obstacle course. Story, visuals, and gameplay were very separated in regards to the overall experience and the map would have been so much more fun to play if those things were tied together nicely.
Bugs/tips
-Didn't see any bugs. Nice.
-As mentioned throughout the entire review, make a tangible connection between story and gameplay. Games are often considered to be the ultimate form of media because it combines video, audio, writing, and ties it all in with player interaction. Consider the entire map as a whole, rather than looking at elements of your map separately.
-There are many creative things you can do with a realistic world. I liked jumping the rooftops, but the potion and mining buildings looked like they were built based on generic parkour jumps. Try basing the jumps around your buildings, or, following the previous tip, find a balance where you can design and build them together.
-When making a story or narrative, just about everything needs to have a reason to exist. It's cool that you made realistic scenery, but why was there an old abandoned tunnel that led to a random tribe of vicious warriors? Make it significant, or don't have it at all.
Well, here's to puzzle maps! I'd really begun to lose hope for them before seeing this one, which has seen great success critically and in terms of downloads. There are just simply too many "escape the facility/prison/pschotic-idiot-who-captured-you-and-convieniently-left-repetitive-puzzles-to-help-you-escape's lair" in the mapping community to be truly satisfied with any of them. But something seemed a little different about Accept Your Own Adventure. It didn't try to be much. It wasn't very good, or incredibly bad. It seemed to be Gregolas42's attempt to inform the mapping community about exactly the damage these maps were doing to the once-great reputation of the puzzler. I myself don't even bother with most puzzle maps anymore out of the fear that they'll just be another waste of my time. Gregolas realises this. He crafts a puzzler that is intelligently sloppy and contains enough refreshing content to keep you somewhat engaged, but is still remiscent of the terrible escape-esque maps that overcrowd the fray of incoming creations. Unfortunately, it is just a little to close to those god-awful puzzle messes to be completely enjoyable.
The premise of the map is an interesting one, and I think I've conveyed my views on it clearly prior to this. Nonetheless, I feel the need to prove exactly why it works. We all know that escape maps can be well done (the Escapecraft series, Escape the Puzzlemaster, etc.), but a substantial portion, most likely a majority of these maps are just so bad. I've seen so many people attempt to refresh the escape sub-genre by flaunting originality, but unfortunately many of these efforts are in vain. So Accept Your Own Adventure analyses why this is, and presents it to the player in a new light. Those who frequent escape maps will notice the way Gregolas presents these flaws very evidently. It's clever.
The sad fact is, the message that Gregolas42 tries so hard to convey is often missed, and there are a number of reasons that contribute to this. Firstly, it contains many possible endings, whose quality ranges from great to somewhere far below terrible. If you happen to choose a path through the map that sends you on a path to one of the better endings, then you'll have fun and realize what Gregolas42 was going for all along, and perhaps even be interested in revisiting the map again to replay and get another ending. But if you get one of the less-than-stellar endings, chances are you'll curse and never want to glance at the adventure again, regardless of whether there are supposedly better endings down the road. All in all, the message is sloppily portrayed, for one, because it isn't always clear amidst certain endings. As I hope you can guess from now, Accept Your Own Adventure's gameplay aspect is not the strongest I've ever seen.
The storyline of Accept Your Own Adventure is another reason why you don't always get the point of the message the map creator is trying to send. The plot is actually fairly decent, mainly because the Glados-like character is a thrill once you get past the droning anonymous-style voice. He torments you thoroughly if you misbehave, maliciously kills you in at least one ending, and is a real comedian in others. He also is presented as the "map maker" who, as it turns out, is also the main way Gregolas42 proves his point about escape maps in general. He realizes you don't like a certain map because it is horribly dull, but gives you another chance by replacing that flaw with another. If you get fed up with him simply because you want to and disobey, then *poof*! You're dead. But as it turns out, if you choose a completely "good" path where you obey at least three quarters of what the "map maker" tells you to do, you'll miss the point, and instead carry on through a messy adventure. You'll recognize the flaws of the adventure for sure, but because the Glados character likes you so much, he won't get mad or show you another great path, which in turn doesn't give you the message. I have mixed feelings toward the story, and while I have quite a few positive mentions on its originality, I think its flaws outweigh its successes.
Which brings me to Accept Your Own Adventure's final major aspect, its progression. On an everyday occassion, I'd critique a map's success in this department in the same way I would its gameplay, but progressing through this map is different. It is a "Choose Your Own Adventure"-themed map (a series I loved as a kid, and so I smiled upon seeing this) in the sense that there are moral choices to be made, consequences, and of course, multiple endings. Now, this is all great, but it gets a little cluttered. It is yet another reason why Accept Your Own Adventure's moral pretentions are beyond its less-than-vast capabilties, and you ofter misunderstand what the whole point of "Accept Your Own Adventure" is. Progressing through certain paths is thrilling, while others are less so. There is often little to motivate you to progress through the adventure, and therefore a less-than-useless atmosphere. Simply put, you don't want to progress through Accept Your Own Adventure unless/until you realize what it is trying to communicate to you.
When you finish Accept Your Own Adventure, you may not truly understand what it was trying to tell you. I'd say there's a 50/50 chance this will be the case for you, and if you take a peek at the score the map received, you'll realize it is about close to that. You may get the message, and you may not. One way or another, you'll have mixed feelings about the map. You probably won't call it great or terrible, unless you got one of those freaking awful endings or one of the incredible endings and didn't come back to find the others. Analysing this map was a real pain in the **** because there were so many factors that contributed to its successes and failures, but I knew what was going to come my way when I sign up for the job of reviewing. In a nutshell, Accept Your Own Adventure has its own take on the puzzle crisis the mapping community has been in for the past year or so. It is a little too sloppy to fully present this at the moment, but it may get there eventually. Only time will tell. Hopefully this review will accelerate that change.
Bugs/tips
-improve the endings of the strictly "good" paths. This could mean a slightly more epic ending or some more interactive content, but whatever the case might be, keep in mind that you are trying to inform the community of what it is doing wrong. No matter where you take this, make sure you present the flaws of escape maps prominently.
-is there anyone you know capable of doing a computer voice that doesn't sound like anonymous and isn't as annoyingly repellant as the automated voice you chose? It would help the first impression, even if you do get used to the voice about halfway into the adventure
-include more endings on the "bad" side of the chart. They are the most fun and the most intuitive, and I recommend getting started on them right away!
-I personally wouldn't mind a deeper story. You've got the flawed aspect down perfectly, and you can keep that, but something more to motivate you would be nice
It's been a while since I've played a map as classic as this one. Spellbindingly magical, well thought-out, and certainly flawed, Quest for the Egg is so strikingly thorough when it comes to outlining characters. It successfully brought a hilariously awkward new professor to the world of Minecraft, much in the same way that ChronoBasher did when concocting Professor Grizwald one year previous to this. The inspiration is clear, the similarities are minimal, and yet Writr routinely whips up an enjoyable adventure that brings a plentiful amount of good content to the table.
Unfortunately, while there's a lot to like in Quest for the Egg, there sadly isn't much to love, save for its main hero, Professor Gandy. Gandy is equal-parts funny, silly, stupid (in a comical way) and just as much fun to be enthralled by as Grizwold, if not even more-so. He is, sadly, the only refreshing element to an otherwise dull tale. You have no recollection of your past (Hmm... does this sound familiar?) and through a series of ill-communicated theories Gandy decides you ought to seek out eight keys in order to assist him in sending you pack to where you belong. While the premise is somewhat engrossing and preps you for the adventure, the hunt for each key feels jarringly separate from the others. There is no interrconnecting plot to glue the separate pieces together, and for this one reason the entire plot feels disjointed. Additionally, the storytelling element of the map is severely flawed, as you are only sent to find four of the eight keys. And while I understand that Writr has abandoned this map and left it unfinished, the plot needs some closure. How hard would it have been to devise a short ending and conclude the story with only the need for four keys, not eight? I would assume not so much so, and as was the case with Boulefield, the story needn't be cut short because a temporary fix is beyond the capabilities of the map creator.
Meanwhile, the gameplay is a refreshing change from simply combat and puzzles. It, unsurprisingly, focuses upon exploration-based conquest in order to steadily achieve goals, but it isn't meaningless. The exploration Quest for the Egg sports progresses perfectly and through some relatively simple redstone keeps up just enough momentum without becoming overdone or breathtaking. I will admit I was not a large fan of the plot, but the amusing visual appeal suits the gameplay enough to propel you forward further into the world of Quest for the Egg. It is for this reason that the gameplay mechanics work, even if they do so on uneven footing.
As I stated previously, Quest for the Egg has some mild visual appeal. I found that the labaratory in Quest 1 was thoroughly elevating, and the same can be said for many examples throughout the following quests. But I feel like Writr only succeeded with his builds when he was attempting to enhance the atmosphere on a less-than grand scale. When he attempted to create large buildings like Gandy's castle they came off as flat, dull, and too squared for my liking. They were, frankly, unappealing. I know Writr has cast this map away in favour of more important ideals in his life, but should he return to improve it, I would recommend he begin fixing it to bring out further aesthetical pleasure.
But Quest for the Egg doesn't lean upon any of these aspects to succeed. The plot is crucial but would not be devastating if removed. Neither would the gameplay mechanics if altered. And I've addressed that there are more suitable routes to take in regards to the architecture present. Instead, Quest for the Egg's success boils down to the atmosphere.
Does the atmosphere succeed on any levels what so ever? I say yes. I found Quest for the Egg had me on the edge of my toes for Quest 1, and while it seemed to falter in light of the second and third quests, Quest 4 garnered my attention like no other and truly pulled me into its enthralling daliance without hesitation. I had almost lost hope by the end of the third quest, but the atmosphere in the final quest was enriched by a stronger plot, its serious nature, and a heartwarming conclusion.
Quest for the Egg is not a perfect map. It doesn't even approach such a designation. But to me, it at least reaches the standard of enjoyable. It certainly isn't the best adventure you will find out there, and it isn't the worst either, but if you are looking for an adventure reminiscent of the old adventures of early '11, give this one a try. You won't love it, but you'll surely find a ton to enjoy.
Bugs/tips -architecture needs some work. Fix up the towers in Quest 2 and Gandy's primary tower accordingly to make them less square. Refer to the review for how to accomplish this.
-Gandy is the only shining light in an otherwise murky plot. Bring him further into the spotlight to flesh out the character further. You can add easter eggs, a small secret backstory among them that details who Gandy is and his motivations, and a more outlined nemesis, his apprentice.
-make the multiple plots of the separate quests more connected. I have a feeling you were attempting to accomplish this while finishing the later quests, but as of now, they are too distant from one another.
-conclude the plot with four keys. Just leaving us hanging to ponder what happened doesn't cut it. Even if temporary, provide some closure to at least partially satisfy the player.
1. Eronev Mansion-------------------9.1/10 2. Lux Perpetua---------------------7.5/10 3. Escape the Puzzlemaster----------6.6/10 4. The Forest of Silence------------6.4/10 5. Fetch Quest----------------------6.0/10 6. Dead IslandCraft-----------------5.8/10 7. The Great Mine Escape II--------5.8/10 8. LoZ: A Block to the Past--------5.8/10 9. The Devil's Lunch Break---------5.4/10 10. 4 Temples-----------------------5.0/10 11. Dungeon Escape------------------4.6/10 12. Hotel Escape--------------------3.4/10 13. Curse of the Ender Pearls-------2.3/10 14. Resistance Hideout--------------1.8/10 15. Somethingcraft------------------0.5/10
Wow. That was something. Eronev mansion is definitely one of the best maps I have played. So many unique things I have never seen before made this experience an exciting one. But before I start, let me just confess that because of me, all the villagers are dead. Yes, my ending wasn't the best.
Lets start with the unique things. Pumpkin npcs. Ok, I have actually seen these before in maps, but how they were implemented was done very well. The creator even made fun of the fact that they were pumpkins quite a lot, which I found very entertaining. The dynamic text boxes were amazing. I didn't even know that was possible. Definitely helps it stand out from other maps. And unique buildings. The buildings in this map were all different in size, shape and material. Even your house looks like it should, cozy and homely. Multiple endings helped make this map that much more unique.
What blew me away with this map, is the amount of redstone circuitry it would have taken to make this. I can't imagine how much work it would have taken to even make the mine cart station(which was amazing by the way). This map was pieced together extremely well, as I did not find any typos or large bugs, which is saying something for the amount of things that could have gone wrong with the redstone.
Every map has its flaws though, and now I will explain why it did not get a perfect 10. Unfortunately, I got extremely confused at some points during the map, and at one point, almost quit. The story got pretty confusing after leaving the mansion through the painting hallway. I think the creator should give better directions on what you need to do during this part in the map. Other than that, the story could have been better. My tips for that are below.
Overall, this is a fantastic map, and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes adventure maps.
Bugs/tips
-I think you could have emphasized on the evilness of the old man and possibly, the innocence of the citizens. Bring more depth to your characters, even giving them names, would help out the story a ton. It would drive the player to want to save the villagers, and make them even more sad when they don't, or happy if they do.
-the only bug I found is at the bottom of the sand pyramid, one of the pistons did not work correctly. It can be found at the entrance of the of the room with the flowers.
Somethingcraft really isn't a map. It is the bare intro of a map and nothing else. It was like the creator couldn't decide if he wanted to make an adventure map, or a puzzle map, so he just made nothing. That pretty much sums up the map. But painfully, I will go into detail.
You spawn in a room that starts out with rules and a couple of signs that are meant to be funny, and might be if not for being incomprehensible. But the he takes the jokes too far, giving you diamond tools and armor and then asking for it back two steps later. He then makes the rules confusing by saying "rule 6. do not to listen to rule 5". This might be funny, but because the notes have bad grammar and do not actually get ANY information across, so its not.
Then you leave the building and he tells you something about a trial, and that he is too lazy to make a path to it so you just have to find it yourself. After walking forward for about 50 blocks I noticed an "old man house". After going inside I received some actual supplies, but no information on where to go next. I then spent about 10 minutes looking around before finally calling it quits.
My conclusion is that this map is unplayable, so don't play it.
Now before I even start let me say something first. I have NEVER played a Zelda game before, and I am pretty clueless to even the basic concepts of it. I wasn't even sure I should do a review of this, so I asked the creator if I should do this without any Zelda experience. He assured me that it would be fine, and so I played it. Please note that this review will be on how good it was as an adventure map, and not how good it was as a re-creation. Because of this, the score will definitely be lower than what it would be if I had played Zelda games in the past.
What I was pleased to see, was that there was a hands-on tutorial, on how Zelda was being integrated in Minecraft. It went over the basics of what things were with the texture pack. This was definitely helpful for someone who has never played a Zelda game. The only thing that I wished was integrated into the tutorial, would be a note of some sort giving a bit of background information to the Zelda games. Possibly something that explained who Link is, and maybe other characters as well.
As the actual game started I was given very little information about what I was supposed to do. For someone who had already played the game, this wouldn't be a problem, but for me, it was. It would have been nice for the note to say something about heading off to somewhere for information. It would at least give the player a chance to get started. For me, I ended up wandering around for quite I while, not really sure where to go or how to start. This kind of carried through the entire map. I was constantly wondering what my next objective is. It would be good if the creator would make it more new player friendly.
One thing that was definitely cool, was how large the map was. This map would have taken ages to build. I can tell the creator really put some serious effort into this project. Oh, one random thing that I found interesting, was the npcs. There faces, including the expression, was drawn out on signs. I found that to be really cool. Another thing I enjoyed was how well the texture pack worked with the map. The rupees system was really good, as well as the paintings seemed to fit well with the surrounding area.
Overall, I would recommend this map to anyone who has played Zelda. For anyone who hasn't, just check it out.
Bugs/tips
-Before leaving the tutorial area, make it clear that you are not supposed to take the items with you.
-I found the letter "a" on one of the signs (that are meant to be a chair backrest). It can be found in the sanctuary.
Lux Perpetua is a solid map. By far the highlight of this map is the architecture. Amazing structures, towns and villages were crafted to near perfection, with great attention to detail. Even the simple things looked like they went through careful planning to build. But architecture is only a part of making a good adventure map, there are still many other categories.
The creator went big with this map, making it a very long to play through. In some ways this was good, I enjoyed finding new places, and completing some of the minor side quests on the side. In some ways though, it seemed a bit unrealistic, almost as if he made a bunch of huge structures and tried to connect them with a story. After leaving the first town, I got a bit lost at what I was supposed to be doing in regards to the story. I found the map to be less straight forward after leaving Skyden. I would suggest that the creator add something to help direct the player.
When you combine being a bit confused with the story, and long routes in between towns and epic structures, it leads to having some moments of being unmotivated to continue the map. This may not be the case for everyone, some people may have had better luck figuring out the story, and where to go. Other than that this map really does have a lot to offer, and helps retain attention with some humorous moments and fun quests. The creator also did a good job with using many of the new features from the 1.8 update. Vines on the houses in Skyden really helped make the town visually appealing.
Overall, this map is really good. It makes good use of 1.8 and has outstanding architecture. I would recommend this map to anyone looking for a solid adventure map.
Bugs/tips
-The checkpoints are not safe. When you try to sleep monsters spawn.
-Guard Bob's note has a typo.
-mystery is spelled wrong in the restaurant owner's diary.
The Forest of Silence was a decent puzzle/adventure map that will keep you entertained, but not fully satisfied. The map has some good features to it, as well as many flaws. Read on to find out exactly what this map is all about.
Alright, some of the good things. This map has one of the better checkpoint systems. Checkpoints are clearly marked, and are spaced apart perfectly. You will still be unhappy if you die, but it won't take you years to get back on track. This map has a couple interesting puzzles, though the majority are repetitive (more on that later). I especially liked the spleef challenge, I found it to be unique, and quite fun, even though I died about 5 times on it. Another good thing was the architecture. Especially in the town, I found that no two houses were the same.
Now to some of the not so great things. Many of the puzzles were either parkour, or mazes. Neither of these should be used in high quantity in a puzzle/adventure map. They are just too repetitive and unoriginal. Many of these puzzles were also either too easy or too hard, and had very little consistent difficulty progression. Not having good puzzles in a puzzle/adventure map, leaves only the adventure side of things to critique.
The story in The Forest of Silence was pretty good, though at times, a bit hard to comprehend. I found it to be a bit of back-and-forth between puzzle with little story, and adventure with lots of story. This inconsistency lowered the total score of the map. It would have been better if the map had more of a merge between puzzle and adventure. Adding the nether into the mix was an interesting idea, and was fairly interesting.
Overall, this map is good if you are a fan of puzzle and adventure maps. If you can't stand parkour and mazes, this map may not be the best for you. I recommend checking this map out.
Bugs/tips
-Too many golden apples! Do not hand out golden apples for no reason, you are supposed to be looking for the one and only golden apple, so do not just hand out golden apples at random puzzles. It is not consistent with the story.
-Make it so that you can not leave the map. Add fences or trees along the side of places you are not supposed to go.
-Hide your redstone, and if possible your pistons. It ruins the magic if you can see the wiring.
The first time I saw this map I thought "The Devil's Lunch Break, I wonder what that map is about". Turns out the story is about how the devil is on his lunch break, and wants to mess with someone who recently died, giving them cruel challenges to complete. I thought this story was pretty cool for a puzzle map. It certainly beats the unoriginal, "Someone kidnapped you and you need to escape." So far so good, but there are plenty of problems with this map. Read on.
I have always enjoyed cruel challenges and tricks, so this map certainly pleased me in that aspect. There were plenty of unfair ways to die, and you sometimes had to choose between losing your life, or getting a better score. Those kind of self conflicts are always good, and help raise the intensity of the map. The atmosphere is pretty good as well. With the Nether added to Minecraft, it is not hard to re-create hell. Saying that, the creator still did a good job with it.
So why did this map get a 5.4? So far it seems pretty good. This map was lacking in a vital category, puzzles. It is a puzzle map after all, so this is a pretty important category. Most of the puzzles were either too easy, too repetitive, too boring or too unoriginal. Let me give a couple of examples. There is way too much parkour, and also too many mazes. These puzzles are very unoriginal, and are not very exciting. Then you have math. Yes I said math. If you do not get the right answer to an algebra question then you die. The last thing I want to do while playing a Minecraft map, is pull out a pencil and paper and do algebra. This is also a bad idea for another reason. What about the younger players who haven't even learnt algebra at that level? The math concept is an idea I would completely remove from the map. There are many other examples of puzzles that should be improved or be scrapped, but this paragraph is big enough as is. My general advice for the creator would be to replace a couple of the puzzles with more unique, exciting ones.
Overall, The Devil's Lunch Break is a short, but interesting map, that could use some improvement. If you like puzzle maps, I recommend checking this map out.
Bugs/tips
-There are some typos in the rules and story.
-Don't make stone breakable. Make it something else that you can easily break without a pick. right now it is too time consuming.
-The arrow rooms cause some serious lag. Not sure what the fix for this is, I just thought I should let you know.
Escape the Puzzlemaster was a good puzzle map with some interesting puzzles and some not-so interesting puzzles. This was an enjoyable map to play through, with nothing that really blew my mind, nor anything thing that really stood out as a big problem. Lets begin.
You start out in a room with a crazy person telling you that you are a test subject and you need to escape. Sound familiar? I bet it does. The story is not very original, but the signs along the map are fairly well done, but adding a couple more cruel signs along the way wouldn't have hurt. Unfortunately, I have seen too many of these maps, so I wasn't very many motivated to escape.
The puzzles averaged out to be pretty good. Some of the puzzles were fairly unique, while others were either unoriginal or boring. There is some parkour and a maze, but they both had a bit of a twist to each of them, so they didn't feel too unoriginal. Then there was a puzzle where you had to run up and down a hallway, trying to pull levers which open doors to more levers. Thank god for sprint, because if It would have been a pain to walk up and down that hallway for that long. The map was honestly quite boring, I think the creator should replace it with a more unique puzzle. The other puzzles were fun, but nothing that will make your brain hurt.
Overall, this map is pretty good, but definitely could be better if a couple more unique, and possibly more difficult puzzles were added. I recommend this map to anyone who is looking for a well polished puzzle map that is not too hard, or too long.
Bugs/Tips
-There is a fair amount of redstone, including one repeater, that should be hidden in the soul sand race.
This map has a lot of potential, and there was a good amount of effort shown. Unfortunately, a couple of things made this map just "good" instead of "great". Lets go over why this map got the score that it did.
Well, lets start with the architecture. There was some great architecture in this map. Many of the buildings had good exterior and interior design. It was clear that the creator took great care in the planning and execution of the buildings. The buildings fell short in one area, however. Most structures in the main town had nothing in the chests. They also had no imaginary npcs, which definitely affected the story. Which brings us to a big negative to the map, the story.
The story was extremely bland at first. You are supposed to get a jukebox from the other side of the lake, to spice up the interior of your restaurant. Exciting? Not really. So you get out of your restaurant, and head down to the town. There are plenty of houses, that all look pretty good, and have a couple interesting signs. Other than that though, there is almost no point to even look in the shops and houses. There is no nps, and nothing in the chests. There is nothing in the town that really strengthens the story, or even gives you an idea of where to go next. Ideas on how to make this more interesting can be found in the bugs/tips section.
The only clue you are given is, to quote the story intro, "You've been sent by your boss on an epic quest to grab a jukebox from that old abandoned courtyard across the lake". Old what? Where? These were the kind of questions I was asking myself. The only thing I could think of doing was to head out across the lake. But what part of the lake, and how far? I had to do some serious searching before I figured out what side I was supposed to exit from. I realize some people would have figured out what side to leave from almost immediately, but I was not one of them. My suggestion to the creator, would be to make this clearer.
After you make it to the other side, things start to get interesting. I don't want to ruin anything, but trust me, it gets better. The story gets improves, you actually get to do some puzzles, and even the architecture looks even better than it did before. It was quite a weird transition though, and left me feeling a little confused.
Overall, this map has plenty of room for improvement, but does will entertain you if you can get through the first half. With some serious fixes to the story as well as making it easier to cross the lake, it would be a lot better. I would recommend checking this map out, and if a solid update comes out, downloading.
Bugs/tips
-CHANGE THE NAME! Fetch Quest is a super boring and uninteresting name. Change it and I could see plenty more downloads in your future.
-Add npcs, with names, into the houses. It would make walking through the town that much better.
-Put items in the chest! It doesn't have to be much, or of any use, but it would give the player another excuse to explore the town.
-Add a scoring system? This one is your choice. Just note that it would give you something else to put into the town, and would make exploring that much better.
-There is a typo in the house behind Jain Mitch's house. It is on the second sign.
You might be thinking, "wow, how many 5-7 ratings can Kmilley give out?" Truth is, most of the maps I have reviewed so far have been decent-good maps. This is yet another example of a map that falls into this category.
The creator describes this map as half puzzle, half parkour. In my opinion, this map is 20% puzzle, and 80% parkour. Lets take a look at the puzzle aspect first. The puzzles are of mediocre quality. There was some puzzles that had good ideas, but could have been executed better, and others that are too easy. The lava maze was WAY to short and super easy. I only had to turn around 3 corners to complete the maze. Then there was the minecart puzzle. I had to flick ONE switch to complete the puzzle. There were others, specifically the piston puzzle, that had a good idea, but was not executed properly. Only one part of the large floor was being used by the pistons, and having to take out a piece of redstone was too confusing.
As far as the parkour went, it was pretty good. The creator made good use of pistons, making a fun experience for even those who aren't huge fans of parkour. Unfortunately, some of the fun was contradicted by exposed redstone, which I found regularly throughout the map. The final 5 levels were beautifully crafted, and had a great recurring theme with all of them. Only problem, was all 5 levels consisted of only parkour, and I found it to be fairly difficult and unforgiving. Parkour lovers will find this as an enjoyable challenge, while others may find it tedious and annoying. The combination of the parkour and puzzle, was not implemented as best as it could have been. Almost all of the puzzles were found early on in the map, while parkour took over the ending. The map doesn't have any progressive difficulty, which certainly effected its final score.
The story was ok at best. The notes were not amazing, and I never felt particularly motivated to escape. The notes seemed to disappear near the end, and I sometimes found myself unsure whether the creator, or the antagonist, was talking to me. That's about all I have to say in regards to the story.
Overall, The Great Mine Escape II provides some fun parkour, and mediocre puzzles. Please note that liking parkour is a requirement to playing this map. If you do not enjoy jumping puzzles and decide to try this map, I can guarantee you will not enjoy it. If you are a fan of parkour, I would recommend checking this map out.
Bugs/tips
-Fix the lava maze. It is too easy.
-The sign after the lava maze needs rewording.
-One piston in the elevating piston room does not move.
-The minecart puzzle is too easy. Make it more difficult.
Hotel Escape is a very short, extremely hard map that has a couple big problems with it that seriously affected its final score.
Alright let's start with the good things. The architecture was pretty good, and had a somewhat believable hotel feel to it. The clay was used effectively, hiding glowstone dust (used as a point system), in challenging areas. The story was ok, and kept me interested in finding a way out of the hotel. Only problem with the notes would be the numerous typos found throughout the map, and the notes were fairly out in the open, making it very hard to read them without getting eaten by zombies.
Alright lets move on to a BIG problem that was super annoying. The map was littered with spawners. You could not enter a room without a zombie spawning beside you. Little torches were given, so it was very hard to neutralize the spawners. This wouldn't be THAT much of a problem except that there were almost no safe rooms. Every room I entered had a zombie in it. Worst of all, every time you die you have to completely restart the map. Seriously. When you die, you respawn in a bedrock hole no where near the hotel. This means if you have to be constantly making backups if you want to get close to finishing the map. This was a huge flaw with the Hotel Escape.
Another problem with the map was that it was extremely short. There is very little to explore, and it ends very quickly if you manage to not die. Well, when I say "ends" I mean go a far as possible. There really isn't a clear ending. When I got to where I was sure the end was, there was no exit or note saying "congratulations on completing this map." I did a little bit of flying around the outside and found that I had explored every room I could have. It is still possible I screwed this up, but there definitely needs to be a clearer ending.
Overall, Hotel Escape is too short and too difficult. If there was a good quality update that took out some spawners, allowed you to spawn inside of the hotel, and added some more gameplay with a clear ending, I would check it out. For now, just ignore it.
Bugs/tips
-Double check your notes, there are plenty of signs with riddled with typos.
-All other bugs/tips are highlighted pretty clearly in the review.
Dungeon Escape is a short, but well executed map that I would label as a work in progress. This map is simply too short, and does not have a "real" ending. Of course, my rating reflected a map that I judged as completed; I did not "imagine" an ending, nor "imagine" all of the bugs being fixed. I rated this map like I would rate any other map, no map will get a higher rating just because it's a WIP. Because of this, Dungeon Escape received a lower score than it would have as a finished map. Alright, now that we got that over with, let's begin the review.
I believe the highlight of this map is the believable dungeon scenery. As I traveled through the map, I was completely immersed in the dungeon theme. No one wall was symmetrical to its opposite, and it really felt like I was walking through an ancient dungeon. This map took advantage of the 1.8 features, including vines, stone blocks, and mossy stone blocks. It really was an enjoyable break from the square room to square room maps I have been playing lately.
As far as the puzzles go, it was ok. There were only three types of puzzles in this map, parkour, combat and a couple other unoriginal challenges. The parkour was fairly easy, but enjoyable. Pistons were used well, and were timed perfectly. The combat was ok. For being a dungeon map, there wasn't actually that many rooms filled with monsters. However, when you did enter a room with monsters, there was a ton of them. Zombies, skeletons, endermen, spiders and CREEPERS littering the ground. I found this to be quite overwhelming, especially with creepers. As for the puzzles, they were mainly unoriginal, and one of the puzzles didn't work properly(more info in the bugs/tips section). In all, the puzzles were average, and could definitely be improved.
Overall, Dungeon Escape is a pretty "meh". This map has some serious potential, but lacks a story, original puzzles, and a solid ending. I would recommend checking this map out if you like short dungeon maps with great architecture. If that doesn't particularly motivate you to check it out, then I would ignore it until a solid update comes out.
Bugs/tips
-The minecart puzzle didn't really work. I hit a couple buttons and then the door opened, the minecart did not move from its starting position. Check that out.
-Change the name! Dungeon escape is too generic and uninteresting.
-Don't give out full armor right away, make them earn it.
-Missing blocks. It is possible that this is due to enderman. If it is, I would suggest not spawning them.
Curse of the Ender Pearls is a poorly made map. There are a few huge problems that take away from the experience, as well as a lacking story, and flawed game play. Let's go over why this map got the score that it did.
Ok, let's start with the biggest problem with this map. This map is in creative mode. This affects the overall game play by quite a bit. Creative mode means invincibility, it means that every monster you see, you can ignore. It means you can fly, as well as have no use for food and armor. It also means you can access any block in the game, by simply accessing your inventory. This problem ruins all of the puzzles, defeats the purpose of parkour, and ends any motivation to search for supplies in chests. The only way around this would be to use a game type changer to allow you to play in survival mode. Why the creator wouldn't just change it himself? I don't know, but this problem certainly affected the map's final score.
Another problem with this map is the creator put tons of supplies in every chest. Even if you did manage to change the map's game type to survival mode, you would be still be loaded with armor, food, and resources.
The puzzles in this map could be better. There is small points in this map were you fight monsters, but of course defeating them is incredibly easy as you are invincible. Other than that there is a small bit of parkour and a lot of exploration. The parkour is fairly easy to start, and even if you do fall, you will not take damage. The rest of the map is all exploration, finding Ender Pearls on land, and in the nether. If you like exploring, this might be enjoyable for you. If you do not, you may find it to be annoying and unnecessary. There was one part of the map that I found to be very long, and quite frustrating. In order to get back to your homeland you need to take a boat across a very large ocean. I spent about 20 minutes just rowing to my next objective. This was pointless journey, as there was no notes or puzzles along the way to make it more interesting.
Overall, Curse of the Ender Pearls is a fairly bad map. Major flaws had a direct impact on the adventure, making the various puzzles too easy, as well as the exploration tedious to complete. I recommend ignoring this map, unless you are a fan of exploration, then you might want to check it out.
Bugs/tips
-Convert the map to survival mode.
-Make the players earn the food, items, and resources.
4 Temples is a quick, adrenaline rush, hack and slash type map with some puzzles involved but only to add to the combat. It has some originality but still has clear-cut pve that you would expect from this type of map.
The map is well laid out as you start in a large room, a temple, with a door on each side and chests with lots of food and some iron swords. You can enter of the temples 1 to 3 in any order to collect the treasure and then use this treasure to enter the 4th temple. However it's still very linear with each temple one after the other in quick succession. And because of this I feel that each 'temple' has to be reviewed more individually to do them justice.
The temple design is very clear, made up of stronghold bricks and stone which neither add or subtract from the feel of the map, but just provide a fitting background. Some areas could definitely use some more interesting features; mainly temples 3 and 4 as I felt them to be less original and more boring than the others. Lighting in areas could be improved, having no light source in a room makes it too difficult to see and detracts from the combat and combined with the severe lack of torches makes it even worse.
Now when I say this map has puzzles, I don't mean it in the typical way. All of the puzzles are more changes in the environment to make the combat different and fresh or to force you to fight for longer which adds to the experience and engages you in the map more. However the repeated puzzles in some temples give the feeling of the map being rushed to be finished and really take away from those areas.
This map has a decent curve of difficulty but near the end it became almost impossible due to the lack of light to stop mobs spawning; the hunger system that makes it impossible to tank the damage from all the mobs; and the cave spiders, they either need to be reduced in the amount that can be spawned or removed from the map as the amount that spawn make it very difficult and annoying not to mention the poison detracts from the fighting by making you retreat and wait for your health to regenerate.
Overall, this is a very fast and fun map with very straightforward and clean pve but low light and some repetitive puzzles drag out some parts making it annoyingly difficult. Play this map if you're a fan of pure hack and slash but still enjoy some variety in the combat.
Bugs/tips
-Reduce or remove the cave spiders
-In the first temple get rid of the silverfish, they break blocks and can ruin the area.
-Fix the pressure plates that are used to go into the 4th temple, for me pressing 1 opened the door.
-Add some light in the 3rd and 4th temples.
-Give some other rewards for completing temples other than food and torches.
-Don't repeat the same puzzles.
-Add some more interesting features to the larger rooms to give players a more fresh experience.
First off I must give a heads up to anyone who decides to read this review. I have never played Dead Island or anything related to it. What does this mean in terms of the review? It means that I am reviewing this map just like any other map, and not a recreation of a game. I will not talk about how well it corresponds to the actual game, or how accurate it is in terms of the story and architecture. Also note that the rating would most likely be higher if I had actually played Dead island, as I am sure I would have gotten more out of it. Alright, now on to the review.
DeadIsland Craft has some interesting features, but when it comes down to it, A couple problems really got in the way with my overall enjoyment. But before we get into that, let's start with some good things.
This map made a really good use of pistons. The map was separated into chapters, and the entrance of each of these chapters was blocked of with pistons, that could only be activated once the objectives of the chapter were complete. This allowed for an easy idea of what each chapter goal was: To find the lever that opened the next chapter. It was also smart from a creators view point, as it makes it easy to add new content updates, so props for that.
Aside from the smart pistons use, I found some serious problems with the layout in of the map. Side quests were available in the map to complete, and were marked by a gold block. The main story quest were marked with a diamond block. In theory, this is actually a really good idea, the players that want to just get through the map, can do so easily, while those that would like to go for a extra challenge can do side quests. The problem was that the creator sometimes mixed in the main quests with the side quests. In other words, sometimes it was necessary to complete the side quests to continue with the story. I found this confusing, and it certainly took away from the overall gameplay.
The story itself was rather well done. You need to survive the zombie apocalypse, while helping finding away off the island. There were not any puzzles in this map, just combat and finding your way around. In my eyes, I did not find this as a negative, as the story and general idea of surviving an apocalypse really didn't need it.
This map had good intentions, but the confusion of where to go, as well as the constant side quest and story quest mixing left me feeling a bit unsatisfied. Overall, I liked it. I recommend checking it out, and if you are a fan of zombie apocalypses or Dead Island, giving it a go.
Bug/tips
-Ok, I have a couple comments on the notes. First off, no more Microsoft Word! Not everyone had word installed on their computer. In addition, Word takes a while to load up each note, and most people just want to read the note and continue. My suggestion is that you use notepad. Almost everyone has notepad on their computer, and it loads almost instantly. Secondly, put your notes in some sort of logical order. The notes for each chapter are jumbled all over the place.
-Just a heads up, you can hide zombie spawners underground and they will still spawn on the surface. I understand that for most occasions you will want the player to have the chance to neutralize the spawners, but out on the paths you might want to hide them. Just a thought.
-You can sprint through the reception door. It is not easy, but I did it before I realized I was supposed to look for another entrance.
Resistance Hideout left me in a bizare state of dissatisfaction; humble map maker HaXIXoR has provided a fun yet incomplete and sloppy parkour adventure which places you in a confusing world. The parkour puzzles itself were not exactly terrible, though average for any map generically. And worst of all was an assault on the eyes commited by the genius who made Resistance Hideout: I counted only five signs within the entire map where a grammar, punctuation, or spelling mistake was not present. So why the 1.8/10? Was the map poor enough to make me quit? Maybe not, but it's still no excuse for a map, a parkour map nonetheless, to be of this frustrating quality.
You begin in a relatively small and boring room decorated with furniture and a few signs on the wall, telling of some "Resistance". Never in the map do you get any idea of what the hell this resistance is, or why you are joining it. You must actually navigate your way back to the forum post to read a proper into, as the room you proceed into next only states rules (admist many, many punctuation/grammer mistakes). As you follow along the boring hallways all made of the same material, you complete a few basic jumping puzzles. One thing I noticed right off the bat was that the map required serious thinking. Normally this would actually mean something positive, though the lever you need to get to the next part of the map was actually obscured so well that you actually end up cheating to get to the next area (I had to go back a figure out how I was actually supposed to progress.) The rest of the map feels like a relatively simple map with challenges over lava, lava, and (you guessed it!) lava. Then, all of a sudden, everything ends. There is no explanation to what on earth happens in the end, just: "Thanks for Playing. ."
The atmospheric element that'd could've saved this map from being terrible was quite frankly missing. The rooms, save for one, are all made of the same material. Adjacent to a few of these blocks are meaningless signs, which do not at all help because of the way they attempt comedy. Had the map been consistant with comedy or tips or atmospheric architecture, the rating would have been much, much higher.
Parkour maps tend to have... well, at least "fairly good" parkour. Yes, this map did actually manage to succeed in that aspect. Jumps were fun and well put together with the rest of the map, though perhaps rushing the player by making them jump on fiery netherrack during the hellish level would've added a bit more variety.
When everything adds up, Resistance Hideout is a less than fair map. Sloppy work and little variety add up to an overall feeling of relief when the map ends suddenly. The progression of the map is very unstable, and an atmosphere that suits the map should also be on HaXIXoR's to-do list as well. I recommend ignoring this map.
Bugs/Tips:
-Try making the different rooms out of a material other than the repetitive one used everywhere
-Fix up those mistakes; they are annoying as hell!
NOTE: If English is not your primary language, I may be able to help you fix them up to give the player a much better impression. Just send me a PM, HaXIXor.
-Make the lever in the first parkour area more prominent; I bet you I wasn't the only one who cheated!
-What on earth happened at the end of the map? Did I win? Lose? Pass the trials?
Before I started this map, I felt a little bit of excitement. I hadn't done a puzzle map in a while, and Creation looked interesting, as it had 5 different endings. I decided that I would give it a go. After finishing the map, my feelings were a mixture of confusion and disappointment. The puzzles were unoriginal and boring, the architecture dull and lacking detail, and the story extremely confusing.
Let's start with the puzzles. As what I perceive as a puzzle map, creation failed to deliver one of the largest aspects of its gameplay. The diversity between the puzzles was minimal. Actually, there were only three kinds of puzzles as far as I can tell, one being parkour, another ice bowling, and the third search puzzles. What is a "search puzzle" you may ask? Well, it is the most boring type of puzzle out there. You literally go through chests until you find the key to advance to the next room. This puzzle is low in excitement, and imposes 0 difficulty for the player, so really, it should never be implemented into a map. Creation implements this type of puzzle twice. The other puzzles are jumping from block to block, or ladder to ladder, and then occasionally throwing a slime ball down a few ice blocks to land on a pressure plate. These kind of puzzles are not exciting, and were mostly very easy to complete.
Next, the story. It starts with the same beginning as we have all seen in many maps over and over again. "You wake up in a room and have no recollection of your memory or past." Yep, that one. The story advances to some signs found throughout the complex, which problems with typos and inconsistent punctuation. The story, at least from my point of view, was VERY confusing. There was little to no development with your knowledge of who you actually are, and it always seemed like random things kept happening that were unexplained by the time I got to the end. I feel like the story might have actually been something, but the way the creator put it into his map didn't work. The story was definitely a problem with Creation.
Aesthetically, Creation was not pretty. The rooms always lacked detail, and I found it difficult to imagine a lab-type setting. It also looked very generic; I have seen all too many puzzle maps that are only made of iron blocks. In all, the look of Creation needs work.
Creation just didn't do it for me. The very things that make up the base of every mediocre map were not present. Instead, I found myself unmotivated to continue, as the puzzles were not fun, the story insufficiently implemented, and even with the extra endings, I never felt that feeling of excitement as I progressed through the map. With some serious work to the puzzles, story, and architecture, this map could be something good. At its current state however, don't play it.
Bugs/tips
-Fix the typos and punctuation errors found throughout the map
-Part of the ladder parkour can be cheated through by jumping from the first ladder to a ladder much higher up
-After the ladder parkour, it is impossible to proceed up to the next room as the top piece of the latter is not there
-The desert simulation parkour is impossible as one of the cacti is too high to reach
-Creation is not an adventure map, it has a very fixed progression
-Don't point out the obvious with a sign, let the players do that
I did enjoy Escape of Mind. With nice puzzles and an interesting story it is a good map, including clever usage of the dimensions of Minecraft and beautiful architecture. I found it hard though to ?get into? the map itself, whether the problem being the map or I myself.
The map itself was visually great and astonishing. The design of the environment was original and also provided enough variety to keep the player motivated to carry on. The map design was thought out carefully, focusing on the story and providing well designed sets, which were sometimes a little misleading, but mainly straight-forward. Also the story was great, idea itself was original and interesting, carried so thorough the map. Puzzles were original and very entertaining, though a bit repetitive, as with the ender pearls and pistons and it got me hoping for more variety on that part. Failing and dying was made annoying but not too much, thanks to the compactness of the map and good check point system, though I think the first check point could have been moved a little further.
I can?t tell why I didn?t really like the map as much as I think it deserved, I just felt left alone as the map kept on going. The story was great, as I said, but maybe one reason for the feeling of being left out was the fact that in the beginning the map felt puzzle-based, but then all of the sudden it became story-based. I think that was the greatest weakness of the map.
Other flaws of the map were pretty minor, mistakes in spelling here and some wiring popping out there. The quality of the architecture and the visual part of the map seemed to drop down a little when I entered the second area. Not that it was bad, but the awesomeness of the first area had left me hoping for something? well, more. Then in the beginning I was left occasionally wondering where I should go next, but luckily the area was small and easy to navigate and it didn?t end up much of a problem.
All in all, the map was great and I enjoyed the puzzles and the architecture of it. I recommend the map warmly to anyone to try and see if you enjoy it more than I. Therefore it feels bad to give such a score, since I think it had much potential for better, but I just didn?t catch it.
Bugs/tips
-Introduction typo, third sign: ?Locked with in? within. And another typo in the Nether when attempting to reach the portal, second sign you?re should be your
-No proper way out of Well of Mana, had to use the water bucket to get up
-One missing block in the wall of The Maze along the main route
-Right after the blocked passage there?s exposed wiring, as well as in the Boss battle there?s some too after the explosion, that could have been camouflaged better (You could have used glowstone blocks instead of stone bricks)
-Blank sign in the Nether after the trap chest and through the end stone door
Enigma Island is truly amazing and addictive map which makes you rage and want to throw your computer out of the window, and enjoy it! Enigma Island is very Myst-like map with different puzzles of logic and headache. Also equipped with an interesting story, the map is definitely a must-try for anyone who loves spending an evening or two on challenging puzzles.
I really enjoyed the map. I really did when I didn?t want to punch through the wall in frustration. In fact, I even enjoyed the frustration, though I would never have admitted that back then. Maybe not everyone will found the map as challenging as I did, but one thing is sure: in Enigma Island you need to put your brains to some serious work. For Myst fans the map is a must try.
The map itself is well designed, compact and working. The gameplay is as intense as a game/map like this can achieve and the puzzles are really clever and diverse, requiring for instance knowledge of mathematics, human relations and some famous board games. Redstone is used with skill in the making of this map, providing interesting aesthetical and gameplay elements. The architecture of the map is pleasant to the eye and the overall structure of the map well designed and executed.
While Enigma Island truly is a great map, it has some flaws that will lower the score. Firstly the notes were named a bit misleadingly, it would have been easier for the player to just name them straight up as ?Audiolog 74? etc, since at least I was a little confused at first over what should I read and why haven?t I been told to read any notes yet, but the three first ones. Then there were some problems with the map being a bit outdated. Also some minor grammatical errors occurred, but I?ve mostly forgiven them for the fact that the map had quite a lot of textual context in it.
The map was really well done and the maker had clearly invested a lot of time and love into the making of the map, and regardless of the minor flaws the map was fun, challenging and a memorable experience. Even if you aren?t much of a Myst fan and are a bit scared for the challenge, I must warmly recommend you to try the map. You will be surprised!
Bugs/Tips
- The claim to sail to the sunset is false now, because the sun sets in a different direction, you actually have to sail to south.
- The cart to the Paradise Island is broken.
Grammar Nazi corner:
- Last room in the introduction, the sign on the left says decoratin when it should say decoration.
- Note 2: ?It?s got nohting but a single folder on the dektop.? Should probably be nothing and desktop.
- After every location, in the big letter room the sign says compac disc, which should be compact disc.
- The first room of infinity: The signs are different than in the rest, the lines are arranged differently and same, and and expecting are misspelled.
- Note 5: ?I hoped it were a nightmare? should be was.
- Note 6: ?But they?re to stupid? should be too.
- Note 7: ?Audiolog 153, Mai 31. 2063.? Should be May, ?However it is to late now? should be too.
Well, it looks like we have another decent map. Nothing more, nothing less. The Alchemical Portal doesn't do anything that is really amazing, and it also doesn't have any big problems. Being a parkour/puzzle/adventure map, the one thing that the Alchemical Portal did really well was it had a very nice mix of genres, and really stayed true to keeping it balanced. Let's get into why this map got the rating it did.
The Alchemical Portal's story was mediocre at best. The few notes that were actually in the game were actually written quite well, no typos or spelling mistakes, and the vocabulary used really helped to enrich the writing. Despite the good writing, the plot itself was a bit out there. In short, you have magically entered a world full of blocks and need to find redstone to activate a portal that will be your escape. At first, I was ok with the whole fantasy theme, but after the intro there was almost nothing to help move the story along. I would have really appreciated some notes along the way that would help to explain what this new world full of blocks is all about. Instead I was left with almost nothing, and when I finally escaped it just wasn't that rewarding.
Without a half-decent story, The Alchemical Portal really depended on it's puzzles and parkour. The puzzles were executed fairly well, but most were unoriginal. Every puzzle in the map I had already came across, but then again, I have played quite a few maps. For the casual custom map player, you might come across a couple new puzzles. As far as the parkour goes, it wasn't too hard and had a good checkpoint system. If you are a fan of parkour, then you can be sure to be pleased. In all, the puzzles were decent, and the parkour was good.
The architecture in The Alchemical Portal was average. I found that the buildings were fairly unique, but sometimes sloppily put together. Some houses actually had portions that were floating off the ground. Others had odd features that seemed unnecessary, and just didn't make sense. Many of the building looked like they were jumbled in a corner, while there was plenty of open space in another corner. The inconsistency of the architecture did not help revive the lack of immersion and atmosphere caused by the deficient story.
