- Joined
- Oct 2, 2011
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- 2,482
Ghastly Realm
Contestants are to create a map that has to deal with ghosts/spirits/souls and the like.
The entire map can for example take place in the realm of the dead.
Quilnez' Judging
Map: A Terrible Nightmare
Author: Ungoliath
Scores
Theme: 20/20
Gameplay : 25/40
Aesthetics: 30/30
Triggers: 6/10
Total: 81/100
Review
A Terrible Nightmare is a horror exploration based single & multiplayer game. You play as a soul trapped in a nightmare realm. You are about to find keys in order to get back to the reality.
Obviously, the aesthetic of this map is the most admirable of all. The terrain is flawless and very well detailed. Creatures and used models are very thematic and makes the map feels quite mind blowing: those truly represent the fantasy & dreamful realm concept. The music and sound effect choices are excellent and fit the theme and environment well. Interacting with those creepy creatures was exciting but also thrilling, which is great. Exploring the realm, sightseeing awesome panorama all over the place, was quite an enjoyable experience.
However, when it comes to objective completion, things felt more frustrating than enjoyable. The character’s movement feels too slow, given the size of the map. The control was okay, but requiring the use of both arrow keys and the mouse doesn’t feel comfortable at all. Controlling the guarding also has its own difficulties since there is no shortcut to gain control of the guardian. And one last thing I disliked is the women screaming sound when being attacked by the witch. I don’t know is it supposed to be the sound of the victim or the witch? But it just doesn’t fit neither one.
I played the map with random people and we encountered a terrible bug. There were still 2 players alive (had not been captured yet), there were 2 others captured. But they decided to leave the game, then the game just ended saying all players have been captured. Other than that, I couldn’t see any leak in the trigger. But still it can use a lot of optimizations.
All in all, this map is very well done and very well polished. There are still a lot of good things I don’t mention in this review. This map is surely worth playing.
Map: The Souls of Paradise
Author: PrinceYaser
Scores
Theme: 20/20
Gameplay : 10/40
Aesthetics: 15/30
Triggers: 2/10
Total: 47/100
Review
You play as a fallen magician who’s seeking for pieces of remaining souls in order to regain her true form. Souls were spread among different areas. To gain a soul you must defeat all enemies within the corresponding area.
The game offers multiple difficulties from easy to hard which affects the strength of room bosses. However, higher difficulty level doesn’t really make the game harder. Even at hard difficulty the bosses can be defeated with slightest effort. The boss fight was totally not challenging since there was nothing to do other than to keep attacking seemingly without any chance of losing.
It has a well-done environment setting and it fits the contest theme well. But some models are oversized that they were disappearing near the camera edge. In some cinematics the camera isn’t properly locked causing those scenes to be broken by camera scrolling. The channeling (opening the gate) is also too ridiculously long.
The unit spawning sequence is very ineffective. You can just spawn 3 units for one side for each single scene instead of 2-right, 2-left, 1-right, then 1-left. All levels also felt very repetitive and offered exactly all the same challenge and mechanisms as each other. And lastly, there was an obvious bug where a unit got randomly struck by lightning. Then it grows in size and soon got immediately killed.
In the triggers, there are plenty of location leaks and those can use a lot of optimizations. The dark orb model of the dark matter spell isn’t appearing which means that the spell wasn’t properly imported.
Map: Jungle Grave
Author: Guramax
Scores Theme: 20/20
Gameplay : 25/40
Aesthetics: 18/30
Triggers: 5/10
Total: 68/100
Review
Jungle Grave is a game plays you as a man got lost in a mysterious forest. Your task is to find the way out of there.
The concept of mazy mystical forest is really interesting, very nice to see one in the Warcraft 3 universe. The forest design may seem very ordinary but it can make you lost your mind at some point. However, other than that, nothing else looks outstanding enough. The little story in the beginning was quite interesting to follow, but obviously, it’s way too short-lived. The clues are way too scarce, given the jungle size. It makes the game turns completely luck-based, which is a big blow. Everything would be a lot more interesting if there are more clues that leads you toward the escape route. The wandering ghosts are fine additions too but given the sight radius, they should’ve got much slower movement so players will have more times to dodge when encountered one.
The map theme totally satisfies the contest theme description. The terraining is quite basic but it’s quite well-detailed. The music is likeable and sounds cozy and all but doesn’t really fit the environment, it may fit better to cartoon-spooky-little-village/haunted-mansion-building environment, not a jungle. The second music for the red lady feels mismatched and has very little synergy with the other one. And again, it doesn’t really fit the theme (sounds like it’s made for action-RPG, not a horror game).
