It's not often that pLaw releases a map, but after Waldsterben I knew he was a name to keep an eye out for. This Copper map takes a more experimental turn—not as experimental as I'd maybe like, but still nice and fresh. M.C. Escher's 'Relativity' feels like something of a cornerstone of inspiration for old-school FPS maps that are leaning into the abstract, but rarely do you see someone build on it so effectively.
The core gimmick of the map is 'weapon gating'—a sort of Metroidvania-lite situation where various doors can only be opened by various weapons. I was really surprised and impressed with how many different types of lock the author achieved with just map entities (even if I did accidentally open one prematurely), and how well he weaved the core gating structure of a Metroidvania into a Quake map—down to the moments where you get locked in a basic room and the only way to progress is to figure out how to apply the verb you just acquired. Personally I prefer my Metroidvania gating to be a little more muddy and obfuscated than just "use gun-shaped key on target-shaped lock", but there's only so much you can do in this sort of limited medium.
I feel like the scale is also... a little off in some places. The central area in particular, which you'll pass through several times, never really feels like it has enough monsters to fill its cavernous space. Maybe this is my fault for playing on Normal (or for being a little freak who loves panicky cramped fights too much), but I was feeling it nonetheless. Perhaps the goal was to make the central area feel like more of a peaceful hub, with only scant resistance between you and your next destination. I guess you could forego monsters entirely in that scenario, but Quake players have a habit of second-guessing whether they're going the right way if there's nothing new to fight.
In the upload post, pLaw mentions that he'd initially planned the map to go heavier on the weird secrets and puzzles, before veering off into a focus on encounter design and disorienting architecture. This does make me a little sad, because while the encounters are certainly entertaining, there are little flashes here and there of a stranger, meaner, funnier map, and that's the kind of shit I'm all about. You can see it in little things like a secret area where you get jumped by a PNG of a Shambler, or an arena fight that gives you a rocket launcher and immediately puts you in the worst possible situation to use one. I want more of that. I want the trickster to fuck with me and giggle the way my DM does before telling me to roll a saving throw.
But I can't criticise a map for not being the thing I specifically want it to be (I mean, I could, but then nobody would invite me to their birthday parties). This is a great piece that blends experimental features with extremely solid encounter design, and it looks lovely to boot.
