Pink - Dunkelschwamm

  

    Pink is a brightly colored and garish map with a short platforming section and then a boss fight around a big cup of water. It's very short and has no ending, there is an inaccessible hallway in the last room that does nothing.

SCMapDB page

Author: Robootto

Date of final release: 2004

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Pink

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by dunkelschwamm | May 30, 2022 | 3159 characters

    Pink is a map by robootto which uses xeno.wad to make an experience comparable to being gummed by a toothless giant with halitosis.

    The players begin in a platforming segment over nonlethal pizzalava. The pizzalava is not lethal, thankfully, but it is shameful to fall in. Almost the entire platforming segment can be bypassed by just falling into the pizzalava and walking to the penultimate platform, jumping onto that, and then jumping onto the platform which leads to the exit.

    What follows is the hallway of breakable transparent brushes and headcrabs. From there the players roll down a fun little slide into a vat of used mouthwash. Up to this point headcrabs and zombies had been pests, but here their full antagonist rolls into full swing as they ally with vortigaunts and alien grunts to guard their gonarch around this giant vat. They run around the vat, which the players can pop out onto the lip of and rain hell down upon using weaponry which respawns at the bottom of the vat. Once the foes are dead, a door sits tantalizingly at the end of a hallway which is forever blocked by an unbreakable transparent block. After noclipping down I found that this door was breakable, but behind it was only another door, only unbreakable.

    As far as robootto maps go, this one is almost solid. The brushwork and use of the xeno wad makes everything actually really interesting to look at. The garish, ugly lights and pizzalava and bright green lined platforms and chunky organic walls and- it's all gross but exploring it is an experience. The gameplay loop of this one is even a coherent gameplay loop compared to most robootto maps- hell, compared to a lot of other Sven Co-op maps in general. You go from a low-stakes platforming segment to a linear fight corridor to a bizarre but unique and interesting boss battle. He keeps the player consistently armed, and the bits of the map that don't make sense, while a bit disappointing in the case of the ending, are mostly harmless and maybe even just a bit charming. I think overall the map is maybe a bit easy, and gets boring during the later legs of the gonarch's beefy health meter, but it's full of memorable bits and I think is a really promising map in robootto's career.

    If you're looking for a really quick, really weird, really garish, and generally harmless and kinda fun map to play with friends, give Pink a go. It doesn't really have an end, so I wouldn't recommend it for servers.

Pros:

• The annoying platforming segment basically lets you skip it
• The map is pretty good at arming the players
• Gameplay is balanced between understandable linear segments and conflicts
• Defeating the gonarch with satchels and grenades was neat
• I like the slide down into the drop. I'm easily swayed with cheap thrills

Cons:

• The map, while charming in its ostentation to me, is still garish and ugly as sin
• The lighting is god awful
• The ending is confusing and disappointing

Score: 4.9 / 10