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Map review of Ghoul's Forest
by Tama | November 3, 2024 | 7553 characters
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Hello, first ever review here. I wanted to try writing one, and also point out some stuff about the map.
On a first note, I have never played the original mod, so please take that into consideration.
Second note, some of the screenshots show that I have full armor. That's because I used cheat commands for repeated playthroughs.
I personally thought this was an okay-ish experience, but I can understand why some might not think the same.
I was lucky to play it with other people, including the co-creator, but I also tried it to beat it solo as well, and being honest, it wasn't really that fun. Even with 4 people, it was already a grind due enemies having too much health, players having very few ammo and the map being too big.
First thing I feel like I need to mention is that maybe it would be better to change the name of the map to something else, because even though the description says its not a recreation of the mod, 2 of the people I played with thought at first that it was because of the name, but later realized it wasn't the case and sounded disappointed by it.
The map also doesn't have a description in-game, so the only info they get when playing is just the name of the map in the server browser.
Probably "Creepypasta Hunt/Forest/Night" would have been better, given that you have to kill 5 monsters based off them.
I liked a bit of the ambience. The fade in when starting the map and the fog in the distance were nice. Some of the locations were also pretty cool like the church and the swamp, and maybe the lone police car. There were also some neat decorations, but those were only reserved for the church area.
The downside to this is that some of the tree models are very silly and there is also walls of trees, in the sense that they are just walls with tree pictures slapped on them, so that ruins a bit of the immersion. The campfire at the beginning is also just a small cylinder with rocky texture.
There is also not a lot of ambient sounds and music, but that's just a nitpick from my part.
Regarding the map, it is way too big. I'm not sure if it's a 1 to 1 copy of the mod, but since it's clear that the map was inspired by it and not a recreation, it would have been better to reduce its size a bit.
Adding signs and notes around the map would help a lot with directions and to let the player know what to do and where to go, because at the time of writing this review, the only hints you get only appear after you kill each mob.
The map also exceeds the draw distance limit in some way, because you constantly see voids far away, which kind of defeats the purpose of the fog.
It's also very BIG and EMPTY. Even the biggest location, which is the church, feels the same way. Having only 1 shotgun ammo box and 1 secret uzi weapon plus ammo which kind of doesn't count since it's in a secret place that if it weren't for the co-creator's hint, it would have never been found (in my opinion).
There are some spots like the 2 stories house that has plenty of rooms but only like 3 ammo boxes for different weapons, or one of the trailer homes near the police car that has nothing in it for some reason. I feel that removing them from the map wouldn't cause any harm to the gameplay since its better to avoid them anyways.
It would work better if after finding a weapon, it goes to spawn along with some ammo, so if you die you don't have to go around in circles to get it again.
About the ammo and weapons, there should be at least some at spawn and more spread around the map. With more players it becomes a lot more problematic since ammo takes a while to respawn, and you start with no melee or health kit.
You start with a Sniper Rifle and 5 reserve ammo, and while the weapon does plenty of damage, it's not enough to kill one enemy. I have to mention that one of the monsters took a fully maxed ammo shotgun point blank shots in the face and didn't even kill it, but was close enough to death after that.
There are 5 enemies and you have to kill one before the next one spawns. As mentioned before, they are all based of creepypastas.
They have way too much health. I know this is a personal issue since I mostly play solo, but even with 4 players and the lack of ammo, it was still grindy, although the bigger issue was trying to find them in the first place. You can't see their health either.
- The first one is nothing big, but it would be for the best to reduce the sound effect it plays when it gets close to you because its way too loud. It also fully heals if it eats your body, like the gonome.
- The second is slow like the first one, except that it's semi transparent, but not that much. I don't know if it was me, but at some point it became invisible and it was a bit hard to find, each monster plays a distinctive sound so you can tell when they are nearby anyways.
- The third one was a major pain in my ass and probably my least favorite in terms of gameplay, but in terms of visuals, it was cool.
It even has a unique death animation, which kind of makes me believe they put all the effort into this one.
He is fast when running but not when jumping, since he is just a reskinned headcrab. The problem lies when it gets to low health, because it wastes your time by running away, and since he runs at mach speed, it's not only a pain to chase, but also easy to waste ammo by missing your shots.
- The fourth one was boring, plain and simple. A worse version of the third enemy. To be honest, I think it would have been much better to cut this one out. I don't know how true this is, but I felt he had the lowest hp pool of all the enemies. Even then, boring enemy and boring fight.
- The fifth and last one was sadly a big disappointment, to me at least. I thought because of the monster it was based off, it was going to offer a cool experience, but it was the same as the first mob, except slower, biggest hp pool of all enemies in the map and I guess larger attack range?
I enjoyed it a tad bit the first time since it was new and got to play it with people, but repeated playthroughs are honestly not worth it.
Sorry if it sounds very nasty, and probably not good coming from someone who only plays maps and doesn't know how to make one, but speaking as a player, that was my honest experience.
It's pretty obvious it was kind of rushed, and I believe the co-creator also mentioned it as well when playing with us.
I get that the creators wanted to release it before halloween, but I wish they could have taken a bit more time to polish it and maybe change various aspects of the map, because right now I would say it's not really worth playing more than once unless you do it with a group of friends and not random players.
Even then, I wish best of lucks to the creators if they decide to make more maps.
Pros:
- Some cools spots with a few details
- Very nice ambience in some parts
- Focus on very strong teamwork due to lack of ammo
Cons:
- Some areas are way too dark
- Very easy to get lost due to large size of map
- Majority of spots are empty and not worth looking into
- No clear indication as to what your goal is at the start (No map description in-game)
- Enemies are massive bullet sponges
Review originally from *
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