Overall, The Alchemical Portal needs needs some serious work in some areas, while in others, minor improvements. This map would be good for those who are looking for a map with balanced variety of parkour, puzzle and adventure. If that doesn't immediately appeal to you, then I would just check it out.
Bugs/tips
-Name your map file name something other then "map"
-Hide your redstone!
-Your scoring system is messed up. I found about 15 feathers after finding a piece of redstone, and then only a couple after finding another piece
-Houses shouldn't float!
-The quiz section doesn't work well, you can just stay outside of the death area and hit the button and have no chance of death
Greed literally took me 20 minutes to complete. Does that make it a bad map? No, actually I found it to be quite enjoyable. Greed is a serious test for any level of parkour player. You might be a completely new to the parkour genre, and it may take you longer to complete, but the challenge will not be anything to serious. Now let's say you are a parkour veteran. Will the challenge be lost? No, in fact, a new challenge is born. Can you keep sprinting throughout the entire map? The map has completely changed its pace and has allowed for a broader range of possible Greed player's.
The best part of greed, for me at least, was how fluent the map played. After successively making a few jumps, whilst staying in sprint, all I could feel was sheer exhilaration and intensity. It was something I never had felt before in a parkour map. So why is it called Greed? Well, my interpretation is that, at times, you have to choose between a risky and long jump that could lead to a momentum boost, or just take the safe root and risk loosing that rush of adrenaline you get from making the long jump.
Aesthetically, Greed was well made. The entire map had a ruin feel to it. I found that I was often jumping over broken bridges and pathways. It really had an aspect of realism to it that I have never seen in a parkour map before. An interesting feature is that there is a nether section of the map, that creates a brand new atmosphere to appreciate and enjoy. In all, the architecture was never neglected, even during the fast pace of the map.
So where did the map go wrong? Truthfully, the map had no large problems or bugs. It just didn't have anything really cool about it. The map was very short, and didn't really have anything other than the fluency and good architecture to make it stand out. For what it is, the map is actually great, it is fun and enjoyable, but it is not the kind of thing you will be remembering as a map with lots of interesting features and content. It is more of a 20 minute time waster then anything else.
Overall, the map is an interesting parkour experience. The fluency of the map allows for it to be easily playable and very re-playable. I would recommend Greed to anyone looking for a fun little parkour map to screw around with.
Bugs/tips
-When you start the map you are flying
-There is no proper start area. Make it so that the start is more professional
-You can still put spawners under ground and have them work. I would suggest doing that for the animals in the nether
Trust & faith is more of a puzzle parkour map, it feels very disjointed as you go through completely unrelated test chambers that feel unoriginal and misplaced at times. It has features you would expect a WIP to have with take away from the feel of the map and affect the overall score of the review.
There isn't a story in the map, which I think is a good thing as in the puzzle genre it's always 'You X have been captured and imprisoned by X and now you must escape' which really do nothing for the map and usually take away from the atmosphere. However in this map the story is replaced by a series of signs, what I would call a GLaDOS style where you are just mocked, or talked at in a funny way, it made me laugh at points at least; which made me want to continue playing and engaged me in the map a bit more.
Ok this part will have some spoilers [Don't worry I'll put them in drop downs], I hate putting spoilers in a review because it defeats the purpose of reading it. All I can say is WTH were you thinking map maker? Don't make rooms that are impossible, it really annoys players and forces you to cheat, ruining immersion and destroying the atmosphere of the map as a whole.
This applies in 2 test chambers the mob spawners/parkour and the water maze. The first being impossible due to creepers and skeletons knocking you off and blowing up the map. The second is plain annoying because no hints etc are given, forcing you to wander aimlessly in the dark until you happen to find the exit.
The bugs are severe in this map so I'm dedicating a paragraph to the worst ones. Most of the puzzles are unoriginal which makes the map feel a little more boring as you have the feeling of playing parts before. This isn't an adventure map, it has no story and there's only 1 room dedicated to combat; however I thought that room was a very good adrenaline fueled start to the map. 1 block deep water isn't enough to stop fall damage. Also the 'mine' test is an annoying concept and it's just a hole down, forcing you to drop and almost die from the fall.
Overall, this is a map with a lot of potential but the constant annoyances and bugs really take away from the feel. I recommend waiting for this map to be updated before playing.
Bugs/Tips
-Clean up the spawn, readme and your thread. It's very unclear, and hard to understand what to do.
-Reduce the amount of spawners everywhere.
-Change the 1 block deep water to 2 back deep.
-The second to last jump on the first parkour test seemed impossible.
-Do something about the impossible test. Or give people a way to skip it until you can find a way to fix it.
-Give some clues in the water maze.
-Fix the 'mine down' test.
-Make it so that you can't see the outside of the map.
-Like the 2nd lava test add some creative additions to make the map more original.
-Add a chest with minecarts at the minecart challenge.
-Make it so the minecart challenge permanently opens the door.
-Decide wether to make it an adventure map or parkour.
Phew, yes that's a lot of bugs, but if they're fixed this map would be greatly improved.
The following map is hard to define; it's a combination of EscapeCraft, SawCraft, and a whole crapload of redstone wiring. During my playthrough of the map, I did not once feel immersed due to the lack of atmospheric pleasure and the overall repetitive surroundings: stone, stone, stone, stone... and (you guessed it!) stone. There were very few puzzles overall (less than 5), and playthrough time was minimal, so I must admit that this review will be far shorter than my others. Yet still, this map help up alright. So, onwards! Let's figure out why this map got the score it did.
Before I go further, however, I'll blatantly state the truth: this map had literally ONE puzzle that related it to Wipeout. Therefore the title made very, very little sense, and was quite confusing, not to mention misleading. I would recommend changing it, Malieux, to something more appropriate to the overall theme. The atmosphere completely surprised me from there on, as it jumped from location to location with varying puzzles yet repetitive surroundings, making for an overall awkward experience. A story was also frankly missing, and disappointed me thusly. I was thoroughly dissapointed with this aspect, and I hope you take this criticsm and use it well. You might actually restore some potential this map had, Malieux.
This map didn't have a whole lot [of anything], but I liked what it did. The puzzles were well crafted, amusing, and fun, though a certain part involved with lava jumping (original, right?) was buggy and required a bit of cheating, as not even sprinting could justify the need to place blocks. However, the redstone-maniac level mechanics of puzzles in the game were nothing short of amazing, and are the complete source of the 3.1. I especially liked the Wipeout Wall, which despite being the only part of the map remotely linked to the show, stayed true to the original and brought back memories from a few years back when I'd sit down at the dinner table and watch Wipeout with my family. Overall, puzzles were lacking in numbers, but incredibly well designed.
Sadly, the map didn't really feature much else. It was overall a short map, like the previous one I reviewed, but I hope I've done justice to them with these two reviews. Now, I know this will draw complaints, but I'll compare the two maps together: Resistance Hideout and Wipeout. Resistance Hideout had the base of all of the aspects it needed: atmosphere, story, puzzles, and humor, but couldn't seem to perfect them. Wipeout, however, only had puzzles in its composition, though it had such a great, varied selection that Malieux's genius shined through and brought the map to fruition. I say this map is a unworthy of much praise in its current form. I will recommend it when an update is put out fixing certain parts of the map, but as of now, I would just skip it.
Bugs/Tips
-Fix that bugged jumping over lava puzzle, however if I screwed that up badly and it was possible, forgive me, as it did not affect your score
-You need an atmosphere to make your players feel immersed, Malieux. Stone doesn't cut it for all of the locations. Change it up!
-Not all puzzle maps have a story, but yours could definitely use one!
-This also enhances a map, and especially a puzzle map: humor!
Goldmine is a short and intense puzzle/adventure map. It manages to hold on to the feeling of achieving something all the time and it still allows the player to keep up with the story and action. The map has plenty of good features, but also some flaws that may confuse the player and make the map seem a bit hastily made.
First the good content. The map is short and intense, which are two features that have hard time if they are to work on their own but make a great pair together. The puzzles are pretty clever and had nicely variety and the map design was good, providing the player with easy access to new areas and environments. The player is guided between the points of interests clearly, even a little comprehensively. The story is also great; it is straight forward, simple, and keeps the player motivated through the map. It doesn’t interfere with the gameplay, but provides an interesting background and even has a moral that fits in and isn’t too cheesy. The story is also well written and the overall language on the map is correct.
The map still has a lot to work on. First of all the terrain has some unpolished areas: chunk error style blocky terrain covering the dungeons, roofs of smooth stone popped through to the world and cobblestone patches around underground areas which all give a sloppy image of the map. They all could be tidied up with a relatively small effort. Then, I found some of the puzzles very short and sometimes too easy considering the claim that the map would be very difficult. The architecture of the map is rather simple and could be invested in more.
Then there’s the co-op possibility. The only things for co-op are the multiple beds and multiple rail tracks. There’s no proper content for multiplayer and it didn’t open any new points of view on the overall experience either.
Overall, I find the map entertaining and worth playing, but its flaws lower the score. I recommend Goldmine for anyone who is looking for a fast-paced short puzzle/adventure map they can spend an hour or two on of their evening.
Bugs/tips
-I noticed some weird terrain, including deformed trees and areas of surface smooth stone that seemed a bit out of place and suggest to posh the area up a bit for the aesthetics.
Legend of Ihir is a map that's been familar to me since around the time I first posted my own map. I recall it was posted right before mine in a review thread, as I posted it, and kept seeing the signature around. I never did play it at the time, but not too long ago, I started playing it to review it for StreamofAdventure's reviewing group. I couldn't finish it. It was just so problematic and poorly designed at the time, that I really was just beyond annoyed with it, and never bothered to finish. Now yes, Legend of Ihir has its moments of excellent, but overall the map really failed to deliver for me.
In terms of appearance, Legend of Ihir really bored and annoyed me. You wake up in a small room, and exit, only to be wowed by a huge circular room... that was very clearly MCEdited in with the Brush tool. So we get out, by watching some exposed redstone (HIDE YOUR REDSTONE!!!!) and move into the next room. This room is also a circle. More exposed redstone... Next room... circle, more exposed redstone. Rinse and repeat. The only times the map leaves this formula is either on its minecart rides, which are wide open and allow a player to easily leave the map is they so choose, and on its climbing parts, which are in the same vein as the minecart rides. The story tells us we are locked in the Ihir prison and must test to leave, but it seems that we can generally leave at any time. It really didn't add up to me. Now for the good parts... Each sphere was made from a different material, which was nice, and a few sphere had very nice insides. Unfortunately, most did not, which leads me to my discussion of the puzzles...
Most of the puzzles were just... well... poor. Clearly exposed redstone, simple jumps and lever pulls, fighting off a few monsters in the same sphereical room... They really left a lot to be desired. Making matters worse, the giant spheres were generally barely used. Almost all of the puzzles were less then 1/10th of the actual sphere, meaning that there could have been so much more in each sphere. There were a few decent puzzles, my favorite being the Sand Sphere, but the rest had so much wasted potential, it really annoyed me. Also, the pathfinding, even in the small hallways, was really poor. Doors would be opened as you moved sometimes, so you would walk right past a 'door' (Piston openings) before it opened, and because the area is partially destroyed (As part of the story), you would wander out of the map by accident, and then continually become deeply confused by what had happened. This caused some major issues, and needs to be addressed in nearly all the puzzles.
Now for the story. It was really, really bad. You start off pretty well, with what seems like a decently outlined story, relying on the amnesia of the character, but this amnesia was forced upon you by the prison of Ihir, as you were a criminal, and to help you become a better person, they wiped your memory and are forcing you to do these tests to prove you are now a good person. However, that's basically all we ever get. For the next hour or so, we get random signs, every 5 or 6 spheres, that generally mean nothing at all, contain poor spelling/grammar and never even contribute to the story. The end of the map didn't even have any clarity, and was more of a "You're done, gratz!" then an ending at all. If anything in this map needs a complete overhaul, it's the story. Fix it or remove it entirely. Because as it stands right now, it bogs the game down, even without the puzzles being problematic.
The redstone in this map is a redeeming factor, but also causes several issues. While the redstone applications are generally very well done, and server their purpose very nicely, the redstone is always exposed, which seriously destroys the atmosphere. If I was in a 'test' area, and there were wires everywhere, I too would start thinking very little of the atmosphere. Nobody should want redstone everywhere, and it really breaks the atmosphere of the map further. Luckily, it's still well designed, and is one of the few parts of the map that really carry through.
Overall, I really didn't like Legend of Ihir. I actually had to stop playing several times and then had to force myself to continue playing, due to the sheer annoyance I continually had with the map. This map needs to be a lot more fun, but unfortunately wasn't. There's a lot that needs to be changed, so even I'm not quite sure where to start, but I really would like to see almost every puzzle expanded further first, as currently, there's very little substance, which drags the map's score down. This map, unfortunately, was more of a chore then a game. I cannot recommend this one.
Bugs/tips
-I'm saying it again. Hide your redstone!
-Make your paths clearer
-Close gaps in the spheres that allow players to escape. If the story says you're in a prison, getting out is a bit odd.
-Have the player change the difficulty in spots if you want monsters. Doing Parkour in a huge dark sphere, with Skeletons shooting at you is just asking for the player to cheat. There's no reason for most of the sections to have Mobs on.
-Fix your spelling and grammar on the signs. Also, try and go for a coherant tone on the signs, rather then just random text.
-Story, story, story. Expand it like crazy, as now, you seem to want to have a story, but then never do anything with it.
The Cure was a map that attempted to be a map, but felt more like a jumble of several incomplete maps, yearning to be connected through a sloppy story. Yes, I had fun at points, but the map itself never really made any sense. It is called The Cure, yet never reveals why. Nobody seems to be sick, nobody seems to be diseased, and nothing really seems 'wrong'. So why the title? I never did find out. Now yes, the score on this is really low. Why, you might ask? In short, the map never manages to really make sense, the building seems generally sloppy, the rules never did work out well, and all in all, it let to a deeply frustrating and unsatisfactory map.
The map opens with a simple tutorial of the things you're going to find in the map, and I started with a feeling of excitement, as the forum thread indicates people really enjoy this map. I was pleased at finding a few secrets, and entered the first town. And my inventory is basically flooded with stuff within the first 15 minutes. This is never a good thing in a map, as it means that you have to abandon many items that would be useful later. When a map-maker generally hides items, these chests usually contain the item used for scoring. Not this map. Each hidden chest usually contained more arrows, a few random items, and occasionally some gold, which was the score. This constantly flooded your inventory, and meant that when you did need something later, you likely didn't have it. This caused some huge issues for me, as I enjoy carrying items about, but was constantly given too much.
The map also has absolutely no narrative, and the notes didn't manage to make much sense. The first note I found was note 5. The last note I found was note 2. They also had poor grammar and spelling, and really didn't advance any plot at all. The map contains a giant Nether "easter egg" that also failed to make much sense, and furthermore, at the end of it, fails to return you to the original portal, instead, dropping you inside a closed off cavern, forcing you to cheat your way back to the initial portal to continue on with the map. As the map continues after the "easter egg", the locations are random, the archetechture is sloppy, and there still is no story at all. When we finally near the end, it seems a story is being implemented, but it turns out I was wrong. We enter some labs, progress through an entirely broken underwater section, and eventually end up in a random village at the end that makes it seem like that map maker realized they'd screwed up, and decided to just end the map. This map really falls so flat because of a lack of story! There is no reasoning behind any of the map, and putting some story in would really make this map a fair bit better. The Nether area was actually the most coherant, and it was just an extra easter-egg!
The atmosphere in the map was deeply lacking as well. The houses are sloppy, the mob spawners are dreadfully placed out in the open, and there are far too many in the first place. The areas we progress through are never explained, minus a few random signs that entirely break the 4th Wall, and a few cultural references that I didn't always get. Now, there were a few areas that I liked, the Mob-maze castle being one of them, as it looked very nice, and was extremely creepy. However, an overabundance of Creepers really screwed the area up royally.
Now for puzzles... In short, they barely existed. Redstone was clearly exposed, puzzles were short and sloppy, and they generally were just lever pulling or simple parkour. Variety would be a key to begin to redeem this map.
Now to sum it all up, this map is, sadly, one of the worst maps I've played in awhile. Sloppy, lack of variety, and what feels like a lack of testing with the mob spawners really makes this map feel like it was made in a very tiny amount of time, with little thought put into it. I personally would recommend skipping this map.
Bugs/tips
-Make the rules far more clear. You contradicted yourself several times, so I basically seemed free to do anything.
-Fix the spawner clutter, to make things possible on most difficulties.
-Stop placing Creeper Spawners in destructable locations. You placed them in very bad locations several times, which messed up the areas very badly
-Add breathing areas in your Underwater Hallways. Currently, it's impossible to get through normally, without placing blocks.
-Hide your redstone, most of it is really exposed, which ruins atmosphere.
-Streamline the story a fair bit, and make it one narrative
-Reduce item clutter, and try and ensure that the player has reasonable inventory, rather then jam-packing us every few seconds.
-Your second Nether portal is horribly broken, and desperately needs to be fixed! Do so!
When I first looked at the forum thread for Ruins of Regolith, I noticed that the map wasn't all that popular. At first glance, it looked like I was about to give out another rating of a 5 or 6. A well organized thread, but only 1000 downloads in 2 months? The map couldn't be anything too special. I couldn't have been more wrong. Ruins of Regolith is an extremely underrated map; it manages to give a custom map experience that compares well to many of the best maps I have played. But Ruins of Regolith is not without problems. Time for the review.
Ruins of Regolith was one of the more aesthetically pleasing maps I have seen. The ruins were magnificently crafted, and created a dark and intriguing atmosphere that seemed as close to real as minecraft gets. In fact, this Ruins of Regolith would make a great creation map. I would almost suggest that the creator make a separate download for the sole purpose of exploring the ruins and discovering the town that lies within.
The brilliant architecture isn't the only thing Ruins of Regolith has to offer, the redstone in this map is almost comparable to Eronev Mansion's redstone. The map practically relies on intuitive redstone for many of the map's major events. The redstone left me thinking, "And how did that work...?" throughout many parts of the map. The redstone in Ruins of Regolith is certainly something to admire.
The story in Ruins of Regolith can be easily represented through a sandwich. If this map was a sandwich, it would have delicious ham, savory tomatoes and crisp lettuce. The bread on the other hand, would be moldy, old, and slightly moist. In other words, the story was great once you got into it, but the beginning was confusing, and the end left something to be desired. At the start, the player is given almost no information as to who you are, and what your relation to the story is. Ok, we need to explore and look around in The Ruins of Regolith, but why? Am I an archaeologist? Or did I just fall in a cave and find this lost society? These were the kind of questions I was asking myself at the beginning. As the story progressed, I began to get into it; The notes were well written, and I started to get to know the characters. This continued until the ending, which I found disappointingly anticlimactic. I did, however, find the score system at the end to be very rewarding. The story really was fantastic, I just wish that the map's start and finish had a little bit more.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Ruins of Regolith. The architecture was breath taking, and I honestly could not have enjoyed the redstone more. What I thought would turn out to be an average map, ended up being a great adventure with an enjoyable storyline. I would recommend this map to anyone who enjoys a good adventure map. On the whole, Ruins of Regolith is a great map that deserves substantially more credit. Playing this map was very enjoyable, and certainly taught me a lesson about judging a book by its cover.
Bugs/tips
-HD texture packs are great, but many people will not take the time to patch their minecraft in order to use them. Next time, I suggest using a 16x texture pack
-Update your mods/texture pack to 1.0
-Your minecraft pin puzzles do not work properly. You can simply hit the last button in any combination and the door will open
Meteor Mash left me pondering the utter posibilities of what this map could've amounted to. It had a solid base atmiospherically and story-wise, though some failing aspects and rediculous flaws left the map with a fair bit to be desired. I did not connect with the map and was further upset by the visible lack of effort in certain areas across the landscape in the form of poorly written signs and notes, along with simple architecture. Luckily some aspects of the map acted as the saviors, and completely reversed the rather negative parts of the adventure. Let's take a look, shall we?
The map, despite its plentiful flaws, had a lot going for it. An engaging plot mixed in with powerful and original subplots made for an enjoyable story with potent flavour. The builds were not astronomical, per se, but completely fit the growing atmosphere and post-apocolyptic theme of the map. As I stated previously, the atmosphere and generic theme of the plot (in the form of notes as well as signs) were very strong and were lots of fun to read. I especially loved the way the player was forced to gather info from multiple, diverse sources and put them together to form the overall story arch. So why was the rating so low? Read on.
One very noticeable and confusing flaw was the appearance of url website coding admist every single one of the notes (that did not work, I might add, as they were improperly implemented into Notepad). I ended up repeatedly (and tiredly) moving the scroll button on my malfunctioning mouse to find the actual text writing of the notes. Also dealing with story-related flaws, all of the signs were written entirely with lowercase letters. I mean, come on! Way to look unprofessional! A map instantly becomes far more appealing when it seems like it wasn't slapped together in a matter of minutes. Thirdly, the builds were very simple. I know this may sound biased, as I am currently helping Kmilley, but I recommend his map Levi's Nightmare to look up to. It had a completely different plot but the overall post-apocolyptic feel was recurring. His buildings were much larger in scale and helped the map feel a lot more engaging, no offense, to yours, map makers.
So how does the score add up? Unfortunately, the flaws related to story and builds, along with a messy set of in-character signs which degrade the progression aspect, outweigh the accomplishments of the map makers. Fix these flaws and I'm sure that everyone will have a great and professional map to play through. If you, readers, are looking for a short and fairly fun map to waste your time with, then this could be what you are looking for. If not, then it is ultimately up to you, but I say that if you skip the map, you probably aren't missing anything you haven't seen before.
Bugs/tips
-The builds will feel much more effective if they are larger and more prominent among the landscape
-What is up with that coding in the notes? Try and fix that up...
-A couple of words were misspelled in the notes, so you may want to look them over
*I haven't played a single Assassin's Creed game ever, and probably wouldn't to save my life. Nonetheless...*
Assassin's Creep can only be defined thusly:
The map is like a hand-woven, intricate blanket. The spool is the utter creativity of selib, endlessly uncoiling thread for the master of parkour to weave beautifully into the map. The thread itself is the sheer number of possibilities; formed into patterns we call astounding architecture. And of course, the needle materializing from the sewing kit would be selib himself, building block after block of beige sand-covered rocks in order to form a recreation of a place Assassin's Creed fans the world over know to be a very, very solid parkour adventure.
Despite the known fact that I have never once played a single Assassin's Creed game, I must say the crisp, detailed, thoroughly layered architecture inside and out of all of the Roma buildings was enough to keep a fan, casual or completely die-hard, happy. Whether it be through game-accurate visuals, easter-eggs, or just well thought out replacements for the technology in the good old days when we played the role of assassin for fun *teehee*, the map never disappointed is the consistent use of exploration and recreation.
At times, the architecture in the map felt so realistically accurate - like the games (from the trailers I've seen, anyway) - I felt like upping the ante and playing the map on Hard, just to make use of Steelfeather's texturepack and see what it is actually like to play the game. And from what I observed, the recreation was nothing but spot on. I loved every minute, with the wind in my hair and the arrow of a skeleton piercing me through the heart over and over again - just 'cuz I'm not exactly professional at the higher difficulties yet.
So where did this map disappoint? Despite the seamless recreation, exploration, and open-world feel featured within the magical download, the collecting of the wool eventually becomes tedious. This may just disappoint me, as I am not a hardcore fan of parkour-oriented adventures, but even though it is executed efficiently, the challenges don't really challenge me the way I felt they needed to. There is only so much you can do with ladders, after all. It is fun to climb from building to building, and rooftop to rooftop, which is virtually exhilarating (*ha-ha*), it becomes repetitive and outright boring after an hour or so. It need some more adventure-like apsects to bring it to full fruition. What really could be added is a sort of system where the player is rewarded after collecting each medal - considered "completing a dungeon" - and the reward is some sort of way to unlock a bonus challenge (perhaps a lever that unlocks a door elsewhere). This could keep the players immersed and always looking forward to solving new puzzles rather than finding the current ones tedious and boring after a while.
In its entirety, Assassin's Creep is a parkour map that is beyond solid. It is creatively-executed, well thought out, beatifully crafted, and immersive. It wasn't missing so much; it just felt as though it needed to have something added on that would bring it to even higher standards. I thoroughly enjoyed this map, and would surely recommend it to any parkour fan, Assassin's Creed fan, and even perhaps the casual adventure map player. Job well done, selib. Job well done.
Bugs/tips
-Refer back to the bonus challenge idea as a way to keep players non-farmiliar with Assassin's Creed immersed and still excited
-Include a destination area, please! I didn't know where the hell I was until I rewatched the trailers for the games and said aloud, "Oh." I know I'm a Creed newb, but still...
It's sad, really. I can see we're back to what I call a typical review of mine. This particular map mimiced the predictable and yet unavoidable behaviour of a sailing ship: it swayed forward, then backward, never managing to send down the anchor in safe groud. Parkour Runner felt like more of an adrenaline-pumping, completely oblivious obstacle course than an actual puzzle map. The challenges were not intuitive nor exciting, and never really challenged me on a skill or intelectual level. Instead, they presented themselves as promising, and then let down greatly. Hippy500's map never prevailed.
Tedious, unoriginal puzzles mingled with an ever-changing unstable atmosphere to create an unfortunately boring experience with a lot to be desired. Puzzles felt thrown at me rather than elegantly implemented, and players of the puzzle adventure will find themselves rapidly jumping from rooms sporting one color to a colleseum-like arena with a hellish theme. None of the puzzles - be it parkour, mossy, or watery - felt organized or well thought-out, leading to an uncomfortable time. The 2.7 points come almost entirely from the very base execution and construction of the many puzzles. The parkour was never impossible, nor too hard, and lots of puzzles were well crafted into their surroundings. This, in retrospect, also had a lasting negative effect, as mentioned before - the atmosphere was unstable. Despite the fact that many of these puzzles were very easy, it is quite obvious that Hippy500 is no stranger to creating puzzles.
Redstone engineering, like the plot in this case, was virtually non-existent. There was a small unneeded bit of never ending volleys of arrows in the final chapter (read on to understand what these are), but aside from that, nothing was really prominent aside from the occassional piston door or such. Near the end of the map, redstone became a little more prominent - featuring a sprinting challenge - though it was not implemented well nor admirable in terms of contruction.
The appearance of Parkour Runner was yet another major factor in its lousy execution and final result. While rooms were large and fun to explore, they were never consistent. One room was tiny, the next huge. They also switched shapes on multiple occasions. Having played The Legend of Ihir, I can say this was definitely not the most repetitive or the worst, though it certainly left a fair bit to be desired.
Lastly, and [believe it or not] most certainly not least, was the the map's progression. Despite the atmospheric issues I stated previously, Parkour Runner featured a system I have only seen once before, though it was made much better here. After what would appear to be the end of the map, you are presented with a chance to do a secondary challenge, which is counted as the second and final chapter in the map. It is not too long nor too short, though takes a little bit less time to complete than the first bit. Well done here.
In the end, Parkour Runner is more disappointing than most maps I've played. It is inconsistent, sloppy, and not very intuitive. If I may quote Fangride, my fellow reviewer, "It felt more like a chore than a map." Overall, I disliked the map. It was excellent progression-wise, though failed to meet my expectations in other aspects. I do not recommend it to fellow map players out there. Apologies.
Bugs/tips
-Inconsistency was a huge problem. Fix the appearance and make the adjoining rooms similar in at least one way
-Redstone was non-existent until you got to the second chapter. Redstone should most certainly be added to raise the score.
-As hard as this may be, try and think of original puzzles. Many of the ones you used were in new surroundings, though they were exactly the same as those I'll see in pretty much any other puzzle map.
When I first saw The Wildlands' application posted on the Review Central thread I was intrigued. The map was advertised as "An experimental map which tries something new in terms of storytelling. Action takes a back-seat to a more heavy focus on the story of the island you find yourself shipwrecked on." As a map maker of a story map myself I obviously found this to be quite interesting. There are very few story based maps out there right now, and so it was almost exciting to get to review one. The big difference between my story map and The Wildlands, is that The Wildlands is completely open. It does not follow a linear map format. Does this new map genre work? Keep reading to find out.
The Wildlands is described as being an open map, where you explore through houses reading notes, slowly piecing the back-story together yourself. I was fairly excited to see how this map would turn out. Unfortunately, I was just setting myself up for disappointment. The open based world made it extremely hard to follow the story. In this case, the story was simply too complicated to follow without a logical route in place. I was constantly wondering how all of the notes would connect. Finally I reached the point where I felt like I had read every note, and entered every building. There were still story gaps in my mind as to what had happened in The Wildlands. The story was confusing and complex, and having to look around for what seemed like hours to find the next series of signs made the experience feel frustrating and tedious.
If we take a second to ignore the main topic of this map, the story, and instead look at some of the smaller aspects of the map, such as the architecture, we will notice that it is all mediocre quality at best. Nothing really helps make this map better. Exposed redstone, architecture that is less than appealing most of the time, and no puzzles other than combat, make this adventure really depend on the story. There just wasn't anything else that really stood out.
When it comes down to it, the story was well written, but because of the map's open formating, it became potential that was not fufilled. And that brings us back to our opening question, does the new map genre work? In my opinion the answer is no. It is far too confusing to have the layout of your map open with no solid conclusion. If this map had gameplay that was much more linear, it would have most likely gotten a much higher score. Saying that, the rest of the map wasn't anything special either, so even with a more linear story, I couldn't see this map getting much more then a 5. In all, If you are a huge fan of exploration, and enjoy story over anything else, then you might want to check it out.
Bugs/tips
-Make a zip file
-Allow the player to start with full hunger, not half
-Don't give the player wood in his inventory when he starts
-Hide your redstone
-Put more food in your map, and less junk like 64 stacks of cobble
-Many elements of your map are outdated, such as the minecart boosters
-Don't lead people down a cave with torches when all they are going to find is a dead end
1. Hero's Quest III: The Forest of Shadows---9.6/10 2. Paladin's Quest Episode One----------------9.1/10 3. Into the Depths-------------------------------8.2/10 4. Dr Robert and the Mysterious Ruins--------7.9/10 5. Punishment: Parkour----------------------6.9/10 6. Marvellous--------------------------------6.6/10 7. The Iron Hallway-------------------------4.5/10 8. Trapped-----------------------------------4.3/10 9. Levels--------------------------------------3.9/10 10. Claw Adventures------------------------3.7/10 11. Puzzlecraft--------------------------------2.6/10 12. Laboratory--------------------------------2.3/10 13. Glass Maze--------------------------------1.4/10 14. Bloody Mary--------------------------------1.3/10 15. One Wrong Choice------------------------1.1/10
Dr Robert and the Mysterious Ruins is a map that is beyond solid in almost any way possible. Its quality never dips anywhere below decent in any varying aspect, and feels complete as a whole. With an incredibly adventurous, descriptive story and plenty of phenomenal architecture to support it, the map is a true adventure, and is completely worthy of the name. Delving into the mystery of the map is great fun, and the satisfying road from beginning to end is one of the most satisfying minecraft journeys I've taken.
The story feels original, exciting, and fresh, and Jamspots makes use of incrediblly descriptive and accurate words to create several intuitive layers to the plot. The story itself appears quite standard near the beginning, where a friend requires you to complete certain tasks and accomplish goals. Yet the map takes a surprising and sudden swerve right near the beginning, completely morphing into a fantastic RPG story-driven adventure. The plot is great help, and ties into the linear-branching gameplay seamlessly. I, in particular, especially enjoyed how the plot played out and gave you multiple options and areas to explore. The end of the plot was nothing short of breath-taking, and while I won't give away any particular spoilers here, I will guarantee the player that it will not disappoint.
The architecture of the map is caught about halfway between decent and absolutely mind-blowing, as certain builds are deceptively simple, and others are outright boring cubes. The overall visual appeal of the map as a whole is quite good, and supports the modern RPG-epic story effectively. The creations within the earth also look appropriate for most situations, including the ruins themselves. I was fairly disappointed near the beginning when greeted with only a decent landscape, but it was up close that I really realised how well most of the structures were built.
The map's difficulty is its only weak point, where it struggles to grasp the concept of consistency, but even so, the parkour points provided are quite exciting and a nice change from the mainly exploration-based gameplay that makes up almost the entirety of the custom map. While the fact that the player is forced to play on easy or higher the entire game is sometimes utilized very well, at other times it feels out of place and awkward. If I may make a suggestion, I would recommend that Jamspots feature signs that tell the player to switch difficulty for underground sections of the maps, and switch back to peaceful for the exploration aboveground. Despite the flaws mentioned, I did very much enjoy side-puzzles like getting your pocketwatch, scaling the Hellbox, and finding the Pharaoh's treasure.
Difficulty aside, the map was quite consistent, and this was extraordinarily noticeable when it came to the atmosphere of the map. The story flowed smoothly and likewise brought the player to numerous locations along the way, keeping the atmosphere steady. The atmosphere took a deep plunge for certain missions somewhat unrelated to the major storyline, but nonetheless, was incredibly strong in comparison to the atmospheric nonsense featured in countless other poorly done maps. I enjoyed the varying degrees of puzzles and numerous story twists, all of which tied into the atmosphere and its beautiful final result. The only suggestion I might make is that adding royalty-free music in the download to enrich the gameplay would be a great idea!
I left the gameplay aspect to the end of the review, as I feel it was what really sold the map. Linear exploration often feels forced and pointless, but when a strong story is provided, it can turn into a masterpiece. The multiple options for things to do next, coupled with the clever idea of listing all objectives in the note files, create an easy-to-understand, hard-to-master gameplay style that completely revolutionizes linear-mapping. As mentioned previously, adding music to play while in the map would make the entire experience completely smooth and entirely professional. Lastly, in terms of gameplay, I would like to mention the constant feeling of danger throughout the map, whether it be a burning ship, or molten magma below your feet as you carefully tread. The gameplay is nearly perfect, and with one or two tweaks could bump up this map's score by at least a full mark.
When it all comes down, Dr Robert and the Mysterious Ruins is a truly strong map, and stands out as a prominent display of just what is possible with Minecraft, and (let's face it) a little bit of imagination. Jamspots' adventure map is one of a kind, and I can't wait to see what else he has in store for the mapping community. No matter what you are looking for, be it survival or roleplaying or adventure of puzzles, I say you should give this map a look. You won't regret it.
Bugs/Tips
-If I were you, I'd try to keep the building style more consistent. The town felt like a city in certain areas and a fishing village in others. Try to define the settling using architecture.
-The difficulty was inconsistent. At this time it may seem pointless and may be the hardest of the map-creating endeavor thus far, but if you could try to make the difficulty similar throughout, then the map's score would be rocketing into outer space.
Since puzzles maps first started being generated, some clever map-creators have kept to a simple method: mazes. Mazes have taken all different forms, from simple leaf mazes to multi-level mazes to even mazes in themed shapes. Sometimes mazes get even more clever, implementing simple redstone puzzles to keep the player from becoming too frustrated as they navigate through the area. Unfortunately, however, Glass Maze was nothing more than that: a glass maze.
Now, simply being a glass maze might not be a bad thing. In fact, it could even be clever, as at first the all-glass-ness of the maze can easily disorient players. However, this was not the case in kebapmanager's rendition of the popular genre. Glass mazes suffer from solid-wall syndrome - solid walls, if they are close enough, make it easy for a player to spot holes or stairs in the glass, assisting the player in discovering where they need to go. Glass Maze especially suffered from this because it was so small - in addition to causing the map to last for less than ten minutes, it took away what could have been incredible difficulty by confining the maze to an approximate 30x30 blocks.
The ending showed laziness on the builder's part, as well, as the last level of the maze was not a maze at all - just an annoying series of one-block jumps over a pit of lava, not annoying in that they were difficult, but annoying in that they were painfully easy. Overall, this map lacked the ingenuity others within its genre have, being overly simple and not really trying hard to provide any sort of a challenge, for both new and old players. If you're looking for a challenging maze, this isn't where you want to look.
Bugs/Tips
-In the very beginning you could see the redstone that would open up the path down to the maze; it looked very out of place and just ugly.
-If you're going to be making a glass maze, make sure that the solid walls are either very far away - meaning make each level larger - or simply put glass for miles on end. With the solid-block walls like what you had it was very easy to tell where you needed to go to get to the next level. Putting some of those stairs in the corners wasn't a very good idea, either.
-The ending was very anti-climactic, with just that single sign and not even a room. Come on, the player just went through a maze! Even if it was a short maze, toss them a few diamonds or something to make them feel like they were actually being rewarded.
Paladin's Quest Episode One is an extraordinarily immersive and interactive map that I am proud to say is not only the most original and unique map I've seen in a while, but the most fun as a whole. Oblivion-style questing and the pure imagination of the Noxcrew make for a very enjoyable start to a series of quests that will surely get better and better. The quest I just embarked on was just the beginning, but it was satisfying enough to feel like an entire adventure just on its own.
The Oblivion-style questing was just a phenomenal idea, briliantly crafted into an immersive and intuitive sequence of videos that really harmonize the atmosphere and the overall feel of the gameplay. Never does any video feel pushed or unrealistic, and while the voice acting may not be 100% perfect, it sure as hell is quite close. Medieval fantasy has never felt so enriched, and neither has the Minecraft experience at all. Video-related questing is a gift to the Minecraft community, and was almost perfectly executed. Well done Noxcrew.
The atmosphere was crisp and detailed, with a satisfying story and building emotional quests. Enhancing this was not only a well-thought out system of relaying tasks and quests, but fantastic builds. While nothing so large as a castle is attempted, the medieval architecture leaves nothing to be desired. As a fan of the Elder Scrolls series and the expansion packs, I can see where specks of influences have arisen and made the architecture feel even more fitting to the medieval-questing era in which Morris lives.
The story was yet another aspect where the map shone like sunrise, peaking out from a beautiful landscape filled with towers and small homes on the island. The fact that you could look for any character on the island and complete beginning quests in any order didn't hurt the story at all - instead enhancing it with some lovely side-stories and such. On a side note, all of the videos that accompanied the quests felt fitting and took place at the right times. Lovely work as a whole.
Redstone engineering did not play a major part in the map, but was present and thriving nonetheless. It was thrilling watching the way things unfolded as certain quests were achieved, others unlocked, and tasks given through the executed storyline. It appeared well hidden as well, as I never saw any at all.
Lastly, but certainly not least, was the execution of the map outside of Minecraft itself. The passwords on unlockable quest .rar fles was genius and frustrating at the same time, as some quests were a litter harder to gain passwords for than others. Nevertheless, it appeared well-executed. The only major problem I had in the end was having to transfer out of Minecraft and into Youtube to watch quest videos. The Youtube screen surrounding the video pulls you right out of the atmospheric magical touch that the map itself has and into the cybernet that feels unwelcoming. If the videos themselves could be downloaded, then the need for Youtube would no longer be apparent and the transfer from Minecraft, to video, to Minecraft again wouldn't feel so choppy. At the same time, arguing this feels unreasonable, as Noxite already attempted this and the file was too large and the amount of downloads to plentiful in the first few minutes.
As a whole, Episode One of Paladin's Quest is a spectacular feat in the field of map-making, revolutionising the way we quest and look for adventure. I recommend it with all my heart. With few flaws and more successes than can be accounted for, it feels like an adventure. It feels like a role-playing phenomenon. And I want more!
Bugs/tips
-The voice acting wasn't top notch, though I must say it was pretty well done as you are doing this for free. Perhaps more pronounced accents and personalities would make the experience even MORE immersive.
-As discussed before, there is the issue of Youtube. The only thing weighing the map down. If there would be some way to download the videos in lower quality in a .zip package, the map experience would be perfect.
When I first started the map, I had quite a bit of hope that this map could succeed. A somewhat odd but rather interesting story tid-bit hinted at a concealed genius that the map could present to the player as they progressed. But the map morphed my expectations into somewhat hollow dreams that never came true. As it turned out, Bloody Mary fufilled and accomplished absolutely nothing. With a terribly done Escapecraft-style plot, lacklustre puzzles and gameplay mechanics, and one of the weakest atmospheres puzzle-map-wise that I've seen in a long time, it is truly a map that is not worth your time.
But why? The story started out fine, except for a few historically inaccurate details and the like, but whatever. It's Minecraft, not history. But the small backstory about some ruler named "Bloody Mary" locking up random people and you being one of them feels pushed to the rear as an Escapecraft-style storyline pushes through. The saddest part about this is that, unlike Herobrine, this villain shows no cunning skills or torturous humor. She threatens to kill innocent civilians time and time again, which could possibly have been a decent threat had the threat been executed effectively and at the right time. Instead, Bloody Mary announced her plans to kill civilians halfway through or right after puzzles, creating an off-time beat for the map. Yet the plot weakened itself further as it was almost completely destroyed in the third quarter of its progression. Bloody Mary returned to the signs of the map to say a few last words before a long and utterly pointless, malfunctioning minecart ride shoved the player through a small hole in the ocean. It is at this point the player realizes they must've escaped, as the map literally ends right then and there without a conclusion.
The puzzles themselves were honestly nothing more than unoriginal. Parkour filled up most of the map, but redstone did make up a small minority of the unsatisfying puzzle selection. I do commend the map maker, cookieman999, for attempting to use pistons effectively. In one particular room it worked extremely effectively, and felt worthy of a place in an updated version of Escapecraft. However, the quality was nothing more than decent for the rest of the map. I hate to leave such little critique here, as the map's genre is quite clearly specified as puzzle, but to be honest nothing wowed me. Nothing had enough wonder to support an entire puzzle map.
Architecturally the map suffered from flaws I've noticed in numerous maps: the constant, unyielding amount of stone that makes up a majority of the map. Of course, as in almost all maps, lava makes a prominent appearance. A pointless break in the atmosphere for a trip to the nether offers a little variety but overall is nothing spectacular. Neither is the appearance of cannons, which were fun but did not positively reinforce the atmosphere. For what its worth, the puzzles weren't designed too terribly.
And last (and certainly least), we have the atmosphere, the one reason this map fails so astronomically. Too be honest the map is one of the most atmospherically unstable puzzle maps I have ever played, and having an awfully-executed plot as the only aspect to withhold it didn't help either. Never once do we find out who this mysterious person is, or why he's helping us. I assume that is what the "part 2" of the map will clear up, yet still it makes the overall experience unsatisfying. I also refer back to the plot and architecture critique, as the plot never fully ended and the buildings were square and boring.
When it all comes down, Bloody Mary is map of really poor quality. Judging from the forum post, I can tell effort of some degree went into the map but never shone through the thick veil of the nothingness that surrounded it - the terrible atmosphere and plot. While it may have one or two redeeming qualities about it, there is honestly nothing you will find here that another map doesn't have. Just ignore this one. It really isn't worth your time.
Bugs/tips
-The trip to the nether was explained in one or two signs but still didn't seem to fit. If I were you, I'd either revamp the explanation or get rid of it entirely.
-Stone is WAY overrated. I don't know why so many puzzle maps seem to coexist upon it. Try out some variety in material, as all we got visually was a lacklustre, unexplained trip to the nether and a flop into the ocean at the end.
-There are a few spelling errors. Check twice or thrice before publishing!
-The rooms are all rectangular. Variety, please! Spheres, decorations, anything to make them look different from one another would work perfectly.
-That piston challenge was amazing. Experiment more with it to see how you could change it and use these in another challenge.
Levels, on it's thread, proclaims that it is based off of the well-done puzzle map, "Escape the Puzzlemaster". And admittedly, during this map, I can definently see the similarities. Levels actually is a "Escape the Puzzlemaster lite" version. Many of the puzzles seem to be toned down versions from Escape the Puzzlemaster; most notably a woollen room that is modeled to appear like the outdoors. However, the map has a fair number of bugs, some annoying problems, and about 3 too many mazes. Sure, one had a very unique twist, but all in all, it was either Parkour or mazes almost the whole way through.
Levels was also suprisingly short. It took me all of 35 or so minutes to finish, 10 of which was wasted on a room that didn't work at all. It also had little narrative. It certainly started off well, where it mentioned at the start that you would go through "Three sectors", and were a prisoner that was condemned to life in the Nether, however, our overseer seemed to know that we were innocent, and instead had us complete some tests to prove we were good enough for freedom. I was interested to see how the story progressed. And then it didn't. At all. Very few notes were written after that, other then a slight intro to a few puzzles, which left me hugely dissapointed on that front.
Puzzle-wise, Levels doesn't shine much either. Staring with a confusing Lava Maze (The hints didn't seem to be of *any* use at all!), it didn't really do much for me. One of the opening puzzles; which was unfortunately optional; was an Ender Pearl throwing maze, which was definently a unique twist on the type! Of all the mazes; and there were a lot; this one was definently the most interesting. However puzzle-wise, Levels did suffer. Being a Puzzle map, it needed to be skillful with its puzzles, and it wasn't. Lots of mazes, lots of parkour, and one room where you were supposed to find some items by digging/chopping/mining,, that I never was able to find (Speaking of, creator, take a look at that room. It makes no sense at all, and after 10 minutes, I busted through the door from sheer exasperation.). We get more parkour after a very Escape the Puzzlemaster-y maze (Observatory above, find 4 levers and then the door to move on) and then we just got a lot of Parkour, to the best of my memory. However, the large and pretty "Rainbow" room, as I'm calling it, is bugged, and allows a player to progress directly into the Tower without completing *ANY* of the Parkour. A lever was already on the door when I walked up, so all I had to do was climb to the top of the tower, and hop down one of the two shafts.
All in all, Levels seems like the creator really channeled Escape the Puzzlemaster, but unfortunately couldn't really deliver the same experience in the end. Multiple bugs permiate the map, as discussed above, and the puzzles just aren't satisfying. I was really hoping for more, so perhaps the creator will start working on the map again, and significantly improve it. Perhaps removing most of the old mazes, and adding in some more complex ideas, as well as finding some more unique things then parkour. You had a great "reverse frogger" game in there, I saw, and hoped for more like that after finishing it, but the game basically ended after that due to the bug in that the final tower was open. Levels needs some work, and many of the puzzles are forgettable, but it wouldn't *hurt* to give this a try. I just didn't really enjoy it, and felt that Escape the Puzzlemaster did it all better anyway.
Bugs/tips
-Just bringing it up again; in the giant rainbow, a player can easily skip ALL of the parkour and just head right into the tower
-Figure out what's wrong with the room that you're supposed to find a button and a furnace. They don't seem to exist; as I just found a Gold Legs and a Diamond Chestplate.
-Adjust the minecart timing in the Frogger puzzle. It's really annoying to try and catch them now.
-Adjust some of your jumps. Some of them seem to be next-to-impossible, which is annoying when the rest of the puzzle is quite easy.
Like some of the other maps that have been reviewed by this team, very little time had been spent on this map. However, unlike those other maps, this is not evident because of terrible gameplay or crappy building - it is simply because this map is so short.
Perhaps I have become spoiled off of some of the longer maps that at least attempt in-depth plots and complicated puzzles. Perhaps it is simply that because of building my own maps that I have begun to judge others by the expectations I set forth for myself. Regardless, the fact of the matter is that this map was simply too short. While I am not the best Minecraft player when it comes to jumping and parkour and even sometimes puzzles, I was able to blow through this map in less than 10 minutes.
In spite of the brevity and simplicity of Iron Hallway, I was taken aback by the lack of problems. True as it may be that the rooms were not incredibly imaginative - with the exception of one room involving two levers that simultaneously put out lava and opened the door - the puzzles were in no way flawed. At no point did I find myself thinking "God what a terrible map!". No! In fact I thought it was pretty good for what it was - it never tried to appear as some epic journey, with only a few scattered signs throughout to help give some guidance or to mock you for your failure.
