Black & White - GrandmasterJ

 

    Sitting somewhere between a whole new experience and just being Black Mesa but monochrome, this map brings a much needed unique visual style to Sven Co-op. From monsters to lights, everything is either black or white.

SCMapDB page

Author: BuGi

Date of release: 2004

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Black & White

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by GrandmasterJ | January 28, 2023 | 3592 characters

    Black and White is a tricky map where the solution to the puzzle is not always straightforward. All the visuals are simplistic monochrome black and white textures. Standard Half-Life textures are remade in this style but there is also plenty checkerboard as well. Enemies are reskinned to be black and white but blood is not, so red and yellow is the only splash of color you'll see besides sprays.

    The map really reminds me of Half-Quake, the whole thing is designed to mess with your head. The first puzzle is pressing a button in spawn and then figuring out that one black square on the checkerboard floor is now a hole. My teammate sprayed at the edge to mark it the hole was so small that it was still difficult to enter despite knowing where it was. It's a very good thing the fall damage is capped to 10 because the next part is a platforming descent that is rendered so much easier when players just jump all the way to the end. Players will die a lot in this map and will have to go through this room quite a bit, so I'm counting cheesing this puzzle as a plus.

    The map is very stylish. In addition to the black and white palette there is some fun detail like the white volumetric lights, every light fixture had it. There were also some spinning lights that looked really fun. A lot of the time the visuals were confusing, but figuring out what you are looking at is the point of the map and part of the puzzle. Be warned that this map trolls players sometimes. For instance, the health station we found blew us up but the HEV station we saw later was fine. Another time I pressed a button and ended up in a tube of water slowly drowning. When I did drown my teammate revived me so I could drown again. There is one section of ground that has a spark effect, this signifies the ground is electrified and will instantly blow up any player who touches it. I think this is the worst troll moment in the map.

    I really liked the puzzles. They were subtle and did take some thinking, but then were simple to pass once we knew the solution. The hole in spawn does update to new areas to keep up with map progression, but the death rate does mean players go through solved puzzles a lot so making backtracking fast is a big plus. There were a lot of vortigaunts here, positioned to be the biggest pains they can be. Players get shotguns, crossbows, and mp5s along with the usual loadout and have plenty of ammo so we're never scrambling for supplies.

    The map took us about 30 minutes to complete. I really had a blast, early on when I had to keep going through that first platforming descent I was annoyed, but the spawn started updating regularly and it kept us at the front the rest of the game. The entire level is set up to get players killed, sometimes it is just unavoidable. Combat was pretty good but it was not the focus of the map at all. As long as you have a tolerance for being messed with this map is solid.

Pros:

• Striking visuals
• updating spawn
• interesting platforming puzzles
• supplies were plentiful for the combat situations we encountered
• the fall damage being capped at 10 really elevated the fun factor

Cons:

• The hole in spawn is hard to get into even when we know where it is, bad impression for first timers
• before the first spawn update the backtracking is annoying
• I dislike the electrified floor part so much it gets its own con

Score:     8 / 10