The Void - GrandmasterJ

 

    I am not a fan of jumping puzzles, but this map does it right. There is nothing too crazy and I was able to complete the whole course thanks to the quality of life features like checkpoints and the color coding.

SCMapDB page

Author: Hezus

Date of final release: 2007

Maps in package: 1

Map review of The Void

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by GrandmasterJ | June 18, 2022 | 3098 characters

    So first off, I am not a fan of platforming in first person. This whole map is a lot of platforming. I did manage to have a lot of fun though.

    There are some really smart design choices like the color scheme, you may have to read the map description for an explanation on the colors. The colors actually remind me a lot of Portal, both minimalist and evocative while also being extremely practical. The map looks great, as the title suggests, the whole thing floats in a void. The undersides of platforms are null textured so so it is hard to see the next area.

    The jumps themselves aren't too bad. I can only think of one or two areas that require precision jumping. At one point there is a spiral and an orange square that accelerates players around it. This does not work well and players go splat at the end of it. It's a difficult jump, but players can simply skip it. That's a pretty bad example of the map working properly, but what should have been a game breaking bug is basically just a trap with an alternative route. A lot of the orange square puzzles do all of the jumping work for you, so most of the time you are just trying not to overshoot a launch. This is where I find most of the difficulty to be in this map, trying to not overshoot jumps. A large amount of time spent on this map was on doing the same jump over and over again and failing to stick the landing. Although there is one particular orange spot that launches players straight up through a spiral ramp that was very frustrating to get the velocity I needed to progress.

    A big problem I have in platforming maps in general is the trek back to where I was, I don't want to jump through stuff I've already jumped through. The Void counters that with four checkpoints marked in green. At spawn there are four big numbered cubes that unlock and turn into teleports. Once all four where unlocked I had a hard time figuring out which teleport was the one I wanted. But overall those teleporters made the map much more tolerable for me.

    At the end of the map I was the first to jump into a orange ramp that launched me across the map at a rotating red square with the middle cut out. If I landed in the middle of this I would win the map. The square is red which means it will instantly kill me and as I near the square rotates and I can no longer go through it. I veer away and come so close to touching it, but that's enough. I hit the trigger to end the game and we win as I fall to my death.

    I had a good time with this map. I'm not a fan of platforming but this was wasn't some hardcore crazy trial like 8jump. It's far less frustrating than I usually find first person platforming, it had very good design elements, and the mechanics worked great.

Pros:

• Great map design, good balance of jumping difficulty
• map had great visual design, the color coded mechanics are perfect
• good checkpoints

Cons:

• at spawn the teleports are labelled only before being activated, causing confusion once all unlocked
• trying a jump over and over again gets old and this map forces that in a few places
• Sometimes the orange sections were annoying to deal with

Score: 9 / 10