However, the lack of plot was a bit annoying. In the short time I was playing the map I was wondering exactly what the purpose of these challenges were - why was I investing any time in trying to solve these? What was waiting for me at the end of all of this? I realized that I had no idea why I was playing this map at all.
In the end, however, I would have to say that the map was charming. It was short, sweet, and never tried to become too complex. What little it attempted it did well - nothing was half-assed, if you'll pardon my language. As Jaycerulz' first map, I have to say that it shows promise...just try to make it a bit longer next time.
Bug/tips
-There were literally no bugs that I could find on this map. What is wrong with you? ;P
-To keep your audience engaged, try to throw out an occasional sign, even if it's to insult them. For reference, look at Vech's Super Hostile series - even though he has no plot, he still keeps the player engaged with his signage
-To make a map longer, either make puzzles that will stump players for a while, or make more simple puzzles that don't become repetitive. You managed to keep from being repetitive in this map, but it is an inherent problem in longer maps.
I hate to use an analogy, but in this case I deem it fitting. If Minecraft could represent an entire universe, ever expanding with new updates, maps, texture packs, and the like, one solar system would represent the fair share of parkour maps out there. At the core of the star would be perfection: a parkour map with everything it could possibly have. The parkour maps orbiting nearest it would be the best of the best, reaching out as far as possible to try and achieve that ultimate goal. I feel as though Punishment: Parkour is reaching for that too, and tries many times to achieve that, each attempt equally unique and yet failing to grasp onto what it so desperately needs. I place Punishment: Parkour out further in the solar system as a Gas Giant, a good map with a huge goal.
Firstly, I'll touch on the story, sitting on the atmosphere of the Punishment: Parkour map planet. While the beginning offers an intriguing backstory and some incredibly mature themes, whilst being engaging and well written at the same, it feels ignored for some time. Instead, two characters previously mentioned in the backstory become prominent Herobrine-like characters and have such similar personalities that the point of having the two of them seems a dull one. Comical signs completely disrupt the atmosphere that the backstory seemed to be leading up to, and horror simutaneously appears and disappears from the map, like little sparks that try desperately to start fire and never do. The story picks up a fair bit further into the map, when you finally realize why there were two characters. The parkour bit fades into a completely original story-arc and the story becomes (once again) a prominent factor. It ends on an extremely high note, though for the sake of readers, I shall not spoil it. The story fufills itself, and despite its shortcomings near the middle of the map, is an extremely relevant factor in the map's success.
Secondly, I'll critique the main factor of the map: the parkour itself. It starts at the beginning by claiming to be one of the hardest parkour maps in history. It is a fairly bold claim that I would assume is supported by many who played the map, as shown by the poll results thus far. I myself found it to be particularly challenging, pushing my skills to the limits with some well timed jumps. Many jumps are quite well done, and fit in so well that they create the illusion they are even part of some rooms. The difficulty remains steady and controlled for a majority of the map, though certain ones might catch those unexperienced puzzlers off-guard. Jumping is normally something that can entertain most players for a short period of time, though this particular map feels like I could play it for a long number of hours. Engaging courses that even require some looking around make the map's jumping puzzles seem original, even revolutionary for Minecraft standards.
The atmosphere moves inelegantly from strong, to weak, and back again, with a few flaws mixed into the fray. Parkour as a punishment is rather weak story-wise, but it begins to become less noticeable as it progresses. That aside, the map also suffers from location-flaws, which seem bright and cheerful, despite what the story would imply. The signs that portray the areas as "courses" like a free-roam parkour world don't help either. The torture machine-aspect fades throughout the course of the adventure as well, unfortunately. However, if you cast these two prominent flaws aside, the adventure appears well done and hellish. Of course, being set in the nether probably doesn't hurt in the least bit, but it feels appropriate. It also reignites the torture flame as the map seems to force you through rapid cycles of seemingly never-ending parkour, with no escape, as each time you die, you must restart the map.
When the core (puzzles), atmosphere (surface), and story (atmosphere) collide, they form a parkour-map planet that maintains off-beat progression and incredible parkour, with a somewhat-strong and inconsistent story and a mildly enjoyable atmosphere. I would recommend the map mainly to a strong puzzler, due to the difficulty of the puzzles, but even if you are looking for a strong story, I'd say there's a good chance you'll find one here.
Bugs/tips
-The atmosphere feels weak because of the colourful landscape and surroundings during parkour. This is especially noticeable near the beginning. It doesn't really help the torturous theme.
-What happened to the story? It went away after the first chapter and only returned much later on in the story. Perhaps a little extra info or escpecially cruel things said on the signs would be more appropriate than little comical bits.
Before I go further, I'd like everyone to take a moment and just stare undisturbed at the rating I've given. For those who have seen the utter brutality that I've established through the I course of my previous reviews will most likely shudder at this rating, shock coursing through their veins. Before Kmilley goes ahead and kicks my butt off of the reviewing team (nah, I kid Kmilley), I'd like to say that this perfect score is not undeserved. I feel so strongly about this map I'd bet my life on its success as an RPG legendary adventure. The map contains so many new features, achieves so many feats, and breaks through the very boundaries of what we call vanilla Minecraft so smoothly that I doubt we'll ever see a map quite like this one ever again. To summarize this map in two words (or perhaps one hyphenated one):
Mind blowing.
To start off, the map has some incredibly well-executed NPCs to help organize and manage the side-quests into possible and fun endeavors up trees, around floating islands, and... collecting wheat for bread (actually, even that is made out to be rewarding and enjoyable). The NPCs are also in vanilla, as they are snow golems, and do not require any external or additional mods. They are implemented very well when needed and never feel forced into the map just for the purpose of side-quest flavour.
Secondly, the notes are extremely well-written and engaging, forcing you to do some very obvious thinking while providing well-hidden hints at what to do next. The third version, 1.03, further adds another layer to the map's success in this aspect of the adventure as it contains audio recordings that can be listened to while playing through the map. I thoroughly enjoyed the story arch in its entirety and had a blast finding the new notes.
Thirdly, the builds were really, really astonishing. Unbelievable though it may be, I honestly think that the clear, unveiled architecture present in Hero's Quest III is enough to make the castle in The Redmurk Mystery look like a tiny little house. All of the trees were carefully crafted as were the rest of the gigantic map. I'd honestly like to go further, but I'm afraid I can't without revealing massive spoilers. Regardless of whether or not I do, you're still going to check out the map, right?
Lastly, and most importantly, is the clear detail that went into everything on this map. Nothing here looks unpolished in any way, and all of the areas look professional and fit the atmosphere well. A large number of well-thought out details enhance the player's experience A LOT, including the positions of key areas, checkpoints, notes, and Building Challenges. There are so many brand new features that this map adds to the game that most players will overlook ColdFusionGaming's contributions to the mapping community in terms of details, but I encourage players to still look out for them and see how well all of the aspects of this map were thought out.
So, how did this map compare to the rest I've played? Well, it was alright, but some things could've been improved...
Nah, I'm just kidding around. This map is incredibly solid and holds its ground amongst the many other maps out there with ease. It is an overall lovely experience with a frustrating cliff hanger - as I want Hero's Quest IV so badly - and a ton of clear effort put in. Please everyone, head over to the Hero's Quest III forum page and check out the map. I swear on my life you will not regret. So, sure as hell, I recommend this map. I recommend it so strongly that everyone reading this just has to get off their a$$es and download the map.
Bugs/tips (tiny as these may be)
-Finding the area to get back to the professor after Note 4 is a bit of a hassle, though it would seem like I was the only one to have that problem. I would recommend checking it out anyway.
-The side quests add a lot of flavour, but sometimes feel neglected or unimportant. Whereas in certain other maps I've played, side quests mingle with the main storyline, though these almost feel random.
-The gun mod doesn't seem to fit in with the map. Apologies in that regard, though they don't go with the overall mood.
As a huge fan of exploration RPGs, I can assure you that going into this map was a truly exciting experience. With the lack of RPG maps on the forums becoming apparent, I realized that I might have stumbled upon a rare discovery. Upon further inspection I realized it was not labeled as an RPG, but rather an adventure/exploration crossover between map genres. The map played very choppily throughout, and when it came to, it accomplished very little. Without a strong main story or quests that relate to one another in the least, the experience through the vast world is, in my eyes, pointless.
The world itself was not entirely flawless or terrible, instead caught somewhere in the middle. Builds were mediocre for almost the entirety of the map, yet certain places managed to stick out as memorable or worthy of great praise, like the castle wall around the first town. Another nitpick I must mention is how the map switches genres from medieval-style (castle town) to modern day (small town right next to it), where the transition feels sloppy, silly, and out of place. Despite the memorable flaws that make a huge impact overall, the buildings look absolutely gorgeous in the recommended texture pack, Misa's Realistic.
I was thoroughly disappointed by the story, or in this case the lack of one. The map had an incredibly interesting back story given at the very start, but this was ignored as the map progressed. It even lead to a few loose ends. Instead, an medieval-RPG theme was implanted and quickly assimilated the previous trend into it. The RPG theme also turned out to be unsteady, destroying the atmosphere and story at once, with unstable plot-twists and a weak array of gameplay mechanics (read on). Eventually, the story is demolished completely and the map maker decides that action-propelled gameplay is more important. I feel that this was the wrong choice to make, as in my opinion the gameplay was incredibly weak in comparison. Nonetheless, my feelings were negative toward the story aspect of the map.
Problems continue to arise as the atmosphere carries on. As mentioned before, a dramatic switch in theme (TWICE!!) was not appreciated and didn't assist the atmosphere either, while builds were mediocre at best. None of these flaws assisted the map in any way, and quality drops became even more frequent later on. Long roads to travel and awkwardly introduced quests (again, read on) made the atmosphere continually weaker, and with visually displeasing minecart rides to assist the dilemmas, the atmosphere grew barely tolerable. As a map maker myself I saw one flaw in particular drop the atmosphere and gameplay quality to an absolute low. The map was not in any way interactive. By the time I myself had played the map for 25 minutes, I was ready to quit. Redstone is literally non-existent, and with no story to cover for its absence, I'm afraid there wasn't much that was done to improve quality.
It may be difficult to believe, but the map's flaws stem mainly from the gameplay aspect. While it originally comes off as strong, the player's inability to do much, especially when presented with lots of great items, is really frustrating! Coupled with the fact that quests are merely listed rather than creatively given to you, and that the quests themselves are barely more than just looking around, make the experience very unenjoyable. As mentioned before, exploration feels forced, and it is partially because gameplay never forces the player anywhere. After exploring a town they are supposed to head there with no clues as to WHY or HOW.
In a nutshell, the map feels flat in many conflicting aspects. Puzzles? Non existent. Story? Weak and derivative. Atmosphere? Wavering in quality and appearance. Gameplay? Forced and unenjoyable. Claw Adventures is the very basis for a map with so much more potential. While I understand accomplishing a good RPG map may be hard with vanilla Minecraft, it is certainly possible. It just wasn't accomplished here. ClawXIII is quite obviously fairly new to map making. The adventure itself shows clear signs of effort, but fails dramatically nonetheless. I cannot recommend the map in its current form.
Bugs/tips
-Try making the buildings a little more original. Here's a tip: don't build with only one material! I see that you tried to accomplish this for certain buildings, but as the frequency of certain materials is very great, try it out some more!
-The story is very weak. Why are my crew members missing? What is the whole story to this world? Answer these questions and the story might be formidable against brutal critique.
-Atmospherically, the genre was wavering. Was it medieval themed, or modern? I didn't understand at all. Try making this more clear with a map description answering my question here.
-Puzzles were virtually non-existent. The whole map was just walking around! Add some flavor, and implement puzzles into the mix!
Marvellous acts almost as if it is a rather simple yet colorful concoction brewing in a couldron, spewing doses of whimsical, enjoyable, and at time awkward fun and amusement. While it hasn't quite reached the status of its namesake (i.e. it ain't actually marvellous yet), it sure is striving to reach that goal and is coming along just fine. Though some flaws may be somewhat apparent and even frustrating, Marvellous strives in forcing the play to have fun, smile, and even laugh during the playthrough with its playful nature. Of course, being played in Jolicraft probably doesn't hurt.
At a first glance, Marvellous seems like a rather awkward map that doesn't quite have the guts to become a thriving adventure. Silly signs and notes, some ridiculously pointless puzzles, and subtle parkour steps are so childish and while somewhat fun, not exactly ideal for the majority of the Minecraft audience. But as the map progresses, these silly signs are replaced my comical, enjoyable ones and are placed in ever changing locales, from the desert, to a forest, to a town, to a prison! The atmosphere completely switches around on the player, maintaining the whimsical side of it that makes it so playful, and adding a side of hard puzzles in incredibly well-crafted locales. The atmosphere, sadly, doesn't completely prevail in the end, though. While by the ending it is steady, in the beginning the basic locales and repetitive puzzles make a weak first impression.
The puzzles were another example of a pass-fail. Good in one way, bad in another, they were never quite steady in their difficultly level. Some of the easiest puzzles were seen somewhere near the end, and the rapid switch of difficulty in the forest level really surprised me, as its main quest featured very difficult ladder jumps and sprinting. This didn't neatly balance out with the first half of the puzzles, whose parkour and puzzle areas felt designed for beginnings. Despite being well crafted and fitting for the locations in which they were built, my opinions for the puzzles in the map were mixed as well due to the difficulty of them.
A story was barely existent. Some lazily written notes at the beginning depict your adventure heading into Marvelland, starting with MarvelTown. And that's about all you get story-wise. No real story-line built up after that, just recommended quests that proved unfitting, as they were linear in an otherwise open-world style adventure. Normally I'd respond negatively to an absense like this of an adventure's story, but that being said, it is a puzzle map, and after further consideration, I feel that a story implemented now would feel almost rushed and forced into the map.
Gameplay is exactly where the map saved itself, proving once again that map maker MinecraftMasterz knows exactly what he's doing. While no story really pushes you through the adventure, the player never at all feels forced to complete the map. Instead, they are propelled forward by its whimsical and playful nature, its enjoyable although unsteady puzzles, and brand new locations.
As a player, I really loved Marvellous. Soaring effortlessly through gameplay and atmosphere, I was always compelled to find out what was lurking in the next location and just what I might find. As a critic, I also liked it, but my feelings also remained mixed upon its successes puzzle-wise and story-wise. That being said, I feel it will most-likely be enjoyable and interesting to most Minecraft players out there, regardless of what sort of map they like. I recommend it for sure.
Bugs/tips
-The ending was very sloppy. Instead of just saying "that's the end of Marvellous v1.55, why not create a gigantic room with cake all around and comical signs telling you that "you've reached the end of your adventure" to match the whimsical nature of the map.
-See if you can create a way to keep the player engaged right from the start. I would recommend stating at the beginning and also on the forum post what the map difficult is, and try to stick generally around that level.
One Wrong Choice felt like a saddened attempt at a map, one without thought or effort put in. The whole idea that the adventure relies on to come across as noteworthy is original, but once identified by the player, turns into an inefficient shipwreck that just does not prove strong enough to uphold an entire puzzle map. Conclusions are formed only through guesses and not through logical estimates, leaving the player wondering why the hell they'd ever want to continue the map. When I first came across the map, I understood right from the very first moment that it would either be a hit or miss, and unfortunately the map was a very clear miss. Let's see why.
The problems begin right at the start. Ugly unoriginally shaped rooms fill up the space, made out of the most basic material that every puzzle map makes use of: iron. Diversity color-wise appears later on, though never satisfies, as rooms are then filled with mismatched colors that feel out of place. Signs, for the most part, are well written and easy to read. The appearance of the overall map was also disrupted by instantaneous bursts of rapid light-dark switches, and multiple times the "puzzles" were surrounded by obsidian and then iron right after.
Quality really drops when the puzzles themselves are taken in for consideration and critique. The map is based entirely on guesses to proceed, and not any logical or mathematical estimate. No clues are given, a factor that could possibly have made the map reedeemable if they had been implemented. For an example of a situation like this, one particular room contained eight or nine sets of doors, and the player was supposed to choose which one would lead to safety. If you chose wrong, you were mercilessly dropped into lava, which in turn became overly frustrating and surely caused many players to ragequit. This trend continued with many different "puzzles", and gameplay dropped to an overall low for the most part. One particularly decent attribute of the gameplay was the break in between hectic rounds of being dumped into lava. During this, the player is thrown into an obsidian maze and must escape to the next challenge. The maze is well done and difficult, and does prove that islandalohaha does know what he is doing (somewhat).
The map really does not contain much else. A story is practically non-existent where one would most definitely fit, atmospherically the adventure is null, due to appearance-related flaws and a lack of story, and the puzzles are tiresome, tedious, and boring. The length is also something to work on, as the puzzles cannot support such a long map. I would not recommend the map at all. Effort is shown, and I commend the creator for taking the time he did to create and finish the project, but it is simply flawed in too many aspects to make it enjoyable to the average player.
Bugs/tips
-Story! The map appears dull without one. Even the average trapped-in-a-facility-with-absolutely-no-where-to-run-so-you-have-to-complete-challenges-and-escape-an-evil-sadist plot works.
-Try and choose a color theme and work with it, as jumping from obsidian to iron isn't attractive...
-Puzzles! It's a little late to do much now, by the entire basis of counting how many lives you have left is tiresome and boring by the end, with the amount of deaths the player experiences!
Puzzlecraft already had a lot going against it. It was a puzzle map, it was set in a facility, and it's short. Luckily it doesn't have an "Overseer", however it has the creator's comments in front of each puzzle instead. The map just plays as a very easy set of puzzles, room after room, with no story or drive. It was clear right from the start that the creator was about to rehash every single tried and true puzzle at me, and then some. The map still had some redeemable points, but overall, the map wasn't very satisfying.
The start of the map seemed as if it might be decent, though I wasn't really sure why the creator made the decisions they made. The map starts off awkwardly, with a random, poorly constructed boat ride down a hill, that breats your boat halfway nearly every time. This set a damper (no pun intended) on the rest of the map right off the bat. We get into a square iron room with the rules, and the first of the poorly constructed, and overall useless Checkpoint system. A bed. We also have a 'score' system, diamonds scattered throughout the map, however you start off with around 26 Diamonds in your inventory already. This kinda ruined the achivement feeling for me, as I already had nearly half a stack to start, and quickly found another 10 or so. Making matters worse, is the ladders. For some reason, the map-maker forces you to climb a ladder to the top before each puzzle, and at the top is another checkpoint room, when there was one right below you. Then, instead of doing a puzzle at the top, you just drop right down into a not-deep-enough pool of water, and take nearly all your hitpoints at damage almost every time. While playing this map, I actually had to turn off Fall-damage to stop this from plaguing me. Archetechture-wise, there is NOTHING that makes it stand out. Many just square rooms, and one poorly constructed 'town' is all we really get.
Story-wise, there is NOTHING. There's no reason to complete the map. We just are told to ride down the waterfall, and that's it. Before each puzzle, the map-creator taunts you, and claims the puzzle is really hard. You then complete a ridiculusly easy puzzle, and then the creator has a sign that talks about how hard the puzzle was. Either this is on purpose, or the creator seriously overestimates their puzzles. They are generally just the cliche puzzles as well, found in the poorest puzzle maps. There's one decent puzzle, one of the early ones, where you have to move some paper down a water current to open the three doors. All of the others were either a "find the items in this space", maze, jump, or throw item puzzles. This led me to get really bored by the end of it. At the end, the creator also rebuilt Sethbling's (a great redstoner) Cake Conveyor as part of a puzzle, but deeply disused it, which was really unfortunate.
All in all, this map is really poor quality. It has some fun points, but overall, it doesn't have a lot to offer that a better map doesn't have. The puzzles are overly simple and there's no story to speak of. The appearance is dull, and the hidden items are basically in plain sight. I cannot really recommend this map, because there are so many others out that there that do what this one wants to so much better.
Bugs/tips
-Give it a story!
-Make your puzzles a bit more difficult - currently it's just pointless to have to complete puzzles that are that ridiculously easy.
-Fix your water at the bottom of the drops, if you insist on keeping them. I mentioned this on your thread before, and you just blew me off. Not a good way to go, when I try to tell you about a bug.
-To be honest, get rid of the ladders. They have NO reason to be there at all, and are just a waste of time.
-In the 'town', under one of the homes to get a lever, you can easily get both of the levers by placing one of the pressure pads in front of the door.
Eternal Darkness felt like something that was mashed together in a matter of minutes. There was so little in it, I was moderately surprised the apparent frequency of flaws. Unlike a fair amount of other maps on the forums, this one was not only flawed in execution, but just lacked a complete sense of effort. Nothing flowed, made sense, or even was easy to follow. If getting Minecraft was like getting a new box of toy building blocks, this would be the work of a four year old. Unacceptable.
The map showed clear signs of severe flaws right from the start. Ugly redstone was shown in a large number of places, with no attempt to cover it up at all. This leads me to the conclusion that the map maker was just experimenting with map creating when releasing this, and if that is the case, then he is not entirely on the right track. The overall look of the map, redstone aside, is also sloppy and boring. Rooms are squared and rectangular throughout, with no change whatsoever. While the material that these rooms are made out of vary, there are multiple seams at every turn, as the map even switched theme from library to bedrock hallway at one point. With an extremely weak architectural aspect, the weight falls onto the story, which is literally the only part of the map that could possibly save it. Unfortunately, it doesn't.
The story, despite being very well written, doesn't at all explain what on earth is going on. I had absolutely no idea what everything meant by the end of the map and where I was heading. The ending, which I suppose was a decent cliffhanger for the next part of the map series, left me with even less of an understanding of the plot, and believe me, that's just beyond sad. I commend the author and creator of the map for attempting such a complex plot and trying to implement it into a 10 minute long map, but in the end it feels hopeless and sadly falls flat.
Hard as this may be to believe, that is all there is to the map. A complex, somewhat interesting story with a number of gaping holes, and a very unstable architectural display that makes up the entirety of the map. Glitches appear left and right, and even those clever ideas like key codes and spooktacular notes didn't make a large impact. I felt extraordinarily disappointed, let-down, and even frustrated with the map for its lack of effort shown. I cannot and will not recommend this map for the foreseeable future.
Bugs/tips
-Use a format for the notes and key codes that everyone can use, like a .doc or .pdf or.txt file. Not everyone on macs can read .odt or .odg files!
-Give a much more clear idea of what the hell is going on!! This is a severe flaw, and as the map is extremely short, the flaws are very noticeable and make a large impact on the player's opinion of the map.
-Come up with more creative shapes for the rooms, instead of all this rectangular nonsense. At least change the size.
-The flow of the map as a whole is unstable. Themes change entirely, and with no plot to explain WHY, the player feels confused, lost, and frustrated.
-PUZZLES!! A linear map with no puzzles or anything to propel the player along can be very weak, especially in the case where a story is practically non-existent. Add some into the mix for a bit of a change.
-Check your grammar and spelling, as there were multiple mistakes and misspellings of words in the notes file. If required, I'd be happy to help out here.
-Monsters! I noticed that in the readme/notes file you stated you didn't have the programs to add the spawners in. Good thing now that we have mob eggs and dispensers to help! (snapshot 12W03A update)
Short, easy, boring, and confusing, Laboratory proved to be neither fun nor difficult, and had many small problems with it that really effected it's overall score. It's too bad, I was really hoping to help bring us up and out of this slump of under-average maps, but it looks like we will all have to wait a little longer for that.
Let's start with the story, as it is usually a category that is lacking in most puzzle maps. Luckily, there was a story implemented into Laboratory. Unfortunately, it made no sense whatsoever. You wake up in a room and can't remember anything about why you got there. Apparently I am the pilot of an airplane, and I managed to end up in a creepy laboratory. The rest after that point is a blur. I couldn't manage to figure out anything more about myself and the place I was in, despite the many walls of signs throughout the map. Like Creation, I felt like this map had a half-decent story in mind, but failed to convey it to the players, due to the nearly incomprehensible writing, many typos, and punctuation problems. Maybe the story was actually great, but once I got to the end of the map, I had absolutely no clue what was going on.
Puzzle-wise Laboratory was not very good. The puzzles in this map are mostly parkour, combat, and mixtures of the two. The parkour was very "meh," and the the combat was fairly easy. The final boss battle was actually kind of fun, and would have been even better if it wasn't quite so easy, and I wasn't given what felt like unlimited supplies.
The puzzle layout is something that I disliked. It is a small problem, and an easy fix, but it greatly effected the map. There were signs everywhere that basically walked you through the map. I literally didn't have to even think about what I needed to do next. To give an example, after entering a room with a few random things in it, I am told how to proceed. A sign says, "That pumpkin cross looks weird, I think I should break it." A better way of approaching this would to just tell the player a hint, without actually telling them what to do. I found this sort of thing throughout the map, and it almost felt like I was being told how to play the map, instead of actually playing the map myself.
Overall, there were many problems in this map, and without a good story or mediocre puzzles, this map ended up being just another under-average puzzle map. If you are looking for a solid puzzle map to play, look elsewhere. I cannot recommend this map.
Bugs/tips
-Fix those spelling mistakes and punctuation errors!
-Cut down on the supplies given prior to the boss battle.
For every good map in existence, there are generally a dozen or so poorly-constructed copies. Sometimes they don't mean to be bad - effort can be seen in some of them, whether it be in an attempt to create a compelling story, or well-made builds, or clever redstone puzzles and traps. Unfortunately, there are also those which, while they show some attempt at effort, are so badly done that you cannot help but wonder why the person posted their creation in the first place.
Sadly, Secret of Castle Remberg is one of those atrocities. While it certainly attempts to be a decent map, it has not one truly redeeming quality about it to give it even a decent scoring.
To start with, the plot was worse than a Twilight novel: I have tried to play through the map 3 times now and search for every sign, yet I still have no idea what this "secret" of Castle Remberg is: is it the library found at the end? Is it that you've just traveled through the Nether for no apparent reason other than to show off some poor building quality? I honestly have no idea, and it saddens me because it is clear that the creator wanted to try and have an interesting story - certainly, had he expanded on some of the smaller plot details (the laboratory, the missing villagers, or even Castle Remberg itself) the map would have been far more interesting. Instead, it was short and plot-less.
The builds were also of poor quality, incredibly contrasting with Castle Remberg - which, according to the creator, he didn't even build himself. The Nether castle was close to good, but looked out of place on a square block of Netherrack above a lava lake. The room with the unique Nether portal looked terrible, with random glass on the walls and an obsidian border that didn't make any sense.
As for puzzles or traps...they were almost non-existant. Aside from a TNT trap in the Nether there was nothing to truly challenge the player aside from figuring out where to go next due to poor directions from the creator. The player was given a sword and torches, yet needed neither; monsters were almost nonexistent because of torches placed well-enough to protect the player from ever needing them.
In short, this map had some potential, but fell flat on just about everything. It was too short, the directions and plot weren't there, and the builds were awkward and not very good. Had there been a bit more effort on the creator's part, perhaps the map could've been truly great.
Bugs/tips
-There are a few points within Castle Remberg where you will need to fix the ladder due to the 1.1 patch - they are impossible to climb unless you've avoided updating or have mods
-The gravel path was a good idea, but once it was gone your signs gave no further help as to either where the player was supposed to go or how they were supposed to get there; specifically, the Nether castle: there was no way to actually get to it without hacking, and the first place I went to was the portal that led me out of there rather than the actual castle itself
Beautifully designed, atmospherically near-perfect, and flat out creepy, Into the Depths has proven to be a fantastic rpg experience. The best part of the map is it is still a W.I.P., meaning that the best is still to come. Before I get into the details, I must point out that I have been given a map version that has not been released yet. So think of this review and rating as a preview of what is to come in Into the Depths. At the moment, Into the Depths has about 750 downloads, and that really needs to change. The creator deserves substantially more credit then what he is getting currently.
Into the depths creates an amazing and intriguing rpg experience. In fact, it almost felt like I was in a completely new game. With almost 3 hours of content, there was a couple of cool features that helped to make Into the Depths as immersive as it was. One of those features was the gold and shop system. Throughout the map, observant players may find gold ingots. These ingots are usually found in tricky places, and reward those who take a good look around. At specific points in the map, players may come across a shop. Here they can put those gold ingots to use by buying new equipment, food, potions and armor. The shops were implemented with great care, as it was never easy to buy the best materials. In general, shops really made me look around, creating a greater appreciation for the stunning and realistic architecture.
Another interesting feature was some of the rules. In order to make for a creepier experience, the creator implemented some rules that I have never seen, nor thought of before. One addition was that you must turn your render distance down to tiny. Another is that you must turn you brightness down to moody. Now, I realize that these are only small additions to a very large map, but really, the difference were noticeable, and really made me think to myself "I wish I thought of that."
Now on to the story. Being such a vastly large map, exploring gave you two rewards, one being ingots, and the other being notes. Yes, finding notes is a reward, at least for me it was. The story was very compelling and constantly had me wondering what was going on in the castle. The notes were well written, and I was pleased to see that each character was written with its own personality in mind, each unique in their own way. My only complaint is that, despite having minimal spelling errors and typos, the creator seemed to inconsistently capitalize his "I's." But that is a minor trifle compared to the brilliantly formulated story that can be found consistently throughout the map.
So why an 8.2 and not higher? Well, for one, I found it quite confusing at times. It is understandable, as the map is so large and complex, but it really doesn't follow a clear linear path. With so many places to go and explore, and with such a large castle, it can sometimes be overwhelming. At minimum, my suggestion to the creator would be to create a walk through on his thread, to aid those who get lost or off track. And the only other other substantial reason why this map didn't get a higher score, is it's not done! At least in the version I played, there is no end, and many parts are still unfinished. If the creator finishes the map with a solid conclusion, I am sure the score will be even higher.
Overall, Into the Depths is a rpg/horror masterpiece, and deserves way more credit then it is currently getting. I would love to see this map go big, because it really has the potential to earn a spot amongst some of the best maps. I would recommend this map to anyone who is looking for a long, entertaining, and atmospherically creepy map.
Bugs/tips
-Capitalize your "I's"
-Door glitch has caused some of your doors to remain open after going on a pressure plate
-The beast should hide its redstone. Specifially when you must sacrifice and item to him
-The part where you get the obsidian could use some aesthetic work. It looks very MC edited
When certain maps come along that show barely any sign of originality, the player almost feels trapped themself. With little puzzles that were completely original and others that were nearly damn impossible, Trapped is nothing special in the wild fray of new puzzle adventures. Admist the large number of maps upon the list to be reviewed, I picked out Trapped because it stuck out in a way that presented it to be imaginative and exciting, something it unfortunately barely was in actuality.
The main problems I noticed in the map stem from and center around the nearly impossible and sadly tedious puzzles placed around the map. While the idea of posting deaths in the entire map is a clever one, it feels completely overused when the map begins. Puzzles at first seem to be completely focused on lava, and do not stray far from that repetitive path for a majority of the challenges contained before the player reaches the First Checkpoint. In fact, I and most likely a fair share of other players lost count of my deaths before I reached the first checkpoint. What appeared to be a clever idea merged and then transformed itself into a frustratingly overused one, and my deaths became so plentiful in number I was close to losing my marbles.
But the puzzle problems didn't end there. The map completely flips itself around when the first checkpoint is passed, and lava is replaced with colorful blocks and the like, making the room a lovable, rainbow-induced space filled with ladders, floating blocks, and pistons. While challenging nonetheless, they feel unremarkable compared to the combination of sprint jumping and lava that made the first bit appear like a seamless dungeon that never ended. The map alternates between exciting lava puzzles and rather slow parkour areas for almost the entirety of the map therein, making for a very uncomfortable and unstable experience.
Yet the map was not entirely a waste of time and blocks. Puzzles were well constructed, and placed in somewhat clever locales. Despite the everchanging rooms and their appearances [which lead to the defeat of a good atmosphere likewise], they feel well constructed and original in their own way, shaping themselves in awkward circular and rectagular ways that somehow work well! Sprint jumps are also well engineered and timed, making perfect use of 1.8.1 and of course, 1.0.0. Additionally, piston jumps were crafted with near perfection, even if they came close to turning my face red with exhaustion.
All in all, the puzzles are flawed in the sense that their originality seems limited, and the near-impossible feeling of the map is really frustrating for the casual player, not to mention the atmosphere and difficulty level was unstable. So that leaves the heavy weight of keeping the map together falls upon the shoulders of the thin storyline. Yet the map feels somehow humane here, and in a good way. The humor used in the map is comical and actually funny, and feels well written at the same time. The signs on the walls represent the speech of a Herobrine-like character who feels strangely effective, and though his motives remain unknown, he also appears clever. I thoroughly enjoyed how near the beginning of the map he mentioned that the only reason he kept the player alive was because he needed entertainment, and by the end, the player is boring him. It was a neat and, though predictable, fun twist and joke all at the same time.
Broken down, the map feels inconsistent, as it suffers from everchanging and sometimes frustrating difficulty, lack of originality, and an unstable atmosphere, but strives story-wise and is well-crafted as a whole. Sadly, the flaws appear slightly more plentiful, and therefore cause the map slightly downhill from where it should stand. Luckily, all this map needs are a few slight tweaks to make it a great, very enjoyable map! At the moment I'd recommend this map only to the hardcore puzzler and parkour fanatic. If you are new to Minecraft and/or the concepts of sprinting and jumping, I would avoid this map.
Bugs/tips
-The first bits of the map made it appear as a dungeon-style adventure. If that's the first impression, stick with it, and don't switch around to rainbow hell
-Keep the difficulty just a little lower, as to accomodate average players and let them feel like they have a shot. Keep this consistent throughout the map
-Puzzles don't need to be consistent, but most of the puzzles felt recycled from the EscapeCraft series and other puzzlers I've played since I started Minecraft. At least try giving them a twist, presenting them as something different
Username(creator): Jigarbov
Map Name: Eronev Mansion Adventure
Forum Link: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/538574-adv-eronev-mansion-adventure-4500-downloads-18-upgraded/
Requirements(mods,texture packs,ect.): none
Additional Info(optional): I recently upgraded to 1.8 compatible version which included a very difficult parkour side mission. I've been getting quite a few reviews but so far noone has commented on it or even written anything of substance, so hopefully your review will change that :smile.gif: ps: try for the best ending! I look forward to seeing your scorecard.
Orecraft is a very difficult, short puzzle map which tests the player’s skills in various ways, including for instance parkour, fighting and ladder climbing. The story of the map is a typical “you’re trapped by X, escape”, the puzzles are rather unoriginal and few and the overall world design and architecture are below average. The difficulty of the puzzles is really hard, especially in the third and the last puzzles which I myself couldn’t beat without cheating a little as I wanted to complete the map eventually without fighting over a single puzzle for an hour in a map that has only five major puzzles.
Out of the few puzzles only one was something I’ve not seen before. On most of the puzzles the map maker seems to have tried to add something original to them, but has mostly failed, occasionally making the puzzles even worse. Even though the puzzles were hard and unoriginal I enjoyed the challenge most of the time. But eventually, after failing dozens of times and raging over design flaws which in the worst case scenario got me trapped, unable to progress without cheating and/or bypassing some parts, it became too overwhelming. When also considered how short the map is the time consumed on a single puzzle is way over the top.
The design and the visuals of the map are at their best low-mediocre and at their worst just plain sloppy. Redstone and TNT visible, chunk error walls and broken redstone contraptions are something that cannot be forgiven to any map maker. The story of the map is an unoriginal “ur trapped man, escape” and it gives a feel that of being just thrown in when all the puzzles were finished to make the map look more “professional.”
Difficulty isn’t always a bad thing. But when it is accompanied with unoriginality, sloppiness, bad story and overall bad execution it does only harm. Overall this map had very few good things in it, one of them being that for some unknown reason I enjoyed (at least in the beginning) the difficulty and the puzzles. If you want hard map to play you are free to try this one out. Otherwise I can’t recommend it to anyone with a good conscience.
Bugs/tips
-Hide the redstone.
-In the first puzzle (parkour over lava) at the second tip room there is no button to press, trapping the player there leaving them no choice but cheat their way out.
-Also in the first puzzle down to the TNT mine I kept dying from the fall, not sure why.
-Fix the piston elevator.
-Scale down the difficulty and/or add more puzzles and variety.
Ah, a quest to save your town and your planet! Huzzah! Dungeons! Huzzah! An evil spirit to engage in combat! Huzzah! Diverse lands! Huzzah!
This is what raced in my head as I was downloading Quest for Vendria, supposedly an adventure/parkour map that appeared to feature all of those things above. When I played it, however, it failed to deliver anything good, or decent, at that. This map was more of a leisurely stroll in the park, rather than one of dungeons and demons. Needless to say, it was immensely disappointing to me. This review will essentially be my first impressions and reactions to the entire map. Yes, I can do this. The map is that short. So without further ado, my review:
At the start of the map, I am given some porkchops. Why? The map's creator told me to play on peaceful difficulty. I am also given torches. Why? Every area in this map that matters is already well-lit with already-placed torches, anyway! I am also given a set of leather armor. Do I need protection from monsters? No, I'm told to play on peaceful. What about protection from lava pits and TNT? Well, this is applicable, but barely (more on this later). The point is, I am given a set of items that I will pretty much never need.
The map requires me to go to three separate dungeons so I can find the keys to open the final area and defeat the dark spirit that is beginning its reign of destruction. Okay, sounds good enough. The locations seem interesting at first: The first dungeon is in a forest, the second is a giant tree, and the third is a desert ruin. Hey, this might be a pretty cool map after all!... Oh. The first dungeon is made of three tiny rooms. Three. Tiny. Rooms. It consists of a ludicrously easy and boring underwater cave that I have to get through to find the first key. It took less than two minutes to get by this challenge. Is it meant to be like this?
Second dungeon. The giant tree. It's a parkour course. Again, it took me less than two minutes to complete and was ridiculously easy. Moving on.
The third dungeon in the desert ruin involves a confusing and frustrating maze. This was not easy. This was not fun. This was nothing short of frustrating, given my annoyance from the past two dungeons. Despite this, it still took about a mere five minutes to finish.
Well, off to the final area. I have to do another challenge? Sure, why not? This dungeon, to my surprise, actually posed a slight challenge. This makes no difference to me, however, as it presented me with forgettable jumps over lava pools and a fairly weak piston-ledge challenge. Yes, it was more difficult. But it was still really easy. I still managed to breeze through this area.
So, I'm given the final nether area. This is it. The end. The climax. The big finale. The final challenge you do is... A soul sand race. This is the grand final challenge? This is pretty underwhelming. I finish the soul sand race, get the button to blow up the nether, and set off a load of TNT. That's it. Credits roll, I see a "to be continued" sign, game over.
So what can I say about this map? Ultimately, I get the feeling that this map was going for something so big, so epic, and on such a grand-scale. But it falls short on all accounts, and ends up small, weak, and overall a waste of my time. Why couldn't the dungeons be larger? Why couldn't the map be more difficult or challenging to anyone that is more skilled than someone who had just played Minecraft for the first time? Why was any semblance of effort wasted on fancy redstone contraptions instead on good map design? I feel horrible for trashing this map, and by extension, the map's creator, but Quest for Vendria was boring, pointless, and badly designed. I wanted to like it; I love adventure maps. But to me, this wasn't anything more than getting past trivial obstacles to get keys so I can open doors. I'm afraid to say that this map did not impress me.
Bugs/tips
-I did not find any bugs. A commendable achievement!
-Don't give the player pointless and arbitrary items.
-Take your time when making maps. If it's going to take another day to make a challenge really fun and interesting, do it.
-Pull out all your stops. I'm not trying to insult you, creator, but try harder. Even if you don't realize it, you can always pour out so much more effort into your creations. Don't settle for "good enough."
-Consider basic game design and think about what your players may think when they play your map. Is it actually fun for you to play? Is this interesting, or annoying? Is this area needed? Should it be shortened? Should it be longer? Attempt to consider all possibilities when you make a map.
-Come prepared with a plan. Doodle on a piece of paper, or just exercise your brain and think about what you could do to make your maps interesting before you actually make the map itself. Architects don't build skyscrapers and bridges without blueprints, do they?
The Asylum is a below average map. The concept of the story and the introduction of it in the thread really got me interested and excited, but the map itself proved a disappointment. As the creator claims, the map is really short; only 20-30 minutes, which is totally fine. The problem is a lot of the time is used by the player for wondering what he or she is supposed to do next. The map is advertised as a “free roam adventure type of map”. However, this claim is true only to a small extent, firstly because of the limitations of the shortness and compactness of said map and secondly because the player is forced to follow a linear path through the map because of hint signs and locked doors. There were also some severe problems with lag in the map which I will get in to later on.
The free roam –aspect is the strong point of the map. Even though it is lacking and occasionally confusing, it is a nice change from the majority of maps with strictly linear plot. The way the map was meant to travel through made it confusing though, as the player may get easily lost and frustrated over where he or she is supposed to go. The main areas on the map need a button or a lever to enter, but an unscrupulous player can easily bypass some of the restrictions because of flaws in the design of the map.
The design and visuals of the map were generally poor. What I saw mostly gave me an expression of an unfinished and sloppy map with not enough attention given to details and functionality. One huge downside was the fact that the map was built on a superflat world, which has two major problems: firstly, the ridiculous amount of slimes almost drove me crazy with their constant jumping and secondly, when getting towards the end of the map the aesthetics of the map suffer from the fact that the landscape is - you know - flat and the small actions done to make it look better are to no extent enough. Another flaws in the design were the small errors in grammar (u and i are not proper English) and the laziness with redstone, such as uncovered paths which one could use to pass some important areas and redstone torches sitting by powered rails without even attempting to hide them. When it is not functional or that detailed, the architecture of the map is actually mostly quite good and enjoyable, especially in the very end.
The gameplay of the map was average. The puzzles were quite unoriginal excluding a couple of pleasant surprises. Most of the puzzles were relatively easy, getting a little more challenging towards the end. There were however some serious problems regarding gameplay and playability. First of all I think the map should have better lighting because the amount of aggressive mobs can get overwhelming, especially when the slimes are counted in. Then the main problem of the map; I had to download Single Player Commands just to be able to /killall in order to be able to play the game. I usually get around 50-60 fps with fancy graphics and far render distance but in this map it dropped down to 4-8 with fast graphics and short render distance. Originality with puzzles is great but everything isn’t acceptable and the abuse of spawning of passive mobs is one of those things. The mapmaker must also think about whether the customers - who may not be as well equipped as he/she - are able to play the game properly without suffering from huge amounts of lag.
Overall the map was ok, it wasn’t spectacular but it wasn’t a total disaster either. It had its upsides and downsides, and with some polishing it could easily be a solid 6-7 map. But, as it is now and with all the problems and issues it has, I think the score is quite fitting.
Bugs/tips
-The energy supply building can easily be entered by simply climbing the vines to a nearest hole of suitable size.
-For aesthetic purposes, try out something else, or at least add some variety to the plain walls of the main area.
-Also notice the limits and downsides regarding aesthetics while using superflat world type as the base of your map.
Minecraft. I'm willing to bet that every single person reading this has played Minecraft. You have all spawned in your first world, learned to punch trees down, and made your first wooden tools. You built your first house, fully furnished with a crafting table, furnace, and a bed. Feeling brave, you ventured down into your first cave. You saw a creeper for the first time. You found your first vein of iron ore. Feeling more lucky and successful, you dig deeper. You find your first lava pit. You find diamonds. You stuff it in your inventory, run back to your house, and for the first time, you feel wholly satisfied in Minecraft.
How long has it been since you felt that in our dear game? You're not a newbie anymore, and that magic feeling of Minecraft may not be as strong as it used to be. Perhaps you should take a break from the game. Or maybe, just maybe, you need to be reminded about how amazing this game actually is. Maybe you should play Across the Land.
Across the Land, at first glance, appears to be a parkour map. Well, it is, I won't deny that. But to me, it is so much more. It's a journey through Minecraft as you know it, but it manages to capture the raw beauty of the world around you. Taking you to the cliffside of a mountain, through a thick wood, down a dark cave, into an icy tundra, and more, it would seem like pretty standard scenery as far as Minecraft goes. However, the very concept of simply travelling across the world is a surprisingly good one.
The actual parkour aspect of this map is extremely easy. It isn't meant to be difficult, however; the mapper seemed to want to remove any possible sense of frustration (there were some parts where I was slightly confused as to where to go, but I was quickly back on track). There is no real challenge in this map because it appears to be meant to be a simple and raw experience of the Minecraft world. The running course is fast and it flows very well.
Despite the fact that all I am doing is traversing over and under very familiar terrain, it brought the entire world into a very different light. This map is gorgeous. This map is absolutely beautiful! Then it hit me: MINECRAFT is beautiful. I can't believe that I had forgotten. This game is downright beautiful.
There isn't much more to say about this map. It's easy, straight-forward, and really short. Seriously, it took me one Minecraft day to finish it. But I'm not sure if that's even a problem. It didn't need to be long at all. It was as if the map was just there to say, "Hey, remember what this looks like? Remember how you used to be in awe at this game's world? Let me show you for ten minutes."
Some ugly part of my mind is ransacking this map, turning it upside down, just so it can find any serious flaw with this map. It can't find any. That's because Across the Land doesn't try very hard to be anything. Is that a bad thing? I do feel the need to point out that there isn't much to this map at all, and that the creator simply made platforms on top of the Minecraftian landscape and called it a map. It's not a challenge, it's not an adventure in the conventional sense of the word, and it's almost exactly like the default world of Minecraft. However, there is something to be said when you feel like a map is trying it's hardest to make you enjoy every step you take. This confounds me. No megabuilds, no dungeons, no semblance of story. All it gives you is a pathway and sets you off. Most of the world is untouched, yet it is a fantastic experience. It may not be brilliant because of what the creator put into it, but it is definitely brilliant for what it is. I would highly recommend this map simply because of how it presents Minecraft's sheer beauty.
Bugs/tips
-Sometimes the path was unclear. This big offender here is in the pyramid area.
-I would love for this to be expanded upon, but that's just me.
Living in the Shadows is a hard map to define. I can't call it bland, nor exciting; not uninteresting, nor noteworthy, and I can't call it good or bad. So what exactly do I call this map? I'd start by saying that it is unique. It has an original medieval tale, some noteworthy puzzles, and a few moments of escape that are, while brief, worthwhile. It also has some than exciting exploration, some aesthetically unpleasant visual escapades, and forced mechanics. On a scale that weighs the positive mentions and those that are negative, Living in the Shadows tips neither way. It is, to say, decent.
The map is paced as an RPG medieval-style adventure, and as such the story is appropriately noteworthy. It begins on a mediocre level but builds until it reaches a fairly suitable climax. I won't spoil the entirety of the map's narrative, but will give positive mentions on the storytelling technique, the pacing of notes, and the complexity of the characters whose hearts are spilled into the rich text. I wasn't at first intruiged by the map's storyline, and as first impressions are key; I can't say you, the reader, will be, either. But if you press on past the lackluster beginning you'll be pulled into its engrossing plot and respect it for what it offers.
However, while the plot was a solid aspect, I was less certain about most others. One of these was the exploration-based role-playing. I did love the sewer sequence, but I was less than compelled to visit the other designated locations, or even attempt to find them. Whether this is just my personal opinion on exploration or not I'm uncertain, but I'd hope that others will find more in exploring the world of Living in the Shadows than I did.
Meanwhile, I felt the puzzles had little to offer the adventure. Their overall design was well-constructed, but the lackluster polish and often even signs or notes that told you what to do reduced their charm to a inexplicable nonsensical mess. The parkour was a nice touch, even if brief, and fit the scenery well. But a puzzle allowing the player to progress into the castle sewers completely wrecked the atmosphere and disrupted the scene in a very violent way. There were a number of occurances like this, but I won't mention them all, as redundance is a real pain.
On a more positive note, I did like most of the architecture Living in the Shadows had to offer. It wasn't particularly grand or even noteworthy on a fairly small scale, it accomplished what it needed to and did so in a professional fashion, even if the world of Living in the Shadows was rather small. I liked the castle, the intricate furniture, the detail, and the well-done appeal of the adventure, even if a few places stuck out as a sore thumb among the otherwise solid visual atmosphere.
