Fun Robo Run - Dunkelschwamm
The map description notes that the lift shaped like a hand in the above picture does not work. This really sets the tone for the quality of this map.
Author: Robootto
Date of final release: 2003
Maps in package: 2
Map review of Fun Robo Run
(originally posted on SCMapDB)
by dunkelschwamm | December 30, 2021 | 3927 characters
"A walkthrough map of sorts." I guess if you put a gun to my head and demanded that I put a genre to these maps that's what I'd give you. It feels more like screw-around maps really, but what's the point in such distinction when discussing a Robootto map?
First of all, the map is broken and pays no mind to being playable. In both versions a lift necessary for leaving the first area is broken in different ways. The lift, like any and all parts of this map, are so superfluous that it's a question as to why the lift even exists in the first place if Robootto can't even be bothered to make it right. As a compromise, another spawn point is placed halfway through the level, so players can commit suicide and respawn far into the level, often getting stuck in level geometry along the way.
The map is composed of large, strange shapes with no apparent form or function, random destructibles, areas that look like they were created around appropriating the toonrun textures with no real ideas on how to use them. At one point there is an area similar to 1-2 from Super Mario Brothers, but without the gravity necessary to complete some of the jumps. Later there is a puzzle up to a gauss gun that certainly cannot be reached without altering gravity, though once that is completed gauss jumping can bypass some of the need to tamper with gravity.
The map has some enemies lazily sprinkled throughout. None of them are a big deal, except that many of the beginning weapons cannot be brought into the battle that will ensure around the secondary spawn point when you finally get around to using it to bypass the broken lift.
When you do, there's also a 50/50 chance that you'll get turned around and end up walking back through half of the level which the secondary spawnpoint skips until you hit a dead end where the lift would have taken you over a large wall. There's nothing except for the kinds of odd ideas one would expect from Robootto, like 3 security doors of differing sizes, with only the smallest one being a destructible which reveals the passage and the other two being static. Is that a puzzle? I don't know what that is. It's just strange.
The second of these maps has a more entertaining ending, with a destructible house with an actually pretty awesomely brushed out front facade. This too is a bit mired in the mediocrity of Robootto's abilities, with invisible floating blocks of water and visible outer areas of the rest of the map crowding an otherwise neat area.
As far as Robootto maps go, this one is almost serviceable. However, it's only almost serviceable when you give up on trying to play it as anything other than a broken, pathetic excuse for a map and cheat the gravity to make up for the map's own lack of playability. In the end of the day, it's still an unfinishable map by normal means and even if you do bend the rules to beat it there's no real ending. There's barely even a beginning, and it's hard to call anything between a middle. It's just stuff and if you manage to make your own fun in it it's hard to say any of it is effort put forth by the map's creator.
I can't really fathom any circumstance under which you would want to play this map or add it to a server list.
Pros:
- Weird shit to gawk at
- An almost competent Mario recreation area
- The house at the end of the second iteration of the map is actually really neat.
Cons:
- The map is actually broken and the bandaid fix is bafflingly implemented
- The map is mostly just big and pretty empty
- None of the combat is fun or interesting
- It's easy to get stuck in the geometry
- Aimless, meandering structure- not open enough to be a playground, but lacks the pacing of a walkthrough map
Score: 2 / 10
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