Map Review of halloween-cemetery

by dunkelschwamm | November 28, 2021 | 3181 characters

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Halloween Cemetery is a map that's very fun on the outside but bitter on the inside, like finding a razor in your candy on Halloween night. It has a very goofy, lighthearted tone supported by a brightly colored, smiley-faced Gonome named "Good Guy :>" who can aide the player in combat. The lighthearted feel is also helped with some cartoony ghost buttons, some tongue-in-cheek humor throughout, and some bright neon-lit thresholds separating the sections of the map.

The enemies, conversely, are your standard, overused Afraid of Monsters enemies, but with a tad much sponge and a sickening case of the respawns. Attempting this map with too few players leaves crucial walkways terminally clogged with the bodies of twitchers who will likely corner and kill the player posse who comes to clear them out before any real damage is dealt. There are too many of them and they're too much gristle to chew through before there's more choking every point.

The general gameplay involves the players moving from one point of a sprawling, semi-mazelike cemetary yard and surrounding area to another. This is including a tomb, courtyard, multiple houses, and a small wooded area. Players progress by finding buttons and keys which give hints to the next button's location, giving a very scavenger hunt flavor to the gameplay which I usually enjoy when done well. This means lots of backtracking, which is unfortunate given how much of a problem the respawning zombies get to be in creating avalanches of bodies.

Bafflingly, and I mean BAFFLINGLY, the map switches the player's spawnpoint toward the final battle to be FURTHER away from the action than the previous spawnpoint, forcing the player to traverse acres of respawning zombies to reapproach the final boss who can sustain only a few hits before he inevitably one-shots the player. It is at this point that my fellow player and I abandoned the map and determined that we would not finish it.

If you have a server packed full of players, I could see this one working, balanced better for sheer avalanches of players. My experience, however, was unfortunately very sour. I can't recommend it on those grounds.

Pros:

  • Some fun theming with a mix of light-hearted fun and spooky atmosphere.
  • I feel like there's a lot of potential for the sense of humor and scavenger hunt-like progression.
  • Good Guy was a good gonome friend.
  • I can tell a lot of work went into this, and I commend much of the polish in the brushwork and lighting.

Cons:

  • There is a point where the spawnpoint is moved further from the action, almost like an anti-checkpoint.
  • The zombies are too tough and grisly to be respawning enemies. They get congested and create annoying traffic jams.
  • Despite being a bit short the map overstays its welcome with some very repetitive backtracking.
  • Combat in general is a slog, which is a bummer for the whole map.
Score: 4 / 10
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