Living in the Shadows is a relatively uneventful map that has little to offer that you won't see elsewhere. It has a good, unique story and some great architectural detail, but its exploration and puzzles are influences that don't affect its score in a positive way. If you are looking for a solid map with beyond average aspects in every regard, there are a plethora of assorted maps to weave through among the fray of the forums. Living in the Shadows, unfortunately, is not one of these, but as I can see a number of ways for it to be improved, there's nowhere to go but up.
Bugs/tips
-fit your puzzles into scenes where they won't interrupt the atmosphere too greatly, and blend into the story
-don't tell the player character exactly how to solve a puzzle. Give them hints, but let them achieve the final answer free of spoils.
-enforce the story and give more of a reason to explore when bringing exploration into the mix
You wake up not knowing where you are. You suddenly hear a disembodied voice telling you that you are a subject and must complete tests. Does this sound familiar? If you have played countless custom Minecraft maps before, then Escape the Madman will bring nothing new to the table. Allegedly a puzzle map with adventure elements, Escape the Madman seems to miss the point. When playing the map, I failed to notice much adventure. Or puzzles!
As stated above, the player wakes up in a mysterious complex in which he or she is tolding nothing except that he or she needs to complete "tests." I will say now that this theme is horribly cliché. However, my interest was piqued again as the map creator added notes of someone else speaking, indicating that there was something more to these tests. Playing on the my curiosity, the mapper had me press on, giving me hope that this map could stand out from the many puzzle-escapes from before.
As I finished the introduction area, the map presented me with a hub with gateways to a rather large plethora of challenges. They range from parkour, multiple choice questions, archery, and a dark maze. And a cactus maze. And a glass maze. What struck me as odd was the fact that the challenges are so similar to one another. Despite the high amount of content that this map features, it seems that the mapper was not able to find many creative ideas in his challenges. They were all the same or were variations of past challenges, and all of them were challenges that other puzzle maps have done so many times before to the point of overuse. I don't see the innovation, nor do I see the inspiration. That being said, I admit that these challenges were well made and were fun in their own rights. They just weren't original. As for the puzzle aspect itself, there was only one challenge that scratched my brain: the sand and piston puzzle (which was the only puzzle that was noteworthy, as it looked very original and it could have been expanded upon.) The rest of the challenges were not at all too puzzling, as they consisted more of obstacle courses rather than challenges that make people think. For a puzzle map, it didn't contain very many puzzles.
Throughout this entire map, the main reason of my pressing on was to figure out the mystery of what was going on in the story. The map looked like it was building up to a climax, and just when I could taste it, it shoehorns a random plot about how the player is the only one who could save the world from an evil race of creatures that are apparently the scourge of the planet.
Wait, what? Where did this come from? As far as the players know, they were just doing random tests in countless chambers. Now they suddenly have to go save the world? One of the main problems that I have with this map is that the creator does not seem to know how to create a good narrative. Despite this jarring and sudden revelation, the player is still forced to go through many more test chambers and complete challenges.
I fail to see the connection between the story and the map itself. This is what I believe to be the main flaw of this map. It has everything that it needs to be a good challenge map: well-put-together levels, a decent difficulty progression, and a lot of things to do. It excels in this aspect, but the story was not done very well and only seemed to be there as a flimsy excuse for the player to partake in the challenges. I wish the story was more integral to the gameplay; the mapper even bothered to create interesting names and visual designs for all of the hub areas, implying that the world was rich with detail. If the map featured real environments rather than claustrophobic boxes, I don't think I would have had too much of a problem here, simply because it would have made me feel like I was more part of the world. Instead, I feel tragically disconnected.
Perhaps I have become bitter and jaded. There are so many "escape the test chamber" maps out there that I struggle to find anything new or original. I must give credit where it is due, however; calpol55, the creator of this map, made his first adventure map decently fun. It's a shame that the adventuring part left a lot to be desired. For all intents and purposes, though, this map was fine. It was just very uninspired. Keep at it, calpol55. You can only get better and better from here on.
I don't think that I have mentioned that Escape the Madman is still a work in progress, yet. Well, it is a work in progress, and the map's creator will be adding more onto this map. If you enjoy challenges, keep an eye on it!
Bugs/tips
-The TNT challenge broke somehow; I managed to set off a chain reaction of explosions and I cleared out the entire room! Oh yeah, I died too.
-If it's an adventure map you're making, I HIGHLY advise you not to make your entire map made out of separate challenges. It detracts from player engagement because of how disconnected everything feels. The story would seem nearly pointless when you make maps like this. Try making detailed terrain!
-Get more ideas for your puzzles and challenges. The map felt very repetitive at some areas because some puzzles were literally the same as other ones. Many puzzles were used by countless other maps as well, making yours very generic and run-of-the-mill.
CreeperEye is honestly a fairly strong map. Its goal is clear: to provide the player with a varied, enjoyable puzzler that is easy enough to keep you engaged but yet not too easy as to make it seem pointless. In my eyes, CreeperEye achieved that, but not too much else. It seemed almost as if it was going for GOOD, not GREAT. In that sense, the map was successful. Against most other puzzle maps, CreeperEye stands a chance. But it honestly isn't something you're going to jump for joy about.
I'll begin with the flaws and work my way up to the grand finale. What's first up? The story, or perhaps its disappearance. Yes, CreeperEye is without a story. As a puzzle map this was a very weak choice, as the map felt hollow without one. I did notice a couple of signs addressing this in the beginning, where apparently the crew who made this map hated long and detailed stories in puzzle maps, so they didn't make one. The problem is, the story didn't have to be long and complicated. Look at successful maps like Escapecraft and Escape the Puzzlemaster, both surprisingly similar to this map. Their plots were next to nothing and yet they made the map feel exciting and whole. Even the basic escape plot would have brought the map's score up MUCH higher. You'd be surprised at how much fun it is creating signs that **** the player off by taunting them.
Next, the difficult level was honestly something I didn't fully appreciate. It wasn't bad, per se, but flawed. You see, the map's signs basically told the player EXACTLY what to do or EXACTLY where to go, like looking near water. The resulting experience is not enjoyable, but luckily, the crew of the map seemed to realize their error and quickly refrained from placing any more of these signs near the end of the map. Also, the map was played entirely on peaceful. I understand, having helped a friend make a map before, that creating monster-fighting based challenges can be difficult, it really does help the map and the quality of its difficulty.
Lastly, in terms of flawed execution, the map's theme was 100% unclear. This is a major nitpick in my opinion, because honestly, the map was all over the place. Forests, wool, sandy areas, ice... if the entire map's theme had been previously established and whimsical and wonderful like Marvellous', then this would not have been a problem. But while the average player might not notice it, as a reviewer I feel obligated to inform you.
However, aside from those little flaws, the map was quite the feat. Some very original puzzles (wool colours? Genius! Never would've thought of that) mixed with new and cool locales created a lovely puzzling experience. All of the puzzles were executed with precision and crafted with care, and honestly the difficulty was averaged out to moderate (my favourite level! ), which is conquerable by most players. Not to mention the fact that the map had nearly every type of puzzle: parkour, piston, mazes, ice sliding, crafting... the list is nearly endless. I completely congratulate the creators of the map for their success in creating a fantastic assortment of great puzzles. Bravo!
As well, I felt architecturally the map was very strong as well. I absolutely loved the multiple creeper faces strategically placed around the map that somewhat gave purpose to the map's title. Similarly, the map's locations were always diverse, made out of varying materials and the like. But I can't say I was expected the sheer *excuse my language* awesomeness at the end when I witnessed a phenomenal room that completely blew by mind. Absolutely fantastic. Very great architecture, guys! Good job.
The map's main aspects, its puzzle and the surrounding architecture, are really what make this map a success. Absolutely great job. Had the flaws been fixed, in the sense that a story was added, the theme was clearer, and the signs saying exactly what to do were removed, the map's overall score would be a minimum of 2 entire numbers higher. But until then, the map is nothing special. I recommend the map to anyone who just feels like playing puzzles and just enjoying Minecraft. However, hardcore players may just skip this one.
Bugs/tips
-literally NO bugs! Seriously?
-as mentioned above, the absense of a story was a really big downfall. Even a simple one, about escaping, would have been nice. The map will feel much more whole then.
-THEME!! Specify it first as whimsical or a varied obstacle course, and then you should be fine.
-take out those signs near the beginning telling you the exact area of the blocks.
Nostalgia is a messy map. The inconclusive questing given throughout it is enough to ensure that the adventure will be enjoyable, but the overall quality recoils because of the unsteady mechanics layered throughout the map. It is also yet another role-playing style adventure, just like a map I played recently, named Boulefield. It wasn't quite able to reach the high standards that that map set, but it sure is on the right path. What the map maker must really do is clean the adventure up. It'll have a much better chance of fairing against Boulefield and other RPG maps out there when the task is completed. I say this because through a number of separate aspects of the adventure I noted some real potential. I hope it's exploited.
The story was where a large mass of the mess was concentrated. It's a mainly linear storyline with exploration and combat playing major roles, and comedy laced throughout. The comedy is refreshing at first, in comparison with the many serious role-playing maps and games out there, but it soon grows tiresome, even though it dies down. The story itself is also pretty predictable, and despite being original, is somewhat traditional and redundant. It doesn't help that the notes often lack proper spelling and occasionally even grammar. And while this is all supposed to play into the comedy role of the map, it distracts the player from the main quest and the three side quests far too much. So much so, that in fact I actually didn't care about most of the story by the end of the adventure. But put aside the comedy, and the story is much sturdier. The somewhat silly tale being told is more intruiging, and at least two of its three side quests are enough to hold your attention without distracting you from the main quest too much. I won't go so far as to say this is the worst plot execution I've seen in a map, but it certainly isn't the best.
But putting aside the story, it is far easier to see where the map strives. One particular aspect it does fairly well in is its architecture. Builds are often no more than mediocre, but occasionally there will be a structure that makes you go "Wow." The map maker isn't too new to the concept of a map and its components, and it is very clear that those buildings were just as awesome as intended. There weren't any structures that were terrible or even remotely bad, as even the most mediocre of builds had their strengths and diversities. And those that made me say "Wow" were breathtaking. The limits of Minecraft were sometimes even pushed with what I witnessed, and I mean that as a huge compliment. It's needless to say that the map maker is no stranger to construction.
The atmosphere of a map is always a tricky aspect to analyse because it so heavily relies on gameplay, story, builds, and creativity, but it becomes easier when you see how seamless those aspects are integrated into one another. The story is suitable for the builds provided, and the gameplay is creative, even while not in its prime. I can't say too much on the atmosphere's behalf, save for that it did what it had to.
Gameplay was a final aspect of the map I felt was fairly strong. Side quests felt a little forced, often considering where they were precisely placed, and some didn't make much sense, but all provided their moments and were worthwhile. But I must also present a criticism I have here. The questing is rough around the edges. Often it overpowers the exploration by telling you exactly what to do and where to go. And while linear gameplay can be decent, it is not nearly as fun as Boulefield's openworld style questing where you had to explore small, realistically diverse areas in order to advance the story. For this reason I say that Nostalgia is weaker than Boulefield, but like I said previously, it could be improved to come closer to that high standard.
However, when it came to exploration, the map was top notch. Even though exploration often felt needless and sometimes convoluted when integrated with the story, other times it was supremely superb, perhaps even stronger than Boulefield's. The story provided motivation, the builds provided astronomical support, and the well thought-out atmosphere was touching. There was so much reason to want to explore and so many options that sometimes it even felt like a treasure hunt, what with the player being the hunter hoping to reap the rewards of exploration. I won't go into further detail on the matter, but say that if the map excells for one reason, it's this.
As I stated long ago, Nostalgia has potential. I dearly hope I've helped the map maker realise this and that he fixes the map accordingly. I feel compelled to compare it to Boulefield because it was clearly striving for a different adventure but similar goal: to create the best RPG Minecraft experience ever. I feel that only Boulefield did this, but I have yet to give up hope for Nostalgia. There's lots to improve, and little time before more role-playing styled maps begin to appear, so it's crucial that Nostalgia: A Simple Quest fixes its problems now rather than later.
Bugs/tips
-comedy. Tone it down or remove it entirely. It is unstable and close to annoying by the end of the adventure.
-spelling. Hate to be a grammar Nazi, but you need to fix that too.
-implement the side quests at more appropriate times during the few exploration sequences, not during linear questing.
-make the side quests somewhat related to the main story so that they are less distracting.
This map was an odd map to review; its puzzles were solid for the most part, but the story and other elements did not glue them together well. Also odd, I seemed to like this map a lot more the second time playing through. The first time, I got quite frustrated after dying a billion times on one of the first puzzles, partly because I had to go on a hike from spawn to get back (more on that later). After getting frustrated, I started to rush through the map. By the end I decided I didn't give it the justice it deserved so I replayed it, this time with single player commands (to set checkpoints.) I ended up enjoying the map. The experience really showed me how important those little fixes really are. But now I am rambling... Onto the review.
The puzzles were this map's strong point. Like most maps, there was a some parkour and other overused puzzles, but I did get the feeling that the creator attempted to be original with a few of the challenges. It also has a good balance of easy and calm puzzles, such as spot the difference, and fast paced, timed challenges. But like many of aspects of the map, I found that some of the small touches were lacking. In all though, it was the highlight of the map.
In a puzzle map, the puzzles are obviously the most important part. But they also need the right adhesive to glue it all together. When puzzles are not glued together properly it can make things feel incomplete and confusing. If a perfect puzzle map used extra-strength superglue, this map used a dried out, all purpose elementary glue stick. In other words, the map's story and finishing touches were not up to standard with its puzzles.
To go into detail, the story didn't translate well onto the signs around the map. I found it confusing at times, especially during an awkward switch between pure puzzle-after-puzzle, and an enclosed adventure portion. There were also many small areas that could have been improved with some detail additions. Small bugs also littered the map, and made it a bit of a clunky playthrough. My only other complaint would be that it isn't finished yet, so the ending was a couple signs in a room.
Overall, It was a good map. It could definitely improve in the story and detail aspect, but other than that it was solid throughout. It's Nothing special, but could be worth checking out if you are into basic puzzle maps.
Bugs/tips
-Add a scoring system
-Fix the door glitch that occurred after the recent update
-Add more checkpoints earlier in the map specifically, possibly some shortcuts from early in the map to later
-2 player support is inconsistent. If you are going to make 2 slots for minecarts do it for the entire map.
-Small typo at the beginning of the minecart puzzle- Minecraft should be minecart
-Following the tracks back to the start of the minecart puzzle is a pain in the **** and unprofessional. Make a hall to the start again at least.
-Add more items in the chests of the offices and houses
-Don't give water and lava at the start. People may use them to cheat through later levels
My God. Now that's a map. What exactly am I talking about? It couldn't be anything other than the wonders of RPG masterpiece Boulefield. I can't say I've played an adventure that is even remotely like this. Intruiging stories galore in this mind-blowing tale brought to you by Priestbob, and when they intertwine with the near-perfect atmosphere, tension builds. The adventure is brought to a whole new level. It can no longer be called just a "map". It's becomes an experience.
Just why does the map succeed on so many levels? Moving it along is a powerfully original tale that just sparkles with excitement and intruige, with mystery playing a signifigant role. Despite a fairly lackluster beginning and a highly implausible twist right when you begin, it soon picks up and changes direction completely. The entire adventure centers around exploration and your ability to uncover secrets and find just what is going on. Magic (in Vanilla Minecraft!) also is mixed well into the side-plots and major story points, even if at times it feels a little forced; almost as if Priestbob is dying to get the ingenius idea out into the world right away. From a gameplay standpoint, this is exceptionally strong, but I'll explain why later. The final ending to the map is not even complete, so it means map maker Priestbob is still ready to embrace the community and gift it with more classic adventure. However, the lack of a final ending is also one of the few places where Boulefield let me down. Even though it is left open, the plot is sort of left hanging where it shouldn't be. In fact, the story has just managed to build up enough tension when the map adruptly stops. I won't blame the map maker for this, as apparently it has been "18 months in the making," but it would be appreciated if a more exciting finale was available to suitably end the map for now. This, of course, would be temporary, but certainly helpful.
The story/plot aspect of the RPG is immediately intertwined with the atmosphere, as the two share a crucial role and relationship in the making of an adventure map. The atmospheric touch was helped along by some aesthetically pleasing structures and a powerhouse plot, but at times I felt it was lacking. Notes were often a little too long for my liking, as while I used to enjoy rich narrative, I've come to prefer short, concise story in narrative. Whether this is just personal preference or legitimate concern is yet to be decided. I would either shorten the notes to focus in on the topic, or record the notes in audio form. The technique works wonders in RPG-style adventures, such as DaDonn's Lord of Bloodycross or BlameTheController's Kingdom of the Sky. I recognized that Priestbob mentioned he was going to attempt this, and I highly recommend going in that direction. The map will be far more successful with audio narration to enhance it. The strong atmosphere, however, was helped by a separate audio component that really fleshed out the world. The score of the map, composed by a friend for Priestbob, is heartwarmingly epic. I can't thing of anything more suitable for such a masterpiece.
A final strength of the map is its revolutionary gameplay strategy. After an extremely short beginning (which I wouldn't even call introductory), a path is followed and the adventurer (you) reaches the town of Boulefield. While nothing here struck me as exciting or visually pleasing, there turned out to be a lot to do. The village was actually a hub! It teaches you many of the basics the map plays with and let's you get the hang of questing. It also introduces magic and weapons to the mix, two aspects that are held in high-regard when it comes to RPG map making. Then you are able to enter through the first portal and into "Level One". Level One deals highly with questing and is a real pleasure to complete. It's exploration-centred story is seamlessly integrated and always leaves for momentum to reach other areas of the map. Side quests don't usually feel forced, but they can get a little distracting. I'll be enjoying my search around the submarine for a railroad, then bid on a horse-race, and then return, but having forgotten my first intentions. But as I don't see a way to fix this in the forseeable future, I don't consider it a valid point. The gameplay is also enhanced by moral choices that actually change the ending of the map for the better. At several times during the map you are presented with two opposite paths, and I actually replayed the map several times to experience them all. Levels Two and Three aren't done yet, but I hope for them to be just as intense and exciting as the first.
That's about it. I didn't mention how epic the builds were, or how intense the tension was, but to be honest, there are only so many ways to say "That was awesome!" and I didn't want to seem redundant. I thoroughly enjoyed Boulefield and what it offered, and could find only a few ways it could be improved. But don't take my word for it. Try it out yourself. I can guarantee that you won't regret it.
Bugs/tips
-the only problems I had with the builds were how squared they were. I know its freaking Minecraft, but more is possible than just cubes.
-speaking of sound, you need some audio. Some of the notes are just too damn long. Shorten them or record them.
-some mechanics such as magic felt a little forced when used in side quests, such as the first appearance of the life wand. It didn't quite fit the quest, even if I loved the mechanic a lot.
This map isn't exactly what I expected of it. The rather plain name doesn't imply grand success or failure, but gives the reader the slightest impression that the adventure will be like the majority out there: simple, plain, and fun. I feel that the map maker tried too hard for something he wasn't able to accomplish, and failed spectacularly mainly because of that single flaw. I won't go so far as to say that the map's flaws prevented me from entirely enjoying the map, but when I factored in how plentiful and effective they were, my overall impression on the map plummeted. The atmosphere was a dull grey, the story was practically non-existent, and while the main aspect of the map, its puzzles, were decent, they weren't enough to save it. So what exactly are these flaws? How do they compare with the successes of the puzzle-adventure?
Well, the most prominent of these flaws is the unprofessionalism and lack of creativity that is consistent throughout the entire map. It doesn't even appear that the map maker was overly joyous with his product; one can see this clearly through the lack of grammatical, spelling, and punctuational errors that are abundant on the signs that decorate the linear path. As a critic I understand many map-makers feel like making the conversational aspects on the map grammatically proper is a large burden, but even a small flaw such as misspelling a simple word or not starting a sentence with capitalized letters (both of which the map maker accomplished in this short puzzler) gives the player the feeling that the creator doesn't give a sh*t about what they're making. This particularly flaw was too apparent and strong to be ignored, and it is for this reason that I cite it as a major issue.
The second of the three primary flaws the puzzle-adventure contained was the story, or in this case, lack of one. I won't condemn the map-maker for leaving a strong story out of the map, or for attempting to place one into a puzzler of this ordinary-state, but I will say that what little was given was ineffective. It tried to evoke a Cube Inc meets Portal meets Escape the Puzzlemaster feeling, but even if that wasn't the intentional case, I didn't care for it. Furthermore, the flawed gameplay element that often forces you to die interrupts the infrequent story, and does so until the player stops caring about what any of the signs, story-related or not, say. I also found the ending to be anticlimatic and almost cliched, but I'll leave it to you, my fellow players, to decide whether you agree.
The final, and in my opinion, most effective of the flaws found in the map is the gameplay element, which is frayed and broken in ways that simply cannot be fixed. This flaw can be dissected and disassembled into separate ones, but for the sake of public impression, I'll collect the ideas into this. For one, the scoring system was ineffective, and quite frankly silly. While innovative, and in my experience innovative, having a score that decreases by one everytime you die is a little annoying when played through. Worse yet, this scoring system was put at the centre of the map, in the heart of the content within, so it played a prominent role. And it was quite the nuisance! I'd remove the scoring system, or make the deaths less frequent, to improve my overall impression and receive a far higher rating if I were the map-maker. The other element that negatively affected the gameplay noticably was the puzzle difficulty. Often you were told directly what to do in the instance of a thinking or redstone puzzle, and I also found the difficulty of combat and skill-testing puzzles to be inconsistent.
But the map did do some things right, even though I'm not entirely sure whether they were on purpose or not. It evokes a dungeon-crawler, mystery feeling when delved-into, and its puzzles are well crafted, even if the map is visually unappealing (it isn't the most aesthetically pleasing map I've seen, to be sure). In fact, though the difficulty pacing could use some work, the parkour was great fun, and so was progressing from puzzle to puzzle. The offbeat way that they were lead out might confuse some and anger others, and while as a critic I found myself annoyed, I loved it as a player. Not everything was as it seems, and when something comes out of the blue, fascination grows into appreciation.
Spawners and Co. has potential. It isn't the best or worst of adventures, and is somewhat redundant after a while, but its successes are noticeable admist what might otherwise be considered a mess. Don't give up, minijack! With some tweaks, adjustment, and a MAJOR grammar overhaul, this map's appeal could soar. If what I've mentioned above and listed below is achieved, I can guarantee a rating increase of at least 1.5.
Bugs/tips
-grammar overhauls, so on, so forth, as mentioned before
-better pacing of the puzzles and their difficulty so that it gets progressively harder as the map goes on
-scoring system must be fixed; either give the player a way to gain points, or make the deathly appearances less frequent
-either omit the story entirely from the map, or make it stronger - look to maps like Cube Inc that drew heavy inspiration from video games/other maps but felt original or unique on their own
A map solely dedicated to testing a player's knowledge of Minecraft? It might seem boring to some, but to me, it felt like an interesting idea, and I had high hopes for it. I knew it wasn't going to be an Eronev Mansion or an Into the Depths, but I was hoping that it would be something entirely unique and different. I imagined it as a game/puzzle hybrid. It is the sort of thing that I felt could go big if executed well. The only problem was, the map seemed to fall short in all the areas that that would have helped it get big.
First off, this map was lacking in perhaps the most important area, the questions. Ideally, this map would have questions that got harder as you advanced, and the questions would all be relevant and well thought out. In reality, the questions started off easy, and gradually became dedicated to your knowledge of the history of minecraft. Many of the questions just had to do with when items/mobs were introduced, and seemed to leave out many important minecraft aspects. This made it so that if you hadn't played since 1.2, you would have to guess many of the questions. These questions are not fun to answer, and really don't fairly test new players who are knowledgeable of minecraft. It's too bad, the question were such a huge player in this maps success, and it is unfortunate that they weren't implemented well.
Next, the map needs improvement in another game-breaking aspect: When you get a question wrong, I was hoping for a puzzle or something related to that to complete. Now, the creator does do this, but only for 2 of 17 questions. The rest are just a auto death. I believe that if you have a score implemented, you should not kill off your players when the get a question. If you get a question wrong, I think that you should be dropped into a puzzle of some sort, and then NOT get a chance to re do the question. If you get it wrong you should not get another chance. This would have added an extra element to the map, and really would have made it great.
Other then that, this map's scoring system needs improving. It basically makes you count the amount of question you got right yourself, and has no end scoring table. If a scoring table was to be added in game, I would predict that the amount of comments on the thread would double. It would have also made this map more re-playable.
I hate to go on a rant about this maps problems, but the truth is, these problems are what is preventing this map from becoming a huge success. It's really a shame, because I would like to see this idea properly executed. With what I have talked about fixed, I would definitely recommend this map, but as it stands, ignore it.
Bugs/tips
-Fix all those little spelling and punctuation mistakes.
-In the piston puzzles, you can easily avoid death by standing on the ledge
-less diamonds in each chest, make it only 1 or 2
-The ladder after the snow golem question doesn't extend far enough. At least for 1.1, it is impossible to get up after that point.
The Wizard is one of the most awkwardly balanced maps I've played in a really long time. While the end of the map shined as one of the more fun experiences I've had with a reviewed map, the beginning and middle portions were some of the worst I've played. The Wizard's end made up for some of the start, and as such, it really is what I consider of the real middle-rated maps. It almost perfectly balances as a middle map, and I'd love to see the start improved heavily to make this map much better then it is now. I'm going to run with a "Good" and "Bad" section for this review, and highlight what made them so good/so bad here, as I feel this is the best route to take.
The Bad: The first 3/4th of the map. The naturally generated village, the poorly designed opening cave, and the really poor pathfinding almost made me give the map up due to extreme confusion and annoyance with the way the map was made. The story felt a bit contrived at the start, and the fact we *knew* we'd be fighting the Ender Dragon was a bit anticlimactic. I felt it needed more leadup. The initial challenges, as well, were very poor, and just consisted of really simple parkour, some general survival, and lots... and lots... and lots... of walking. It's cool and all, but walking and boating gets horribly boring really quickly.
Another problem was characters. They were spoken of constantly, but I had no idea who was who, and where they were. Saying "Farmer John from Grary" is nice (not real character, just example), but when I have no clue who Farmer John is, nor where Grary would be, it doesn't help me at all. Pathfinding does really need a change, and an Out-of-game map would be really nice.
Another problem I had was the way the later puzzles needed to be solved. It involved way too much general wandering, hoping you stumble across the answer. Same deal with the Pyramid, but I enjoyed that a lot. For the Wizard's House, all I did was just wander around the house and surrounding areas until I found a way to progress, which was rather frustrating, considering how natural most of your landscape looks.
The Good: Everything from the Desert town up. The story felt like it picked up from there, pathfinding did become more clear, things looked more built than found, finally, and the Pyramid was a highlight of the map. The whole Wizard thing was never really fully explained for me, but I won't whine about it. I had fun at the end, and that half really picked up. I liked how you finally started to give me some clearer instructions, such as "Follow the light made with no torches". That gave me clear directions, rather then "Yeah, that guy in this town you've never heard of" The game also upped the ante, becoming harder, but managing to stay clearer than it was before.
Finally, the story managed to weave itself closed nicely at the end, and the map definently displayed a strong element of storytelling. That was really nice to see in a map. The characters were a bit underdeveloped, but that's understandable, with limited text. I would love to see characters expanded upon in the future, but they don't really have to, as it makes sense for you to just pass on that.
All in all, a solid middle map. The beginning is pretty poor, but if you continue through, you'll find a real gem waiting to be uncovered.
Bugs/Tips
-The pathfinding for the entire 2/3rds of the map, to the Desert town. PLEASE make it easier to work out where we're going
-Make your buildings look less 'natural'. I like to see hard work put into a map, and when you use a natural cave and natural NPC villages, it feels lazy!
-The Wizard's home had a few bugs, mostly with the way to move on through each room.
Demons of the Nether fully exceeded my expectations, above and beyond what was expected. Upon starting the map, I was a little leery, due to the odd build, and slightly sloppy introduction, and the unfamilar texture pack (Sorry, I really dislike Painterly and the offshoots. too used to Johnsmith I guess >.>). The start of the map was also very confusing and slow, but once I finally got orientated, the map got into its stride. I'm going to be breaking this review into sections: Story, Atmosphere, Archetecture, and Puzzles. I know this is default, but this map really is reviewed best here, because it was GOOD, but it also has many flaws. One last note before getting into things, is that I find myself drawing many paralells between this map, and my own project, in the ways that we've flawed. This of course isn't affecting anything here, but I do find it interesting that both of us had such a similar set of strengths and weaknesses.
Alright, let's start with the weakest point, and go up from there. To me, the weakest point was definently Archetecture. With the exception of the Pandemonium Fight Arena. this whole map wasn't very good with the builds. They were erratic, a bit sloppy at several points, and didn't help too much in building atmosphere. Some it had to do with the required Texture Pack, as I've, as mentioned, rather found the Painterly set a bit hard to look at, but all in all, it was in build. The buildings served their purpose, but weren't all that great. Some sections felt especially sloppy, such as the Nether King, and some of the Nether-based areas, as well as the Underground portions.
Next up, let's discuss the Puzzles. I'll admit right off the bat, there aren't as many as I would have liked from this. Because the player had the choice to play on Peaceful, it removed a lot of the difficulty that could have been added to the map. Several times we were actually forced to be on Peaceful, in sections that could have made great use of the danger of combat. Also, the Ice Maze was seriously infuriating. The path never did make sense to me, and I just stumbled across the end somehow. The other puzzles worked, but my biggest issue here is that we required way too much walking. It felt very lazy, and could have been spiced up with some more puzzles and more interesting things. However, your use of map mechanics, especially with the use of portal transport to tell story was very well done. The map notes were also pretty well executed, though they were a bit confusing.
Following up with Atmosphere. Demons of the Nether did this bit quite well. It held a very creepy feel throughout the map. Your character is basically alone the entire time, and the feeling of progressing into some kind of insanity was very well done. Not the best, granted, but the overall feeling of being alone and manipulated by both sides was felt very heavily. The map makes me wonder if there's more to the story, in that our character has actually died in the plane crash, and is stuck in a battle between heaven and hell, and your choices decide the winner. Biblical references lead some undertones to the atmopshere that are subtly wonderful.
Story wise, this map definently excelled the most. The story is a dark, twisting adventure in which the player crashes horribly in a plane, left nearly dead and starving. After exploring an oddly deserted town, and solving some puzzles, we learn of a sprawning backstory through a "flashback" that was very cleanly executed. The story is one you should experience for yourself, but it was most definently the strong part of the map. If there's anything that should be remembered about this map, it's the strong story-element the map has.
All in all, Demons of the Nether is a pretty strong story-map, but still needs some effort in the atmosphere, build, and puzzle department. An overall fun experience though still flawed. I still applaud the effort put into the map, and I had a rather fun time playing.
Bugs/tips
-Both of the initial Elder Challenges' rewards can be accessed without completing the challenges, by breaking the clay. It was well hidden, but I accidentally found the Ice one before I knew about the challenges
-Since the map is supposed to be Linear, the map does get a fair bit confusing at times. Perhaps help with pathfinding a bit better in future updates, to help a player have a more streamlined map.
Fortress Escape is an awkward map. No other way to say it. It's an Escape-style map, where you have to use the resources given to craft and puzzle your way out of the map, and gave the materials pretty well. The setting wasn't too bad too, but the build itself, the puzzles, and the redstone horribly dragged this short map down.
I don't expect this review to be very "long", due to the fact that this is a short map, with little to talk about, but I'll try and be detailed. Fortress Escape is, as mentioned, an Escape map, where you are a prisoner, and after the "Fortress" mysteriously empties, you try to escape. You progress through three floors and then the roof to get out, and finally succeed (or don't...) in escaping from the Alcatraz-like Island. The story is pretty generic, but it ran well, though the map was VERY unclear. Many times I just wandered about, and finally stumbled across what I was looking for. This made me rather frustrated, and definently broke the atmosphere. Another issue atmosphere-wise was the build. While it didn't look very bad, it didn't really feel like a prison. The signs hanging around were also very out-of-character, and didn't feel like they belonged.
Puzzle-wise, this map flopped flat on its face. Every single puzzle, with the exception of the Parkour was broken. I had to noclip through the floor, through walls, and fly to repair broken sections, be it redstone, or a mechanic part that failed. This really annoyed me, and felt really sloppy, as if the creator didn't know Minecraft mechanics, didn't test, or didn't go back and fix things that had been broken during updates (such as redstone and Glowstone problems, which broke one puzzle). I ran into so many problems during this map, that the creator really should go through and just test the thing better to stop all of the issues I found.
Unfortunately, there's not really much else I can talk about. The map has almost no story, the puzzles are broken, and the atmosphere is still pretty flawed. Also, being such a short map, there's little to discuss. So yeah, creator, please take this review well. You've got a shell of a map here, and with some heavy repairs, you could be doing a lot better.
Bugs/tips
-Wood Pressure Pad puzzle - fix the redstone. All the glowstone has made it pop off, due to 1.0.0 changes
-Library Maze - Fix the pistons; one of yours is stuck out, and as such is broken
-Shoot the Painting puzzle - The painting rarely falls onto the pressure pad, and breaks that puzzle too. Fix it up!
-Dispenser Egg puzzle - The Chickens almost never go where they're supposed to.
-Craft item; pull lever "puzzle" - Didn't work at all!
Username(creator): Tiagofvarela
Map Name:Somethingcraft
Forum Link:http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/581810-181173-somthingcraft-update-finaly/#entry7684150
Requirements(mods,texture packs,ect.): Last Days texturepack.
Additional Info(optional): It is a map that doesn't have a goal, exept geting your freedoom. (There may be speling errors.)
Hope you see it. :smile.gif:
I'll play it after I finish Eronev Mansion. Thanks for posting!
Username(creator): Peanuts363
Map Name: LoZ: A Block to the Past
Forum Link: in my sig
Requirements(mods,texture packs,ect.): texture pack, but its included
Additional Info(optional): everything you need to know is in my thread :smile.gif:
Username(creator): Migrosbudget
Map Name: Lux Perpetua
Forum Link: Click me
Requirements(mods,texture packs,ect.): Plays best with LB Photo realism (no requirement though)
Additional Info(optional): The map has just been released and is currently in testing (beta) stage. But I'd like to hear your oppinion about it.
Wow. That was something. Eronev mansion is definitely one of the best maps I have played. So many unique things I have never seen before made this experience an exciting one. But before I start, let me just confess that because of me, all the villagers are dead. Yes, my ending wasn't the best.
Lets start with the unique things. Pumpkin npcs. Ok, I have actually seen these before in maps, but how they were implemented was done very well. The creator even made fun of the fact that they were pumpkins quite a lot, which I found very entertaining. The dynamic text boxes were amazing. I didn't even know that was possible. Definitely helps it stand out from other maps. And unique buildings. The buildings in this map were all different in size, shape and material. Even your house looks like it should, cozy and homely. Multiple endings helped make this map that much more unique.
What blew me away with this map, is the amount of redstone circuitry it would have taken to make this. I can't imagine how much work it would have taken to even make the mine cart station(which was amazing by the way). This map was pieced together extremely well, as I did not find any typos or large bugs, which is saying something for the amount of things that could have gone wrong with the redstone.
Every map has its flaws though, and now I will explain why it did not get a perfect 10. Unfortunately, I got extremely confused at some points during the map, and at one point, almost quit. The story got pretty confusing after leaving the mansion through the painting hallway. I think the creator should give better directions on what you need to do during this part in the map. Other than that, the story could have been better. My tips for that are below.
Overall, this is a fantastic map, and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes adventure maps.
Bugs/tips
-I think you could have emphasized on the evilness of the old man and possibly, the innocence of the citizens. Bring more depth to your characters, even giving them names, would help out the story a ton. It would drive the player to want to save the villagers, and make them even more sad when they don't, or happy if they do.
-the only bug I found is at the bottom of the sand pyramid, one of the pistons did not work correctly. It can be found at the entrance of the of the room with the flowers.
Hello! Welcome to my map reviews. My goal for this topic is to create organized, trustworthy reviews. My reviews are thorough, highlighting negative and positive aspects of each map. I will also rate it out of 10, based on the criteria found below. After spending months creating my map, and playing many others, I believe I can give experienced, objective reviews for both the average player, and the prestigious map maker. Thanks for checking out my reviews! I hope you enjoy.
How I Rate Maps
Section 1- Review
In this section I write about what is positive and negative about the map. I will give suggestion and point out bugs I find. I will talk about how well executed the map is, and how much effort I believe was put in. I will usually end it by saying if it is worth looking at, playing, or to be ignored.
Section 2- Rating
I will rate all maps out of 10. Why did that map get a 5? Read below to see the guidelines. Please note: These are just guidelines, and there are always exceptions.
0-1 - The map was unplayable. It was so confusing that I could not figure out how to play or what to do.
1-2 - The map was bad. Little effort was put into it. The map looked very unprofessional overall.
2-3 - The map was fairly bad. Some effort was shown, but it looked very choppy in all.
3-4 - The map was not good. I found many errors, but it made sense. Not good, but not terrible.
4-5 - The map was very "meh". I found some parts to be interesting, It was not a waist of time, but not exactly time well spent.
5 - An average map.
5-6 - A decent map. I found it interesting. Overall, I liked it.
6-7 - A good map. It was interesting and effort is clearly shown.
7-8 - A very good map. The map kept me entertained throughout, and I found it very fun and interesting.
8-9 - A great map. I looked back after playing this map and thought "wow, now that's a map."
9-10 - An excellent map. This map blew my mind. Stood out from the rest. This map was unique and very fun.
10 - The best map I have ever played by far. This map was perfect in every way. This map is game changing.
Please note: I will not praise maps, nor will I bash maps for no reason. If your map is good, I will tell you. If it is bad, I will tell you.
After I Review...
If after I review you do not understand why you got the score you got, or you just feel you deserved better, feel free to tell me. Just leave a reply in the comments, and I will further explain why I gave you the score you got. In a rare experience it is possible I misunderstood something in your map and I gave you score you didn't deserve. This is rare though, so don't count on it.
Submissions
What I will Review
I will review a few genres of minecraft maps including...
Adventure
Puzzle
Parkour
WIP
Application
To submit a map just post the following application with all the appropriate information. I will not review maps that do not use this format.
Username(creator):
Map Name:
Forum Link:
Requirements(mods,texture packs,ect.):
Additional Info(optional):
Make sure you have screenshots on your thread. No pics, no clicks.
To Be Reviewed
1.somethingcraft
2.LoZ: A Block to the Past
3.Lux Perpetua
4.
5.
The Diamond Chase was a bit all over the place. The story wasn't very clear and I was sometimes wondering what I should be doing, or where I should be going. The start was kind of fun. The puzzles were not very original, with an exception of the tests that that quiz you, which were easy, but enjoyable. When I got to the town I was surprised to see so many side quests. Every building you entered had a quest for you to complete. Almost all of these quests had nothing to do with the story. They all seemed a bit out of place. Especially when you come across a diamond house in a town that is supposed to be deprived of food and resources.
The scoring system could be better. Gold ingots are found in large quantities in chests after you complete side quests. Before you start the map, there is no sign or note that tells you to look out for gold ingots, collect them, or that it will be your score at the end. A sign or note would have been helpful, because I did not know I needed to collect them until the end.
Overall, this map had many flaws, but I can still see that you put a lot of effort into it. Fix up the story, the scoring system and change the ending, and this map will be a lot better! I recommend checking this map out.
Bugs/tips
- In the part where he want you to burn the cottage down, he tells you to find iron and smelt it into a flint and steal, yet when you destroy the wooden plank, you find a brand new flint and steel. I found this confusing.
-try to hide the redstone found at the house with the lava
-too much food! I had about 25 pork at the end. The town is supposed to be deprived for food, so make it hard to find.
Wow. That was something. Eronev mansion is definitely one of the best maps I have played. So many unique things I have never seen before made this experience an exciting one. But before I start, let me just confess that because of me, all the villagers are dead. Yes, my ending wasn't the best.
Lets start with the unique things. Pumpkin npcs. Ok, I have actually seen these before in maps, but how they were implemented was done very well. The creator even made fun of the fact that they were pumpkins quite a lot, which I found very entertaining. The dynamic text boxes were amazing. I didn't even know that was possible. Definitely helps it stand out from other maps. And unique buildings. The buildings in this map were all different in size, shape and material. Even your house looks like it should, cozy and homely. Multiple endings helped make this map that much more unique.
What blew me away with this map, is the amount of redstone circuitry it would have taken to make this. I can't imagine how much work it would have taken to even make the mine cart station(which was amazing by the way). This map was pieced together extremely well, as I did not find any typos or large bugs, which is saying something for the amount of things that could have gone wrong with the redstone.
Every map has its flaws though, and now I will explain why it did not get a perfect 10. Unfortunately, I got extremely confused at some points during the map, and at one point, almost quit. The story got pretty confusing after leaving the mansion through the painting hallway. I think the creator should give better directions on what you need to do during this part in the map. Other than that, the story could have been better. My tips for that are below.
Overall, this is a fantastic map, and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes adventure maps.
Bugs/tips
-I think you could have emphasized on the evilness of the old man and possibly, the innocence of the citizens. Bring more depth to your characters, even giving them names, would help out the story a ton. It would drive the player to want to save the villagers, and make them even more sad when they don't, or happy if they do.
-the only bug I found is at the bottom of the sand pyramid, one of the pistons did not work correctly. It can be found at the entrance of the of the room with the flowers.
Agree/Disagree With My Opinion? Leave Some Feedback!!
hey i saw tht u justed started today and already have 3 maps being reviewed. based on ur ratings i think very similiar to tht and wanted to let you know tht if u ever get to many maps and want somelse to help im able to
Somethingcraft really isn't a map. It is the bare intro of a map and nothing else. It was like the creator couldn't decide if he wanted to make an adventure map, or a puzzle map, so he just made nothing. That pretty much sums up the map. But painfully, I will go into detail.
You spawn in a room that starts out with rules and a couple of signs that are meant to be funny, and might be if not for being incomprehensible. But the he takes the jokes too far, giving you diamond tools and armor and then asking for it back two steps later. He then makes the rules confusing by saying "rule 6. do not to listen to rule 5". This might be funny, but because the notes have bad grammar and do not actually get ANY information across, so its not.
Then you leave the building and he tells you something about a trial, and that he is too lazy to make a path to it so you just have to find it yourself. After walking forward for about 50 blocks I noticed a "old man house". After going inside I received some actual supplies, but no information on where to go next. I then spent about 10 minutes looking around before finally calling it quits.
My conclusion is that this map is unplayable, so don't play it.
Username(creator): Peanuts363
Map Name: LoZ: A Block to the Past
Forum Link: in my sig
Requirements(mods,texture packs,ect.): texture pack, but its included
Additional Info(optional): everything you need to know is in my thread :smile.gif:
I have never played a single zelda game. Do you still want me to review your map?
Oh dear, Oh dear... There was a map in a chest in the ground... That should have something like more 45 minutes, I tought the map wasn't confusing anymore, didn't you saw the text on the stone abouve the chest? It had a map saying you were to go... And yes actually I have no way that I know of correcting my words because I am not english and no one of my family knows english apart from me (a litle bit). And your bugs and tips, the 1 I thoght it was done the 2 I can only do it wheen I find a way of doing it, and the 3 In the post you should have seen this:
Pre-Pre-Alpha:
Version 0.01-First realise(Pré-Pré-Alpha Demo)
Version 0.2-More complete version (Pre-Pre-Alpha 75%)
Version 0.21-More playable(Pré-Pré-Alpha 75%)
Version 0.22-Aded classes, bugfixes(Pre-Pre-Alpha 75%)
Version 0.23-More entertaining during the travels (Pré-Pré-Alpha 75%)
Version 0.24-More torches, bugfixes(Pre-Pre-Alpha 75%)
Version 0.3-Even more complete version.(Pre-Pre-Alpha 100%)
Pre-Alpha:
Version 0.4-THE FUTURE, bugfixes (Pre-Alpha 50%)
Alpha:
None yet
Beta:
None yet
Full release demo:
None yet
Full release:
None yet
Complete:
None yet (Maybe never)
Soo... No ending as of it yet... I am very sad for people still geting stuck on the map... :'(
Thanks for the review!
Edit: By the way the last days texturepack is only to be used in the nether, I will put that in the rules and make the map even more obvious than it actually is.
Edit2: And in the tread there was picture of the demo just to prove that it actually as a bit more content.
Ok. I apologize for giving you a review that you might have not deserved completely. But unfortunately it WAS to confusing for me too understand. So the review stays. But why did I not find the map? Here is why.
Why didn't I have a look in that chest? Well for one thing there is a block on top of the chest make it impossible to get into. One of your rules was NO destroying blocks, so I assumed This was just another comedic thing you put in, where you would pretend to give me everything I need, until I realize that I can't. This was very confusing, fix it and I'm sure you will have less problems. As for the typos. I realize you are not a native English speaker, but unfortunately the confusing signs still make it hard to play your map. I know that is not something you can easily change but I do have one suggestion for that. If you know anyone who is even a bit better at speaking English, or even an English speaker. Have them check you work. I am sure the could find some mistakes, that would make it just that much easier to understand.
If you manage to do everything I have said I may consider re-reviewing it. Thank you.
Well, since I loved Levi's Nightmare, I'd love to have you review mine :smile.gif: You certainly know what you're doing!
Username(creator): Fangride
Map Name: The Forest of Silence
Forum Link: Right here
Requirements(mods,texture packs,ect.): None (yet)
Additional Info(optional): If you spot any bugs, please let me know!
Finally, a map review that looks organized...
Here's my map.
Username(creator): Ditto64, kobs222, crazykille
Map Name: Escape the Puzzlemaster
Forum Link:
Requirements(mods,texture packs,ect.): None!
Additional Info(optional): Played by AntVenom and HuskyMUDKIPZ
Ok, but unfortunently I don't know anyone that knows even sligty english. As for the chest I will repeat: It is not the one that was the stone above in that stone there are signs saying it is in a hole next to the chest, and you are not the first person that couldn't find it thats why I even put the signs, anyways I will consider remove that, to many people were stuck there. Thanks for awnsering.
Alright, sorry about that. But please make that easier, so no one has too go through that again.
Hey there, I've been looking for a few more reviews on this adventure/puzzle map I did a while back, and it'd be much appreciated if you could take a look at it.
Username(creator): Valark
Map Name: Fetch Quest
Forum Link: Fetch Quest
Requirements(mods,texture packs,ect.): None.
Additional Info(optional): Be sure to look around, there are hidden things.
Thank you for your time, and I look forward to your review!
Now before I even start let me say something first. I have NEVER played a Zelda game before, and I am pretty clueless to even the basic concepts of it. I wasn't even sure I should do a review of this, so I asked the creator if I should do this without any Zelda experience. He assured me that it would be fine, and so I played it. Please note that this review will be on how good it was as an adventure map, and not how good it was as a re-creation. Because of this, the score will definitely be lower than what it would be if I had played Zelda games in the past.
What I was pleased to see, was that there was a hands-on tutorial, on how Zelda was being integrated in Minecraft. It went over the basics of what things were with the texture pack. This was definitely helpful for someone who has never played a Zelda game. The only thing that I wished was integrated into the tutorial, would be a note of some sort giving a bit of background information to the Zelda games. Possibly something that explained who Link is, and maybe other characters as well.
As the actual game started I was given very little information about what I was supposed to do. For someone who had already played the game, this wouldn't be a problem, but for me, it was. It would have been nice for the note to say something about heading off to somewhere for information. It would at least give the player a chance to get started. For me, I ended up wandering around for quite I while, not really sure where to go or how to start. This kind of carried through the entire map. I was constantly wondering what my next objective is. It would be good if the creator would make it more new player friendly.
