Twist Dojo

architecturally, and to a lesser extent, ambiance-wise, are both pretty sweet in this map, wheras the lighting, and gameplay are somewhat lacking. :( Especially in the hidden 'neon' duel areas, and that awful space duel section... I take my biggest issue up with the lighting because, basically, it's not very good. The outdoor areas are FAR too dark, especially in the outcropping sections. The super-bright light at the edges of each pad also look very odd. Looking more closely at bushes and trees, you can see that there's actually different coloured lights being projected onto different faces - now what's that all about? Inside is no better unfortunately - not only are there no apparent sources, some areas are over-bright, and some are pitch black. That's probably due to the texture of the bamboo sticks, except they don't look like bamboo sticks, beacuse instead of being transparent, they have a glaring white background. :( The flow of this map is also pretty poor, as I couldn't find a way to easily get from the bottom levels to the top. Actually, scrub that - I couldn't get there at all without noclip. Players can't really use the area if they can't get to it can they? The clipping of the trees was also very sloppy - that means you can be standing in midair over it, as it looks like the author has just plonked a giant clip brush about halfway up. The door opening setup on the roof doesn't appear to be powered/moved by anything such as a track, and consequently looks as if it's just floating in midair - something you need to think about fixing. As I said before, the architecture is fairly decent. Not brilliant, but acceptable, and the skybox and floating platforms give the map a certain sense of 'being there.' You definitely need a higher resolution skybox though, the current one is too pixellated... and the music is a bit too repetetive. Oh yeah, :thumbsup: for getting botroutes in - not enough mappers feel those are a necessary addition, but I assure you, they are :D New Textures: Yes New Sounds: Yes Bot Support: Yes ~Szico VII~
I judge maps mostly on four main criteria, architecture, lighting, ambiance and gameplay. Now, with this map, I found it very hard to come to a decision of whether I liked it or not. This is because,