Worth a play-through, as there are some interesting ideas at work here and will turn your expectations upside-down [in more ways than one].

I’ll totally accept some of the criticisms and stuff. There could have been more detail and there were some technical problems with the props and architecture but I personally didn’t hink they were that important and I started this way back at the beginning of summer so I just wanted to release it.

I would like to defend my map on a few points though. I will admit that I used shock scares but I definitely didn’t depend on them. The map had other things as well. About a fourth of the map (screenshot 17-26) didn’t even have a single enemy or boo moment. A lot of it I just focused on being weird and surreal and doing cool effects.

As far as the sound, the comment about the silence being a cop out really made no sense. I definitely had a lot of sound. There was a soundscape for a while and a new ambient_generic about every two feet. But even if the map had been entirely without sound that still wouldn’t make it a cop out. Silence is often a deliberate choice and a tool that can be used to greater effect than the most expensively produced sound. The most suspenseful parts of a movie or game are often the quietest.

Generally though, I think this map was polarizing because I wasn’t going for a classical horror at all. It’s meant to be scary, but in a fun way. I went for “halloween theme park scary” as opposed to “there’s a killer in your closet” scary. I wanted to do things that were cool more than I wanted to make someone have nightmares. Thats the thing I don’t like about horror in general. Some people only consider it to be good horror if they don’t enjoy it. This is why someone who typically doesn’t like horror might like my map.

So yeah. Thanks again for all the feedback! I’ve been reading reviews and downloading maps here for a while so it’s awesome to actually have one featured. Be on the look out for future stuff from me. I have plenty more ideas.

This is another example of why having a very narrow gaming perspective is a bad thing when it comes to reviewing mods. Inventiveness? The “scares” pulled in this mod are just cheap gimmicks we’ve seen a thousand times before in other games! Heck, if you’ve used YouTube for any length of time, you’ve probably stumbled on some bait-and-switch videos that use the same unexpected scream heard here. Scary looking corridors? Atmosphere? Really? It’s just a boring, dull box level! Doors are randomly strewn about, the level makes no effort to resemble any kind of plausible location, and like most one-trick-ponies, the cheap scares wear off quickly. They are startling at first, but not scary. Ultimately, it becomes predictable. You know that with every door and twist and turn, there’s going to be something there.

Creating real fear is an art. It relies, in part, on what’s NOT there versus what is. One of my favorite examples concerns a moment in F.E.A.R. where the player is running through the sewage plant. You begin following this specter around. It moves so fast that you can’t quite get a fix on what it is. At one point, you see the specter leap into a puddle of water and vanish. We’re forced to hike through the water, so off we go, carefully wading through it on alert with guns and flashlights drawn. And we get to the other side without incident.

Well now that’s creepy, because the game messed with our expectations. We expected that the specter would attack us in the water. We thought we know where it was. It turns out that both hunches were wrong and worse still, we now have no idea where this thing is. The important thing this story illustrates is that it’s often not what’s there that scares us – it’s what’s NOT. Fear is ultimately about defying expectations. It’s about getting the player into a groove, lulling them into a false sense of security, and then suddenly twisting their expectations.

Anyhow, back to this mod, the architecture itself is sloppy and is typical of most first mods. I have no idea where I am or why I’m compelled to run down these hallways like a rat searching for cheese. The mod is oddly silent for the most part, except for the occasional scream. We’ve certainly seen how much of a role audio must play in creating a creepy atmosphere in other mods and games, so the silence is a cop-out. The camera tilting at a Dutch angle was novel, but extremely disorienting and almost vomit-worthy. I don’t get motion sick easily, but this effect was overdone.

Another thing I didn’t care for was that you didn’t have the HEV suit. You were forced to walk through the whole level at a monotonous pace and likewise had no flashlight. Reminds me of a takeaway from Resident Evil – crippling the controls does not create fear, it just make things frustrating!

Bottom line, there’s nothing special going on here and the mod probably isn’t worth your time. It’s a typical mod for a first-time mapper, but let’s see if the designer can move beyond kindergarten scares and build some real horror in their next piece.

This is nothing more than a first map, but also a map that on my opinion, shouldn’t even be released to the “public”. Just my opinion. It has some good points and ideas, but It’s not good, the mapping is terrible, there are various leaks that I could see easily. There’s only cheap scares, nothing really hard other than screaming shit and flicking lights and switching camera angle and environment. What really makes a good horror map, is the atmosphere, that’s what really matters. Focus on that first, other than crappy stalker screams.

I’am Dissapoint.

I would give this map a better rating if it weren’t for some reasons:
The swiveling wall with the red light behind it. This was completely out of place and did not make any sense. You can say that this mod is not supposed to make sense, but this absolutely did not fit in.
Various technical issues. Many models weren’t aligned to the walls correctly and there was at least one hole in the map that you could see the void through, which is something that all mappers should avoid.
Plus, the level design itself could have been more detailed, though I understand this is the mapper’s first released map.

Only think I like is use of sounds. I felt really disturbed sometimes.

Mapper should make more maps but this time with some detailed environments and a story, even if it’s a very simple one.

Visuals
The corridors even look scary and that’s a pretty cool thing to do. There was some variety but that’s not too important in this map, because you are just worried about what will happen next. All the action takes place indoors, so I never had any framrate issues etc.

Gameplay
Just follow your nose. There are some encounters and you only have one weapon whcih you can use only once, the rest is run and hide kinda stuff.

Layout and Design
The layout is varied enough to keep you thinking and some elements are just great – I don’t want to say too much incase you are reading this before playing it.

Summary
Apparently this is a first map, which if it’s true is fantastic. Maybe it’s just the first released map, either way I lvoed it. The author MUST keep making maps because he/she clearly has talent, both in map making and crating scary situations. Well done, Sir.