One thing that was definitely cool, was how large the map was. This map would have taken ages to build. I can tell the creator really put some serious effort into this project. Oh, one random thing that I found interesting, was the npcs. There faces, including the expression, was drawn out on signs. I found that to be really cool. Another thing I enjoyed was how well the texture pack worked with the map. The rupees system was really good, as well as the paintings seemed to fit well with the surrounding area.
Overall, I would recommend this map to anyone who has played Zelda. For anyone who hasn't, just check it out.
Bugs/tips
-Before leaving the tutorial area, make it clear that you are not supposed to take the items with you.
-I found the letter "a" on one of the signs (that are meant to be a chair backrest). It can be found in the sanctuary.
Intro
Hello! Welcome to our map reviews. Our goal for this topic is to create organized, trustworthy reviews. Our reviews are thorough, highlighting negative and positive aspects of each map. We will also rate it out of 10, based on the criteria found below. We have a growing team of quality-tested reviewers who give experienced, objective reviews for both the average player, and the prestigious map maker. Thanks for checking out our reviews! I hope you enjoy.
The Team
So far we have five reviewers, myself (Kmilley), StreamofAdventure, Fangride, Jemlee, and Zres. I started this thread a while ago and have created many reviews since then. After getting an overwhelming amount of map requests, I decided to ask some reviewers to help me out. Now, our team delivers reviews on a semi-regular basis, and we try to give the best reviews we can for those who wish to read them. Also, if you see any reviews from people that are not shown above, they were once a part of the reviews, but are not anymore from whatever reason. The reviews remain, as they are all good quality reviews that follow the thread's standards.
How We Rate Maps
Section 1- Review
In this section we write about what is good and bad with the map. This is done based on the reviewer's experience and perspective. We will give suggestions and point out bugs we find. We will talk about how well executed the map is, and how much effort we believe was put in. We will usually end it by saying if it is worth looking at, playing, or to be ignored.
Section 2- Rating
We will rate all maps out of 10. Why did that map get a 5? Read below to see the guidelines. Please note: These are just guidelines, and there are always exceptions.
0-1 - The map was unplayable. It was so confusing that I could not figure out how to play or what to do.
1-2 - The map was bad. Little effort was put into it. The map looked very unprofessional overall.
2-3 - The map was fairly bad. Some effort was shown, but it looked very choppy in all.
3-4 - The map was not good. I found many errors, but it made sense. Not good, but not terrible.
4-5 - The map was very "meh". I found some parts to be interesting, It was not a waste of time, but not exactly time well spent.
5 - An average map.
5-6 - A decent map. I found it interesting. Overall, I liked it.
6-7 - A good map. It was interesting and effort is clearly shown.
7-8 - A very good map. The map kept me entertained throughout, and I found it very fun and interesting.
8-9 - A great map. I looked back after playing this map and thought "wow, now that's a map."
9-10 - An excellent map. This map blew my mind. Stood out from the rest. This map was unique and very fun.
10 - The best map I have ever played by far. This map was perfect in every way. This map is game changing.
Please note: We may be brutally honest with our reviews and ratings. If it is a good map, we will tell you, if it is a bad map, we will tell you. If you do note feel like you can take that kind of criticism, then don't submit your map.
After We Review...
If after we review you do not understand why you got the score you got, or you just feel you deserved better, feel free to tell us. Just leave a reply in the comments, and whoever reviewed your map will further explain why they gave you the score you got. In a rare experience, it is possible your reviewer misunderstood something in your map and gave you score you didn't deserve. This is rare though, so don't count on it.
Intro
Want to help review maps on this thread? Now you can! Right now we have three people doing reviews on the thread. My vision is that we will have a team of 5+ intelligent reviewers, all helping to give consistent reviews, that will be based of the criteria and style we are using currently. Open up the spoiler to learn more!
Before you even think of applying, note that reviews on this thread all have to meet a certain standard. Make sure that you realize what it takes to make an good review. A good review, in terms of this threads standards, has the following-
-Good writing, no spelling mistakes, everything is grammatically correct.
-USE THE RUBRIC. I have made a rubric for a reason. You must follow it when rating your maps out of 10.
-Be a good analyzer. Look for the good things. Look for the bad things. Find the bugs and write them down, and then clearly write them in your review.
-Do not be biased because of the genre of minecraft. Even if you do not like parkour, think of how fun it would be for other people, do not rate it down because of its genre.
-Make your reviews thorough. Make them about 3-5 paragraphs long. Remember that you need to fill up your review with quality information, that helps the reader understand what the map is all about.
-Be critical, but not ruthless.
-Use all of the necessary components of a review in this thread, including the bugs/tips section.
-Does not go through the events of a map one by one, but instead reviews the map through different sections (story, architecture, ect.) in paragraph form.
-Make the review for the reader, not the creator. If you have any tips or bugs for the creator, put them in the bugs/tips section.
Reviewer Submissions
Think you have what it takes? Fill out this application-
Username:
Age (optional):
Gender (optional):
Map maker? (if yes, provide a link to map(s)):
Writing experience:
Review experience:
Have you read the entire "Join The Team" section of this thread?:
Additional info:
If I (kmilley) accept you, that does not mean you get to immediately start writing reviews for this thread. It means I will privately give you a test review to do. After that, I may give you more reviews to do, along with suggestions on how to improve your reviews. Once I feel you are ready, you will begin writing reviews for the thread, and will be given full credit for each review.
What We Will Review
We will review a few genres of minecraft maps including...
- Adventure
- Puzzle
- Parkour
- WIP
- AdventureCraft
ApplicationTo submit a map just post the following application with all the appropriate information. We will not review maps that do not use this format. If accepted, you will be assigned a reviewer based on their availability. Once a reviewer has been assigned to your map, his name will be shown in brackets beside your map in the "To Be Reviewed" section.
Username(creator):
Map Name:
Forum Link:
Genre:
Requirements(mods,texture packs,ect.):
Estimated Completion Time:
Additional Info(optional):
Make sure you have screenshots on your thread. No pics, no clicks.
To Be Reviewed
Unclaimed by a Reviewer
Assassin's Craft: The Secret of Altair's Library
The Hidden Kingdom
Spatial Distortion
Challenge to the End
CUBEception 2
The Terrarian Invasion
Temple of la mort
Freak Climber
Pranking Neko Magix
Parkour Academy
Project Johto
Crybral Labs Part 2
The Beginning Of The End
The Fortress
Beyond The Void
Creeper Quest
Awakening of demons: Skel-Rad´s curse
Power of the Void
Secrets of the Jungle
The Adventure
The Quest for the Blockforce - Part 1 - Zombie
Destiny
Prison Escape
The Asylum
O.U.T. Over Understood Testing
Castlevania NES
Mirror's Edge
Other Portal
God of Deceit
Extreme Limits
Woolington
The Dream
Glass' Obstacle Course
Old Hatreds
Hunt for the Fountain of youth
Lost Demon Lucas
Adventure of the Ancient Maya
The Learning
The Swarm
Kishin's Lab
Escape of the Mind: The Edge of Perception
Diamond castle
Trust Me!
Kmilley's To-Do List
-The Terrarian Invasion
-From Dirt to Bedrock
StreamofAdventure's To-Do List
-The River
-Lord of Bloodcross
Fangride's To-Do List
-Grinchmas
-The Cave of Human Redemption
-The Temple Of Jakawakamoo
Jemlee's To-Do List
-Dilpida
Zres' To-Do List
Castlevania: Blood Moon
Puzzle's Adventure #1
Puzzle's Adventure #2
Castlevania: Black Widow
Review Packs
After we review 15 maps in the "Latest Reviews" section, we create a review pack. We have three review packs finished, which can be found by clicking the link below:
The map has an interesting premise. It sets out to be a role-playing adventure that allows you to retain the elements of Minecraft that you love (i.e. mining, crafting, farming, etc.), and gives you quests along a river that you seem to be following. Well, it sounds good on the surface. What could go wrong? Well, as it turns out, quite a bit.
I'll outline my playthrough before getting to the meat of my criticisms. I began in a shack with a rather large supply of expensive items, including iron and stone tools to start with. It tells me to follow the path of the river, and sets me off. I quickly found my way to a visually displeasing hallway of stone that just lay bare on the sand. I shrugged it off and then found my way into a large tree which had some mild appeal. The story within the tree revolved around a man who was trying to rid the area of a disease and commanded you to destroy the tree. After doing so, I continued on my path and came across a naturally spawning village right next to the river, which should never be included in any map whatsoever, let alone an adventure map. No story explanation was given either, giving me the impression that the creator didn't care. Adjacent to that was a very disruptive and awfully constructive "castle" that was completely hollow. I climbed the inside, switched sides, found myself underground, and then ended up at a deck just outside. The map then ended.
So... what happened? I can't say that I know myself, even after analysing what I could from the map. The story makes absolutely no sense, as you are given no explanation as to why you are even following this river in the first place. The segment involving the large tree is shoe-horned in, and although somewhat decent, it has no place in the storyline. The castle and the village beside it are never explained, leading to what is the most disconnected story I've ever seen.
The mapper also seemed to create the map without any regard for how the player would progress and enjoy what the map offered. Gameplay and progression were never put to the forefront of the mapper's concerns, as while playing the map I realized that the creator was only hell-bent on making the builds of the map. It's a shame, really, because the builds were also some of the least appealing I've seen in an adventure map yet.
Sadly enough, all that is left are the creator's buildings. The only half-decent creation I noticed was the large tree toward the start of the map. The village should have been removed and the castle reconstructed, as it feels very hollow, empty, and uneventful.
It is a pain to so harshly critique a map that seemed to at least try a fair bit, but I find myself reasonable in the comments I've offered. I think the mapper realized his creation wasn't strong but released it anyway without regard for whether it would be enjoyable. That was a mistake, and as a result The River is essentially half an hour of my life I would like to have back.
Bugs/tips
-redesign the castle, add fences to outline its top, and include diversity in the form of towers
-scrap the natural village
-give a backstory as to why the player is following the river in the first place
-you need more than one side quest, as the included tree-quest wasn't very satisfying
-explain the appearance of the castle and its dock
Lord of Bloodycross 8.8/10
The adventure is adventure mapping at some of its finest. If you've played the previous adventures, you'll find the plot of the map very familiar. It won't be long before you realize that the map actually contains all three parts of the Convenience story arc in one adventure, and although the stories feel a little distant from each other, daDonn weaves all story bits from the previous two maps together in an almost seamless creation. The horror-suspense vibe of the previous adventures returns and is stronger than ever, with the storyline impressing throughout. The third chapter, or map, also impresses with the strongest story of the three chapters and multiple moral choices. The plot of the map is overall very well laid out, and quite commendable.
However, when you progress through the story, you most likely won't be marvelling at the plot itself. You'll be in awe at just how you are told the story. DaDonn perfects BlameTheController's already excellent method of using audio narration to convey the story. He mixes soundtracks from many a site with sound effects and really makes the world of the Bloodycross series come to life. The narration is easy to understand, dark, sounds professional, and never misses a beat. It is a very refreshing way to rediscover the plot of the first two maps and marvel at that of the third, even if you already know where the twists and turns are.
The difficulty of the map is kept at a safe level where the map can be finished, but a challenge is ensured. It relies quite heavily on combat but isn't light on puzzles and logic involving Minecraft mechanics (e.g. two seemingly-identical rooms may not function the same way). It involves a good mix of everything, even sprinkling in smaller bits of parkour when needed. However, the best parts of the map remain the puzzles, and daDonn knows this, so he keeps them at the forefront of obstacles delaying your progress.
Nevertheless, difficult challenges are never what propel you through the map. As with many role-playing style adventure maps, exploration and character motivation are put at the head of the map. Although the storyline is strictly linear, and there aren't side quests, it feels a great deal like the Cubeception series. You get the feeling that the world is whole, and even though you are only sticking to a certain path, you could leave and come across another castle or town. You can begin to relate with your character, and can liken yourself to him while exploring, because you really become the hero you are playing. The explorative aspect of the map is truly wonderful, because it gives you so much reason to believe in your hero and his world.
All in all, progressing through the map was one hell of a time, and so without a doubt the gameplay of the map was spot on. It is impeccably hard to nail the gameplay of a role-playing map without disrupting the atmosphere and still allowing for enough interaction between the player and the environment, but daDonn handles the challenge with ease. Moral choices in the third chapter are great to play through and feel much like content you'd get out of a professionally designed RPG game.
Role-playing adventures don't always require a great amount of detail or good visual appeal on a micro level, but it isn't surprising when daDonn includes fine furniture and medieval flare. The map is also beautiful when looked at on a macro level, as the castles, towns, and halls all look phenomenal.
The map relies heavily on the dark tones of horror, suspense, thrill, and obscure discovery, so it needs support from all aspects to uphold the adventure. The atmosphere is held secure by a dark story and creepily recorded narration, which really set the mood and help deliver a backing for character motivation. Exploring further strengthens the player's connection with the character he controls, and journeying through a visually impressive landscape solidifies the atmospheric suspense. The atmosphere also justifies the moral choices within the confines of the story, and although some seem a bit like they were thrown in there for the hell of it (the character is supposed to be strong-willed and good until the third chapter, so considering evil as a path to follow doesn't really seem realistic), nothing is overly awkward. The atmosphere is as strong as it needs to be, and is the sole reason you can immerse yourself in the world of Bloodycross.
Lord of Bloodycross provides a fine ending to a fantastic trilogy, one that has now changed how I look at Minecraft maps. It has its flaws, and although certain minor mistakes might pull you out of the experience for a short time period, you'll be back in the universe of Bloodycross within the minute. The map will leave you speechless after the experience, and so I without a doubt recommend it to any map player out there.
Bugs/tips
-in Chapter 1, Scene 8 is a little hard to find. A little more prominence might make keep me in the experience instead of scrambling around to find what to do.
-adding a hint of selfishness or evil depth to the character in the first two chapters might help justify the player's consideration of evil in the final chapter.
King of Hrothgaria is an adventure map that takes place in the fictional realm of Hrothgaria. The king mysteriously passes away, and with no hereditary heirs to the throne, the kingdom decides to hold a set of rigorous trials for potential candidates of the throne, testing their physical prowess and abilities in combat. The player is one of said candidates, and is vying for the title of king.
The first thing I notice in this map is that it is absolutely beautiful and full of visual detail. The creator obviously made much effort in creating pleasant aesthetics. The builds are massive; the points of interest being the royal castle and the stunningly large and gorgeous forest. The entire map may have been a pleasure to play simply because of how good it looked. I often found myself just stopping to smell the roses while walking down one of the paths!
The challenges themselves seemed fairly cookie-cutter. Fighting off zombies and destroying a monster's lair seems fairly standard for any adventure. What I found good, though, was that there was a very tangible consistency between challenges. Not once did I feel put off by the pacing of this map, and I never saw anything in this map that stuck out like a sore thumb from the rest. There were no random or badly-placed puzzles; the challenges made SENSE in the map's world. I found them rather difficult, but not frustrating. This was key: it was all strung together quite nicely and never became annoying or tedious for me. It wasn't just the challenges that had a nice progression, either. The storyline itself moved along in such a way that made for a very intriguing and believable experience. Still, I couldn't help but feel that the adventure as a whole was fairly unremarkable. In regards to what the player has to do to beat the map, it isn't anything special. However, it makes up for this greatly by simply being well-done in every way.
Overall, there are so many things that King of Hrothgaria excels at. The standards of this map are so high all around that I can't think of a single aspect that it was lacking in. It manages to have everything that an adventure map needs, and does it well. It's a solid map. Simply put, this map is GOOD, and I mean that sincerely. While not necessarily outstanding in terms of gameplay, this map still does everything right. With a world rich with detail, a good story, and fun challenges, this is a fantastic example of what an adventure map should be like. Go give it a shot, will you? And expect a sequel, because King of Hrothgaria 2 is in the works!
Bugs/Tips
-Check on your grammar and spelling mistakes. Really nitpicky here, I know, but try to make the map as polished as you can!
-There was a really deep open pit somewhere inside Castle Hrothgar's walls. I fell into it, nearly died, and got trapped until I switched to creative and had to fly back up.
For what little there actually is, the map consists of two bland and frustrating mazes. They both are rather large, and they both are tedious. Combining these two elements turns the entire experience rather tiresome and stale. There aren't any interesting builds, no original gameplay, and an extremely weak story (about a guy being trapped in a maze, naturally.)
There is nothing redeemable about this map, if it can even be considered a map at all. There isn't enough material in it, and the material that IS in it is far more annoying than it is fun. Perhaps infinitely so.
Bugs/tips
-Think about how your players might feel when they play your map. Sympathy is a fantastic skill in mapping and, well, everything!
-Come up with a significant amount of work before you upload it for everyone.
-Large and winding mazes could be a refreshing change of pace, but it tires people out very quickly. They're confusing, and confusion leads to frustration. Unless you can find a way to make mazes interesting, I personally don't recommend making them your entire map.
That's not to say it's without flaws. The somewhat lackluster visuals on a large scale and some confusing pathfinding predicaments are proof of that. But all of my complaints are uneventful and meaningless when you realize exactly just what Geminos and Piecia997 have accomplished. You'll find a phenomenal story waiting for you, incredible details, a mysterious and well thought-out atmosphere, and more if you're willing to begin the adventure. But trust me, you really want to play this map.
As I mentioned earlier, I was concerned with how the parkour and adventure hybrid would work, and thusly how the story would manage with no puzzles or combat-oriented experiences to boot. But the intricate tale these two prestegious map makers weave into the parkour is absolutely stunning. It is strong by any standards, and while it begins slowly, you begin to remember things from your past before too long. The whole plot feels like a puzzle whose pieces are scattered around, and while trying to complete it, you stumble upon new pieces of information that make you reconsider what you thought was certainly correct before. It all leads down an incredibly long four hour journey that rarely misses a beat, and finishes on a strong note that you won't see coming.
While playing through the adventure, you'll also stumble upon many gameplay techniques that are present. If you too are a map maker, I suggest you take notes. The layout of the overall plot is intelligently obscure, and so you discover new pieces of information along with consecutive parkour at intervals that are unusual and yet moving at the same time. The whole off-beat gameplay style of Cubeception plays out very similarly to Gloria, and so you are constantly awaiting new areas and story bits to complete your understanding of the map.
However, there are certain things regarding the gameplay that I felt Cubeception could improve on. For one, certain areas felt shoe-horned into the environment for the sake of simply providing more time in the map, and so as a result the adventure ended up carrying on for just a little too long. As someone who has played the map's sequel, I know that after playing certain maps the length of this one will be no problem, but it still feels a little dragged out. Thank God for the plot.
Pathfinding errors were a large portion of the problem here. Often I'd find myself lost or confused in certain areas, and while most often that sense of lostness was enjoyable, towards the end of the map it began to devolve into a problematic element. Yes, I'd want to continue, but I wouldn't exactly be happy during that relatively long time period.
Thankfully Geminos and Piecia997 have provided an in-depth walkthrough to guide new users into the complex nature of Cubeception. I am certainly happy to have such a guide to refer to, but at the same time I wish it wasn't necessary.
And yet despite all of this, you'll never feel like there's much out of place in the adventure. Most of the complaints read like afterthoughts, and they truly are, not to mention those of a critic. The average Minecraft player will likely never come across such flaws unless they go looking for them. That's exactly what a Minecraft map should play like, with appeal for everyone and flaws only if you endeavor to spot them.
Which is why the successes flaunted in the adventure are so much more prominent. Take the aesthetics for example. Builds are so-so on a large scale, as there's only so much you can do with a cube, but the minor details like furniture, sewer systems, the interiors of villages, and the like are fantastic. And they really give the feeling that while the map is strictly linear, you could get lost in its complex web of builds. No two areas look the same, so you'll constantly be surrounded by refreshing visual appeal.
Atmospherically, the map really shines. The story is largely to thank for this, because it vastly helps the overall feel of the map, but every aspect contributes. The overly long playtime of the map and those occasional poorly thought-out areas where you can get lost certainly make their mark, but there's always new great content around the corner. As a player embarking on this adventure, you'll realize this, and so character motivation is brought to the next level. I'm happy to say this adventure's atmosphere is one to remember.
All map players who've made it this far, think of the score this map received as the appeal of the map to a reviewer, not a simple player. I'm obligated to address its content in a critical way, and so I hope what you've read reflects that. As a player, I really loved the adventure. As a critic, I recognize the way the map adds up and notice its flaws, but can't stop myself from still thoroughly enjoying it. That's precisely why you need to pick up this map from its thread. You need to play it and realize all that it brings to the table. I highly recommend it to any fan of parkour, adventure, and certainly anyone in between.
Bugs/tips
-there are some minor grammatical errors and spelling errors toward the beginning of the map
-some background music would be very nice, and would boost the already solid atmosphere even higher
-I like that sense of lostness until it gets too repetitive, so I'd recommended making a few areas easier to find
-it's a little too late to fix this now, but for future reference, don't make the map 4 hours long (and Cubeception 2 was freakin 6 hours, for Christ's sake) because it wears out the story to a degree where it just is stretched out too far
The best part of the map was indeed the story and how it was told blending well with the gameplay and the puzzles. Overall, the map progressed very fluently and didn’t have much if any trenches of uncertainty and disorientation. The story begins in an unoriginal manner as the player is trapped inside an insert-name-and/or-purpose-here facility and has to escape. However the story evolves quickly, bringing in a vast array of different human relations and conspiracy theories of a small group of escapees in their desperate attempt to achieve freedom. The story was so well built that when finally reaching the end I felt sort of disappointed on how it all finally got to an end, hoping that the final scene would have been more than what seemed to be maybe a little rushed ending. Also in one point during the map there was a sudden lack of storytelling for a while which confused me a little after the more intense earlier parts.
As I already said the puzzles blended great with the flow of the map and the story, usually being subtle enough that the player hardly realizes they are doing one instead of just making progress travelling through the map. While not being wondrously original or well executed the enjoyment factor of the puzzles still rank high at least in my criteria.
While the story and the puzzles were the best parts of the map, the most notable downside was its design and architecture. They aren’t bad per se but they were at their best mediocre. Especially the end area was kind of a “meh” experience for me as I was expecting something more, you know, spectacular? Maybe not the right word to use but I hope you get what I mean. It still shows that the map maker has put some effort for aesthetics but the final outcome isn’t nearly good enough to compete with the story or the puzzles.
Overall the map was very impressive considering that when I downloaded it I really wasn’t expecting much. The sheer enjoyment factor and the flow of the map accompanied with an awesome story and great enjoyable puzzles left me with a big smile in the face (which may have been a little worn out by the end which was in my opinion not in par with the rest of the map) after finishing it. While Maxwell’s Escape may not be visually the most astonishing and pleasing map out there it is still a great pastime. I definitely recommend this map to anyone liking casual, well done custom maps.
Bugs/tips
-The rollercoaster part got me killed.
-After the sewer part there was an odd lack of storytelling as earlier the player had got used to it happening all the time. This might be more of an opinion than a tip/bug.
-The ending was kind of disappointing and I found it a little rushed and bland.
At the beginning of the map, it shows promise. A mystery to solve, a tricky redstone trap, and absolutely malicious signs set a fantastically oppressive mood. Then all of a sudden, a pathway through a world-generated mineshaft, abrupt and out-of-nowhere story exposition, and a nether portal? This is already about the first half of the map, and so far it has only taken me around 15 minutes to get through. This map is unsatisfyingly short!
The only true challenges of this map are small parkour sections, and they are extremely easy and boring. There is no real way to lose or die in this map, as the creator gives the player gratuitous amounts of gear, often providing swords for the occassional monster, and eventually, a full set of diamond armor. I didn't even see any true need for swords or armor anyway, because the only place where monsters could spawn was a tiny cave. I breezed through this map on account of it being far too forgiving. There's no fun in overcoming difficult tasks when they don't exist in the first place.
The story was confusing and rushed. Because the map was so short, the explanation of the story was more or less squished into a single room. This sudden jump in the progression of the plot, I believe, tears the pacing of the rest of the map apart. It barely makes any sense, because the map wasn't making much of an effort to explain it's world beforehand. Sure, the map had notes for me to read, but there were so little of them (five) that they felt thrown in and random. I wasn't able get a feel of the world that I was playing in, and that ruined my experience.
I can see that the creator of The Syndicate tried to do many things with it. I saw a few jumping obstacles, a small semblance of a story, and the slightest hint of world-building. But it's so short, it's so easy, and I hate to say it, but it all felt lazy and sloppy. From the challenges, the story, the pacing, to even the architecture, I did not notice any part of this map that was executed with much effort or simple consideration to gameplay. There was no consistency between the story and the challenges, there was barely any substance to the map, and the entire thing felt like the definition of unremarkable.
If you read through this, I can safely assume that you are looking for a good map to play. And if you're like me, you have become bitter and critical because maps like The Syndicate have become so common to the point of them being considered generic.
Bugs/tips
-The mineshaft area is a mess. Block off areas you don't want people to go, or they just might get lost.
-Stop being so generous with the equipment!
-Pace the map more smoothly. Sudden and full exposition to a story isn't good, and a really short journey with an anticlimactic end is definitely not the way to go. Time these things better. Imagine what a player might think when they play your map. And on that note...
-Get playtesters. This is so that you can have various opinions on certain areas, challenges, and bugs.
-Get more creative with your challenges. Also, make them harder.
-Read articles on game design and level design. Take some time to think about what makes a fun game.
-Don't let this review get you down. There is always room for improvement, especially as this is your first adventure map. Keep trying!
It redefines the adventure genre as we know it today, in a way few maps have. It packs the very same punch that made such monstrosities such as Eronev Mansion Adventure or the Paladin's Quest series, both of which brought new gameplay mechanics to the table in a believable and refreshing way. While ColdFusionGaming may not introduce very many new elements to the table, everything it contains is refreshing and wondrous, save for one gripe I have regarding the progression. Whether it be a staggeringly exciting boss battle or inventive ceiling-credits, there's lots to impress you no matter what corner you turn.
The map has an incredibly solid story. It mentions clearly that it was inspired by the television show LOST, and the way the story is textured and layered carefully in separate parts is evidence. CFG doesn't give you the whole story right away the way most adventures do. It carefully plots its storyline to reveal what exactly is going on at just the right moments. You begin as a survivor of a shipwreck, barely alive, with little to guide you. A short introduction finds you helping out fellow survivors, but it isn't very long before you begin to realize things aren't exactly as it seems. A nuclear reactor is found. You begin a treacherous journey through a plethora of interesting locales, and over time you start to realize something. Your character is growing, learning from his mistakes, interacting with the environments with care. He isn't a survivor anymore. He's an explorer. A fighter. Everything you want him to be. A hero.
There is but one gripe I have about the story. It is all well plotted-out, straight-forward, gripping, until you reach the penultimate point of the story. And it falls flat. You are presented with a maze ("The Maze of Insanity", a name it shares with the infamously clever maze from the first Kingdom of the Sky) which doesn't fit the story at all, and while well constructed, ruptures the atmosphere in a place where it really shouldn't have, considering that the adventure had reached the peak of its quality just minutes prior.
But when I played through the adventure, that's not what was in my notes. It was merely an afterthought. And that's great, because it shows truly how much CFG gets right about adventure mapping. Take the visual appeal for example. Gloria is not so much about scale as it is atmosphere, and so it doesn't try to be. The aesthetics you'll encounter in Gloria are refreshingly original and make use of blocks in ways I truly wasn't expecting. They aren't huge and overwhelming or small and pitiful, instead remaining just in line with the way the atmosphere dictates. It is mysteriously science-fiction in a world that shouldn't be that way, and while that may seem contradictory, it falls right into the path the story creates.
However, none of these reasons are why you'll truly divulge in Gloria's web. Sure, the visuals and plot are great successes, but it all boils down to the atmosphere's strength. And really, not only does the atmospheric value uphold the entire adventure, it lifts it above where it needs to be. Gloria recaptures that feeling of odd and gripping discovery that made LOST so incredible, and improves on such key elements. For one, the background music selection is sound, and yes, pun intended. It is probably the most well-chosen selection of score of incompetech.com that I've seen to date. It does a huge favor to the atmospheric stroke of genius that is Gloria, but it isn't the only element. Gloria is completely unpredictable. You'll never guess where it is going next, and it is for this reason alone that it fails to fall into traditional story clichés.
I won't ramble on further, even if it would be for a good cause. Instead, I'll leave you knowing the following: Gloria is one of the finest blessings ever to fall upon the mapping community. You'll never find another one quite like it, and its only successor I see in true sight is its sequel, set to be released very soon. The adventure is a magnificent triumph, and you'd be doing yourself a huge disservice to not download it. CFG has eventfully crammed all of his knowledge into an hour and a half of his best work.
Bugs/tips
-my only major gripe is with the Maze of Insanity and the "added math", neither of which even remotely fit where the story was approaching. Either alter the story at least slightly to compensate, or remove it completely. In either case, get rid of the math, which made no sense and was random in a map that seemed so well thought-out prior to that.
-signs, god darn-it! They got in the way of the inventory space so many times! Any chance you could provide a hole to dispose of them or simply collect them with some fancy redstone? Just a thought.
The map has a simple premise: the player is a thief tasked with stealing a diamond and bringing it back to his or her hideout. Along the way, the player has to navigate through and over buildings and similar obstacles. I enjoyed how this map felt and looked; the towns and cities are definitely a sight for sore eyes, considering that most parkour maps nowadays consist of random floating blocks. This map felt natural to move in, to jump and climb around. It is very important to have the player feel immersed inside the world the map creator makes, and The Parkour Thief does this fairly well. However, despite all of this, there is something I need to bring to attention:
The map felt very short and did not give off the feeling of any real substance. This, I feel, is due to the map's story. With the map being nothing more than the player trying to reach a certain location, the map's creator seemed to struggle with a good progression and pacing of the map. The various cities and towns in the map, while interesting in their own rights, looked to be nothing more than filler and an excuse to have more parkour before the map ended. They were ultimately very arbitrary, having nothing to do with the map's overall experience or story. There wasn't much in this map to tie the world into the player's quest other than the cities being mere obstacles to give the player something to do. The ending felt very abrupt to me because I trekked across a handful of cities only to remember that the story was extremely simple. In reality, I had only accomplished stealing a single diamond despite going through all sorts of random jumping courses that seemed to be building up to something, but actually weren't. This was disappointing. With all of the content in this map, it was still uneventful and plain.
I mentioned before how I enjoyed the map's aesthetics being believable instead of being floating blocks. This is wonderful and shows the mapper's realization of the importance of creating interestingly designed levels for players. My concern here is that even though the map looks the part, the gameplay is still the bare-basics of parkour. With real-life landscapes, there are many opportunities to make traversing the world a very fun and engaging experience. But I was still essentially climbing ledges, jumping over gaps, and just trying to find the next place to go. It's one thing to make a nice visual design such as this map's, and it's one thing to make it fun to play. It's ANOTHER thing to carefully weave the two together. The Parkour Thief did not seem to incorporate game and atmosphere together very well. I noticed elements of this map that really looked like the mapper viewed level and overall game design differently from one another. The entire map experience looks like a mess of different processes of thought that the creator went through as he was mapping, or rather, the map's experience has every single element that a good game needs, but fails to mesh it together into a solid, consistent mix.
All in all, I cannot recommend this map. On the other hand, I can't call it bad. The map looks and feels interesting, and I enjoyed jumping in and around actual buildings for a change, but in the end it was nothing more than a pretty parkour obstacle course. Story, visuals, and gameplay were very separated in regards to the overall experience and the map would have been so much more fun to play if those things were tied together nicely.
Bugs/tips
-Didn't see any bugs. Nice.
-As mentioned throughout the entire review, make a tangible connection between story and gameplay. Games are often considered to be the ultimate form of media because it combines video, audio, writing, and ties it all in with player interaction. Consider the entire map as a whole, rather than looking at elements of your map separately.
-There are many creative things you can do with a realistic world. I liked jumping the rooftops, but the potion and mining buildings looked like they were built based on generic parkour jumps. Try basing the jumps around your buildings, or, following the previous tip, find a balance where you can design and build them together.
-When making a story or narrative, just about everything needs to have a reason to exist. It's cool that you made realistic scenery, but why was there an old abandoned tunnel that led to a random tribe of vicious warriors? Make it significant, or don't have it at all.
-It may just be me, but make your map harder
The premise of the map is an interesting one, and I think I've conveyed my views on it clearly prior to this. Nonetheless, I feel the need to prove exactly why it works. We all know that escape maps can be well done (the Escapecraft series, Escape the Puzzlemaster, etc.), but a substantial portion, most likely a majority of these maps are just so bad. I've seen so many people attempt to refresh the escape sub-genre by flaunting originality, but unfortunately many of these efforts are in vain. So Accept Your Own Adventure analyses why this is, and presents it to the player in a new light. Those who frequent escape maps will notice the way Gregolas presents these flaws very evidently. It's clever.
The sad fact is, the message that Gregolas42 tries so hard to convey is often missed, and there are a number of reasons that contribute to this. Firstly, it contains many possible endings, whose quality ranges from great to somewhere far below terrible. If you happen to choose a path through the map that sends you on a path to one of the better endings, then you'll have fun and realize what Gregolas42 was going for all along, and perhaps even be interested in revisiting the map again to replay and get another ending. But if you get one of the less-than-stellar endings, chances are you'll curse and never want to glance at the adventure again, regardless of whether there are supposedly better endings down the road. All in all, the message is sloppily portrayed, for one, because it isn't always clear amidst certain endings. As I hope you can guess from now, Accept Your Own Adventure's gameplay aspect is not the strongest I've ever seen.
The storyline of Accept Your Own Adventure is another reason why you don't always get the point of the message the map creator is trying to send. The plot is actually fairly decent, mainly because the Glados-like character is a thrill once you get past the droning anonymous-style voice. He torments you thoroughly if you misbehave, maliciously kills you in at least one ending, and is a real comedian in others. He also is presented as the "map maker" who, as it turns out, is also the main way Gregolas42 proves his point about escape maps in general. He realizes you don't like a certain map because it is horribly dull, but gives you another chance by replacing that flaw with another. If you get fed up with him simply because you want to and disobey, then *poof*! You're dead. But as it turns out, if you choose a completely "good" path where you obey at least three quarters of what the "map maker" tells you to do, you'll miss the point, and instead carry on through a messy adventure. You'll recognize the flaws of the adventure for sure, but because the Glados character likes you so much, he won't get mad or show you another great path, which in turn doesn't give you the message. I have mixed feelings toward the story, and while I have quite a few positive mentions on its originality, I think its flaws outweigh its successes.
Which brings me to Accept Your Own Adventure's final major aspect, its progression. On an everyday occassion, I'd critique a map's success in this department in the same way I would its gameplay, but progressing through this map is different. It is a "Choose Your Own Adventure"-themed map (a series I loved as a kid, and so I smiled upon seeing this) in the sense that there are moral choices to be made, consequences, and of course, multiple endings. Now, this is all great, but it gets a little cluttered. It is yet another reason why Accept Your Own Adventure's moral pretentions are beyond its less-than-vast capabilties, and you ofter misunderstand what the whole point of "Accept Your Own Adventure" is. Progressing through certain paths is thrilling, while others are less so. There is often little to motivate you to progress through the adventure, and therefore a less-than-useless atmosphere. Simply put, you don't want to progress through Accept Your Own Adventure unless/until you realize what it is trying to communicate to you.
When you finish Accept Your Own Adventure, you may not truly understand what it was trying to tell you. I'd say there's a 50/50 chance this will be the case for you, and if you take a peek at the score the map received, you'll realize it is about close to that. You may get the message, and you may not. One way or another, you'll have mixed feelings about the map. You probably won't call it great or terrible, unless you got one of those freaking awful endings or one of the incredible endings and didn't come back to find the others. Analysing this map was a real pain in the **** because there were so many factors that contributed to its successes and failures, but I knew what was going to come my way when I sign up for the job of reviewing. In a nutshell, Accept Your Own Adventure has its own take on the puzzle crisis the mapping community has been in for the past year or so. It is a little too sloppy to fully present this at the moment, but it may get there eventually. Only time will tell. Hopefully this review will accelerate that change.
Bugs/tips
-improve the endings of the strictly "good" paths. This could mean a slightly more epic ending or some more interactive content, but whatever the case might be, keep in mind that you are trying to inform the community of what it is doing wrong. No matter where you take this, make sure you present the flaws of escape maps prominently.
-is there anyone you know capable of doing a computer voice that doesn't sound like anonymous and isn't as annoyingly repellant as the automated voice you chose? It would help the first impression, even if you do get used to the voice about halfway into the adventure
-include more endings on the "bad" side of the chart. They are the most fun and the most intuitive, and I recommend getting started on them right away!
-I personally wouldn't mind a deeper story. You've got the flawed aspect down perfectly, and you can keep that, but something more to motivate you would be nice
Unfortunately, while there's a lot to like in Quest for the Egg, there sadly isn't much to love, save for its main hero, Professor Gandy. Gandy is equal-parts funny, silly, stupid (in a comical way) and just as much fun to be enthralled by as Grizwold, if not even more-so. He is, sadly, the only refreshing element to an otherwise dull tale. You have no recollection of your past (Hmm... does this sound familiar?) and through a series of ill-communicated theories Gandy decides you ought to seek out eight keys in order to assist him in sending you pack to where you belong. While the premise is somewhat engrossing and preps you for the adventure, the hunt for each key feels jarringly separate from the others. There is no interrconnecting plot to glue the separate pieces together, and for this one reason the entire plot feels disjointed. Additionally, the storytelling element of the map is severely flawed, as you are only sent to find four of the eight keys. And while I understand that Writr has abandoned this map and left it unfinished, the plot needs some closure. How hard would it have been to devise a short ending and conclude the story with only the need for four keys, not eight? I would assume not so much so, and as was the case with Boulefield, the story needn't be cut short because a temporary fix is beyond the capabilities of the map creator.
Meanwhile, the gameplay is a refreshing change from simply combat and puzzles. It, unsurprisingly, focuses upon exploration-based conquest in order to steadily achieve goals, but it isn't meaningless. The exploration Quest for the Egg sports progresses perfectly and through some relatively simple redstone keeps up just enough momentum without becoming overdone or breathtaking. I will admit I was not a large fan of the plot, but the amusing visual appeal suits the gameplay enough to propel you forward further into the world of Quest for the Egg. It is for this reason that the gameplay mechanics work, even if they do so on uneven footing.
As I stated previously, Quest for the Egg has some mild visual appeal. I found that the labaratory in Quest 1 was thoroughly elevating, and the same can be said for many examples throughout the following quests. But I feel like Writr only succeeded with his builds when he was attempting to enhance the atmosphere on a less-than grand scale. When he attempted to create large buildings like Gandy's castle they came off as flat, dull, and too squared for my liking. They were, frankly, unappealing. I know Writr has cast this map away in favour of more important ideals in his life, but should he return to improve it, I would recommend he begin fixing it to bring out further aesthetical pleasure.
But Quest for the Egg doesn't lean upon any of these aspects to succeed. The plot is crucial but would not be devastating if removed. Neither would the gameplay mechanics if altered. And I've addressed that there are more suitable routes to take in regards to the architecture present. Instead, Quest for the Egg's success boils down to the atmosphere.
Does the atmosphere succeed on any levels what so ever? I say yes. I found Quest for the Egg had me on the edge of my toes for Quest 1, and while it seemed to falter in light of the second and third quests, Quest 4 garnered my attention like no other and truly pulled me into its enthralling daliance without hesitation. I had almost lost hope by the end of the third quest, but the atmosphere in the final quest was enriched by a stronger plot, its serious nature, and a heartwarming conclusion.
Quest for the Egg is not a perfect map. It doesn't even approach such a designation. But to me, it at least reaches the standard of enjoyable. It certainly isn't the best adventure you will find out there, and it isn't the worst either, but if you are looking for an adventure reminiscent of the old adventures of early '11, give this one a try. You won't love it, but you'll surely find a ton to enjoy.
Bugs/tips
-architecture needs some work. Fix up the towers in Quest 2 and Gandy's primary tower accordingly to make them less square. Refer to the review for how to accomplish this.
-Gandy is the only shining light in an otherwise murky plot. Bring him further into the spotlight to flesh out the character further. You can add easter eggs, a small secret backstory among them that details who Gandy is and his motivations, and a more outlined nemesis, his apprentice.
-make the multiple plots of the separate quests more connected. I have a feeling you were attempting to accomplish this while finishing the later quests, but as of now, they are too distant from one another.
-conclude the plot with four keys. Just leaving us hanging to ponder what happened doesn't cut it. Even if temporary, provide some closure to at least partially satisfy the player.
Review our maps?
Kmilley: Levi's Nightmare
Fangride: Paladin's Quest
Contents
1. Eronev Mansion-------------------9.1/10
2. Lux Perpetua---------------------7.5/10
3. Escape the Puzzlemaster----------6.6/10
4. The Forest of Silence------------6.4/10
5. Fetch Quest----------------------6.0/10
6. Dead IslandCraft-----------------5.8/10
7. The Great Mine Escape II--------5.8/10
8. LoZ: A Block to the Past--------5.8/10
9. The Devil's Lunch Break---------5.4/10
10. 4 Temples-----------------------5.0/10
11. Dungeon Escape------------------4.6/10
12. Hotel Escape--------------------3.4/10
13. Curse of the Ender Pearls-------2.3/10
14. Resistance Hideout--------------1.8/10
15. Somethingcraft------------------0.5/10
Lets start with the unique things. Pumpkin npcs. Ok, I have actually seen these before in maps, but how they were implemented was done very well. The creator even made fun of the fact that they were pumpkins quite a lot, which I found very entertaining. The dynamic text boxes were amazing. I didn't even know that was possible. Definitely helps it stand out from other maps. And unique buildings. The buildings in this map were all different in size, shape and material. Even your house looks like it should, cozy and homely. Multiple endings helped make this map that much more unique.
What blew me away with this map, is the amount of redstone circuitry it would have taken to make this. I can't imagine how much work it would have taken to even make the mine cart station(which was amazing by the way). This map was pieced together extremely well, as I did not find any typos or large bugs, which is saying something for the amount of things that could have gone wrong with the redstone.
Every map has its flaws though, and now I will explain why it did not get a perfect 10. Unfortunately, I got extremely confused at some points during the map, and at one point, almost quit. The story got pretty confusing after leaving the mansion through the painting hallway. I think the creator should give better directions on what you need to do during this part in the map. Other than that, the story could have been better. My tips for that are below.
Overall, this is a fantastic map, and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes adventure maps.
Bugs/tips
-I think you could have emphasized on the evilness of the old man and possibly, the innocence of the citizens. Bring more depth to your characters, even giving them names, would help out the story a ton. It would drive the player to want to save the villagers, and make them even more sad when they don't, or happy if they do.
-the only bug I found is at the bottom of the sand pyramid, one of the pistons did not work correctly. It can be found at the entrance of the of the room with the flowers.
You spawn in a room that starts out with rules and a couple of signs that are meant to be funny, and might be if not for being incomprehensible. But the he takes the jokes too far, giving you diamond tools and armor and then asking for it back two steps later. He then makes the rules confusing by saying "rule 6. do not to listen to rule 5". This might be funny, but because the notes have bad grammar and do not actually get ANY information across, so its not.
Then you leave the building and he tells you something about a trial, and that he is too lazy to make a path to it so you just have to find it yourself. After walking forward for about 50 blocks I noticed an "old man house". After going inside I received some actual supplies, but no information on where to go next. I then spent about 10 minutes looking around before finally calling it quits.
My conclusion is that this map is unplayable, so don't play it.
Bugs/tips
-make a map
-make it with no typos
-make it with an ending
What I was pleased to see, was that there was a hands-on tutorial, on how Zelda was being integrated in Minecraft. It went over the basics of what things were with the texture pack. This was definitely helpful for someone who has never played a Zelda game. The only thing that I wished was integrated into the tutorial, would be a note of some sort giving a bit of background information to the Zelda games. Possibly something that explained who Link is, and maybe other characters as well.
As the actual game started I was given very little information about what I was supposed to do. For someone who had already played the game, this wouldn't be a problem, but for me, it was. It would have been nice for the note to say something about heading off to somewhere for information. It would at least give the player a chance to get started. For me, I ended up wandering around for quite I while, not really sure where to go or how to start. This kind of carried through the entire map. I was constantly wondering what my next objective is. It would be good if the creator would make it more new player friendly.
One thing that was definitely cool, was how large the map was. This map would have taken ages to build. I can tell the creator really put some serious effort into this project. Oh, one random thing that I found interesting, was the npcs. There faces, including the expression, was drawn out on signs. I found that to be really cool. Another thing I enjoyed was how well the texture pack worked with the map. The rupees system was really good, as well as the paintings seemed to fit well with the surrounding area.
Overall, I would recommend this map to anyone who has played Zelda. For anyone who hasn't, just check it out.
Bugs/tips
-Before leaving the tutorial area, make it clear that you are not supposed to take the items with you.
-I found the letter "a" on one of the signs (that are meant to be a chair backrest). It can be found in the sanctuary.
The creator went big with this map, making it a very long to play through. In some ways this was good, I enjoyed finding new places, and completing some of the minor side quests on the side. In some ways though, it seemed a bit unrealistic, almost as if he made a bunch of huge structures and tried to connect them with a story. After leaving the first town, I got a bit lost at what I was supposed to be doing in regards to the story. I found the map to be less straight forward after leaving Skyden. I would suggest that the creator add something to help direct the player.
When you combine being a bit confused with the story, and long routes in between towns and epic structures, it leads to having some moments of being unmotivated to continue the map. This may not be the case for everyone, some people may have had better luck figuring out the story, and where to go. Other than that this map really does have a lot to offer, and helps retain attention with some humorous moments and fun quests. The creator also did a good job with using many of the new features from the 1.8 update. Vines on the houses in Skyden really helped make the town visually appealing.
Overall, this map is really good. It makes good use of 1.8 and has outstanding architecture. I would recommend this map to anyone looking for a solid adventure map.
Bugs/tips
-The checkpoints are not safe. When you try to sleep monsters spawn.
-Guard Bob's note has a typo.
-mystery is spelled wrong in the restaurant owner's diary.
Alright, some of the good things. This map has one of the better checkpoint systems. Checkpoints are clearly marked, and are spaced apart perfectly. You will still be unhappy if you die, but it won't take you years to get back on track. This map has a couple interesting puzzles, though the majority are repetitive (more on that later). I especially liked the spleef challenge, I found it to be unique, and quite fun, even though I died about 5 times on it. Another good thing was the architecture. Especially in the town, I found that no two houses were the same.
Now to some of the not so great things. Many of the puzzles were either parkour, or mazes. Neither of these should be used in high quantity in a puzzle/adventure map. They are just too repetitive and unoriginal. Many of these puzzles were also either too easy or too hard, and had very little consistent difficulty progression. Not having good puzzles in a puzzle/adventure map, leaves only the adventure side of things to critique.
The story in The Forest of Silence was pretty good, though at times, a bit hard to comprehend. I found it to be a bit of back-and-forth between puzzle with little story, and adventure with lots of story. This inconsistency lowered the total score of the map. It would have been better if the map had more of a merge between puzzle and adventure. Adding the nether into the mix was an interesting idea, and was fairly interesting.
Overall, this map is good if you are a fan of puzzle and adventure maps. If you can't stand parkour and mazes, this map may not be the best for you. I recommend checking this map out.
Bugs/tips
-Too many golden apples! Do not hand out golden apples for no reason, you are supposed to be looking for the one and only golden apple, so do not just hand out golden apples at random puzzles. It is not consistent with the story.
-Make it so that you can not leave the map. Add fences or trees along the side of places you are not supposed to go.
-Hide your redstone, and if possible your pistons. It ruins the magic if you can see the wiring.
