Carnival 2 - Dunkelschwamm

  

    We have another Carnival map, but I don't think this one is a sequel as the author is unknown. It has some fun rides that work well when they aren't killing players. Beware spawning in the ceiling.

SCMapDB page

Author: Unknown

Date of release: 2002

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Carnival 2

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by dunkelschwamm | June 26, 2023 | 2948 characters

    Carnival 2 is a map apparently by an unknown author. I guess that means it's not an official, canonical sequel to Carnival by Kune. This map works a bit as a spiritual successor, in that it follows a similar premise. However, this time around the map functions purely as a hangout map and not as a walkthrough action map.

    The rides are front-and-center on this map. Though there is a barely functional skee ball game in a cellar beneath a desert butte, just about everything else in this map that cries "carnival" is crying it through jankily constructed carnie rides. Much like real carnie rides, these rides are pretty janky in many ways. Also much like real carnie rides, they seem to work by pure carnie magic, which makes them thrilling.

    There's a rollercoaster which is controlled via the train controls for speed. It is a hoot and a holler as it rampages up and down the hard angles of the track. This ride sometimes killed us, and was nearly the least reliable, but it was a ton of fun regardless.

    The least reliable was a spinning platform that I suppose was meant to be a gravitron of some sort. It worked great for me, but gibbed my buddy a handful of times. Again, great fun.

    There's also a ferris wheel, a dunk tank, and one of those rides that's basically just a big swinging hammer where attendees ride in the hammer's head. Those all basically worked, though that last one gibbed my buddy and me once we started roughhousing too much.

    The map itself looks standard for 2002. The natural structures in the desert don't look terrible, and the rail for the rollercoaster works rather well. Everything looks fine, though there's no scene being set or anything. It's just rollercoasters out in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere, with an eerie soda machine giving off the most light in the area. It's a bit of a mood, but it's a pretty specific one and one that feels like it just sorta emerged from a bunch of ideas being constructed in a stock Half-life style environment.

    I gotta give a fair warning: there is a chance you will spawn stuck in the ceiling. The spawn locations in this map are fuckin' WILD.

    All that to say, give it a go if it looks fun to you. Worst case scenario you burn about 15 minutes being mildly amused.

Pros:

• (Mostly) functional rides. That mostly just makes them more thrilling
• Really enjoy the dunk tank in particular
• Lots of places to run around and jump off of things
• Good hangout map

Cons:

• Bad spawn locations makes the map a buggy mess rather than a cool exhibition
• Skee-ball feels like it should be functional but just isn't
• Map offers very little beyond a couple cool map entity executions
• Feels like no thought put into visuals or scene

Score: 6 / 10