Arcade - Dunkelschwamm

  

    Arcade feels more like an experiment than a full fledged map, but it recreates classic arcade games in Sven very well. There is also a jumping puzzle for those who get tired of the arcade machines.

SCMapDB page

Author: w00tguy123

Date of final release: 2016

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Arcade

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by dunkelschwamm | April 8, 2022 | 3058 characters

    Arcade is an incredibly brilliant showcase of map entity magic at work. Play Tron Cycles, Pac-Man, Pong (1p or 2p), Snake, or a lolfunny TF2 meme. These machines sit in a very plain, paneled environment without much else to look at. But, what else do you need? You walk up, press a button, and then use your player input controls to play arcade classics. It's free old games in your free Sven Co-op. What's not to like?

    If I had to have any complaint, it would be that when a player starts a game, they are locked in until the game they've initiated ends. This is particularly troublesome with Tron Cycles, because unless another player joins you cannot proceed. With pong, if another player doesn't join right away you can play by yourself, and there are no other multiplayer games. That means as long as there are two players, there's no way for a lock to be unsolvable with cooperation. However, playing by yourself, the Tron Cycles can lock you in. I just wish there were a better way.

    In addition to the arcade cabinets, there is a low-grav jumping puzzle which leads the players upward through a soothing Smooth McGroove song in the sky to a holy crowbar which prompts the players to end the map by ending destroying the machines, thereby allowing servers to move on once people have had enough time fiddling around. By the time somebody finds the puzzle, makes it all the way up, grabs the crowbar, comes all the way back down, and destroys the machines, everybody should have had a go at the novelty machines. If you want to play uninterrupted with your friends, you can just play on a private server.

    If you're looking to play free versions of old games on Sven Co-op, a free version of a slightly less old game, then Arcade is the map for you. If you're looking for a fun novelty to throw into an eclectic server rotation, throw it in! Every game works better than I would have ever hoped, the jumping puzzle adds fun and a way to keep the map from congesting a server rotation, and there's not much I can think to add to improve this.

    Now, I've played with the somewhat wonkier versions of these arcade cabinets in anitalink_lobby. I can say pretty definitively that having a larger map around the cabinets does not inherently do them any favors. I think Arcade is the perfect way to showcase these triumphs of Goldsrc ingenuity.

Pros:

• Each game works basically perfectly
• The music is adorable and fun
• The platforming puzzle was fun, I would even say easy, and neat when I found it.
• Creative way to be able to end the map and keep a rotation moving along
• Great selection of games- I'm a huge sucker for Snake in particular, and this version works great.

Cons:

• Getting locked into a game until you finish it is lacking a bit of player agency. Feels hacky that you have to kill yourself to abort a game early.

Score: 9.3 / 10