I have always enjoyed cruel challenges and tricks, so this map certainly pleased me in that aspect. There were plenty of unfair ways to die, and you sometimes had to choose between losing your life, or getting a better score. Those kind of self conflicts are always good, and help raise the intensity of the map. The atmosphere is pretty good as well. With the Nether added to Minecraft, it is not hard to re-create hell. Saying that, the creator still did a good job with it.
So why did this map get a 5.4? So far it seems pretty good. This map was lacking in a vital category, puzzles. It is a puzzle map after all, so this is a pretty important category. Most of the puzzles were either too easy, too repetitive, too boring or too unoriginal. Let me give a couple of examples. There is way too much parkour, and also too many mazes. These puzzles are very unoriginal, and are not very exciting. Then you have math. Yes I said math. If you do not get the right answer to an algebra question then you die. The last thing I want to do while playing a Minecraft map, is pull out a pencil and paper and do algebra. This is also a bad idea for another reason. What about the younger players who haven't even learnt algebra at that level? The math concept is an idea I would completely remove from the map. There are many other examples of puzzles that should be improved or be scrapped, but this paragraph is big enough as is. My general advice for the creator would be to replace a couple of the puzzles with more unique, exciting ones.
Overall, The Devil's Lunch Break is a short, but interesting map, that could use some improvement. If you like puzzle maps, I recommend checking this map out.
Bugs/tips
-There are some typos in the rules and story.
-Don't make stone breakable. Make it something else that you can easily break without a pick. right now it is too time consuming.
-The arrow rooms cause some serious lag. Not sure what the fix for this is, I just thought I should let you know.
You start out in a room with a crazy person telling you that you are a test subject and you need to escape. Sound familiar? I bet it does. The story is not very original, but the signs along the map are fairly well done, but adding a couple more cruel signs along the way wouldn't have hurt. Unfortunately, I have seen too many of these maps, so I wasn't very many motivated to escape.
The puzzles averaged out to be pretty good. Some of the puzzles were fairly unique, while others were either unoriginal or boring. There is some parkour and a maze, but they both had a bit of a twist to each of them, so they didn't feel too unoriginal. Then there was a puzzle where you had to run up and down a hallway, trying to pull levers which open doors to more levers. Thank god for sprint, because if It would have been a pain to walk up and down that hallway for that long. The map was honestly quite boring, I think the creator should replace it with a more unique puzzle. The other puzzles were fun, but nothing that will make your brain hurt.
Overall, this map is pretty good, but definitely could be better if a couple more unique, and possibly more difficult puzzles were added. I recommend this map to anyone who is looking for a well polished puzzle map that is not too hard, or too long.
Bugs/Tips
-There is a fair amount of redstone, including one repeater, that should be hidden in the soul sand race.
Well, lets start with the architecture. There was some great architecture in this map. Many of the buildings had good exterior and interior design. It was clear that the creator took great care in the planning and execution of the buildings. The buildings fell short in one area, however. Most structures in the main town had nothing in the chests. They also had no imaginary npcs, which definitely affected the story. Which brings us to a big negative to the map, the story.
The story was extremely bland at first. You are supposed to get a jukebox from the other side of the lake, to spice up the interior of your restaurant. Exciting? Not really. So you get out of your restaurant, and head down to the town. There are plenty of houses, that all look pretty good, and have a couple interesting signs. Other than that though, there is almost no point to even look in the shops and houses. There is no nps, and nothing in the chests. There is nothing in the town that really strengthens the story, or even gives you an idea of where to go next. Ideas on how to make this more interesting can be found in the bugs/tips section.
The only clue you are given is, to quote the story intro, "You've been sent by your boss on an epic quest to grab a jukebox from that old abandoned courtyard across the lake". Old what? Where? These were the kind of questions I was asking myself. The only thing I could think of doing was to head out across the lake. But what part of the lake, and how far? I had to do some serious searching before I figured out what side I was supposed to exit from. I realize some people would have figured out what side to leave from almost immediately, but I was not one of them. My suggestion to the creator, would be to make this clearer.
After you make it to the other side, things start to get interesting. I don't want to ruin anything, but trust me, it gets better. The story gets improves, you actually get to do some puzzles, and even the architecture looks even better than it did before. It was quite a weird transition though, and left me feeling a little confused.
Overall, this map has plenty of room for improvement, but does will entertain you if you can get through the first half. With some serious fixes to the story as well as making it easier to cross the lake, it would be a lot better. I would recommend checking this map out, and if a solid update comes out, downloading.
Bugs/tips
-CHANGE THE NAME! Fetch Quest is a super boring and uninteresting name. Change it and I could see plenty more downloads in your future.
-Add npcs, with names, into the houses. It would make walking through the town that much better.
-Put items in the chest! It doesn't have to be much, or of any use, but it would give the player another excuse to explore the town.
-Add a scoring system? This one is your choice. Just note that it would give you something else to put into the town, and would make exploring that much better.
-There is a typo in the house behind Jain Mitch's house. It is on the second sign.
The creator describes this map as half puzzle, half parkour. In my opinion, this map is 20% puzzle, and 80% parkour. Lets take a look at the puzzle aspect first. The puzzles are of mediocre quality. There was some puzzles that had good ideas, but could have been executed better, and others that are too easy. The lava maze was WAY to short and super easy. I only had to turn around 3 corners to complete the maze. Then there was the minecart puzzle. I had to flick ONE switch to complete the puzzle. There were others, specifically the piston puzzle, that had a good idea, but was not executed properly. Only one part of the large floor was being used by the pistons, and having to take out a piece of redstone was too confusing.
As far as the parkour went, it was pretty good. The creator made good use of pistons, making a fun experience for even those who aren't huge fans of parkour. Unfortunately, some of the fun was contradicted by exposed redstone, which I found regularly throughout the map. The final 5 levels were beautifully crafted, and had a great recurring theme with all of them. Only problem, was all 5 levels consisted of only parkour, and I found it to be fairly difficult and unforgiving. Parkour lovers will find this as an enjoyable challenge, while others may find it tedious and annoying. The combination of the parkour and puzzle, was not implemented as best as it could have been. Almost all of the puzzles were found early on in the map, while parkour took over the ending. The map doesn't have any progressive difficulty, which certainly effected its final score.
The story was ok at best. The notes were not amazing, and I never felt particularly motivated to escape. The notes seemed to disappear near the end, and I sometimes found myself unsure whether the creator, or the antagonist, was talking to me. That's about all I have to say in regards to the story.
Overall, The Great Mine Escape II provides some fun parkour, and mediocre puzzles. Please note that liking parkour is a requirement to playing this map. If you do not enjoy jumping puzzles and decide to try this map, I can guarantee you will not enjoy it. If you are a fan of parkour, I would recommend checking this map out.
Bugs/tips
-Fix the lava maze. It is too easy.
-The sign after the lava maze needs rewording.
-One piston in the elevating piston room does not move.
-The minecart puzzle is too easy. Make it more difficult.
Alright let's start with the good things. The architecture was pretty good, and had a somewhat believable hotel feel to it. The clay was used effectively, hiding glowstone dust (used as a point system), in challenging areas. The story was ok, and kept me interested in finding a way out of the hotel. Only problem with the notes would be the numerous typos found throughout the map, and the notes were fairly out in the open, making it very hard to read them without getting eaten by zombies.
Alright lets move on to a BIG problem that was super annoying. The map was littered with spawners. You could not enter a room without a zombie spawning beside you. Little torches were given, so it was very hard to neutralize the spawners. This wouldn't be THAT much of a problem except that there were almost no safe rooms. Every room I entered had a zombie in it. Worst of all, every time you die you have to completely restart the map. Seriously. When you die, you respawn in a bedrock hole no where near the hotel. This means if you have to be constantly making backups if you want to get close to finishing the map. This was a huge flaw with the Hotel Escape.
Another problem with the map was that it was extremely short. There is very little to explore, and it ends very quickly if you manage to not die. Well, when I say "ends" I mean go a far as possible. There really isn't a clear ending. When I got to where I was sure the end was, there was no exit or note saying "congratulations on completing this map." I did a little bit of flying around the outside and found that I had explored every room I could have. It is still possible I screwed this up, but there definitely needs to be a clearer ending.
Overall, Hotel Escape is too short and too difficult. If there was a good quality update that took out some spawners, allowed you to spawn inside of the hotel, and added some more gameplay with a clear ending, I would check it out. For now, just ignore it.
Bugs/tips
-Double check your notes, there are plenty of signs with riddled with typos.
-All other bugs/tips are highlighted pretty clearly in the review.
I believe the highlight of this map is the believable dungeon scenery. As I traveled through the map, I was completely immersed in the dungeon theme. No one wall was symmetrical to its opposite, and it really felt like I was walking through an ancient dungeon. This map took advantage of the 1.8 features, including vines, stone blocks, and mossy stone blocks. It really was an enjoyable break from the square room to square room maps I have been playing lately.
As far as the puzzles go, it was ok. There were only three types of puzzles in this map, parkour, combat and a couple other unoriginal challenges. The parkour was fairly easy, but enjoyable. Pistons were used well, and were timed perfectly. The combat was ok. For being a dungeon map, there wasn't actually that many rooms filled with monsters. However, when you did enter a room with monsters, there was a ton of them. Zombies, skeletons, endermen, spiders and CREEPERS littering the ground. I found this to be quite overwhelming, especially with creepers. As for the puzzles, they were mainly unoriginal, and one of the puzzles didn't work properly(more info in the bugs/tips section). In all, the puzzles were average, and could definitely be improved.
Overall, Dungeon Escape is a pretty "meh". This map has some serious potential, but lacks a story, original puzzles, and a solid ending. I would recommend checking this map out if you like short dungeon maps with great architecture. If that doesn't particularly motivate you to check it out, then I would ignore it until a solid update comes out.
Bugs/tips
-The minecart puzzle didn't really work. I hit a couple buttons and then the door opened, the minecart did not move from its starting position. Check that out.
-Change the name! Dungeon escape is too generic and uninteresting.
-Don't give out full armor right away, make them earn it.
-Missing blocks. It is possible that this is due to enderman. If it is, I would suggest not spawning them.
Ok, let's start with the biggest problem with this map. This map is in creative mode. This affects the overall game play by quite a bit. Creative mode means invincibility, it means that every monster you see, you can ignore. It means you can fly, as well as have no use for food and armor. It also means you can access any block in the game, by simply accessing your inventory. This problem ruins all of the puzzles, defeats the purpose of parkour, and ends any motivation to search for supplies in chests. The only way around this would be to use a game type changer to allow you to play in survival mode. Why the creator wouldn't just change it himself? I don't know, but this problem certainly affected the map's final score.
Another problem with this map is the creator put tons of supplies in every chest. Even if you did manage to change the map's game type to survival mode, you would be still be loaded with armor, food, and resources.
The puzzles in this map could be better. There is small points in this map were you fight monsters, but of course defeating them is incredibly easy as you are invincible. Other than that there is a small bit of parkour and a lot of exploration. The parkour is fairly easy to start, and even if you do fall, you will not take damage. The rest of the map is all exploration, finding Ender Pearls on land, and in the nether. If you like exploring, this might be enjoyable for you. If you do not, you may find it to be annoying and unnecessary. There was one part of the map that I found to be very long, and quite frustrating. In order to get back to your homeland you need to take a boat across a very large ocean. I spent about 20 minutes just rowing to my next objective. This was pointless journey, as there was no notes or puzzles along the way to make it more interesting.
Overall, Curse of the Ender Pearls is a fairly bad map. Major flaws had a direct impact on the adventure, making the various puzzles too easy, as well as the exploration tedious to complete. I recommend ignoring this map, unless you are a fan of exploration, then you might want to check it out.
Bugs/tips
-Convert the map to survival mode.
-Make the players earn the food, items, and resources.
-Make a zip download.
The map is well laid out as you start in a large room, a temple, with a door on each side and chests with lots of food and some iron swords. You can enter of the temples 1 to 3 in any order to collect the treasure and then use this treasure to enter the 4th temple. However it's still very linear with each temple one after the other in quick succession. And because of this I feel that each 'temple' has to be reviewed more individually to do them justice.
The temple design is very clear, made up of stronghold bricks and stone which neither add or subtract from the feel of the map, but just provide a fitting background. Some areas could definitely use some more interesting features; mainly temples 3 and 4 as I felt them to be less original and more boring than the others. Lighting in areas could be improved, having no light source in a room makes it too difficult to see and detracts from the combat and combined with the severe lack of torches makes it even worse.
Now when I say this map has puzzles, I don't mean it in the typical way. All of the puzzles are more changes in the environment to make the combat different and fresh or to force you to fight for longer which adds to the experience and engages you in the map more. However the repeated puzzles in some temples give the feeling of the map being rushed to be finished and really take away from those areas.
This map has a decent curve of difficulty but near the end it became almost impossible due to the lack of light to stop mobs spawning; the hunger system that makes it impossible to tank the damage from all the mobs; and the cave spiders, they either need to be reduced in the amount that can be spawned or removed from the map as the amount that spawn make it very difficult and annoying not to mention the poison detracts from the fighting by making you retreat and wait for your health to regenerate.
Overall, this is a very fast and fun map with very straightforward and clean pve but low light and some repetitive puzzles drag out some parts making it annoyingly difficult. Play this map if you're a fan of pure hack and slash but still enjoy some variety in the combat.
Bugs/tips
-Reduce or remove the cave spiders
-In the first temple get rid of the silverfish, they break blocks and can ruin the area.
-Fix the pressure plates that are used to go into the 4th temple, for me pressing 1 opened the door.
-Add some light in the 3rd and 4th temples.
-Give some other rewards for completing temples other than food and torches.
-Don't repeat the same puzzles.
-Add some more interesting features to the larger rooms to give players a more fresh experience.
DeadIsland Craft has some interesting features, but when it comes down to it, A couple problems really got in the way with my overall enjoyment. But before we get into that, let's start with some good things.
This map made a really good use of pistons. The map was separated into chapters, and the entrance of each of these chapters was blocked of with pistons, that could only be activated once the objectives of the chapter were complete. This allowed for an easy idea of what each chapter goal was: To find the lever that opened the next chapter. It was also smart from a creators view point, as it makes it easy to add new content updates, so props for that.
Aside from the smart pistons use, I found some serious problems with the layout in of the map. Side quests were available in the map to complete, and were marked by a gold block. The main story quest were marked with a diamond block. In theory, this is actually a really good idea, the players that want to just get through the map, can do so easily, while those that would like to go for a extra challenge can do side quests. The problem was that the creator sometimes mixed in the main quests with the side quests. In other words, sometimes it was necessary to complete the side quests to continue with the story. I found this confusing, and it certainly took away from the overall gameplay.
The story itself was rather well done. You need to survive the zombie apocalypse, while helping finding away off the island. There were not any puzzles in this map, just combat and finding your way around. In my eyes, I did not find this as a negative, as the story and general idea of surviving an apocalypse really didn't need it.
This map had good intentions, but the confusion of where to go, as well as the constant side quest and story quest mixing left me feeling a bit unsatisfied. Overall, I liked it. I recommend checking it out, and if you are a fan of zombie apocalypses or Dead Island, giving it a go.
Bug/tips
-Ok, I have a couple comments on the notes. First off, no more Microsoft Word! Not everyone had word installed on their computer. In addition, Word takes a while to load up each note, and most people just want to read the note and continue. My suggestion is that you use notepad. Almost everyone has notepad on their computer, and it loads almost instantly. Secondly, put your notes in some sort of logical order. The notes for each chapter are jumbled all over the place.
-Just a heads up, you can hide zombie spawners underground and they will still spawn on the surface. I understand that for most occasions you will want the player to have the chance to neutralize the spawners, but out on the paths you might want to hide them. Just a thought.
-You can sprint through the reception door. It is not easy, but I did it before I realized I was supposed to look for another entrance.
You begin in a relatively small and boring room decorated with furniture and a few signs on the wall, telling of some "Resistance". Never in the map do you get any idea of what the hell this resistance is, or why you are joining it. You must actually navigate your way back to the forum post to read a proper into, as the room you proceed into next only states rules (admist many, many punctuation/grammer mistakes). As you follow along the boring hallways all made of the same material, you complete a few basic jumping puzzles. One thing I noticed right off the bat was that the map required serious thinking. Normally this would actually mean something positive, though the lever you need to get to the next part of the map was actually obscured so well that you actually end up cheating to get to the next area (I had to go back a figure out how I was actually supposed to progress.) The rest of the map feels like a relatively simple map with challenges over lava, lava, and (you guessed it!) lava. Then, all of a sudden, everything ends. There is no explanation to what on earth happens in the end, just: "Thanks for Playing. ."
The atmospheric element that'd could've saved this map from being terrible was quite frankly missing. The rooms, save for one, are all made of the same material. Adjacent to a few of these blocks are meaningless signs, which do not at all help because of the way they attempt comedy. Had the map been consistant with comedy or tips or atmospheric architecture, the rating would have been much, much higher.
Parkour maps tend to have... well, at least "fairly good" parkour. Yes, this map did actually manage to succeed in that aspect. Jumps were fun and well put together with the rest of the map, though perhaps rushing the player by making them jump on fiery netherrack during the hellish level would've added a bit more variety.
When everything adds up, Resistance Hideout is a less than fair map. Sloppy work and little variety add up to an overall feeling of relief when the map ends suddenly. The progression of the map is very unstable, and an atmosphere that suits the map should also be on HaXIXoR's to-do list as well. I recommend ignoring this map.
Bugs/Tips:
-Try making the different rooms out of a material other than the repetitive one used everywhere
-Fix up those mistakes; they are annoying as hell!
NOTE: If English is not your primary language, I may be able to help you fix them up to give the player a much better impression. Just send me a PM, HaXIXor.
-Make the lever in the first parkour area more prominent; I bet you I wasn't the only one who cheated!
-What on earth happened at the end of the map? Did I win? Lose? Pass the trials?
Contents
1.Enigma Island--------------8.9/10
2.Assassins Creep----------8.2/10
3.Ruins of Regolith----------8.0/10
4.Escape the Mind-----------6.8/10
5.Goldmine--------------------6.2/10
6.Greed------------------------6.0/10
7.The Alchemical Portal-------5.4/10
8.Meteor Mash----------------4.7/10
9.Trust and Faith-------------4.2/10
10.The Wildlands-------------3.8/10
11.Wipeout---------------------3.1/10
12.The Legend of Ihir---------2.9/10
13.Parkour Runner-----------2.7/10
14.Creation--------------------2.5/10
15.The Cure-------------------1.3/10
Let's start with the puzzles. As what I perceive as a puzzle map, creation failed to deliver one of the largest aspects of its gameplay. The diversity between the puzzles was minimal. Actually, there were only three kinds of puzzles as far as I can tell, one being parkour, another ice bowling, and the third search puzzles. What is a "search puzzle" you may ask? Well, it is the most boring type of puzzle out there. You literally go through chests until you find the key to advance to the next room. This puzzle is low in excitement, and imposes 0 difficulty for the player, so really, it should never be implemented into a map. Creation implements this type of puzzle twice. The other puzzles are jumping from block to block, or ladder to ladder, and then occasionally throwing a slime ball down a few ice blocks to land on a pressure plate. These kind of puzzles are not exciting, and were mostly very easy to complete.
Next, the story. It starts with the same beginning as we have all seen in many maps over and over again. "You wake up in a room and have no recollection of your memory or past." Yep, that one. The story advances to some signs found throughout the complex, which problems with typos and inconsistent punctuation. The story, at least from my point of view, was VERY confusing. There was little to no development with your knowledge of who you actually are, and it always seemed like random things kept happening that were unexplained by the time I got to the end. I feel like the story might have actually been something, but the way the creator put it into his map didn't work. The story was definitely a problem with Creation.
Aesthetically, Creation was not pretty. The rooms always lacked detail, and I found it difficult to imagine a lab-type setting. It also looked very generic; I have seen all too many puzzle maps that are only made of iron blocks. In all, the look of Creation needs work.
Creation just didn't do it for me. The very things that make up the base of every mediocre map were not present. Instead, I found myself unmotivated to continue, as the puzzles were not fun, the story insufficiently implemented, and even with the extra endings, I never felt that feeling of excitement as I progressed through the map. With some serious work to the puzzles, story, and architecture, this map could be something good. At its current state however, don't play it.
Bugs/tips
-Fix the typos and punctuation errors found throughout the map
-Part of the ladder parkour can be cheated through by jumping from the first ladder to a ladder much higher up
-After the ladder parkour, it is impossible to proceed up to the next room as the top piece of the latter is not there
-The desert simulation parkour is impossible as one of the cacti is too high to reach
-Creation is not an adventure map, it has a very fixed progression
-Don't point out the obvious with a sign, let the players do that
The map itself was visually great and astonishing. The design of the environment was original and also provided enough variety to keep the player motivated to carry on. The map design was thought out carefully, focusing on the story and providing well designed sets, which were sometimes a little misleading, but mainly straight-forward. Also the story was great, idea itself was original and interesting, carried so thorough the map. Puzzles were original and very entertaining, though a bit repetitive, as with the ender pearls and pistons and it got me hoping for more variety on that part. Failing and dying was made annoying but not too much, thanks to the compactness of the map and good check point system, though I think the first check point could have been moved a little further.
I can?t tell why I didn?t really like the map as much as I think it deserved, I just felt left alone as the map kept on going. The story was great, as I said, but maybe one reason for the feeling of being left out was the fact that in the beginning the map felt puzzle-based, but then all of the sudden it became story-based. I think that was the greatest weakness of the map.
Other flaws of the map were pretty minor, mistakes in spelling here and some wiring popping out there. The quality of the architecture and the visual part of the map seemed to drop down a little when I entered the second area. Not that it was bad, but the awesomeness of the first area had left me hoping for something? well, more. Then in the beginning I was left occasionally wondering where I should go next, but luckily the area was small and easy to navigate and it didn?t end up much of a problem.
All in all, the map was great and I enjoyed the puzzles and the architecture of it. I recommend the map warmly to anyone to try and see if you enjoy it more than I. Therefore it feels bad to give such a score, since I think it had much potential for better, but I just didn?t catch it.
Bugs/tips
-Introduction typo, third sign: ?Locked with in? within. And another typo in the Nether when attempting to reach the portal, second sign you?re should be your
-No proper way out of Well of Mana, had to use the water bucket to get up
-One missing block in the wall of The Maze along the main route
-Right after the blocked passage there?s exposed wiring, as well as in the Boss battle there?s some too after the explosion, that could have been camouflaged better (You could have used glowstone blocks instead of stone bricks)
-Blank sign in the Nether after the trap chest and through the end stone door
I really enjoyed the map. I really did when I didn?t want to punch through the wall in frustration. In fact, I even enjoyed the frustration, though I would never have admitted that back then. Maybe not everyone will found the map as challenging as I did, but one thing is sure: in Enigma Island you need to put your brains to some serious work. For Myst fans the map is a must try.
The map itself is well designed, compact and working. The gameplay is as intense as a game/map like this can achieve and the puzzles are really clever and diverse, requiring for instance knowledge of mathematics, human relations and some famous board games. Redstone is used with skill in the making of this map, providing interesting aesthetical and gameplay elements. The architecture of the map is pleasant to the eye and the overall structure of the map well designed and executed.
While Enigma Island truly is a great map, it has some flaws that will lower the score. Firstly the notes were named a bit misleadingly, it would have been easier for the player to just name them straight up as ?Audiolog 74? etc, since at least I was a little confused at first over what should I read and why haven?t I been told to read any notes yet, but the three first ones. Then there were some problems with the map being a bit outdated. Also some minor grammatical errors occurred, but I?ve mostly forgiven them for the fact that the map had quite a lot of textual context in it.
The map was really well done and the maker had clearly invested a lot of time and love into the making of the map, and regardless of the minor flaws the map was fun, challenging and a memorable experience. Even if you aren?t much of a Myst fan and are a bit scared for the challenge, I must warmly recommend you to try the map. You will be surprised!
Bugs/Tips
- The claim to sail to the sunset is false now, because the sun sets in a different direction, you actually have to sail to south.
- The cart to the Paradise Island is broken.
Grammar Nazi corner:
- Last room in the introduction, the sign on the left says decoratin when it should say decoration.
- Note 2: ?It?s got nohting but a single folder on the dektop.? Should probably be nothing and desktop.
- After every location, in the big letter room the sign says compac disc, which should be compact disc.
- The first room of infinity: The signs are different than in the rest, the lines are arranged differently and same, and and expecting are misspelled.
- Note 5: ?I hoped it were a nightmare? should be was.
- Note 6: ?But they?re to stupid? should be too.
- Note 7: ?Audiolog 153, Mai 31. 2063.? Should be May, ?However it is to late now? should be too.
The Alchemical Portal's story was mediocre at best. The few notes that were actually in the game were actually written quite well, no typos or spelling mistakes, and the vocabulary used really helped to enrich the writing. Despite the good writing, the plot itself was a bit out there. In short, you have magically entered a world full of blocks and need to find redstone to activate a portal that will be your escape. At first, I was ok with the whole fantasy theme, but after the intro there was almost nothing to help move the story along. I would have really appreciated some notes along the way that would help to explain what this new world full of blocks is all about. Instead I was left with almost nothing, and when I finally escaped it just wasn't that rewarding.
Without a half-decent story, The Alchemical Portal really depended on it's puzzles and parkour. The puzzles were executed fairly well, but most were unoriginal. Every puzzle in the map I had already came across, but then again, I have played quite a few maps. For the casual custom map player, you might come across a couple new puzzles. As far as the parkour goes, it wasn't too hard and had a good checkpoint system. If you are a fan of parkour, then you can be sure to be pleased. In all, the puzzles were decent, and the parkour was good.
The architecture in The Alchemical Portal was average. I found that the buildings were fairly unique, but sometimes sloppily put together. Some houses actually had portions that were floating off the ground. Others had odd features that seemed unnecessary, and just didn't make sense. Many of the building looked like they were jumbled in a corner, while there was plenty of open space in another corner. The inconsistency of the architecture did not help revive the lack of immersion and atmosphere caused by the deficient story.
Overall, The Alchemical Portal needs needs some serious work in some areas, while in others, minor improvements. This map would be good for those who are looking for a map with balanced variety of parkour, puzzle and adventure. If that doesn't immediately appeal to you, then I would just check it out.
Bugs/tips
-Name your map file name something other then "map"
-Hide your redstone!
-Your scoring system is messed up. I found about 15 feathers after finding a piece of redstone, and then only a couple after finding another piece
-Houses shouldn't float!
-The quiz section doesn't work well, you can just stay outside of the death area and hit the button and have no chance of death
The best part of greed, for me at least, was how fluent the map played. After successively making a few jumps, whilst staying in sprint, all I could feel was sheer exhilaration and intensity. It was something I never had felt before in a parkour map. So why is it called Greed? Well, my interpretation is that, at times, you have to choose between a risky and long jump that could lead to a momentum boost, or just take the safe root and risk loosing that rush of adrenaline you get from making the long jump.
Aesthetically, Greed was well made. The entire map had a ruin feel to it. I found that I was often jumping over broken bridges and pathways. It really had an aspect of realism to it that I have never seen in a parkour map before. An interesting feature is that there is a nether section of the map, that creates a brand new atmosphere to appreciate and enjoy. In all, the architecture was never neglected, even during the fast pace of the map.
So where did the map go wrong? Truthfully, the map had no large problems or bugs. It just didn't have anything really cool about it. The map was very short, and didn't really have anything other than the fluency and good architecture to make it stand out. For what it is, the map is actually great, it is fun and enjoyable, but it is not the kind of thing you will be remembering as a map with lots of interesting features and content. It is more of a 20 minute time waster then anything else.
Overall, the map is an interesting parkour experience. The fluency of the map allows for it to be easily playable and very re-playable. I would recommend Greed to anyone looking for a fun little parkour map to screw around with.
Bugs/tips
-When you start the map you are flying
-There is no proper start area. Make it so that the start is more professional
-You can still put spawners under ground and have them work. I would suggest doing that for the animals in the nether
There isn't a story in the map, which I think is a good thing as in the puzzle genre it's always 'You X have been captured and imprisoned by X and now you must escape' which really do nothing for the map and usually take away from the atmosphere. However in this map the story is replaced by a series of signs, what I would call a GLaDOS style where you are just mocked, or talked at in a funny way, it made me laugh at points at least; which made me want to continue playing and engaged me in the map a bit more.
Ok this part will have some spoilers [Don't worry I'll put them in drop downs], I hate putting spoilers in a review because it defeats the purpose of reading it. All I can say is WTH were you thinking map maker? Don't make rooms that are impossible, it really annoys players and forces you to cheat, ruining immersion and destroying the atmosphere of the map as a whole.
The bugs are severe in this map so I'm dedicating a paragraph to the worst ones. Most of the puzzles are unoriginal which makes the map feel a little more boring as you have the feeling of playing parts before. This isn't an adventure map, it has no story and there's only 1 room dedicated to combat; however I thought that room was a very good adrenaline fueled start to the map. 1 block deep water isn't enough to stop fall damage. Also the 'mine' test is an annoying concept and it's just a hole down, forcing you to drop and almost die from the fall.
Overall, this is a map with a lot of potential but the constant annoyances and bugs really take away from the feel. I recommend waiting for this map to be updated before playing.
Bugs/Tips
-Clean up the spawn, readme and your thread. It's very unclear, and hard to understand what to do.
-Reduce the amount of spawners everywhere.
-Change the 1 block deep water to 2 back deep.
-The second to last jump on the first parkour test seemed impossible.
-Do something about the impossible test. Or give people a way to skip it until you can find a way to fix it.
-Give some clues in the water maze.
-Fix the 'mine down' test.
-Make it so that you can't see the outside of the map.
-Like the 2nd lava test add some creative additions to make the map more original.
-Add a chest with minecarts at the minecart challenge.
-Make it so the minecart challenge permanently opens the door.
-Decide wether to make it an adventure map or parkour.
Phew, yes that's a lot of bugs, but if they're fixed this map would be greatly improved.
Before I go further, however, I'll blatantly state the truth: this map had literally ONE puzzle that related it to Wipeout. Therefore the title made very, very little sense, and was quite confusing, not to mention misleading. I would recommend changing it, Malieux, to something more appropriate to the overall theme. The atmosphere completely surprised me from there on, as it jumped from location to location with varying puzzles yet repetitive surroundings, making for an overall awkward experience. A story was also frankly missing, and disappointed me thusly. I was thoroughly dissapointed with this aspect, and I hope you take this criticsm and use it well. You might actually restore some potential this map had, Malieux.
This map didn't have a whole lot [of anything], but I liked what it did. The puzzles were well crafted, amusing, and fun, though a certain part involved with lava jumping (original, right?) was buggy and required a bit of cheating, as not even sprinting could justify the need to place blocks. However, the redstone-maniac level mechanics of puzzles in the game were nothing short of amazing, and are the complete source of the 3.1. I especially liked the Wipeout Wall, which despite being the only part of the map remotely linked to the show, stayed true to the original and brought back memories from a few years back when I'd sit down at the dinner table and watch Wipeout with my family. Overall, puzzles were lacking in numbers, but incredibly well designed.
Sadly, the map didn't really feature much else. It was overall a short map, like the previous one I reviewed, but I hope I've done justice to them with these two reviews. Now, I know this will draw complaints, but I'll compare the two maps together: Resistance Hideout and Wipeout. Resistance Hideout had the base of all of the aspects it needed: atmosphere, story, puzzles, and humor, but couldn't seem to perfect them. Wipeout, however, only had puzzles in its composition, though it had such a great, varied selection that Malieux's genius shined through and brought the map to fruition. I say this map is a unworthy of much praise in its current form. I will recommend it when an update is put out fixing certain parts of the map, but as of now, I would just skip it.
Bugs/Tips
-Fix that bugged jumping over lava puzzle, however if I screwed that up badly and it was possible, forgive me, as it did not affect your score
-You need an atmosphere to make your players feel immersed, Malieux. Stone doesn't cut it for all of the locations. Change it up!
-Not all puzzle maps have a story, but yours could definitely use one!
-This also enhances a map, and especially a puzzle map: humor!
First the good content. The map is short and intense, which are two features that have hard time if they are to work on their own but make a great pair together. The puzzles are pretty clever and had nicely variety and the map design was good, providing the player with easy access to new areas and environments. The player is guided between the points of interests clearly, even a little comprehensively. The story is also great; it is straight forward, simple, and keeps the player motivated through the map. It doesn’t interfere with the gameplay, but provides an interesting background and even has a moral that fits in and isn’t too cheesy. The story is also well written and the overall language on the map is correct.
The map still has a lot to work on. First of all the terrain has some unpolished areas: chunk error style blocky terrain covering the dungeons, roofs of smooth stone popped through to the world and cobblestone patches around underground areas which all give a sloppy image of the map. They all could be tidied up with a relatively small effort. Then, I found some of the puzzles very short and sometimes too easy considering the claim that the map would be very difficult. The architecture of the map is rather simple and could be invested in more.
Then there’s the co-op possibility. The only things for co-op are the multiple beds and multiple rail tracks. There’s no proper content for multiplayer and it didn’t open any new points of view on the overall experience either.
Overall, I find the map entertaining and worth playing, but its flaws lower the score. I recommend Goldmine for anyone who is looking for a fast-paced short puzzle/adventure map they can spend an hour or two on of their evening.
Bugs/tips
-I noticed some weird terrain, including deformed trees and areas of surface smooth stone that seemed a bit out of place and suggest to posh the area up a bit for the aesthetics.
In terms of appearance, Legend of Ihir really bored and annoyed me. You wake up in a small room, and exit, only to be wowed by a huge circular room... that was very clearly MCEdited in with the Brush tool. So we get out, by watching some exposed redstone (HIDE YOUR REDSTONE!!!!) and move into the next room. This room is also a circle. More exposed redstone... Next room... circle, more exposed redstone. Rinse and repeat. The only times the map leaves this formula is either on its minecart rides, which are wide open and allow a player to easily leave the map is they so choose, and on its climbing parts, which are in the same vein as the minecart rides. The story tells us we are locked in the Ihir prison and must test to leave, but it seems that we can generally leave at any time. It really didn't add up to me. Now for the good parts... Each sphere was made from a different material, which was nice, and a few sphere had very nice insides. Unfortunately, most did not, which leads me to my discussion of the puzzles...
Most of the puzzles were just... well... poor. Clearly exposed redstone, simple jumps and lever pulls, fighting off a few monsters in the same sphereical room... They really left a lot to be desired. Making matters worse, the giant spheres were generally barely used. Almost all of the puzzles were less then 1/10th of the actual sphere, meaning that there could have been so much more in each sphere. There were a few decent puzzles, my favorite being the Sand Sphere, but the rest had so much wasted potential, it really annoyed me. Also, the pathfinding, even in the small hallways, was really poor. Doors would be opened as you moved sometimes, so you would walk right past a 'door' (Piston openings) before it opened, and because the area is partially destroyed (As part of the story), you would wander out of the map by accident, and then continually become deeply confused by what had happened. This caused some major issues, and needs to be addressed in nearly all the puzzles.
Now for the story. It was really, really bad. You start off pretty well, with what seems like a decently outlined story, relying on the amnesia of the character, but this amnesia was forced upon you by the prison of Ihir, as you were a criminal, and to help you become a better person, they wiped your memory and are forcing you to do these tests to prove you are now a good person. However, that's basically all we ever get. For the next hour or so, we get random signs, every 5 or 6 spheres, that generally mean nothing at all, contain poor spelling/grammar and never even contribute to the story. The end of the map didn't even have any clarity, and was more of a "You're done, gratz!" then an ending at all. If anything in this map needs a complete overhaul, it's the story. Fix it or remove it entirely. Because as it stands right now, it bogs the game down, even without the puzzles being problematic.
The redstone in this map is a redeeming factor, but also causes several issues. While the redstone applications are generally very well done, and server their purpose very nicely, the redstone is always exposed, which seriously destroys the atmosphere. If I was in a 'test' area, and there were wires everywhere, I too would start thinking very little of the atmosphere. Nobody should want redstone everywhere, and it really breaks the atmosphere of the map further. Luckily, it's still well designed, and is one of the few parts of the map that really carry through.
Overall, I really didn't like Legend of Ihir. I actually had to stop playing several times and then had to force myself to continue playing, due to the sheer annoyance I continually had with the map. This map needs to be a lot more fun, but unfortunately wasn't. There's a lot that needs to be changed, so even I'm not quite sure where to start, but I really would like to see almost every puzzle expanded further first, as currently, there's very little substance, which drags the map's score down. This map, unfortunately, was more of a chore then a game. I cannot recommend this one.
Bugs/tips
-I'm saying it again. Hide your redstone!
-Make your paths clearer
-Close gaps in the spheres that allow players to escape. If the story says you're in a prison, getting out is a bit odd.
-Have the player change the difficulty in spots if you want monsters. Doing Parkour in a huge dark sphere, with Skeletons shooting at you is just asking for the player to cheat. There's no reason for most of the sections to have Mobs on.
-Fix your spelling and grammar on the signs. Also, try and go for a coherant tone on the signs, rather then just random text.
-Story, story, story. Expand it like crazy, as now, you seem to want to have a story, but then never do anything with it.
The map opens with a simple tutorial of the things you're going to find in the map, and I started with a feeling of excitement, as the forum thread indicates people really enjoy this map. I was pleased at finding a few secrets, and entered the first town. And my inventory is basically flooded with stuff within the first 15 minutes. This is never a good thing in a map, as it means that you have to abandon many items that would be useful later. When a map-maker generally hides items, these chests usually contain the item used for scoring. Not this map. Each hidden chest usually contained more arrows, a few random items, and occasionally some gold, which was the score. This constantly flooded your inventory, and meant that when you did need something later, you likely didn't have it. This caused some huge issues for me, as I enjoy carrying items about, but was constantly given too much.
The map also has absolutely no narrative, and the notes didn't manage to make much sense. The first note I found was note 5. The last note I found was note 2. They also had poor grammar and spelling, and really didn't advance any plot at all. The map contains a giant Nether "easter egg" that also failed to make much sense, and furthermore, at the end of it, fails to return you to the original portal, instead, dropping you inside a closed off cavern, forcing you to cheat your way back to the initial portal to continue on with the map. As the map continues after the "easter egg", the locations are random, the archetechture is sloppy, and there still is no story at all. When we finally near the end, it seems a story is being implemented, but it turns out I was wrong. We enter some labs, progress through an entirely broken underwater section, and eventually end up in a random village at the end that makes it seem like that map maker realized they'd screwed up, and decided to just end the map. This map really falls so flat because of a lack of story! There is no reasoning behind any of the map, and putting some story in would really make this map a fair bit better. The Nether area was actually the most coherant, and it was just an extra easter-egg!
The atmosphere in the map was deeply lacking as well. The houses are sloppy, the mob spawners are dreadfully placed out in the open, and there are far too many in the first place. The areas we progress through are never explained, minus a few random signs that entirely break the 4th Wall, and a few cultural references that I didn't always get. Now, there were a few areas that I liked, the Mob-maze castle being one of them, as it looked very nice, and was extremely creepy. However, an overabundance of Creepers really screwed the area up royally.
Now for puzzles... In short, they barely existed. Redstone was clearly exposed, puzzles were short and sloppy, and they generally were just lever pulling or simple parkour. Variety would be a key to begin to redeem this map.
Now to sum it all up, this map is, sadly, one of the worst maps I've played in awhile. Sloppy, lack of variety, and what feels like a lack of testing with the mob spawners really makes this map feel like it was made in a very tiny amount of time, with little thought put into it. I personally would recommend skipping this map.
Bugs/tips
-Make the rules far more clear. You contradicted yourself several times, so I basically seemed free to do anything.
-Fix the spawner clutter, to make things possible on most difficulties.
-Stop placing Creeper Spawners in destructable locations. You placed them in very bad locations several times, which messed up the areas very badly
-Add breathing areas in your Underwater Hallways. Currently, it's impossible to get through normally, without placing blocks.
-Hide your redstone, most of it is really exposed, which ruins atmosphere.
-Streamline the story a fair bit, and make it one narrative
-Reduce item clutter, and try and ensure that the player has reasonable inventory, rather then jam-packing us every few seconds.
-Your second Nether portal is horribly broken, and desperately needs to be fixed! Do so!
Ruins of Regolith was one of the more aesthetically pleasing maps I have seen. The ruins were magnificently crafted, and created a dark and intriguing atmosphere that seemed as close to real as minecraft gets. In fact, this Ruins of Regolith would make a great creation map. I would almost suggest that the creator make a separate download for the sole purpose of exploring the ruins and discovering the town that lies within.
The brilliant architecture isn't the only thing Ruins of Regolith has to offer, the redstone in this map is almost comparable to Eronev Mansion's redstone. The map practically relies on intuitive redstone for many of the map's major events. The redstone left me thinking, "And how did that work...?" throughout many parts of the map. The redstone in Ruins of Regolith is certainly something to admire.
The story in Ruins of Regolith can be easily represented through a sandwich. If this map was a sandwich, it would have delicious ham, savory tomatoes and crisp lettuce. The bread on the other hand, would be moldy, old, and slightly moist. In other words, the story was great once you got into it, but the beginning was confusing, and the end left something to be desired. At the start, the player is given almost no information as to who you are, and what your relation to the story is. Ok, we need to explore and look around in The Ruins of Regolith, but why? Am I an archaeologist? Or did I just fall in a cave and find this lost society? These were the kind of questions I was asking myself at the beginning. As the story progressed, I began to get into it; The notes were well written, and I started to get to know the characters. This continued until the ending, which I found disappointingly anticlimactic. I did, however, find the score system at the end to be very rewarding. The story really was fantastic, I just wish that the map's start and finish had a little bit more.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Ruins of Regolith. The architecture was breath taking, and I honestly could not have enjoyed the redstone more. What I thought would turn out to be an average map, ended up being a great adventure with an enjoyable storyline. I would recommend this map to anyone who enjoys a good adventure map. On the whole, Ruins of Regolith is a great map that deserves substantially more credit. Playing this map was very enjoyable, and certainly taught me a lesson about judging a book by its cover.
Bugs/tips
-HD texture packs are great, but many people will not take the time to patch their minecraft in order to use them. Next time, I suggest using a 16x texture pack
-Update your mods/texture pack to 1.0
-Your minecraft pin puzzles do not work properly. You can simply hit the last button in any combination and the door will open
-You misspelled "kitchen"
The map, despite its plentiful flaws, had a lot going for it. An engaging plot mixed in with powerful and original subplots made for an enjoyable story with potent flavour. The builds were not astronomical, per se, but completely fit the growing atmosphere and post-apocolyptic theme of the map. As I stated previously, the atmosphere and generic theme of the plot (in the form of notes as well as signs) were very strong and were lots of fun to read. I especially loved the way the player was forced to gather info from multiple, diverse sources and put them together to form the overall story arch. So why was the rating so low? Read on.
One very noticeable and confusing flaw was the appearance of url website coding admist every single one of the notes (that did not work, I might add, as they were improperly implemented into Notepad). I ended up repeatedly (and tiredly) moving the scroll button on my malfunctioning mouse to find the actual text writing of the notes. Also dealing with story-related flaws, all of the signs were written entirely with lowercase letters. I mean, come on! Way to look unprofessional! A map instantly becomes far more appealing when it seems like it wasn't slapped together in a matter of minutes. Thirdly, the builds were very simple. I know this may sound biased, as I am currently helping Kmilley, but I recommend his map Levi's Nightmare to look up to. It had a completely different plot but the overall post-apocolyptic feel was recurring. His buildings were much larger in scale and helped the map feel a lot more engaging, no offense, to yours, map makers.
So how does the score add up? Unfortunately, the flaws related to story and builds, along with a messy set of in-character signs which degrade the progression aspect, outweigh the accomplishments of the map makers. Fix these flaws and I'm sure that everyone will have a great and professional map to play through. If you, readers, are looking for a short and fairly fun map to waste your time with, then this could be what you are looking for. If not, then it is ultimately up to you, but I say that if you skip the map, you probably aren't missing anything you haven't seen before.
Bugs/tips
-The builds will feel much more effective if they are larger and more prominent among the landscape
-What is up with that coding in the notes? Try and fix that up...
-A couple of words were misspelled in the notes, so you may want to look them over
-Capital letters, for crying out loud!
Assassin's Creep can only be defined thusly:
The map is like a hand-woven, intricate blanket. The spool is the utter creativity of selib, endlessly uncoiling thread for the master of parkour to weave beautifully into the map. The thread itself is the sheer number of possibilities; formed into patterns we call astounding architecture. And of course, the needle materializing from the sewing kit would be selib himself, building block after block of beige sand-covered rocks in order to form a recreation of a place Assassin's Creed fans the world over know to be a very, very solid parkour adventure.
Despite the known fact that I have never once played a single Assassin's Creed game, I must say the crisp, detailed, thoroughly layered architecture inside and out of all of the Roma buildings was enough to keep a fan, casual or completely die-hard, happy. Whether it be through game-accurate visuals, easter-eggs, or just well thought out replacements for the technology in the good old days when we played the role of assassin for fun *teehee*, the map never disappointed is the consistent use of exploration and recreation.
At times, the architecture in the map felt so realistically accurate - like the games (from the trailers I've seen, anyway) - I felt like upping the ante and playing the map on Hard, just to make use of Steelfeather's texturepack and see what it is actually like to play the game. And from what I observed, the recreation was nothing but spot on. I loved every minute, with the wind in my hair and the arrow of a skeleton piercing me through the heart over and over again - just 'cuz I'm not exactly professional at the higher difficulties yet.
So where did this map disappoint? Despite the seamless recreation, exploration, and open-world feel featured within the magical download, the collecting of the wool eventually becomes tedious. This may just disappoint me, as I am not a hardcore fan of parkour-oriented adventures, but even though it is executed efficiently, the challenges don't really challenge me the way I felt they needed to. There is only so much you can do with ladders, after all. It is fun to climb from building to building, and rooftop to rooftop, which is virtually exhilarating (*ha-ha*), it becomes repetitive and outright boring after an hour or so. It need some more adventure-like apsects to bring it to full fruition. What really could be added is a sort of system where the player is rewarded after collecting each medal - considered "completing a dungeon" - and the reward is some sort of way to unlock a bonus challenge (perhaps a lever that unlocks a door elsewhere). This could keep the players immersed and always looking forward to solving new puzzles rather than finding the current ones tedious and boring after a while.
In its entirety, Assassin's Creep is a parkour map that is beyond solid. It is creatively-executed, well thought out, beatifully crafted, and immersive. It wasn't missing so much; it just felt as though it needed to have something added on that would bring it to even higher standards. I thoroughly enjoyed this map, and would surely recommend it to any parkour fan, Assassin's Creed fan, and even perhaps the casual adventure map player. Job well done, selib. Job well done.
Bugs/tips
-Refer back to the bonus challenge idea as a way to keep players non-farmiliar with Assassin's Creed immersed and still excited
-Include a destination area, please! I didn't know where the hell I was until I rewatched the trailers for the games and said aloud, "Oh." I know I'm a Creed newb, but still...
Tedious, unoriginal puzzles mingled with an ever-changing unstable atmosphere to create an unfortunately boring experience with a lot to be desired. Puzzles felt thrown at me rather than elegantly implemented, and players of the puzzle adventure will find themselves rapidly jumping from rooms sporting one color to a colleseum-like arena with a hellish theme. None of the puzzles - be it parkour, mossy, or watery - felt organized or well thought-out, leading to an uncomfortable time. The 2.7 points come almost entirely from the very base execution and construction of the many puzzles. The parkour was never impossible, nor too hard, and lots of puzzles were well crafted into their surroundings. This, in retrospect, also had a lasting negative effect, as mentioned before - the atmosphere was unstable. Despite the fact that many of these puzzles were very easy, it is quite obvious that Hippy500 is no stranger to creating puzzles.
