Blood and Concrete

Blood and concrete is a bit dissapointing. It hints that something lies below its cold facades, that if you could reach through them, you'd be able to dig into a rich gooey interior of flesh and bone. These are just hints though and it never gets around to much more than scratching the surface of its concrete shell.

It starts promisingly enough. The first image of the map is of a split concrete roof, a surgical wound held apart and left raw to reveal flesh below the concrete. Moving on, a pool of blood can be glimpsed flowing below a vent. It never really develops much or feels like it goes anywhere particularly interesting with these ideas though. There are hints at something more going on in the facility. A lower section of the map contains a blood sluice while the floor gives way to flesh and a latter segment of the map seems to have a ceiling of suspended blood. This doesn't really amount to much though. These elements remain more as hint and motif than something that emerges over the course of the map and never really climax towards anything. They exist as you pass them by and that's about it.

As you play the map meanwhile, its all just a little bland. Spaces, especially in the later half of the map, tend far too large with too few aggressive enemies to give any real sense of threat or danger. The map just feels like it happens around you and then suddenly ends. On some level I wish there was something egregiously wrong or hostile about the map, a swarm of back-spawned blisters or a shambler dropped on the player's head, but its all just... fine.

Blood and Concrete is a solid start. A first map from someone I'd like to see develop their ideas and interests more some time.