Werd0z - Dunkelschwamm

  

  Any map author has to start somewhere, and this is it. The author's first map certainly feels like a first map.

SCMapDB page

Author: Werd0z

Date of release: 2006

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Werd0z

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by dunkelschwamm | May 30, 2026 | 3457 characters

    I tried to host this map first and my game crashed. My buddy hosted it after me and his game froze and almost crashed before it launched. This was almost a bug report in the comments instead of a review. Be warned: the map may be unstable.

    Weird0z is a walkthrough map that doesn't give a damn. It's an obvious first map from its terribly scaled HEV chargers to its z-fighting to strangely moving buttons and doors to the weird U-shaped swimming segment with underwater water planes. But, by the end, it feels like it has developed a sense of style out of its utter lack of good sense.

    Now, to say there's a style isn't to say it looks good. The majority of this map looks like exploring the outside of a map after falling out of a leak, looking at the haphazardly textured exteriors of rooms floating in a black void. There is a surreality to it at times. But if its visually interesting bits are intentional, they would be just as easily accomplished unintentionally.

    Where Weird0z succeeds the most is in its comic timing. You'll find a rocket launcher and immediately enter a room with a Garg far too cramped to use the rocket launcher. You'll climb to the top of a ridiculously tall ladder and immediately get electrocuted by a voltigore. You'll traverse through a teleporter, the ground will gib into meat as the players fall into a shallow pool of water, and the map will abruptly end. It's these little gags and troll bits that give this map all of its flavor on top of the surprisingly serviceable gunfights.

    This map attempts puzzles from time to time. I think these, for the most part, fail. There's a bit where the map seems to have simply ended, and players need to just intuit that a wall is destructible. We kinda figured the map was broken and would have stopped playing if we didn't cheat to noclip the way forward to learn this (upon learning this we immediately ceased use of cheats). Later, there's a bridge with planks that will break under the player that players will fall through, but they can shoot those planks ahead of time to avoid falling through. This is a great puzzle in theory, but it also has huge thick brush ropes that look climbable but they're totally intangible so at least one player is doomed to fall through before the challenge becomes obvious.

    This would've been one of the cute moments but by this point a death means a lengthy walk back. We had to make these walks a few times mostly because of the hazards of falls or surprise ambushes. I think a checkpoint or shortcut could have helped the experience a bit.

    Overall, for a first map it's really good. If you have the knowledge that at some point you'll have to shoot through some indistinct wall, I think you can have a good time with it. However, it is definitely somebody's first map. Go in with such expectations.

Pros:

• Kinda surrealish dadaist nonsense progression and structures
• Good weapons and equipment for what the map throws that the players
• Overall serviceable combat
• Really funny ending
• I kinda respect how few shits it gives

Cons:

• Ugly in the way a poorly constructed map is
• The nondescript breakable wall that blocked our progression was crazy
• Walk-of-shame after death gets really annoying over time

Score: 5.1 / 10