Redstone engineering, like the plot in this case, was virtually non-existent. There was a small unneeded bit of never ending volleys of arrows in the final chapter (read on to understand what these are), but aside from that, nothing was really prominent aside from the occassional piston door or such. Near the end of the map, redstone became a little more prominent - featuring a sprinting challenge - though it was not implemented well nor admirable in terms of contruction.
The appearance of Parkour Runner was yet another major factor in its lousy execution and final result. While rooms were large and fun to explore, they were never consistent. One room was tiny, the next huge. They also switched shapes on multiple occasions. Having played The Legend of Ihir, I can say this was definitely not the most repetitive or the worst, though it certainly left a fair bit to be desired.
Lastly, and [believe it or not] most certainly not least, was the the map's progression. Despite the atmospheric issues I stated previously, Parkour Runner featured a system I have only seen once before, though it was made much better here. After what would appear to be the end of the map, you are presented with a chance to do a secondary challenge, which is counted as the second and final chapter in the map. It is not too long nor too short, though takes a little bit less time to complete than the first bit. Well done here.
In the end, Parkour Runner is more disappointing than most maps I've played. It is inconsistent, sloppy, and not very intuitive. If I may quote Fangride, my fellow reviewer, "It felt more like a chore than a map." Overall, I disliked the map. It was excellent progression-wise, though failed to meet my expectations in other aspects. I do not recommend it to fellow map players out there. Apologies.
Bugs/tips
-Inconsistency was a huge problem. Fix the appearance and make the adjoining rooms similar in at least one way
-Redstone was non-existent until you got to the second chapter. Redstone should most certainly be added to raise the score.
-As hard as this may be, try and think of original puzzles. Many of the ones you used were in new surroundings, though they were exactly the same as those I'll see in pretty much any other puzzle map.
When I first saw The Wildlands' application posted on the Review Central thread I was intrigued. The map was advertised as "An experimental map which tries something new in terms of storytelling. Action takes a back-seat to a more heavy focus on the story of the island you find yourself shipwrecked on." As a map maker of a story map myself I obviously found this to be quite interesting. There are very few story based maps out there right now, and so it was almost exciting to get to review one. The big difference between my story map and The Wildlands, is that The Wildlands is completely open. It does not follow a linear map format. Does this new map genre work? Keep reading to find out.
The Wildlands is described as being an open map, where you explore through houses reading notes, slowly piecing the back-story together yourself. I was fairly excited to see how this map would turn out. Unfortunately, I was just setting myself up for disappointment. The open based world made it extremely hard to follow the story. In this case, the story was simply too complicated to follow without a logical route in place. I was constantly wondering how all of the notes would connect. Finally I reached the point where I felt like I had read every note, and entered every building. There were still story gaps in my mind as to what had happened in The Wildlands. The story was confusing and complex, and having to look around for what seemed like hours to find the next series of signs made the experience feel frustrating and tedious.
If we take a second to ignore the main topic of this map, the story, and instead look at some of the smaller aspects of the map, such as the architecture, we will notice that it is all mediocre quality at best. Nothing really helps make this map better. Exposed redstone, architecture that is less than appealing most of the time, and no puzzles other than combat, make this adventure really depend on the story. There just wasn't anything else that really stood out.
When it comes down to it, the story was well written, but because of the map's open formating, it became potential that was not fufilled. And that brings us back to our opening question, does the new map genre work? In my opinion the answer is no. It is far too confusing to have the layout of your map open with no solid conclusion. If this map had gameplay that was much more linear, it would have most likely gotten a much higher score. Saying that, the rest of the map wasn't anything special either, so even with a more linear story, I couldn't see this map getting much more then a 5. In all, If you are a huge fan of exploration, and enjoy story over anything else, then you might want to check it out.
Bugs/tips
-Make a zip file
-Allow the player to start with full hunger, not half
-Don't give the player wood in his inventory when he starts
-Hide your redstone
-Put more food in your map, and less junk like 64 stacks of cobble
-Many elements of your map are outdated, such as the minecart boosters
-Don't lead people down a cave with torches when all they are going to find is a dead end
Contents
1. Hero's Quest III: The Forest of Shadows---9.6/10
2. Paladin's Quest Episode One----------------9.1/10
3. Into the Depths-------------------------------8.2/10
4. Dr Robert and the Mysterious Ruins--------7.9/10
5. Punishment: Parkour----------------------6.9/10
6. Marvellous--------------------------------6.6/10
7. The Iron Hallway-------------------------4.5/10
8. Trapped-----------------------------------4.3/10
9. Levels--------------------------------------3.9/10
10. Claw Adventures------------------------3.7/10
11. Puzzlecraft--------------------------------2.6/10
12. Laboratory--------------------------------2.3/10
13. Glass Maze--------------------------------1.4/10
14. Bloody Mary--------------------------------1.3/10
15. One Wrong Choice------------------------1.1/10
The story feels original, exciting, and fresh, and Jamspots makes use of incrediblly descriptive and accurate words to create several intuitive layers to the plot. The story itself appears quite standard near the beginning, where a friend requires you to complete certain tasks and accomplish goals. Yet the map takes a surprising and sudden swerve right near the beginning, completely morphing into a fantastic RPG story-driven adventure. The plot is great help, and ties into the linear-branching gameplay seamlessly. I, in particular, especially enjoyed how the plot played out and gave you multiple options and areas to explore. The end of the plot was nothing short of breath-taking, and while I won't give away any particular spoilers here, I will guarantee the player that it will not disappoint.
The architecture of the map is caught about halfway between decent and absolutely mind-blowing, as certain builds are deceptively simple, and others are outright boring cubes. The overall visual appeal of the map as a whole is quite good, and supports the modern RPG-epic story effectively. The creations within the earth also look appropriate for most situations, including the ruins themselves. I was fairly disappointed near the beginning when greeted with only a decent landscape, but it was up close that I really realised how well most of the structures were built.
The map's difficulty is its only weak point, where it struggles to grasp the concept of consistency, but even so, the parkour points provided are quite exciting and a nice change from the mainly exploration-based gameplay that makes up almost the entirety of the custom map. While the fact that the player is forced to play on easy or higher the entire game is sometimes utilized very well, at other times it feels out of place and awkward. If I may make a suggestion, I would recommend that Jamspots feature signs that tell the player to switch difficulty for underground sections of the maps, and switch back to peaceful for the exploration aboveground. Despite the flaws mentioned, I did very much enjoy side-puzzles like getting your pocketwatch, scaling the Hellbox, and finding the Pharaoh's treasure.
Difficulty aside, the map was quite consistent, and this was extraordinarily noticeable when it came to the atmosphere of the map. The story flowed smoothly and likewise brought the player to numerous locations along the way, keeping the atmosphere steady. The atmosphere took a deep plunge for certain missions somewhat unrelated to the major storyline, but nonetheless, was incredibly strong in comparison to the atmospheric nonsense featured in countless other poorly done maps. I enjoyed the varying degrees of puzzles and numerous story twists, all of which tied into the atmosphere and its beautiful final result. The only suggestion I might make is that adding royalty-free music in the download to enrich the gameplay would be a great idea!
I left the gameplay aspect to the end of the review, as I feel it was what really sold the map. Linear exploration often feels forced and pointless, but when a strong story is provided, it can turn into a masterpiece. The multiple options for things to do next, coupled with the clever idea of listing all objectives in the note files, create an easy-to-understand, hard-to-master gameplay style that completely revolutionizes linear-mapping. As mentioned previously, adding music to play while in the map would make the entire experience completely smooth and entirely professional. Lastly, in terms of gameplay, I would like to mention the constant feeling of danger throughout the map, whether it be a burning ship, or molten magma below your feet as you carefully tread. The gameplay is nearly perfect, and with one or two tweaks could bump up this map's score by at least a full mark.
When it all comes down, Dr Robert and the Mysterious Ruins is a truly strong map, and stands out as a prominent display of just what is possible with Minecraft, and (let's face it) a little bit of imagination. Jamspots' adventure map is one of a kind, and I can't wait to see what else he has in store for the mapping community. No matter what you are looking for, be it survival or roleplaying or adventure of puzzles, I say you should give this map a look. You won't regret it.
Bugs/Tips
-If I were you, I'd try to keep the building style more consistent. The town felt like a city in certain areas and a fishing village in others. Try to define the settling using architecture.
-The difficulty was inconsistent. At this time it may seem pointless and may be the hardest of the map-creating endeavor thus far, but if you could try to make the difficulty similar throughout, then the map's score would be rocketing into outer space.
Now, simply being a glass maze might not be a bad thing. In fact, it could even be clever, as at first the all-glass-ness of the maze can easily disorient players. However, this was not the case in kebapmanager's rendition of the popular genre. Glass mazes suffer from solid-wall syndrome - solid walls, if they are close enough, make it easy for a player to spot holes or stairs in the glass, assisting the player in discovering where they need to go. Glass Maze especially suffered from this because it was so small - in addition to causing the map to last for less than ten minutes, it took away what could have been incredible difficulty by confining the maze to an approximate 30x30 blocks.
The ending showed laziness on the builder's part, as well, as the last level of the maze was not a maze at all - just an annoying series of one-block jumps over a pit of lava, not annoying in that they were difficult, but annoying in that they were painfully easy. Overall, this map lacked the ingenuity others within its genre have, being overly simple and not really trying hard to provide any sort of a challenge, for both new and old players. If you're looking for a challenging maze, this isn't where you want to look.
Bugs/Tips
-In the very beginning you could see the redstone that would open up the path down to the maze; it looked very out of place and just ugly.
-If you're going to be making a glass maze, make sure that the solid walls are either very far away - meaning make each level larger - or simply put glass for miles on end. With the solid-block walls like what you had it was very easy to tell where you needed to go to get to the next level. Putting some of those stairs in the corners wasn't a very good idea, either.
-The ending was very anti-climactic, with just that single sign and not even a room. Come on, the player just went through a maze! Even if it was a short maze, toss them a few diamonds or something to make them feel like they were actually being rewarded.
The Oblivion-style questing was just a phenomenal idea, briliantly crafted into an immersive and intuitive sequence of videos that really harmonize the atmosphere and the overall feel of the gameplay. Never does any video feel pushed or unrealistic, and while the voice acting may not be 100% perfect, it sure as hell is quite close. Medieval fantasy has never felt so enriched, and neither has the Minecraft experience at all. Video-related questing is a gift to the Minecraft community, and was almost perfectly executed. Well done Noxcrew.
The atmosphere was crisp and detailed, with a satisfying story and building emotional quests. Enhancing this was not only a well-thought out system of relaying tasks and quests, but fantastic builds. While nothing so large as a castle is attempted, the medieval architecture leaves nothing to be desired. As a fan of the Elder Scrolls series and the expansion packs, I can see where specks of influences have arisen and made the architecture feel even more fitting to the medieval-questing era in which Morris lives.
The story was yet another aspect where the map shone like sunrise, peaking out from a beautiful landscape filled with towers and small homes on the island. The fact that you could look for any character on the island and complete beginning quests in any order didn't hurt the story at all - instead enhancing it with some lovely side-stories and such. On a side note, all of the videos that accompanied the quests felt fitting and took place at the right times. Lovely work as a whole.
Redstone engineering did not play a major part in the map, but was present and thriving nonetheless. It was thrilling watching the way things unfolded as certain quests were achieved, others unlocked, and tasks given through the executed storyline. It appeared well hidden as well, as I never saw any at all.
Lastly, but certainly not least, was the execution of the map outside of Minecraft itself. The passwords on unlockable quest .rar fles was genius and frustrating at the same time, as some quests were a litter harder to gain passwords for than others. Nevertheless, it appeared well-executed. The only major problem I had in the end was having to transfer out of Minecraft and into Youtube to watch quest videos. The Youtube screen surrounding the video pulls you right out of the atmospheric magical touch that the map itself has and into the cybernet that feels unwelcoming. If the videos themselves could be downloaded, then the need for Youtube would no longer be apparent and the transfer from Minecraft, to video, to Minecraft again wouldn't feel so choppy. At the same time, arguing this feels unreasonable, as Noxite already attempted this and the file was too large and the amount of downloads to plentiful in the first few minutes.
As a whole, Episode One of Paladin's Quest is a spectacular feat in the field of map-making, revolutionising the way we quest and look for adventure. I recommend it with all my heart. With few flaws and more successes than can be accounted for, it feels like an adventure. It feels like a role-playing phenomenon. And I want more!
Bugs/tips
-The voice acting wasn't top notch, though I must say it was pretty well done as you are doing this for free. Perhaps more pronounced accents and personalities would make the experience even MORE immersive.
-As discussed before, there is the issue of Youtube. The only thing weighing the map down. If there would be some way to download the videos in lower quality in a .zip package, the map experience would be perfect.
But why? The story started out fine, except for a few historically inaccurate details and the like, but whatever. It's Minecraft, not history. But the small backstory about some ruler named "Bloody Mary" locking up random people and you being one of them feels pushed to the rear as an Escapecraft-style storyline pushes through. The saddest part about this is that, unlike Herobrine, this villain shows no cunning skills or torturous humor. She threatens to kill innocent civilians time and time again, which could possibly have been a decent threat had the threat been executed effectively and at the right time. Instead, Bloody Mary announced her plans to kill civilians halfway through or right after puzzles, creating an off-time beat for the map. Yet the plot weakened itself further as it was almost completely destroyed in the third quarter of its progression. Bloody Mary returned to the signs of the map to say a few last words before a long and utterly pointless, malfunctioning minecart ride shoved the player through a small hole in the ocean. It is at this point the player realizes they must've escaped, as the map literally ends right then and there without a conclusion.
The puzzles themselves were honestly nothing more than unoriginal. Parkour filled up most of the map, but redstone did make up a small minority of the unsatisfying puzzle selection. I do commend the map maker, cookieman999, for attempting to use pistons effectively. In one particular room it worked extremely effectively, and felt worthy of a place in an updated version of Escapecraft. However, the quality was nothing more than decent for the rest of the map. I hate to leave such little critique here, as the map's genre is quite clearly specified as puzzle, but to be honest nothing wowed me. Nothing had enough wonder to support an entire puzzle map.
Architecturally the map suffered from flaws I've noticed in numerous maps: the constant, unyielding amount of stone that makes up a majority of the map. Of course, as in almost all maps, lava makes a prominent appearance. A pointless break in the atmosphere for a trip to the nether offers a little variety but overall is nothing spectacular. Neither is the appearance of cannons, which were fun but did not positively reinforce the atmosphere. For what its worth, the puzzles weren't designed too terribly.
And last (and certainly least), we have the atmosphere, the one reason this map fails so astronomically. Too be honest the map is one of the most atmospherically unstable puzzle maps I have ever played, and having an awfully-executed plot as the only aspect to withhold it didn't help either. Never once do we find out who this mysterious person is, or why he's helping us. I assume that is what the "part 2" of the map will clear up, yet still it makes the overall experience unsatisfying. I also refer back to the plot and architecture critique, as the plot never fully ended and the buildings were square and boring.
When it all comes down, Bloody Mary is map of really poor quality. Judging from the forum post, I can tell effort of some degree went into the map but never shone through the thick veil of the nothingness that surrounded it - the terrible atmosphere and plot. While it may have one or two redeeming qualities about it, there is honestly nothing you will find here that another map doesn't have. Just ignore this one. It really isn't worth your time.
Bugs/tips
-The trip to the nether was explained in one or two signs but still didn't seem to fit. If I were you, I'd either revamp the explanation or get rid of it entirely.
-Stone is WAY overrated. I don't know why so many puzzle maps seem to coexist upon it. Try out some variety in material, as all we got visually was a lacklustre, unexplained trip to the nether and a flop into the ocean at the end.
-There are a few spelling errors. Check twice or thrice before publishing!
-The rooms are all rectangular. Variety, please! Spheres, decorations, anything to make them look different from one another would work perfectly.
-That piston challenge was amazing. Experiment more with it to see how you could change it and use these in another challenge.
Levels was also suprisingly short. It took me all of 35 or so minutes to finish, 10 of which was wasted on a room that didn't work at all. It also had little narrative. It certainly started off well, where it mentioned at the start that you would go through "Three sectors", and were a prisoner that was condemned to life in the Nether, however, our overseer seemed to know that we were innocent, and instead had us complete some tests to prove we were good enough for freedom. I was interested to see how the story progressed. And then it didn't. At all. Very few notes were written after that, other then a slight intro to a few puzzles, which left me hugely dissapointed on that front.
Puzzle-wise, Levels doesn't shine much either. Staring with a confusing Lava Maze (The hints didn't seem to be of *any* use at all!), it didn't really do much for me. One of the opening puzzles; which was unfortunately optional; was an Ender Pearl throwing maze, which was definently a unique twist on the type! Of all the mazes; and there were a lot; this one was definently the most interesting. However puzzle-wise, Levels did suffer. Being a Puzzle map, it needed to be skillful with its puzzles, and it wasn't. Lots of mazes, lots of parkour, and one room where you were supposed to find some items by digging/chopping/mining,, that I never was able to find (Speaking of, creator, take a look at that room. It makes no sense at all, and after 10 minutes, I busted through the door from sheer exasperation.). We get more parkour after a very Escape the Puzzlemaster-y maze (Observatory above, find 4 levers and then the door to move on) and then we just got a lot of Parkour, to the best of my memory. However, the large and pretty "Rainbow" room, as I'm calling it, is bugged, and allows a player to progress directly into the Tower without completing *ANY* of the Parkour. A lever was already on the door when I walked up, so all I had to do was climb to the top of the tower, and hop down one of the two shafts.
All in all, Levels seems like the creator really channeled Escape the Puzzlemaster, but unfortunately couldn't really deliver the same experience in the end. Multiple bugs permiate the map, as discussed above, and the puzzles just aren't satisfying. I was really hoping for more, so perhaps the creator will start working on the map again, and significantly improve it. Perhaps removing most of the old mazes, and adding in some more complex ideas, as well as finding some more unique things then parkour. You had a great "reverse frogger" game in there, I saw, and hoped for more like that after finishing it, but the game basically ended after that due to the bug in that the final tower was open. Levels needs some work, and many of the puzzles are forgettable, but it wouldn't *hurt* to give this a try. I just didn't really enjoy it, and felt that Escape the Puzzlemaster did it all better anyway.
Bugs/tips
-Just bringing it up again; in the giant rainbow, a player can easily skip ALL of the parkour and just head right into the tower
-Figure out what's wrong with the room that you're supposed to find a button and a furnace. They don't seem to exist; as I just found a Gold Legs and a Diamond Chestplate.
-Adjust the minecart timing in the Frogger puzzle. It's really annoying to try and catch them now.
-Adjust some of your jumps. Some of them seem to be next-to-impossible, which is annoying when the rest of the puzzle is quite easy.
Perhaps I have become spoiled off of some of the longer maps that at least attempt in-depth plots and complicated puzzles. Perhaps it is simply that because of building my own maps that I have begun to judge others by the expectations I set forth for myself. Regardless, the fact of the matter is that this map was simply too short. While I am not the best Minecraft player when it comes to jumping and parkour and even sometimes puzzles, I was able to blow through this map in less than 10 minutes.
In spite of the brevity and simplicity of Iron Hallway, I was taken aback by the lack of problems. True as it may be that the rooms were not incredibly imaginative - with the exception of one room involving two levers that simultaneously put out lava and opened the door - the puzzles were in no way flawed. At no point did I find myself thinking "God what a terrible map!". No! In fact I thought it was pretty good for what it was - it never tried to appear as some epic journey, with only a few scattered signs throughout to help give some guidance or to mock you for your failure.
However, the lack of plot was a bit annoying. In the short time I was playing the map I was wondering exactly what the purpose of these challenges were - why was I investing any time in trying to solve these? What was waiting for me at the end of all of this? I realized that I had no idea why I was playing this map at all.
In the end, however, I would have to say that the map was charming. It was short, sweet, and never tried to become too complex. What little it attempted it did well - nothing was half-assed, if you'll pardon my language. As Jaycerulz' first map, I have to say that it shows promise...just try to make it a bit longer next time.
Bug/tips
-There were literally no bugs that I could find on this map. What is wrong with you? ;P
-To keep your audience engaged, try to throw out an occasional sign, even if it's to insult them. For reference, look at Vech's Super Hostile series - even though he has no plot, he still keeps the player engaged with his signage
-To make a map longer, either make puzzles that will stump players for a while, or make more simple puzzles that don't become repetitive. You managed to keep from being repetitive in this map, but it is an inherent problem in longer maps.
Firstly, I'll touch on the story, sitting on the atmosphere of the Punishment: Parkour map planet. While the beginning offers an intriguing backstory and some incredibly mature themes, whilst being engaging and well written at the same, it feels ignored for some time. Instead, two characters previously mentioned in the backstory become prominent Herobrine-like characters and have such similar personalities that the point of having the two of them seems a dull one. Comical signs completely disrupt the atmosphere that the backstory seemed to be leading up to, and horror simutaneously appears and disappears from the map, like little sparks that try desperately to start fire and never do. The story picks up a fair bit further into the map, when you finally realize why there were two characters. The parkour bit fades into a completely original story-arc and the story becomes (once again) a prominent factor. It ends on an extremely high note, though for the sake of readers, I shall not spoil it. The story fufills itself, and despite its shortcomings near the middle of the map, is an extremely relevant factor in the map's success.
Secondly, I'll critique the main factor of the map: the parkour itself. It starts at the beginning by claiming to be one of the hardest parkour maps in history. It is a fairly bold claim that I would assume is supported by many who played the map, as shown by the poll results thus far. I myself found it to be particularly challenging, pushing my skills to the limits with some well timed jumps. Many jumps are quite well done, and fit in so well that they create the illusion they are even part of some rooms. The difficulty remains steady and controlled for a majority of the map, though certain ones might catch those unexperienced puzzlers off-guard. Jumping is normally something that can entertain most players for a short period of time, though this particular map feels like I could play it for a long number of hours. Engaging courses that even require some looking around make the map's jumping puzzles seem original, even revolutionary for Minecraft standards.
The atmosphere moves inelegantly from strong, to weak, and back again, with a few flaws mixed into the fray. Parkour as a punishment is rather weak story-wise, but it begins to become less noticeable as it progresses. That aside, the map also suffers from location-flaws, which seem bright and cheerful, despite what the story would imply. The signs that portray the areas as "courses" like a free-roam parkour world don't help either. The torture machine-aspect fades throughout the course of the adventure as well, unfortunately. However, if you cast these two prominent flaws aside, the adventure appears well done and hellish. Of course, being set in the nether probably doesn't hurt in the least bit, but it feels appropriate. It also reignites the torture flame as the map seems to force you through rapid cycles of seemingly never-ending parkour, with no escape, as each time you die, you must restart the map.
When the core (puzzles), atmosphere (surface), and story (atmosphere) collide, they form a parkour-map planet that maintains off-beat progression and incredible parkour, with a somewhat-strong and inconsistent story and a mildly enjoyable atmosphere. I would recommend the map mainly to a strong puzzler, due to the difficulty of the puzzles, but even if you are looking for a strong story, I'd say there's a good chance you'll find one here.
Bugs/tips
-The atmosphere feels weak because of the colourful landscape and surroundings during parkour. This is especially noticeable near the beginning. It doesn't really help the torturous theme.
-What happened to the story? It went away after the first chapter and only returned much later on in the story. Perhaps a little extra info or escpecially cruel things said on the signs would be more appropriate than little comical bits.
Mind blowing.
To start off, the map has some incredibly well-executed NPCs to help organize and manage the side-quests into possible and fun endeavors up trees, around floating islands, and... collecting wheat for bread (actually, even that is made out to be rewarding and enjoyable). The NPCs are also in vanilla, as they are snow golems, and do not require any external or additional mods. They are implemented very well when needed and never feel forced into the map just for the purpose of side-quest flavour.
Secondly, the notes are extremely well-written and engaging, forcing you to do some very obvious thinking while providing well-hidden hints at what to do next. The third version, 1.03, further adds another layer to the map's success in this aspect of the adventure as it contains audio recordings that can be listened to while playing through the map. I thoroughly enjoyed the story arch in its entirety and had a blast finding the new notes.
Thirdly, the builds were really, really astonishing. Unbelievable though it may be, I honestly think that the clear, unveiled architecture present in Hero's Quest III is enough to make the castle in The Redmurk Mystery look like a tiny little house. All of the trees were carefully crafted as were the rest of the gigantic map. I'd honestly like to go further, but I'm afraid I can't without revealing massive spoilers. Regardless of whether or not I do, you're still going to check out the map, right?
Lastly, and most importantly, is the clear detail that went into everything on this map. Nothing here looks unpolished in any way, and all of the areas look professional and fit the atmosphere well. A large number of well-thought out details enhance the player's experience A LOT, including the positions of key areas, checkpoints, notes, and Building Challenges. There are so many brand new features that this map adds to the game that most players will overlook ColdFusionGaming's contributions to the mapping community in terms of details, but I encourage players to still look out for them and see how well all of the aspects of this map were thought out.
So, how did this map compare to the rest I've played? Well, it was alright, but some things could've been improved...
Nah, I'm just kidding around. This map is incredibly solid and holds its ground amongst the many other maps out there with ease. It is an overall lovely experience with a frustrating cliff hanger - as I want Hero's Quest IV so badly - and a ton of clear effort put in. Please everyone, head over to the Hero's Quest III forum page and check out the map. I swear on my life you will not regret. So, sure as hell, I recommend this map. I recommend it so strongly that everyone reading this just has to get off their a$$es and download the map.
Bugs/tips (tiny as these may be)
-Finding the area to get back to the professor after Note 4 is a bit of a hassle, though it would seem like I was the only one to have that problem. I would recommend checking it out anyway.
-The side quests add a lot of flavour, but sometimes feel neglected or unimportant. Whereas in certain other maps I've played, side quests mingle with the main storyline, though these almost feel random.
-The gun mod doesn't seem to fit in with the map. Apologies in that regard, though they don't go with the overall mood.
The world itself was not entirely flawless or terrible, instead caught somewhere in the middle. Builds were mediocre for almost the entirety of the map, yet certain places managed to stick out as memorable or worthy of great praise, like the castle wall around the first town. Another nitpick I must mention is how the map switches genres from medieval-style (castle town) to modern day (small town right next to it), where the transition feels sloppy, silly, and out of place. Despite the memorable flaws that make a huge impact overall, the buildings look absolutely gorgeous in the recommended texture pack, Misa's Realistic.
I was thoroughly disappointed by the story, or in this case the lack of one. The map had an incredibly interesting back story given at the very start, but this was ignored as the map progressed. It even lead to a few loose ends. Instead, an medieval-RPG theme was implanted and quickly assimilated the previous trend into it. The RPG theme also turned out to be unsteady, destroying the atmosphere and story at once, with unstable plot-twists and a weak array of gameplay mechanics (read on). Eventually, the story is demolished completely and the map maker decides that action-propelled gameplay is more important. I feel that this was the wrong choice to make, as in my opinion the gameplay was incredibly weak in comparison. Nonetheless, my feelings were negative toward the story aspect of the map.
Problems continue to arise as the atmosphere carries on. As mentioned before, a dramatic switch in theme (TWICE!!) was not appreciated and didn't assist the atmosphere either, while builds were mediocre at best. None of these flaws assisted the map in any way, and quality drops became even more frequent later on. Long roads to travel and awkwardly introduced quests (again, read on) made the atmosphere continually weaker, and with visually displeasing minecart rides to assist the dilemmas, the atmosphere grew barely tolerable. As a map maker myself I saw one flaw in particular drop the atmosphere and gameplay quality to an absolute low. The map was not in any way interactive. By the time I myself had played the map for 25 minutes, I was ready to quit. Redstone is literally non-existent, and with no story to cover for its absence, I'm afraid there wasn't much that was done to improve quality.
It may be difficult to believe, but the map's flaws stem mainly from the gameplay aspect. While it originally comes off as strong, the player's inability to do much, especially when presented with lots of great items, is really frustrating! Coupled with the fact that quests are merely listed rather than creatively given to you, and that the quests themselves are barely more than just looking around, make the experience very unenjoyable. As mentioned before, exploration feels forced, and it is partially because gameplay never forces the player anywhere. After exploring a town they are supposed to head there with no clues as to WHY or HOW.
In a nutshell, the map feels flat in many conflicting aspects. Puzzles? Non existent. Story? Weak and derivative. Atmosphere? Wavering in quality and appearance. Gameplay? Forced and unenjoyable. Claw Adventures is the very basis for a map with so much more potential. While I understand accomplishing a good RPG map may be hard with vanilla Minecraft, it is certainly possible. It just wasn't accomplished here. ClawXIII is quite obviously fairly new to map making. The adventure itself shows clear signs of effort, but fails dramatically nonetheless. I cannot recommend the map in its current form.
Bugs/tips
-Try making the buildings a little more original. Here's a tip: don't build with only one material! I see that you tried to accomplish this for certain buildings, but as the frequency of certain materials is very great, try it out some more!
-The story is very weak. Why are my crew members missing? What is the whole story to this world? Answer these questions and the story might be formidable against brutal critique.
-Atmospherically, the genre was wavering. Was it medieval themed, or modern? I didn't understand at all. Try making this more clear with a map description answering my question here.
-Puzzles were virtually non-existent. The whole map was just walking around! Add some flavor, and implement puzzles into the mix!
At a first glance, Marvellous seems like a rather awkward map that doesn't quite have the guts to become a thriving adventure. Silly signs and notes, some ridiculously pointless puzzles, and subtle parkour steps are so childish and while somewhat fun, not exactly ideal for the majority of the Minecraft audience. But as the map progresses, these silly signs are replaced my comical, enjoyable ones and are placed in ever changing locales, from the desert, to a forest, to a town, to a prison! The atmosphere completely switches around on the player, maintaining the whimsical side of it that makes it so playful, and adding a side of hard puzzles in incredibly well-crafted locales. The atmosphere, sadly, doesn't completely prevail in the end, though. While by the ending it is steady, in the beginning the basic locales and repetitive puzzles make a weak first impression.
The puzzles were another example of a pass-fail. Good in one way, bad in another, they were never quite steady in their difficultly level. Some of the easiest puzzles were seen somewhere near the end, and the rapid switch of difficulty in the forest level really surprised me, as its main quest featured very difficult ladder jumps and sprinting. This didn't neatly balance out with the first half of the puzzles, whose parkour and puzzle areas felt designed for beginnings. Despite being well crafted and fitting for the locations in which they were built, my opinions for the puzzles in the map were mixed as well due to the difficulty of them.
A story was barely existent. Some lazily written notes at the beginning depict your adventure heading into Marvelland, starting with MarvelTown. And that's about all you get story-wise. No real story-line built up after that, just recommended quests that proved unfitting, as they were linear in an otherwise open-world style adventure. Normally I'd respond negatively to an absense like this of an adventure's story, but that being said, it is a puzzle map, and after further consideration, I feel that a story implemented now would feel almost rushed and forced into the map.
Gameplay is exactly where the map saved itself, proving once again that map maker MinecraftMasterz knows exactly what he's doing. While no story really pushes you through the adventure, the player never at all feels forced to complete the map. Instead, they are propelled forward by its whimsical and playful nature, its enjoyable although unsteady puzzles, and brand new locations.
As a player, I really loved Marvellous. Soaring effortlessly through gameplay and atmosphere, I was always compelled to find out what was lurking in the next location and just what I might find. As a critic, I also liked it, but my feelings also remained mixed upon its successes puzzle-wise and story-wise. That being said, I feel it will most-likely be enjoyable and interesting to most Minecraft players out there, regardless of what sort of map they like. I recommend it for sure.
Bugs/tips
-The ending was very sloppy. Instead of just saying "that's the end of Marvellous v1.55, why not create a gigantic room with cake all around and comical signs telling you that "you've reached the end of your adventure" to match the whimsical nature of the map.
-See if you can create a way to keep the player engaged right from the start. I would recommend stating at the beginning and also on the forum post what the map difficult is, and try to stick generally around that level.
The problems begin right at the start. Ugly unoriginally shaped rooms fill up the space, made out of the most basic material that every puzzle map makes use of: iron. Diversity color-wise appears later on, though never satisfies, as rooms are then filled with mismatched colors that feel out of place. Signs, for the most part, are well written and easy to read. The appearance of the overall map was also disrupted by instantaneous bursts of rapid light-dark switches, and multiple times the "puzzles" were surrounded by obsidian and then iron right after.
Quality really drops when the puzzles themselves are taken in for consideration and critique. The map is based entirely on guesses to proceed, and not any logical or mathematical estimate. No clues are given, a factor that could possibly have made the map reedeemable if they had been implemented. For an example of a situation like this, one particular room contained eight or nine sets of doors, and the player was supposed to choose which one would lead to safety. If you chose wrong, you were mercilessly dropped into lava, which in turn became overly frustrating and surely caused many players to ragequit. This trend continued with many different "puzzles", and gameplay dropped to an overall low for the most part. One particularly decent attribute of the gameplay was the break in between hectic rounds of being dumped into lava. During this, the player is thrown into an obsidian maze and must escape to the next challenge. The maze is well done and difficult, and does prove that islandalohaha does know what he is doing (somewhat).
The map really does not contain much else. A story is practically non-existent where one would most definitely fit, atmospherically the adventure is null, due to appearance-related flaws and a lack of story, and the puzzles are tiresome, tedious, and boring. The length is also something to work on, as the puzzles cannot support such a long map. I would not recommend the map at all. Effort is shown, and I commend the creator for taking the time he did to create and finish the project, but it is simply flawed in too many aspects to make it enjoyable to the average player.
Bugs/tips
-Story! The map appears dull without one. Even the average trapped-in-a-facility-with-absolutely-no-where-to-run-so-you-have-to-complete-challenges-and-escape-an-evil-sadist plot works.
-Try and choose a color theme and work with it, as jumping from obsidian to iron isn't attractive...
-Puzzles! It's a little late to do much now, by the entire basis of counting how many lives you have left is tiresome and boring by the end, with the amount of deaths the player experiences!
The start of the map seemed as if it might be decent, though I wasn't really sure why the creator made the decisions they made. The map starts off awkwardly, with a random, poorly constructed boat ride down a hill, that breats your boat halfway nearly every time. This set a damper (no pun intended) on the rest of the map right off the bat. We get into a square iron room with the rules, and the first of the poorly constructed, and overall useless Checkpoint system. A bed. We also have a 'score' system, diamonds scattered throughout the map, however you start off with around 26 Diamonds in your inventory already. This kinda ruined the achivement feeling for me, as I already had nearly half a stack to start, and quickly found another 10 or so. Making matters worse, is the ladders. For some reason, the map-maker forces you to climb a ladder to the top before each puzzle, and at the top is another checkpoint room, when there was one right below you. Then, instead of doing a puzzle at the top, you just drop right down into a not-deep-enough pool of water, and take nearly all your hitpoints at damage almost every time. While playing this map, I actually had to turn off Fall-damage to stop this from plaguing me. Archetechture-wise, there is NOTHING that makes it stand out. Many just square rooms, and one poorly constructed 'town' is all we really get.
Story-wise, there is NOTHING. There's no reason to complete the map. We just are told to ride down the waterfall, and that's it. Before each puzzle, the map-creator taunts you, and claims the puzzle is really hard. You then complete a ridiculusly easy puzzle, and then the creator has a sign that talks about how hard the puzzle was. Either this is on purpose, or the creator seriously overestimates their puzzles. They are generally just the cliche puzzles as well, found in the poorest puzzle maps. There's one decent puzzle, one of the early ones, where you have to move some paper down a water current to open the three doors. All of the others were either a "find the items in this space", maze, jump, or throw item puzzles. This led me to get really bored by the end of it. At the end, the creator also rebuilt Sethbling's (a great redstoner) Cake Conveyor as part of a puzzle, but deeply disused it, which was really unfortunate.
All in all, this map is really poor quality. It has some fun points, but overall, it doesn't have a lot to offer that a better map doesn't have. The puzzles are overly simple and there's no story to speak of. The appearance is dull, and the hidden items are basically in plain sight. I cannot really recommend this map, because there are so many others out that there that do what this one wants to so much better.
Bugs/tips
-Give it a story!
-Make your puzzles a bit more difficult - currently it's just pointless to have to complete puzzles that are that ridiculously easy.
-Fix your water at the bottom of the drops, if you insist on keeping them. I mentioned this on your thread before, and you just blew me off. Not a good way to go, when I try to tell you about a bug.
-To be honest, get rid of the ladders. They have NO reason to be there at all, and are just a waste of time.
-In the 'town', under one of the homes to get a lever, you can easily get both of the levers by placing one of the pressure pads in front of the door.
The map showed clear signs of severe flaws right from the start. Ugly redstone was shown in a large number of places, with no attempt to cover it up at all. This leads me to the conclusion that the map maker was just experimenting with map creating when releasing this, and if that is the case, then he is not entirely on the right track. The overall look of the map, redstone aside, is also sloppy and boring. Rooms are squared and rectangular throughout, with no change whatsoever. While the material that these rooms are made out of vary, there are multiple seams at every turn, as the map even switched theme from library to bedrock hallway at one point. With an extremely weak architectural aspect, the weight falls onto the story, which is literally the only part of the map that could possibly save it. Unfortunately, it doesn't.
The story, despite being very well written, doesn't at all explain what on earth is going on. I had absolutely no idea what everything meant by the end of the map and where I was heading. The ending, which I suppose was a decent cliffhanger for the next part of the map series, left me with even less of an understanding of the plot, and believe me, that's just beyond sad. I commend the author and creator of the map for attempting such a complex plot and trying to implement it into a 10 minute long map, but in the end it feels hopeless and sadly falls flat.
Hard as this may be to believe, that is all there is to the map. A complex, somewhat interesting story with a number of gaping holes, and a very unstable architectural display that makes up the entirety of the map. Glitches appear left and right, and even those clever ideas like key codes and spooktacular notes didn't make a large impact. I felt extraordinarily disappointed, let-down, and even frustrated with the map for its lack of effort shown. I cannot and will not recommend this map for the foreseeable future.
Bugs/tips
-Use a format for the notes and key codes that everyone can use, like a .doc or .pdf or.txt file. Not everyone on macs can read .odt or .odg files!
-Give a much more clear idea of what the hell is going on!! This is a severe flaw, and as the map is extremely short, the flaws are very noticeable and make a large impact on the player's opinion of the map.
-Come up with more creative shapes for the rooms, instead of all this rectangular nonsense. At least change the size.
-The flow of the map as a whole is unstable. Themes change entirely, and with no plot to explain WHY, the player feels confused, lost, and frustrated.
-PUZZLES!! A linear map with no puzzles or anything to propel the player along can be very weak, especially in the case where a story is practically non-existent. Add some into the mix for a bit of a change.
-Check your grammar and spelling, as there were multiple mistakes and misspellings of words in the notes file. If required, I'd be happy to help out here.
-Monsters! I noticed that in the readme/notes file you stated you didn't have the programs to add the spawners in. Good thing now that we have mob eggs and dispensers to help! (snapshot 12W03A update)
Let's start with the story, as it is usually a category that is lacking in most puzzle maps. Luckily, there was a story implemented into Laboratory. Unfortunately, it made no sense whatsoever. You wake up in a room and can't remember anything about why you got there. Apparently I am the pilot of an airplane, and I managed to end up in a creepy laboratory. The rest after that point is a blur. I couldn't manage to figure out anything more about myself and the place I was in, despite the many walls of signs throughout the map. Like Creation, I felt like this map had a half-decent story in mind, but failed to convey it to the players, due to the nearly incomprehensible writing, many typos, and punctuation problems. Maybe the story was actually great, but once I got to the end of the map, I had absolutely no clue what was going on.
Puzzle-wise Laboratory was not very good. The puzzles in this map are mostly parkour, combat, and mixtures of the two. The parkour was very "meh," and the the combat was fairly easy. The final boss battle was actually kind of fun, and would have been even better if it wasn't quite so easy, and I wasn't given what felt like unlimited supplies.
The puzzle layout is something that I disliked. It is a small problem, and an easy fix, but it greatly effected the map. There were signs everywhere that basically walked you through the map. I literally didn't have to even think about what I needed to do next. To give an example, after entering a room with a few random things in it, I am told how to proceed. A sign says, "That pumpkin cross looks weird, I think I should break it." A better way of approaching this would to just tell the player a hint, without actually telling them what to do. I found this sort of thing throughout the map, and it almost felt like I was being told how to play the map, instead of actually playing the map myself.
Overall, there were many problems in this map, and without a good story or mediocre puzzles, this map ended up being just another under-average puzzle map. If you are looking for a solid puzzle map to play, look elsewhere. I cannot recommend this map.
Bugs/tips
-Fix those spelling mistakes and punctuation errors!
-Cut down on the supplies given prior to the boss battle.
Sadly, Secret of Castle Remberg is one of those atrocities. While it certainly attempts to be a decent map, it has not one truly redeeming quality about it to give it even a decent scoring.
To start with, the plot was worse than a Twilight novel: I have tried to play through the map 3 times now and search for every sign, yet I still have no idea what this "secret" of Castle Remberg is: is it the library found at the end? Is it that you've just traveled through the Nether for no apparent reason other than to show off some poor building quality? I honestly have no idea, and it saddens me because it is clear that the creator wanted to try and have an interesting story - certainly, had he expanded on some of the smaller plot details (the laboratory, the missing villagers, or even Castle Remberg itself) the map would have been far more interesting. Instead, it was short and plot-less.
The builds were also of poor quality, incredibly contrasting with Castle Remberg - which, according to the creator, he didn't even build himself. The Nether castle was close to good, but looked out of place on a square block of Netherrack above a lava lake. The room with the unique Nether portal looked terrible, with random glass on the walls and an obsidian border that didn't make any sense.
As for puzzles or traps...they were almost non-existant. Aside from a TNT trap in the Nether there was nothing to truly challenge the player aside from figuring out where to go next due to poor directions from the creator. The player was given a sword and torches, yet needed neither; monsters were almost nonexistent because of torches placed well-enough to protect the player from ever needing them.
In short, this map had some potential, but fell flat on just about everything. It was too short, the directions and plot weren't there, and the builds were awkward and not very good. Had there been a bit more effort on the creator's part, perhaps the map could've been truly great.
Bugs/tips
-There are a few points within Castle Remberg where you will need to fix the ladder due to the 1.1 patch - they are impossible to climb unless you've avoided updating or have mods
-The gravel path was a good idea, but once it was gone your signs gave no further help as to either where the player was supposed to go or how they were supposed to get there; specifically, the Nether castle: there was no way to actually get to it without hacking, and the first place I went to was the portal that led me out of there rather than the actual castle itself
Into the depths creates an amazing and intriguing rpg experience. In fact, it almost felt like I was in a completely new game. With almost 3 hours of content, there was a couple of cool features that helped to make Into the Depths as immersive as it was. One of those features was the gold and shop system. Throughout the map, observant players may find gold ingots. These ingots are usually found in tricky places, and reward those who take a good look around. At specific points in the map, players may come across a shop. Here they can put those gold ingots to use by buying new equipment, food, potions and armor. The shops were implemented with great care, as it was never easy to buy the best materials. In general, shops really made me look around, creating a greater appreciation for the stunning and realistic architecture.
Another interesting feature was some of the rules. In order to make for a creepier experience, the creator implemented some rules that I have never seen, nor thought of before. One addition was that you must turn your render distance down to tiny. Another is that you must turn you brightness down to moody. Now, I realize that these are only small additions to a very large map, but really, the difference were noticeable, and really made me think to myself "I wish I thought of that."
Now on to the story. Being such a vastly large map, exploring gave you two rewards, one being ingots, and the other being notes. Yes, finding notes is a reward, at least for me it was. The story was very compelling and constantly had me wondering what was going on in the castle. The notes were well written, and I was pleased to see that each character was written with its own personality in mind, each unique in their own way. My only complaint is that, despite having minimal spelling errors and typos, the creator seemed to inconsistently capitalize his "I's." But that is a minor trifle compared to the brilliantly formulated story that can be found consistently throughout the map.
So why an 8.2 and not higher? Well, for one, I found it quite confusing at times. It is understandable, as the map is so large and complex, but it really doesn't follow a clear linear path. With so many places to go and explore, and with such a large castle, it can sometimes be overwhelming. At minimum, my suggestion to the creator would be to create a walk through on his thread, to aid those who get lost or off track. And the only other other substantial reason why this map didn't get a higher score, is it's not done! At least in the version I played, there is no end, and many parts are still unfinished. If the creator finishes the map with a solid conclusion, I am sure the score will be even higher.
Overall, Into the Depths is a rpg/horror masterpiece, and deserves way more credit then it is currently getting. I would love to see this map go big, because it really has the potential to earn a spot amongst some of the best maps. I would recommend this map to anyone who is looking for a long, entertaining, and atmospherically creepy map.
Bugs/tips
-Capitalize your "I's"
-Door glitch has caused some of your doors to remain open after going on a pressure plate
-The beast should hide its redstone. Specifially when you must sacrifice and item to him
-The part where you get the obsidian could use some aesthetic work. It looks very MC edited
-Lumberjack's diary needs re-wording
-Make a more visually appealing forum thread
The main problems I noticed in the map stem from and center around the nearly impossible and sadly tedious puzzles placed around the map. While the idea of posting deaths in the entire map is a clever one, it feels completely overused when the map begins. Puzzles at first seem to be completely focused on lava, and do not stray far from that repetitive path for a majority of the challenges contained before the player reaches the First Checkpoint. In fact, I and most likely a fair share of other players lost count of my deaths before I reached the first checkpoint. What appeared to be a clever idea merged and then transformed itself into a frustratingly overused one, and my deaths became so plentiful in number I was close to losing my marbles.
But the puzzle problems didn't end there. The map completely flips itself around when the first checkpoint is passed, and lava is replaced with colorful blocks and the like, making the room a lovable, rainbow-induced space filled with ladders, floating blocks, and pistons. While challenging nonetheless, they feel unremarkable compared to the combination of sprint jumping and lava that made the first bit appear like a seamless dungeon that never ended. The map alternates between exciting lava puzzles and rather slow parkour areas for almost the entirety of the map therein, making for a very uncomfortable and unstable experience.
Yet the map was not entirely a waste of time and blocks. Puzzles were well constructed, and placed in somewhat clever locales. Despite the everchanging rooms and their appearances [which lead to the defeat of a good atmosphere likewise], they feel well constructed and original in their own way, shaping themselves in awkward circular and rectagular ways that somehow work well! Sprint jumps are also well engineered and timed, making perfect use of 1.8.1 and of course, 1.0.0. Additionally, piston jumps were crafted with near perfection, even if they came close to turning my face red with exhaustion.
All in all, the puzzles are flawed in the sense that their originality seems limited, and the near-impossible feeling of the map is really frustrating for the casual player, not to mention the atmosphere and difficulty level was unstable. So that leaves the heavy weight of keeping the map together falls upon the shoulders of the thin storyline. Yet the map feels somehow humane here, and in a good way. The humor used in the map is comical and actually funny, and feels well written at the same time. The signs on the walls represent the speech of a Herobrine-like character who feels strangely effective, and though his motives remain unknown, he also appears clever. I thoroughly enjoyed how near the beginning of the map he mentioned that the only reason he kept the player alive was because he needed entertainment, and by the end, the player is boring him. It was a neat and, though predictable, fun twist and joke all at the same time.
Broken down, the map feels inconsistent, as it suffers from everchanging and sometimes frustrating difficulty, lack of originality, and an unstable atmosphere, but strives story-wise and is well-crafted as a whole. Sadly, the flaws appear slightly more plentiful, and therefore cause the map slightly downhill from where it should stand. Luckily, all this map needs are a few slight tweaks to make it a great, very enjoyable map! At the moment I'd recommend this map only to the hardcore puzzler and parkour fanatic. If you are new to Minecraft and/or the concepts of sprinting and jumping, I would avoid this map.