In the triggers, there are plenty of location leaks left behind. The triggering is quite basic but still can use a lot of optimizations. The game seems to run smoothly and was not a single game breaking bug in sight.
All in all, the map has a few of contents to offer and doesn’t have too much replayability factor but totally worth trying.
Map: Parallux
Author: Tickles
Scores Theme: 20/20
Gameplay : 36/40
Aesthetics: 30/30
Triggers: 8/10
Total: 94/100
Review
Parallux is a single player puzzle map storying a spirit shepherd with the call to lead lost souls trapped in eternal void of darkness to their rightful place.
The gameplay is quite simplistic. Player moves around using arrow keys. They have to collect colored souls and “missing tiles” used to patch corrupted tiles with corresponding color. There are also some hidden paths to reach colorless (white) souls to collect that will be useful for something in the ending part of the game. You have to patch all necessary corrupted tiles to open the way to the portal (white tile) to the next level.
Though, the game starts with easy levels to get the player well adapted to the game. But later it’s going to offer newer mechanisms and bigger challenge and more complex mazes. It takes good intuition and memorizing skills. The slow movement doesn’t seem to be there without any reason either: it may give you some good thrills in certain situations.
This map is excellent aesthetically, as expected. It is nicely packed with tidy supernatural environment and well-chosen music and sound effects here and there. The terrain is quite simplistic but it’s just right and quite enjoyable. The sound effect usage and placement are also excellent. The short intro cinematic is very lovely and the way the author gives credits is also very creative. Each level also seems to be very well designed.
However, so far the game feels kind of dull. There is no any failure condition. Player can just keep moving around knowing they will find “the way” eventually. There is no reward in completing a level sooner either. A time limit for each level can be a great addition.
I couldn’t see any leak or any game breaking error in the triggers. Everything seems to work correctly in game. But in overall, it can use tons of optimizations everywhere. The impact is not visible in game at all but trigger efficiency is part of the trigger scoring. Thus it will cost some points.
Author: Ungoliath
Scores
Theme: 20/20
Gameplay : 25/40
Aesthetics: 30/30
Triggers: 6/10
Total: 81/100
Review
A Terrible Nightmare is a horror exploration based single & multiplayer game. You play as a soul trapped in a nightmare realm. You are about to find keys in order to get back to the reality.
Obviously, the aesthetic of this map is the most admirable of all. The terrain is flawless and very well detailed. Creatures and used models are very thematic and makes the map feels quite mind blowing: those truly represent the fantasy & dreamful realm concept. The music and sound effect choices are excellent and fit the theme and environment well. Interacting with those creepy creatures was exciting but also thrilling, which is great. Exploring the realm, sightseeing awesome panorama all over the place, was quite an enjoyable experience.
However, when it comes to objective completion, things felt more frustrating than enjoyable. The character’s movement feels too slow, given the size of the map. The control was okay, but requiring the use of both arrow keys and the mouse doesn’t feel comfortable at all. Controlling the guarding also has its own difficulties since there is no shortcut to gain control of the guardian. And one last thing I disliked is the women screaming sound when being attacked by the witch. I don’t know is it supposed to be the sound of the victim or the witch? But it just doesn’t fit neither one.
I played the map with random people and we encountered a terrible bug. There were still 2 players alive (had not been captured yet), there were 2 others captured. But they decided to leave the game, then the game just ended saying all players have been captured. Other than that, I couldn’t see any leak in the trigger. But still it can use a lot of optimizations.
All in all, this map is very well done and very well polished. There are still a lot of good things I don’t mention in this review. This map is surely worth playing.
Map: The Souls of Paradise
Author: PrinceYaser
Scores
Theme: 20/20
Gameplay : 10/40
Aesthetics: 15/30
Triggers: 2/10
Total: 47/100
Review
You play as a fallen magician who’s seeking for pieces of remaining souls in order to regain her true form. Souls were spread among different areas. To gain a soul you must defeat all enemies within the corresponding area.
The game offers multiple difficulties from easy to hard which affects the strength of room bosses. However, higher difficulty level doesn’t really make the game harder. Even at hard difficulty the bosses can be defeated with slightest effort. The boss fight was totally not challenging since there was nothing to do other than to keep attacking seemingly without any chance of losing.
It has a well-done environment setting and it fits the contest theme well. But some models are oversized that they were disappearing near the camera edge. In some cinematics the camera isn’t properly locked causing those scenes to be broken by camera scrolling. The channeling (opening the gate) is also too ridiculously long.
