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Map review of Pagoda
by dunkelschwamm | August 15, 2026 | 3475 characters
Pagoda is a conversion of a singleplayer mod wherein players ascend a pagoda inside-and-out while it is warred over by blackops and xen military.
When I say inside-and-out, I mean that pretty literally. The rather unique progression of this map is to keep switching between an interior and exterior of the dojo with some level of persistence. This is something of a problematic idea for Sven, but I think the currently available conversion solves this problem decently well by not allowing player backtracking through entrances/exits of the building to minimize accidental map transitions. Players can backtrack by unveiling ladders alongside the building.
There's a lot of creativity going on. Outside a garg flips cars in an all-out war with the blackops. Once inside, there are laser-shooting statues and platforming puzzles and shifting floors. I think I'd like the platforming puzzle more in singleplayer where I can save on each platform before attempting the next jump. Otherwise, I thought these interior gimmicks were often really interesting to look at and had a fun late-90s fps vibe to them.
I was a bit less happy about some of the exterior bits, if only because of the roof parts of the building we must navigate. The exterior of the building, even with the shortcuts, constitutes a vertical platforming puzzle with all of its literal pitfalls: namely that falling undoes a bunch of progress, and falling can be a matter of funky physics interactions with the sloped brushwork. Between my buddy and me we got through these challenging bits but I will say I think they're more interesting in concept than in execution.
The final battle of the map is a bit of a mess if you don't have a glut of players. A bunch of tors and a kingpin with only two players ensures we get repeatedly killed every 3 seconds of lifetime while swimming through alien grunts and houndeyes while being tossed to fatal heights by tor. I can't really see any other way to put it. Once we can survive long enough to switch weapons, there's thankfully an egon gun, but it's the cherry on top of a shit sundae of a final fight.
I want to take a moment to mention that I think the map is beautiful. The intro is a short and lovely tram ride without any sights to see, just a very lovely environment. Similarly, the map ends with a lovely area to look at as a reward for your journey.
Overall I think I had more fun with this map than I didn't. I think it tries a lot of things, and most of them didn't work, but it's breezy and pretty enough to let that slide. If you're looking for an action map for 4+ players then I recommend this.
Pros:
- Very pretty brushwork with fun textures, especially the statues
- Fun battles between blackops and xenians
- The moving between two maps seemed unnecessary but kinda worked better than expected
- Good steady escalation of player weapons and powerups
- Solid sense of progression felt through varied vignettes
- Players can open shortcuts through the exterior
Cons:
- The final battle is an annoying mess that grinds through player deaths
- Navigating the exterior of the building on the higher levels is not the fun kind of platforming challenge
- Sometimes entrances and exits of the building can look samey in the exterior
Review originally from *
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