Bugs/tips
-The first bits of the map made it appear as a dungeon-style adventure. If that's the first impression, stick with it, and don't switch around to rainbow hell
-Keep the difficulty just a little lower, as to accomodate average players and let them feel like they have a shot. Keep this consistent throughout the map
-Puzzles don't need to be consistent, but most of the puzzles felt recycled from the EscapeCraft series and other puzzlers I've played since I started Minecraft. At least try giving them a twist, presenting them as something different
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Curse PremiumMap Name: Eronev Mansion Adventure
Forum Link: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/538574-adv-eronev-mansion-adventure-4500-downloads-18-upgraded/
Requirements(mods,texture packs,ect.): none
Additional Info(optional): I recently upgraded to 1.8 compatible version which included a very difficult parkour side mission. I've been getting quite a few reviews but so far noone has commented on it or even written anything of substance, so hopefully your review will change that :smile.gif: ps: try for the best ending! I look forward to seeing your scorecard.
Review Pack Four
Contents
Out of the few puzzles only one was something I’ve not seen before. On most of the puzzles the map maker seems to have tried to add something original to them, but has mostly failed, occasionally making the puzzles even worse. Even though the puzzles were hard and unoriginal I enjoyed the challenge most of the time. But eventually, after failing dozens of times and raging over design flaws which in the worst case scenario got me trapped, unable to progress without cheating and/or bypassing some parts, it became too overwhelming. When also considered how short the map is the time consumed on a single puzzle is way over the top.
The design and the visuals of the map are at their best low-mediocre and at their worst just plain sloppy. Redstone and TNT visible, chunk error walls and broken redstone contraptions are something that cannot be forgiven to any map maker. The story of the map is an unoriginal “ur trapped man, escape” and it gives a feel that of being just thrown in when all the puzzles were finished to make the map look more “professional.”
Difficulty isn’t always a bad thing. But when it is accompanied with unoriginality, sloppiness, bad story and overall bad execution it does only harm. Overall this map had very few good things in it, one of them being that for some unknown reason I enjoyed (at least in the beginning) the difficulty and the puzzles. If you want hard map to play you are free to try this one out. Otherwise I can’t recommend it to anyone with a good conscience.
Bugs/tips
-Hide the redstone.
-In the first puzzle (parkour over lava) at the second tip room there is no button to press, trapping the player there leaving them no choice but cheat their way out.
-Also in the first puzzle down to the TNT mine I kept dying from the fall, not sure why.
-Fix the piston elevator.
-Scale down the difficulty and/or add more puzzles and variety.
This is what raced in my head as I was downloading Quest for Vendria, supposedly an adventure/parkour map that appeared to feature all of those things above. When I played it, however, it failed to deliver anything good, or decent, at that. This map was more of a leisurely stroll in the park, rather than one of dungeons and demons. Needless to say, it was immensely disappointing to me. This review will essentially be my first impressions and reactions to the entire map. Yes, I can do this. The map is that short. So without further ado, my review:
At the start of the map, I am given some porkchops. Why? The map's creator told me to play on peaceful difficulty. I am also given torches. Why? Every area in this map that matters is already well-lit with already-placed torches, anyway! I am also given a set of leather armor. Do I need protection from monsters? No, I'm told to play on peaceful. What about protection from lava pits and TNT? Well, this is applicable, but barely (more on this later). The point is, I am given a set of items that I will pretty much never need.
The map requires me to go to three separate dungeons so I can find the keys to open the final area and defeat the dark spirit that is beginning its reign of destruction. Okay, sounds good enough. The locations seem interesting at first: The first dungeon is in a forest, the second is a giant tree, and the third is a desert ruin. Hey, this might be a pretty cool map after all!... Oh. The first dungeon is made of three tiny rooms. Three. Tiny. Rooms. It consists of a ludicrously easy and boring underwater cave that I have to get through to find the first key. It took less than two minutes to get by this challenge. Is it meant to be like this?
Second dungeon. The giant tree. It's a parkour course. Again, it took me less than two minutes to complete and was ridiculously easy. Moving on.
The third dungeon in the desert ruin involves a confusing and frustrating maze. This was not easy. This was not fun. This was nothing short of frustrating, given my annoyance from the past two dungeons. Despite this, it still took about a mere five minutes to finish.
Well, off to the final area. I have to do another challenge? Sure, why not? This dungeon, to my surprise, actually posed a slight challenge. This makes no difference to me, however, as it presented me with forgettable jumps over lava pools and a fairly weak piston-ledge challenge. Yes, it was more difficult. But it was still really easy. I still managed to breeze through this area.
So, I'm given the final nether area. This is it. The end. The climax. The big finale. The final challenge you do is... A soul sand race. This is the grand final challenge? This is pretty underwhelming. I finish the soul sand race, get the button to blow up the nether, and set off a load of TNT. That's it. Credits roll, I see a "to be continued" sign, game over.
So what can I say about this map? Ultimately, I get the feeling that this map was going for something so big, so epic, and on such a grand-scale. But it falls short on all accounts, and ends up small, weak, and overall a waste of my time. Why couldn't the dungeons be larger? Why couldn't the map be more difficult or challenging to anyone that is more skilled than someone who had just played Minecraft for the first time? Why was any semblance of effort wasted on fancy redstone contraptions instead on good map design? I feel horrible for trashing this map, and by extension, the map's creator, but Quest for Vendria was boring, pointless, and badly designed. I wanted to like it; I love adventure maps. But to me, this wasn't anything more than getting past trivial obstacles to get keys so I can open doors. I'm afraid to say that this map did not impress me.
Bugs/tips
-I did not find any bugs. A commendable achievement!
-Don't give the player pointless and arbitrary items.
-Take your time when making maps. If it's going to take another day to make a challenge really fun and interesting, do it.
-Pull out all your stops. I'm not trying to insult you, creator, but try harder. Even if you don't realize it, you can always pour out so much more effort into your creations. Don't settle for "good enough."
-Consider basic game design and think about what your players may think when they play your map. Is it actually fun for you to play? Is this interesting, or annoying? Is this area needed? Should it be shortened? Should it be longer? Attempt to consider all possibilities when you make a map.
-Come prepared with a plan. Doodle on a piece of paper, or just exercise your brain and think about what you could do to make your maps interesting before you actually make the map itself. Architects don't build skyscrapers and bridges without blueprints, do they?
The free roam –aspect is the strong point of the map. Even though it is lacking and occasionally confusing, it is a nice change from the majority of maps with strictly linear plot. The way the map was meant to travel through made it confusing though, as the player may get easily lost and frustrated over where he or she is supposed to go. The main areas on the map need a button or a lever to enter, but an unscrupulous player can easily bypass some of the restrictions because of flaws in the design of the map.
The design and visuals of the map were generally poor. What I saw mostly gave me an expression of an unfinished and sloppy map with not enough attention given to details and functionality. One huge downside was the fact that the map was built on a superflat world, which has two major problems: firstly, the ridiculous amount of slimes almost drove me crazy with their constant jumping and secondly, when getting towards the end of the map the aesthetics of the map suffer from the fact that the landscape is - you know - flat and the small actions done to make it look better are to no extent enough. Another flaws in the design were the small errors in grammar (u and i are not proper English) and the laziness with redstone, such as uncovered paths which one could use to pass some important areas and redstone torches sitting by powered rails without even attempting to hide them. When it is not functional or that detailed, the architecture of the map is actually mostly quite good and enjoyable, especially in the very end.
The gameplay of the map was average. The puzzles were quite unoriginal excluding a couple of pleasant surprises. Most of the puzzles were relatively easy, getting a little more challenging towards the end. There were however some serious problems regarding gameplay and playability. First of all I think the map should have better lighting because the amount of aggressive mobs can get overwhelming, especially when the slimes are counted in. Then the main problem of the map; I had to download Single Player Commands just to be able to /killall in order to be able to play the game. I usually get around 50-60 fps with fancy graphics and far render distance but in this map it dropped down to 4-8 with fast graphics and short render distance. Originality with puzzles is great but everything isn’t acceptable and the abuse of spawning of passive mobs is one of those things. The mapmaker must also think about whether the customers - who may not be as well equipped as he/she - are able to play the game properly without suffering from huge amounts of lag.
Overall the map was ok, it wasn’t spectacular but it wasn’t a total disaster either. It had its upsides and downsides, and with some polishing it could easily be a solid 6-7 map. But, as it is now and with all the problems and issues it has, I think the score is quite fitting.
Bugs/tips
-The energy supply building can easily be entered by simply climbing the vines to a nearest hole of suitable size.
-For aesthetic purposes, try out something else, or at least add some variety to the plain walls of the main area.
-Also notice the limits and downsides regarding aesthetics while using superflat world type as the base of your map.
-Add more hills and trees outside the main area.
-Cover your redstone!
How long has it been since you felt that in our dear game? You're not a newbie anymore, and that magic feeling of Minecraft may not be as strong as it used to be. Perhaps you should take a break from the game. Or maybe, just maybe, you need to be reminded about how amazing this game actually is. Maybe you should play Across the Land.
Across the Land, at first glance, appears to be a parkour map. Well, it is, I won't deny that. But to me, it is so much more. It's a journey through Minecraft as you know it, but it manages to capture the raw beauty of the world around you. Taking you to the cliffside of a mountain, through a thick wood, down a dark cave, into an icy tundra, and more, it would seem like pretty standard scenery as far as Minecraft goes. However, the very concept of simply travelling across the world is a surprisingly good one.
The actual parkour aspect of this map is extremely easy. It isn't meant to be difficult, however; the mapper seemed to want to remove any possible sense of frustration (there were some parts where I was slightly confused as to where to go, but I was quickly back on track). There is no real challenge in this map because it appears to be meant to be a simple and raw experience of the Minecraft world. The running course is fast and it flows very well.
Despite the fact that all I am doing is traversing over and under very familiar terrain, it brought the entire world into a very different light. This map is gorgeous. This map is absolutely beautiful! Then it hit me: MINECRAFT is beautiful. I can't believe that I had forgotten. This game is downright beautiful.
There isn't much more to say about this map. It's easy, straight-forward, and really short. Seriously, it took me one Minecraft day to finish it. But I'm not sure if that's even a problem. It didn't need to be long at all. It was as if the map was just there to say, "Hey, remember what this looks like? Remember how you used to be in awe at this game's world? Let me show you for ten minutes."
Some ugly part of my mind is ransacking this map, turning it upside down, just so it can find any serious flaw with this map. It can't find any. That's because Across the Land doesn't try very hard to be anything. Is that a bad thing? I do feel the need to point out that there isn't much to this map at all, and that the creator simply made platforms on top of the Minecraftian landscape and called it a map. It's not a challenge, it's not an adventure in the conventional sense of the word, and it's almost exactly like the default world of Minecraft. However, there is something to be said when you feel like a map is trying it's hardest to make you enjoy every step you take. This confounds me. No megabuilds, no dungeons, no semblance of story. All it gives you is a pathway and sets you off. Most of the world is untouched, yet it is a fantastic experience. It may not be brilliant because of what the creator put into it, but it is definitely brilliant for what it is. I would highly recommend this map simply because of how it presents Minecraft's sheer beauty.
Bugs/tips
-Sometimes the path was unclear. This big offender here is in the pyramid area.
-I would love for this to be expanded upon, but that's just me.
The map is paced as an RPG medieval-style adventure, and as such the story is appropriately noteworthy. It begins on a mediocre level but builds until it reaches a fairly suitable climax. I won't spoil the entirety of the map's narrative, but will give positive mentions on the storytelling technique, the pacing of notes, and the complexity of the characters whose hearts are spilled into the rich text. I wasn't at first intruiged by the map's storyline, and as first impressions are key; I can't say you, the reader, will be, either. But if you press on past the lackluster beginning you'll be pulled into its engrossing plot and respect it for what it offers.
However, while the plot was a solid aspect, I was less certain about most others. One of these was the exploration-based role-playing. I did love the sewer sequence, but I was less than compelled to visit the other designated locations, or even attempt to find them. Whether this is just my personal opinion on exploration or not I'm uncertain, but I'd hope that others will find more in exploring the world of Living in the Shadows than I did.
Meanwhile, I felt the puzzles had little to offer the adventure. Their overall design was well-constructed, but the lackluster polish and often even signs or notes that told you what to do reduced their charm to a inexplicable nonsensical mess. The parkour was a nice touch, even if brief, and fit the scenery well. But a puzzle allowing the player to progress into the castle sewers completely wrecked the atmosphere and disrupted the scene in a very violent way. There were a number of occurances like this, but I won't mention them all, as redundance is a real pain.
On a more positive note, I did like most of the architecture Living in the Shadows had to offer. It wasn't particularly grand or even noteworthy on a fairly small scale, it accomplished what it needed to and did so in a professional fashion, even if the world of Living in the Shadows was rather small. I liked the castle, the intricate furniture, the detail, and the well-done appeal of the adventure, even if a few places stuck out as a sore thumb among the otherwise solid visual atmosphere.
Living in the Shadows is a relatively uneventful map that has little to offer that you won't see elsewhere. It has a good, unique story and some great architectural detail, but its exploration and puzzles are influences that don't affect its score in a positive way. If you are looking for a solid map with beyond average aspects in every regard, there are a plethora of assorted maps to weave through among the fray of the forums. Living in the Shadows, unfortunately, is not one of these, but as I can see a number of ways for it to be improved, there's nowhere to go but up.
Bugs/tips
-fit your puzzles into scenes where they won't interrupt the atmosphere too greatly, and blend into the story
-don't tell the player character exactly how to solve a puzzle. Give them hints, but let them achieve the final answer free of spoils.
-enforce the story and give more of a reason to explore when bringing exploration into the mix
As stated above, the player wakes up in a mysterious complex in which he or she is tolding nothing except that he or she needs to complete "tests." I will say now that this theme is horribly cliché. However, my interest was piqued again as the map creator added notes of someone else speaking, indicating that there was something more to these tests. Playing on the my curiosity, the mapper had me press on, giving me hope that this map could stand out from the many puzzle-escapes from before.
As I finished the introduction area, the map presented me with a hub with gateways to a rather large plethora of challenges. They range from parkour, multiple choice questions, archery, and a dark maze. And a cactus maze. And a glass maze. What struck me as odd was the fact that the challenges are so similar to one another. Despite the high amount of content that this map features, it seems that the mapper was not able to find many creative ideas in his challenges. They were all the same or were variations of past challenges, and all of them were challenges that other puzzle maps have done so many times before to the point of overuse. I don't see the innovation, nor do I see the inspiration. That being said, I admit that these challenges were well made and were fun in their own rights. They just weren't original. As for the puzzle aspect itself, there was only one challenge that scratched my brain: the sand and piston puzzle (which was the only puzzle that was noteworthy, as it looked very original and it could have been expanded upon.) The rest of the challenges were not at all too puzzling, as they consisted more of obstacle courses rather than challenges that make people think. For a puzzle map, it didn't contain very many puzzles.
Throughout this entire map, the main reason of my pressing on was to figure out the mystery of what was going on in the story. The map looked like it was building up to a climax, and just when I could taste it, it shoehorns a random plot about how the player is the only one who could save the world from an evil race of creatures that are apparently the scourge of the planet.
Wait, what? Where did this come from? As far as the players know, they were just doing random tests in countless chambers. Now they suddenly have to go save the world? One of the main problems that I have with this map is that the creator does not seem to know how to create a good narrative. Despite this jarring and sudden revelation, the player is still forced to go through many more test chambers and complete challenges.
I fail to see the connection between the story and the map itself. This is what I believe to be the main flaw of this map. It has everything that it needs to be a good challenge map: well-put-together levels, a decent difficulty progression, and a lot of things to do. It excels in this aspect, but the story was not done very well and only seemed to be there as a flimsy excuse for the player to partake in the challenges. I wish the story was more integral to the gameplay; the mapper even bothered to create interesting names and visual designs for all of the hub areas, implying that the world was rich with detail. If the map featured real environments rather than claustrophobic boxes, I don't think I would have had too much of a problem here, simply because it would have made me feel like I was more part of the world. Instead, I feel tragically disconnected.
Perhaps I have become bitter and jaded. There are so many "escape the test chamber" maps out there that I struggle to find anything new or original. I must give credit where it is due, however; calpol55, the creator of this map, made his first adventure map decently fun. It's a shame that the adventuring part left a lot to be desired. For all intents and purposes, though, this map was fine. It was just very uninspired. Keep at it, calpol55. You can only get better and better from here on.
I don't think that I have mentioned that Escape the Madman is still a work in progress, yet. Well, it is a work in progress, and the map's creator will be adding more onto this map. If you enjoy challenges, keep an eye on it!
Bugs/tips
-The TNT challenge broke somehow; I managed to set off a chain reaction of explosions and I cleared out the entire room! Oh yeah, I died too.
-If it's an adventure map you're making, I HIGHLY advise you not to make your entire map made out of separate challenges. It detracts from player engagement because of how disconnected everything feels. The story would seem nearly pointless when you make maps like this. Try making detailed terrain!
-Get more ideas for your puzzles and challenges. The map felt very repetitive at some areas because some puzzles were literally the same as other ones. Many puzzles were used by countless other maps as well, making yours very generic and run-of-the-mill.
I'll begin with the flaws and work my way up to the grand finale. What's first up? The story, or perhaps its disappearance. Yes, CreeperEye is without a story. As a puzzle map this was a very weak choice, as the map felt hollow without one. I did notice a couple of signs addressing this in the beginning, where apparently the crew who made this map hated long and detailed stories in puzzle maps, so they didn't make one. The problem is, the story didn't have to be long and complicated. Look at successful maps like Escapecraft and Escape the Puzzlemaster, both surprisingly similar to this map. Their plots were next to nothing and yet they made the map feel exciting and whole. Even the basic escape plot would have brought the map's score up MUCH higher. You'd be surprised at how much fun it is creating signs that **** the player off by taunting them.
Next, the difficult level was honestly something I didn't fully appreciate. It wasn't bad, per se, but flawed. You see, the map's signs basically told the player EXACTLY what to do or EXACTLY where to go, like looking near water. The resulting experience is not enjoyable, but luckily, the crew of the map seemed to realize their error and quickly refrained from placing any more of these signs near the end of the map. Also, the map was played entirely on peaceful. I understand, having helped a friend make a map before, that creating monster-fighting based challenges can be difficult, it really does help the map and the quality of its difficulty.
Lastly, in terms of flawed execution, the map's theme was 100% unclear. This is a major nitpick in my opinion, because honestly, the map was all over the place. Forests, wool, sandy areas, ice... if the entire map's theme had been previously established and whimsical and wonderful like Marvellous', then this would not have been a problem. But while the average player might not notice it, as a reviewer I feel obligated to inform you.
However, aside from those little flaws, the map was quite the feat. Some very original puzzles (wool colours? Genius! Never would've thought of that) mixed with new and cool locales created a lovely puzzling experience. All of the puzzles were executed with precision and crafted with care, and honestly the difficulty was averaged out to moderate (my favourite level!
As well, I felt architecturally the map was very strong as well. I absolutely loved the multiple creeper faces strategically placed around the map that somewhat gave purpose to the map's title. Similarly, the map's locations were always diverse, made out of varying materials and the like. But I can't say I was expected the sheer *excuse my language* awesomeness at the end when I witnessed a phenomenal room that completely blew by mind. Absolutely fantastic. Very great architecture, guys! Good job.
The map's main aspects, its puzzle and the surrounding architecture, are really what make this map a success. Absolutely great job. Had the flaws been fixed, in the sense that a story was added, the theme was clearer, and the signs saying exactly what to do were removed, the map's overall score would be a minimum of 2 entire numbers higher. But until then, the map is nothing special. I recommend the map to anyone who just feels like playing puzzles and just enjoying Minecraft. However, hardcore players may just skip this one.
Bugs/tips
-literally NO bugs! Seriously?
-as mentioned above, the absense of a story was a really big downfall. Even a simple one, about escaping, would have been nice. The map will feel much more whole then.
-THEME!! Specify it first as whimsical or a varied obstacle course, and then you should be fine.
-take out those signs near the beginning telling you the exact area of the blocks.
The story was where a large mass of the mess was concentrated. It's a mainly linear storyline with exploration and combat playing major roles, and comedy laced throughout. The comedy is refreshing at first, in comparison with the many serious role-playing maps and games out there, but it soon grows tiresome, even though it dies down. The story itself is also pretty predictable, and despite being original, is somewhat traditional and redundant. It doesn't help that the notes often lack proper spelling and occasionally even grammar. And while this is all supposed to play into the comedy role of the map, it distracts the player from the main quest and the three side quests far too much. So much so, that in fact I actually didn't care about most of the story by the end of the adventure. But put aside the comedy, and the story is much sturdier. The somewhat silly tale being told is more intruiging, and at least two of its three side quests are enough to hold your attention without distracting you from the main quest too much. I won't go so far as to say this is the worst plot execution I've seen in a map, but it certainly isn't the best.
But putting aside the story, it is far easier to see where the map strives. One particular aspect it does fairly well in is its architecture. Builds are often no more than mediocre, but occasionally there will be a structure that makes you go "Wow." The map maker isn't too new to the concept of a map and its components, and it is very clear that those buildings were just as awesome as intended. There weren't any structures that were terrible or even remotely bad, as even the most mediocre of builds had their strengths and diversities. And those that made me say "Wow" were breathtaking. The limits of Minecraft were sometimes even pushed with what I witnessed, and I mean that as a huge compliment. It's needless to say that the map maker is no stranger to construction.
The atmosphere of a map is always a tricky aspect to analyse because it so heavily relies on gameplay, story, builds, and creativity, but it becomes easier when you see how seamless those aspects are integrated into one another. The story is suitable for the builds provided, and the gameplay is creative, even while not in its prime. I can't say too much on the atmosphere's behalf, save for that it did what it had to.
Gameplay was a final aspect of the map I felt was fairly strong. Side quests felt a little forced, often considering where they were precisely placed, and some didn't make much sense, but all provided their moments and were worthwhile. But I must also present a criticism I have here. The questing is rough around the edges. Often it overpowers the exploration by telling you exactly what to do and where to go. And while linear gameplay can be decent, it is not nearly as fun as Boulefield's openworld style questing where you had to explore small, realistically diverse areas in order to advance the story. For this reason I say that Nostalgia is weaker than Boulefield, but like I said previously, it could be improved to come closer to that high standard.
However, when it came to exploration, the map was top notch. Even though exploration often felt needless and sometimes convoluted when integrated with the story, other times it was supremely superb, perhaps even stronger than Boulefield's. The story provided motivation, the builds provided astronomical support, and the well thought-out atmosphere was touching. There was so much reason to want to explore and so many options that sometimes it even felt like a treasure hunt, what with the player being the hunter hoping to reap the rewards of exploration. I won't go into further detail on the matter, but say that if the map excells for one reason, it's this.
As I stated long ago, Nostalgia has potential. I dearly hope I've helped the map maker realise this and that he fixes the map accordingly. I feel compelled to compare it to Boulefield because it was clearly striving for a different adventure but similar goal: to create the best RPG Minecraft experience ever. I feel that only Boulefield did this, but I have yet to give up hope for Nostalgia. There's lots to improve, and little time before more role-playing styled maps begin to appear, so it's crucial that Nostalgia: A Simple Quest fixes its problems now rather than later.
Bugs/tips
-comedy. Tone it down or remove it entirely. It is unstable and close to annoying by the end of the adventure.
-spelling. Hate to be a grammar Nazi, but you need to fix that too.
-implement the side quests at more appropriate times during the few exploration sequences, not during linear questing.
-make the side quests somewhat related to the main story so that they are less distracting.
The puzzles were this map's strong point. Like most maps, there was a some parkour and other overused puzzles, but I did get the feeling that the creator attempted to be original with a few of the challenges. It also has a good balance of easy and calm puzzles, such as spot the difference, and fast paced, timed challenges. But like many of aspects of the map, I found that some of the small touches were lacking. In all though, it was the highlight of the map.
In a puzzle map, the puzzles are obviously the most important part. But they also need the right adhesive to glue it all together. When puzzles are not glued together properly it can make things feel incomplete and confusing. If a perfect puzzle map used extra-strength superglue, this map used a dried out, all purpose elementary glue stick. In other words, the map's story and finishing touches were not up to standard with its puzzles.
To go into detail, the story didn't translate well onto the signs around the map. I found it confusing at times, especially during an awkward switch between pure puzzle-after-puzzle, and an enclosed adventure portion. There were also many small areas that could have been improved with some detail additions. Small bugs also littered the map, and made it a bit of a clunky playthrough. My only other complaint would be that it isn't finished yet, so the ending was a couple signs in a room.
Overall, It was a good map. It could definitely improve in the story and detail aspect, but other than that it was solid throughout. It's Nothing special, but could be worth checking out if you are into basic puzzle maps.
Bugs/tips
-Add a scoring system
-Fix the door glitch that occurred after the recent update
-Add more checkpoints earlier in the map specifically, possibly some shortcuts from early in the map to later
-2 player support is inconsistent. If you are going to make 2 slots for minecarts do it for the entire map.
-Small typo at the beginning of the minecart puzzle- Minecraft should be minecart
-Following the tracks back to the start of the minecart puzzle is a pain in the **** and unprofessional. Make a hall to the start again at least.
-Add more items in the chests of the offices and houses
-Don't give water and lava at the start. People may use them to cheat through later levels
Just why does the map succeed on so many levels? Moving it along is a powerfully original tale that just sparkles with excitement and intruige, with mystery playing a signifigant role. Despite a fairly lackluster beginning and a highly implausible twist right when you begin, it soon picks up and changes direction completely. The entire adventure centers around exploration and your ability to uncover secrets and find just what is going on. Magic (in Vanilla Minecraft!) also is mixed well into the side-plots and major story points, even if at times it feels a little forced; almost as if Priestbob is dying to get the ingenius idea out into the world right away. From a gameplay standpoint, this is exceptionally strong, but I'll explain why later. The final ending to the map is not even complete, so it means map maker Priestbob is still ready to embrace the community and gift it with more classic adventure. However, the lack of a final ending is also one of the few places where Boulefield let me down. Even though it is left open, the plot is sort of left hanging where it shouldn't be. In fact, the story has just managed to build up enough tension when the map adruptly stops. I won't blame the map maker for this, as apparently it has been "18 months in the making," but it would be appreciated if a more exciting finale was available to suitably end the map for now. This, of course, would be temporary, but certainly helpful.
The story/plot aspect of the RPG is immediately intertwined with the atmosphere, as the two share a crucial role and relationship in the making of an adventure map. The atmospheric touch was helped along by some aesthetically pleasing structures and a powerhouse plot, but at times I felt it was lacking. Notes were often a little too long for my liking, as while I used to enjoy rich narrative, I've come to prefer short, concise story in narrative. Whether this is just personal preference or legitimate concern is yet to be decided. I would either shorten the notes to focus in on the topic, or record the notes in audio form. The technique works wonders in RPG-style adventures, such as DaDonn's Lord of Bloodycross or BlameTheController's Kingdom of the Sky. I recognized that Priestbob mentioned he was going to attempt this, and I highly recommend going in that direction. The map will be far more successful with audio narration to enhance it. The strong atmosphere, however, was helped by a separate audio component that really fleshed out the world. The score of the map, composed by a friend for Priestbob, is heartwarmingly epic. I can't thing of anything more suitable for such a masterpiece.
A final strength of the map is its revolutionary gameplay strategy. After an extremely short beginning (which I wouldn't even call introductory), a path is followed and the adventurer (you) reaches the town of Boulefield. While nothing here struck me as exciting or visually pleasing, there turned out to be a lot to do. The village was actually a hub! It teaches you many of the basics the map plays with and let's you get the hang of questing. It also introduces magic and weapons to the mix, two aspects that are held in high-regard when it comes to RPG map making. Then you are able to enter through the first portal and into "Level One". Level One deals highly with questing and is a real pleasure to complete. It's exploration-centred story is seamlessly integrated and always leaves for momentum to reach other areas of the map. Side quests don't usually feel forced, but they can get a little distracting. I'll be enjoying my search around the submarine for a railroad, then bid on a horse-race, and then return, but having forgotten my first intentions. But as I don't see a way to fix this in the forseeable future, I don't consider it a valid point. The gameplay is also enhanced by moral choices that actually change the ending of the map for the better. At several times during the map you are presented with two opposite paths, and I actually replayed the map several times to experience them all. Levels Two and Three aren't done yet, but I hope for them to be just as intense and exciting as the first.
That's about it. I didn't mention how epic the builds were, or how intense the tension was, but to be honest, there are only so many ways to say "That was awesome!" and I didn't want to seem redundant. I thoroughly enjoyed Boulefield and what it offered, and could find only a few ways it could be improved. But don't take my word for it. Try it out yourself. I can guarantee that you won't regret it.
Bugs/tips
-the only problems I had with the builds were how squared they were. I know its freaking Minecraft, but more is possible than just cubes.
-speaking of sound, you need some audio. Some of the notes are just too damn long. Shorten them or record them.
-some mechanics such as magic felt a little forced when used in side quests, such as the first appearance of the life wand. It didn't quite fit the quest, even if I loved the mechanic a lot.
Well, the most prominent of these flaws is the unprofessionalism and lack of creativity that is consistent throughout the entire map. It doesn't even appear that the map maker was overly joyous with his product; one can see this clearly through the lack of grammatical, spelling, and punctuational errors that are abundant on the signs that decorate the linear path. As a critic I understand many map-makers feel like making the conversational aspects on the map grammatically proper is a large burden, but even a small flaw such as misspelling a simple word or not starting a sentence with capitalized letters (both of which the map maker accomplished in this short puzzler) gives the player the feeling that the creator doesn't give a sh*t about what they're making. This particularly flaw was too apparent and strong to be ignored, and it is for this reason that I cite it as a major issue.
The second of the three primary flaws the puzzle-adventure contained was the story, or in this case, lack of one. I won't condemn the map-maker for leaving a strong story out of the map, or for attempting to place one into a puzzler of this ordinary-state, but I will say that what little was given was ineffective. It tried to evoke a Cube Inc meets Portal meets Escape the Puzzlemaster feeling, but even if that wasn't the intentional case, I didn't care for it. Furthermore, the flawed gameplay element that often forces you to die interrupts the infrequent story, and does so until the player stops caring about what any of the signs, story-related or not, say. I also found the ending to be anticlimatic and almost cliched, but I'll leave it to you, my fellow players, to decide whether you agree.
The final, and in my opinion, most effective of the flaws found in the map is the gameplay element, which is frayed and broken in ways that simply cannot be fixed. This flaw can be dissected and disassembled into separate ones, but for the sake of public impression, I'll collect the ideas into this. For one, the scoring system was ineffective, and quite frankly silly. While innovative, and in my experience innovative, having a score that decreases by one everytime you die is a little annoying when played through. Worse yet, this scoring system was put at the centre of the map, in the heart of the content within, so it played a prominent role. And it was quite the nuisance! I'd remove the scoring system, or make the deaths less frequent, to improve my overall impression and receive a far higher rating if I were the map-maker. The other element that negatively affected the gameplay noticably was the puzzle difficulty. Often you were told directly what to do in the instance of a thinking or redstone puzzle, and I also found the difficulty of combat and skill-testing puzzles to be inconsistent.
But the map did do some things right, even though I'm not entirely sure whether they were on purpose or not. It evokes a dungeon-crawler, mystery feeling when delved-into, and its puzzles are well crafted, even if the map is visually unappealing (it isn't the most aesthetically pleasing map I've seen, to be sure). In fact, though the difficulty pacing could use some work, the parkour was great fun, and so was progressing from puzzle to puzzle. The offbeat way that they were lead out might confuse some and anger others, and while as a critic I found myself annoyed, I loved it as a player. Not everything was as it seems, and when something comes out of the blue, fascination grows into appreciation.
Spawners and Co. has potential. It isn't the best or worst of adventures, and is somewhat redundant after a while, but its successes are noticeable admist what might otherwise be considered a mess. Don't give up, minijack! With some tweaks, adjustment, and a MAJOR grammar overhaul, this map's appeal could soar. If what I've mentioned above and listed below is achieved, I can guarantee a rating increase of at least 1.5.
Bugs/tips
-grammar overhauls, so on, so forth, as mentioned before
-better pacing of the puzzles and their difficulty so that it gets progressively harder as the map goes on
-scoring system must be fixed; either give the player a way to gain points, or make the deathly appearances less frequent
-either omit the story entirely from the map, or make it stronger - look to maps like Cube Inc that drew heavy inspiration from video games/other maps but felt original or unique on their own
First off, this map was lacking in perhaps the most important area, the questions. Ideally, this map would have questions that got harder as you advanced, and the questions would all be relevant and well thought out. In reality, the questions started off easy, and gradually became dedicated to your knowledge of the history of minecraft. Many of the questions just had to do with when items/mobs were introduced, and seemed to leave out many important minecraft aspects. This made it so that if you hadn't played since 1.2, you would have to guess many of the questions. These questions are not fun to answer, and really don't fairly test new players who are knowledgeable of minecraft. It's too bad, the question were such a huge player in this maps success, and it is unfortunate that they weren't implemented well.
Next, the map needs improvement in another game-breaking aspect: When you get a question wrong, I was hoping for a puzzle or something related to that to complete. Now, the creator does do this, but only for 2 of 17 questions. The rest are just a auto death. I believe that if you have a score implemented, you should not kill off your players when the get a question. If you get a question wrong, I think that you should be dropped into a puzzle of some sort, and then NOT get a chance to re do the question. If you get it wrong you should not get another chance. This would have added an extra element to the map, and really would have made it great.
Other then that, this map's scoring system needs improving. It basically makes you count the amount of question you got right yourself, and has no end scoring table. If a scoring table was to be added in game, I would predict that the amount of comments on the thread would double. It would have also made this map more re-playable.
I hate to go on a rant about this maps problems, but the truth is, these problems are what is preventing this map from becoming a huge success. It's really a shame, because I would like to see this idea properly executed. With what I have talked about fixed, I would definitely recommend this map, but as it stands, ignore it.
Bugs/tips
-Fix all those little spelling and punctuation mistakes.
-In the piston puzzles, you can easily avoid death by standing on the ledge
-less diamonds in each chest, make it only 1 or 2
-The ladder after the snow golem question doesn't extend far enough. At least for 1.1, it is impossible to get up after that point.
The Bad: The first 3/4th of the map. The naturally generated village, the poorly designed opening cave, and the really poor pathfinding almost made me give the map up due to extreme confusion and annoyance with the way the map was made. The story felt a bit contrived at the start, and the fact we *knew* we'd be fighting the Ender Dragon was a bit anticlimactic. I felt it needed more leadup. The initial challenges, as well, were very poor, and just consisted of really simple parkour, some general survival, and lots... and lots... and lots... of walking. It's cool and all, but walking and boating gets horribly boring really quickly.
Another problem was characters. They were spoken of constantly, but I had no idea who was who, and where they were. Saying "Farmer John from Grary" is nice (not real character, just example), but when I have no clue who Farmer John is, nor where Grary would be, it doesn't help me at all. Pathfinding does really need a change, and an Out-of-game map would be really nice.
Another problem I had was the way the later puzzles needed to be solved. It involved way too much general wandering, hoping you stumble across the answer. Same deal with the Pyramid, but I enjoyed that a lot. For the Wizard's House, all I did was just wander around the house and surrounding areas until I found a way to progress, which was rather frustrating, considering how natural most of your landscape looks.
The Good: Everything from the Desert town up. The story felt like it picked up from there, pathfinding did become more clear, things looked more built than found, finally, and the Pyramid was a highlight of the map. The whole Wizard thing was never really fully explained for me, but I won't whine about it. I had fun at the end, and that half really picked up. I liked how you finally started to give me some clearer instructions, such as "Follow the light made with no torches". That gave me clear directions, rather then "Yeah, that guy in this town you've never heard of" The game also upped the ante, becoming harder, but managing to stay clearer than it was before.
Finally, the story managed to weave itself closed nicely at the end, and the map definently displayed a strong element of storytelling. That was really nice to see in a map. The characters were a bit underdeveloped, but that's understandable, with limited text. I would love to see characters expanded upon in the future, but they don't really have to, as it makes sense for you to just pass on that.
All in all, a solid middle map. The beginning is pretty poor, but if you continue through, you'll find a real gem waiting to be uncovered.
Bugs/Tips
-The pathfinding for the entire 2/3rds of the map, to the Desert town. PLEASE make it easier to work out where we're going
-Make your buildings look less 'natural'. I like to see hard work put into a map, and when you use a natural cave and natural NPC villages, it feels lazy!
-The Wizard's home had a few bugs, mostly with the way to move on through each room.
-The Pyramid's entrence didn't work very well.
Alright, let's start with the weakest point, and go up from there. To me, the weakest point was definently Archetecture. With the exception of the Pandemonium Fight Arena. this whole map wasn't very good with the builds. They were erratic, a bit sloppy at several points, and didn't help too much in building atmosphere. Some it had to do with the required Texture Pack, as I've, as mentioned, rather found the Painterly set a bit hard to look at, but all in all, it was in build. The buildings served their purpose, but weren't all that great. Some sections felt especially sloppy, such as the Nether King, and some of the Nether-based areas, as well as the Underground portions.
Next up, let's discuss the Puzzles. I'll admit right off the bat, there aren't as many as I would have liked from this. Because the player had the choice to play on Peaceful, it removed a lot of the difficulty that could have been added to the map. Several times we were actually forced to be on Peaceful, in sections that could have made great use of the danger of combat. Also, the Ice Maze was seriously infuriating. The path never did make sense to me, and I just stumbled across the end somehow. The other puzzles worked, but my biggest issue here is that we required way too much walking. It felt very lazy, and could have been spiced up with some more puzzles and more interesting things. However, your use of map mechanics, especially with the use of portal transport to tell story was very well done. The map notes were also pretty well executed, though they were a bit confusing.
Following up with Atmosphere. Demons of the Nether did this bit quite well. It held a very creepy feel throughout the map. Your character is basically alone the entire time, and the feeling of progressing into some kind of insanity was very well done. Not the best, granted, but the overall feeling of being alone and manipulated by both sides was felt very heavily. The map makes me wonder if there's more to the story, in that our character has actually died in the plane crash, and is stuck in a battle between heaven and hell, and your choices decide the winner. Biblical references lead some undertones to the atmopshere that are subtly wonderful.
Story wise, this map definently excelled the most. The story is a dark, twisting adventure in which the player crashes horribly in a plane, left nearly dead and starving. After exploring an oddly deserted town, and solving some puzzles, we learn of a sprawning backstory through a "flashback" that was very cleanly executed. The story is one you should experience for yourself, but it was most definently the strong part of the map. If there's anything that should be remembered about this map, it's the strong story-element the map has.
All in all, Demons of the Nether is a pretty strong story-map, but still needs some effort in the atmosphere, build, and puzzle department. An overall fun experience though still flawed. I still applaud the effort put into the map, and I had a rather fun time playing.
Bugs/tips
-Both of the initial Elder Challenges' rewards can be accessed without completing the challenges, by breaking the clay. It was well hidden, but I accidentally found the Ice one before I knew about the challenges
-Since the map is supposed to be Linear, the map does get a fair bit confusing at times. Perhaps help with pathfinding a bit better in future updates, to help a player have a more streamlined map.
I don't expect this review to be very "long", due to the fact that this is a short map, with little to talk about, but I'll try and be detailed. Fortress Escape is, as mentioned, an Escape map, where you are a prisoner, and after the "Fortress" mysteriously empties, you try to escape. You progress through three floors and then the roof to get out, and finally succeed (or don't...) in escaping from the Alcatraz-like Island. The story is pretty generic, but it ran well, though the map was VERY unclear. Many times I just wandered about, and finally stumbled across what I was looking for. This made me rather frustrated, and definently broke the atmosphere. Another issue atmosphere-wise was the build. While it didn't look very bad, it didn't really feel like a prison. The signs hanging around were also very out-of-character, and didn't feel like they belonged.
Puzzle-wise, this map flopped flat on its face. Every single puzzle, with the exception of the Parkour was broken. I had to noclip through the floor, through walls, and fly to repair broken sections, be it redstone, or a mechanic part that failed. This really annoyed me, and felt really sloppy, as if the creator didn't know Minecraft mechanics, didn't test, or didn't go back and fix things that had been broken during updates (such as redstone and Glowstone problems, which broke one puzzle). I ran into so many problems during this map, that the creator really should go through and just test the thing better to stop all of the issues I found.
Unfortunately, there's not really much else I can talk about. The map has almost no story, the puzzles are broken, and the atmosphere is still pretty flawed. Also, being such a short map, there's little to discuss. So yeah, creator, please take this review well. You've got a shell of a map here, and with some heavy repairs, you could be doing a lot better.
Bugs/tips
-Wood Pressure Pad puzzle - fix the redstone. All the glowstone has made it pop off, due to 1.0.0 changes
-Library Maze - Fix the pistons; one of yours is stuck out, and as such is broken
-Shoot the Painting puzzle - The painting rarely falls onto the pressure pad, and breaks that puzzle too. Fix it up!
-Dispenser Egg puzzle - The Chickens almost never go where they're supposed to.
-Craft item; pull lever "puzzle" - Didn't work at all!
I'll play it after I finish Eronev Mansion. Thanks for posting!
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Curse PremiumMap Name: LoZ: A Block to the Past
Forum Link: in my sig
Requirements(mods,texture packs,ect.): texture pack, but its included
Additional Info(optional): everything you need to know is in my thread :smile.gif:
Map Name: Lux Perpetua
Forum Link: Click me
Requirements(mods,texture packs,ect.): Plays best with LB Photo realism (no requirement though)
Additional Info(optional): The map has just been released and is currently in testing (beta) stage. But I'd like to hear your oppinion about it.
Here is the review-
Wow. That was something. Eronev mansion is definitely one of the best maps I have played. So many unique things I have never seen before made this experience an exciting one. But before I start, let me just confess that because of me, all the villagers are dead. Yes, my ending wasn't the best.
Lets start with the unique things. Pumpkin npcs. Ok, I have actually seen these before in maps, but how they were implemented was done very well. The creator even made fun of the fact that they were pumpkins quite a lot, which I found very entertaining. The dynamic text boxes were amazing. I didn't even know that was possible. Definitely helps it stand out from other maps. And unique buildings. The buildings in this map were all different in size, shape and material. Even your house looks like it should, cozy and homely. Multiple endings helped make this map that much more unique.
What blew me away with this map, is the amount of redstone circuitry it would have taken to make this. I can't imagine how much work it would have taken to even make the mine cart station(which was amazing by the way). This map was pieced together extremely well, as I did not find any typos or large bugs, which is saying something for the amount of things that could have gone wrong with the redstone.
Every map has its flaws though, and now I will explain why it did not get a perfect 10. Unfortunately, I got extremely confused at some points during the map, and at one point, almost quit. The story got pretty confusing after leaving the mansion through the painting hallway. I think the creator should give better directions on what you need to do during this part in the map. Other than that, the story could have been better. My tips for that are below.
Overall, this is a fantastic map, and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes adventure maps.
Bugs/tips
-I think you could have emphasized on the evilness of the old man and possibly, the innocence of the citizens. Bring more depth to your characters, even giving them names, would help out the story a ton. It would drive the player to want to save the villagers, and make them even more sad when they don't, or happy if they do.
-the only bug I found is at the bottom of the sand pyramid, one of the pistons did not work correctly. It can be found at the entrance of the of the room with the flowers.
hey i saw tht u justed started today and already have 3 maps being reviewed. based on ur ratings i think very similiar to tht and wanted to let you know tht if u ever get to many maps and want somelse to help im able to
Somethingcraft really isn't a map. It is the bare intro of a map and nothing else. It was like the creator couldn't decide if he wanted to make an adventure map, or a puzzle map, so he just made nothing. That pretty much sums up the map. But painfully, I will go into detail.
You spawn in a room that starts out with rules and a couple of signs that are meant to be funny, and might be if not for being incomprehensible. But the he takes the jokes too far, giving you diamond tools and armor and then asking for it back two steps later. He then makes the rules confusing by saying "rule 6. do not to listen to rule 5". This might be funny, but because the notes have bad grammar and do not actually get ANY information across, so its not.
Then you leave the building and he tells you something about a trial, and that he is too lazy to make a path to it so you just have to find it yourself. After walking forward for about 50 blocks I noticed a "old man house". After going inside I received some actual supplies, but no information on where to go next. I then spent about 10 minutes looking around before finally calling it quits.
My conclusion is that this map is unplayable, so don't play it.
Bugs/tips
-make a map
-make it with no typos
-make it with an ending
I have never played a single zelda game. Do you still want me to review your map?
Ok. I apologize for giving you a review that you might have not deserved completely. But unfortunately it WAS to confusing for me too understand. So the review stays. But why did I not find the map? Here is why.
Why didn't I have a look in that chest? Well for one thing there is a block on top of the chest make it impossible to get into. One of your rules was NO destroying blocks, so I assumed This was just another comedic thing you put in, where you would pretend to give me everything I need, until I realize that I can't. This was very confusing, fix it and I'm sure you will have less problems. As for the typos. I realize you are not a native English speaker, but unfortunately the confusing signs still make it hard to play your map. I know that is not something you can easily change but I do have one suggestion for that. If you know anyone who is even a bit better at speaking English, or even an English speaker. Have them check you work. I am sure the could find some mistakes, that would make it just that much easier to understand.
If you manage to do everything I have said I may consider re-reviewing it. Thank you.
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Retired StaffUsername(creator): Fangride
Map Name: The Forest of Silence
Forum Link: Right here
Requirements(mods,texture packs,ect.): None (yet)
Additional Info(optional): If you spot any bugs, please let me know!
Here's my map.
Username(creator): Ditto64, kobs222, crazykille
Map Name: Escape the Puzzlemaster
Forum Link:
Requirements(mods,texture packs,ect.): None!
Additional Info(optional): Played by AntVenom and HuskyMUDKIPZ
Enjoy!
Alright, sorry about that. But please make that easier, so no one has too go through that again.
Username(creator): Valark
Map Name: Fetch Quest
Forum Link: Fetch Quest
Requirements(mods,texture packs,ect.): None.
Additional Info(optional): Be sure to look around, there are hidden things.
Thank you for your time, and I look forward to your review!
Now before I even start let me say something first. I have NEVER played a Zelda game before, and I am pretty clueless to even the basic concepts of it. I wasn't even sure I should do a review of this, so I asked the creator if I should do this without any Zelda experience. He assured me that it would be fine, and so I played it. Please note that this review will be on how good it was as an adventure map, and not how good it was as a re-creation. Because of this, the score will definitely be lower than what it would be if I had played Zelda games in the past.
What I was pleased to see, was that there was a hands-on tutorial, on how Zelda was being integrated in Minecraft. It went over the basics of what things were with the texture pack. This was definitely helpful for someone who has never played a Zelda game. The only thing that I wished was integrated into the tutorial, would be a note of some sort giving a bit of background information to the Zelda games. Possibly something that explained who Link is, and maybe other characters as well.
As the actual game started I was given very little information about what I was supposed to do. For someone who had already played the game, this wouldn't be a problem, but for me, it was. It would have been nice for the note to say something about heading off to somewhere for information. It would at least give the player a chance to get started. For me, I ended up wandering around for quite I while, not really sure where to go or how to start. This kind of carried through the entire map. I was constantly wondering what my next objective is. It would be good if the creator would make it more new player friendly.
One thing that was definitely cool, was how large the map was. This map would have taken ages to build. I can tell the creator really put some serious effort into this project. Oh, one random thing that I found interesting, was the npcs. There faces, including the expression, was drawn out on signs. I found that to be really cool. Another thing I enjoyed was how well the texture pack worked with the map. The rupees system was really good, as well as the paintings seemed to fit well with the surrounding area.
Overall, I would recommend this map to anyone who has played Zelda. For anyone who hasn't, just check it out.
Bugs/tips
-Before leaving the tutorial area, make it clear that you are not supposed to take the items with you.
-I found the letter "a" on one of the signs (that are meant to be a chair backrest). It can be found in the sanctuary.