The unit spawning sequence is very ineffective. You can just spawn 3 units for one side for each single scene instead of 2-right, 2-left, 1-right, then 1-left. All levels also felt very repetitive and offered exactly all the same challenge and mechanisms as each other. And lastly, there was an obvious bug where a unit got randomly struck by lightning. Then it grows in size and soon got immediately killed.
In the triggers, there are plenty of location leaks and those can use a lot of optimizations. The dark orb model of the dark matter spell isn’t appearing which means that the spell wasn’t properly imported.
Map: Jungle Grave
Author: Guramax
Scores Theme: 20/20
Gameplay : 25/40
Aesthetics: 18/30
Triggers: 5/10
Total: 68/100
Review
Jungle Grave is a game plays you as a man got lost in a mysterious forest. Your task is to find the way out of there.
The concept of mazy mystical forest is really interesting, very nice to see one in the Warcraft 3 universe. The forest design may seem very ordinary but it can make you lost your mind at some point. However, other than that, nothing else looks outstanding enough. The little story in the beginning was quite interesting to follow, but obviously, it’s way too short-lived. The clues are way too scarce, given the jungle size. It makes the game turns completely luck-based, which is a big blow. Everything would be a lot more interesting if there are more clues that leads you toward the escape route. The wandering ghosts are fine additions too but given the sight radius, they should’ve got much slower movement so players will have more times to dodge when encountered one.
The map theme totally satisfies the contest theme description. The terraining is quite basic but it’s quite well-detailed. The music is likeable and sounds cozy and all but doesn’t really fit the environment, it may fit better to cartoon-spooky-little-village/haunted-mansion-building environment, not a jungle. The second music for the red lady feels mismatched and has very little synergy with the other one. And again, it doesn’t really fit the theme (sounds like it’s made for action-RPG, not a horror game).
In the triggers, there are plenty of location leaks left behind. The triggering is quite basic but still can use a lot of optimizations. The game seems to run smoothly and was not a single game breaking bug in sight.
All in all, the map has a few of contents to offer and doesn’t have too much replayability factor but totally worth trying.
Map: Parallux
Author: Tickles
Scores Theme: 20/20
Gameplay : 36/40
Aesthetics: 30/30
Triggers: 8/10
Total: 94/100
Review
Parallux is a single player puzzle map storying a spirit shepherd with the call to lead lost souls trapped in eternal void of darkness to their rightful place.
The gameplay is quite simplistic. Player moves around using arrow keys. They have to collect colored souls and “missing tiles” used to patch corrupted tiles with corresponding color. There are also some hidden paths to reach colorless (white) souls to collect that will be useful for something in the ending part of the game. You have to patch all necessary corrupted tiles to open the way to the portal (white tile) to the next level.
Though, the game starts with easy levels to get the player well adapted to the game. But later it’s going to offer newer mechanisms and bigger challenge and more complex mazes. It takes good intuition and memorizing skills. The slow movement doesn’t seem to be there without any reason either: it may give you some good thrills in certain situations.
This map is excellent aesthetically, as expected. It is nicely packed with tidy supernatural environment and well-chosen music and sound effects here and there. The terrain is quite simplistic but it’s just right and quite enjoyable. The sound effect usage and placement are also excellent. The short intro cinematic is very lovely and the way the author gives credits is also very creative. Each level also seems to be very well designed.
However, so far the game feels kind of dull. There is no any failure condition. Player can just keep moving around knowing they will find “the way” eventually. There is no reward in completing a level sooner either. A time limit for each level can be a great addition.
I couldn’t see any leak or any game breaking error in the triggers. Everything seems to work correctly in game. But in overall, it can use tons of optimizations everywhere. The impact is not visible in game at all but trigger efficiency is part of the trigger scoring. Thus it will cost some points.
The souls of Paradise
Judge Score: 47/100
Poll Score: 0%
Total Score: 30.6
A terrible nightmare
Judge Score: 81/100
Poll Score: 57.1%
Total Score: 72.7
Parallux
Judge Score: 94/100
Poll Score: 28.6%
Total Score: 71.1
Jungle Grave
Judge Score: 68/100
Poll Score: 14.3%
Total Score: 49.2
Total Score Formula
(0.35 * (votes / total votes)) + (0.65 * judge score) * 100
Congratulations to the winners!
1st place - Ungoliath
2nd place - Tickles
3rd place - Guramax
Contest | Poll
