Zombietown - GrandmasterJ

 

    Zombietown is a zombie survival map with a LOT of scripting done. Players can go to a shop and buy weapons, play one of three fun and unique minigames, or fight zombies in the town.

SCMapDB page

Author: Sence

Date of final release: 2016

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Zombietown

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by GrandmasterJ | February 27, 2022 | 6448 characters

    Zombie maps are a dime a dozen, I didn't have high hopes for this map. The first wave started and these bloody naked men started running at me and all I had was a wrench. I died and respawned in a waiting room. I was annoyed. But as the map went on and I played the amazing minigames I began to love it.

    Players begin in a set up room, each person presses a sequence of three buttons that ultimately kills them and respawns them in the main arena. Once there the first wave begins.

    The game is round based, there is a vote every round whether or not to go to the shop. If no, there is a chance for a minigame instead of a normal zombie round, roughly every other round is a minigame so they happen a lot. Zombie survival rounds are set on a timer, zombies keep spawning in and players kill them. Going to the shop will sometimes kill players, which will strip them of the weapons they bought last shopping round, a problem for sure. Shopping uses the player's points with shotguns (the best weapon) sitting at 125 points and 3 points for 12 shots. There are other weapons but they are inferior. Killing a zombie will net 2 points, at least for normal rounds, I haven't checked mini game rounds.

    There are three mini games, described in the order that I encountered them.

    The first mini game was a small slice of platform floating in a galaxy. The Earth was hanging out in space and there was a strange machine, a monitor, and some crates around. The monitor changes to a skull and a voiceover begins counting down. The strange machine reveals itself to be a cannon and it starts shooting at the Earth, then the music drops and zombie start spawning in. The respawns are changed here too, so players will pop right back into mini-games instead of going to the waiting room like dying in regular zombie wave rounds. Eventually the Earth is destroyed and the players win? Lose? I don't know what was going on but I had a blast.

    The second mini game was a maze. Each room in the maze was a simple box with black doorways around. Upon replays of the maze we discovered that the layout does randomly change layout. My teammate found the way every time we played the map, so I don't really have an opinion on it. I don't usually like mazes. This is the only mini game that nets no points.

    The third mini game is a small room with a button in the middle. Pressing the button will activate a sequence much like the Earth destruction mini game. Music starts, a troll face briefly appears, the walls break down to reveal static, and right when the beat drops zombies start spawning in. They use the uboa models instead of the maps normal naked bloody zombie models. It's also in very cramped quarters so we died a lot. Respawning in place allowed for the swarm of zombies to kill us but keep us still trying to gain those points.

    Dying in a normal zombie wave round will put players in a waiting room. There are some semi-humorous pictures on the wall, a TV showing static, and a gambling box. My teammate used the gambling box a lot (because he died more than me :) and had some ups and downs. The jackpot seems to be 100 points which may have offset his losings by a lot. He had -2 points at one time so beware the dangers of gambling addiction.

    In fact, since the shop runs off points and the points are trickle fed 2 per zombie, it made sense at a certain point to skip the shop and save up. There are high cost items in the shop like the minigun for 750 points and RPG for 500. The shopkeeper didn't like that and caused a Chaos wave, where instead of zombies these giant spiders attacked. They had some weird hitboxes where only their butts could be damaged. The winning strategy here was to have one player lure them and the other player sink a charged wrench on them. We had one of the easiest times on this wave with only wrenches.

    One big problem with the shop is that the weapons are so expensive and transitioning to sections of the map will sometimes kill the player. Most of the time the mini games would teleport players, but going to the shop would gib them. If a player buys an arsenal and survives through multiple rounds there is a real danger of being set back by a lot just by going to the shop. Plus the mini game with the cramped room will most likely kill players. It seems that the weapons are priced just so that they can't earn back their value before you lose them forever. It's an unfortunately side effect of how this map is set up.

    The level design itself is rough and basic, but works really well as a zombie arena. There are simple buildings scattered around, a tiny but really fun looking mall with a wide open atrium (after the glass is shattered), a row of houses, a restaurant with holes in every wall that looks less nice, and a house with an upstairs office. The arena felt spacious enough and lightly decorated enough to provide a nice space to kill zombies. There was a section where zombies spawn right where players can walk, more specifically, where I was walking. There are alleys blocked by invisible walls, I thought zombies would come through there but instead they are dumped on the street.

    I didn't think I would like this map, but I did. It had a lot of things I don't usually like in my maps, like having to wait after I die in order to get back to actually playing. I wish there was more in that room besides the gambling box. Once the mini games kicked in I was really impressed by what the author had done. There is a rhythm to this map and you just kinda have to fall into it. There is no end to this map, it keeps going forever until the server switches map or shuts down. I highly recommend playing this map.

Pros:

• The mini games were my favorite part of the map
• the music and the scripting came together to deliver an impressive experience
• the points shop system worked really well
• the arena layout was nice and looked nice
• the rounds system was well implemented and fun
• the semi-random nature of the rounds system keeps things interesting

Cons:

• dying to transition to other places will lose players their weapons
• point value of weapons seems really high, combined with the above, weapons don't carry over rounds
• maze minigame gives no points

Score: 9 / 10