Build Puzzle - GrandmasterJ
The map title is a misnomer, there is nothing to build and the puzzles are all platforming challenges. There are 12 challenges in total and all are easily accessible from the spawn room.
Author: Ice Box
Date of release: 2010
Maps in package: 1
Map review of Build Puzzle
(originally posted on SCMapDB)
by GrandmasterJ | May 28, 2023 | 4521 characters
I don't know why this map has 'Build' in the title, I was expecting some sort of building mechanic and I was excited to see how that played out. Unfortunately the map is a series of ultra hard platforming sections. I'm always a little nervous reviewing these kinds of maps because I am very bad at them and I don't want my personal failings to reflect on the map. But I played for a half hour with zero progress made and when I started cheating I discovered a lot of really annoying gimmicks.
So the map itself is a big grey hallway with 12 doorways each with a teleporter in it. The last one, number 12 is locked off for now and will open when all the other rooms have been completed. To give you an idea on what to expect from these rooms I present room 1. This room has instant death water and some big platforms players should jump on. These platforms will slowly lower when a player stands on it so we have to be fast. Three platforms in and we have a corner to turn mid-jump. Neither my teammate and I are bunnyhopping experts so we figure this room is beyond us. Later, when we noclip, I discover that was just the tip of the iceberg and that hallway is extremely long with tons of real difficult jumps I can't imagine any bunnyhopper to complete. When I realized the full scope of the room I found it hard to believe anybody could beat that.
Personally I spent all my time trying to complete room 7, a room that starts off with players shooting tiny black boxes to expose platforms with a tricky last green box cleverly hidden. After that is careful walking on an ultra-thin rail and when I am above the portal out of there I try to jump down only to collide with a hurt brush mid-air. Through much experimentation I figure out that this room is not just a platforming section but also an invisible death maze. There is a correct order or platforms to jump on even though some are definitely within jumping distance. Invisible walls and hurt brushes will instantly punish any deviation from this path. I think the puzzle is doable, but the whole thing is so tedious and it gets capped off with a series of platforms I think players have to crossbow jump to. I started cheating to the furthest point I got and I still couldn't do it.
My teammate tried a room where a whole platforming section is tilted. He couldn't progress past a certain ledge that would launch him downwards whenever he would get near it. Room 9 is walking a thin rail with a push brush on the entire time. Room 8 is a very long series of doorways players must traverse via trivia all in Chinese. The easiest room was one where we had to fall off a cliff and through a tiny hole into water, but not the left or right hole, only the middle hole works. I won't get into all the rooms, but each one was probably possible but so obscenely difficult and painful to complete that we decided it was not worth it. At one point my teammate said "it is so disheartening to respawn to that many numbers" and I agree. This map is abusive.
So is it bad? It is definitely incredibly hard and only the leetest of bunnyhoppers will be able to hang with it but it has a particularly hostile nature about it, each room has an apparent end but they all have some twist that players have to die against again and again just to figure out. Even the simplest task of falling through a hole is complicated by there being three holes and only one correct choice. Then we come back to this grey concrete hallway with all the numbers for all the terrible rooms we have to do that in. My teammate is right, it's disheartening. There is some good music but that doesn't loop and is done after a couple of minutes. The map ends on a fade out and that is it. This map is a large boulder that must be rolled uphill, only for it to come crashing down right at the top every time. Some people like that but I'm no Sisyphus.
Pros:
- I bet only the coolest of kids can beat this map without cheats
- some nice music
- the teleports did cut down on a lot of travel time
Cons:
- The grey hallway that was spawn is depressing
- all the platforming sections have stuff that makes them extremely unpleasant on top of being hard
- room 1 in particular seems downright impossible to me, I want proof it can be done!
- the music ends and nothing takes its place
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