AT A GLANCE:

That banner on the wall makes me think of a Post-It note for some reason..

One of the most intriguing quests in the realm of science and mechanics through the ages has been the search for a device capable of perceptual motion. Throughout history, a plethora of humanity's most ingenious thinkers, including such illuminati as Leonardo Da Vinci and Alexander Graham Bell, have devised clever and potentially hopeful devices that, in theory, when set into motion will continue moving forever based solely on inertia and momentum. Unfortunately, something called "The Law of Thermal Dynamics" and its related physical property of friction was stumbled upon, and no device built by the hands of man has yet to defeat its stringent enforcement.

"Bung Fluff" has apparently decided to attack the search for perpetual motion using Q3Radient, and his experiment takes the form of this weird little Quake 3 level. In that capacity it is a stunning triumph; once set into motion the player will never stop moving even if they sit back from the keys and just let the thing run like a screensaver (a hidden use for the map that I wonder if the author considered). There is something charmingly stupid about this map that has defied my ability to trash it, even though I'm sure that as a "game level" the thing is more or less unplayable without contracting a serious case of motion sickness.

DESCRIPTION: Bung Fluff describes his map thusly:

"An octagon of flying madness. Purely a bounce pad map with no standing achitechture, only suspended items. Deffinately a FFA map with 8-16 players. Use the end pads to reach the items up above and use your mouse to land on items on the floor. Hint: when spawning, don't move as you'll land directly on a railgun. There are two sniping positions, I'll let you find them!"

I fidget in my set like a schoolgirl trying to resist the temptation to jump all over that statement... Nnnnnnnnnnyyyaaaaaagh I can't stop myself: a goatfucking moron indeed.

THE MAP:

Yeah that's good -- get a nice tight shot of that banner there... this is the last time I let Zorak make the screenshots.

It is a big box with essentially one giant jump pad for a floor. You spawn in midair, hit the floor and bounce back up like a frog. For variation he has sloped the sides of the bottom of the box into intercepting angles, and at the very bottom is a most useless layer of water texture to slow you down if you land in it (I guess). Suspended in midair are a motley collection of weapons that you "pick up" if the bounce happens to fling you in their direction. The walls of the box are festooned with an assortment of tapestries, banners, mysterious constructs missing their textures, and grinning prefab gargoyle heads to help disguise the fact that you are essentially just trapped inside of a giant box with no way to stop bouncing around like a sand flea in crystal methedrine (to HELL with his fucking "sniping positions"). Bounce pad overkill is perhaps the most galling of Quake 3 level design mania, but if you take everything else out of the game it sort of works.

Anyway, standing in the middle of this flea trap is a huge freestanding column of what I can only guess to be water -- I say guess because the item is completely un-textured and exists as a column of black and white grid through which the player passes with ease as they flail about in midair. Stuck to the roof at the top of this meaty shaft is the BFG, and since no Bot support is included in the map I had to amuse myself by making repeated attempts to grab it since there really isn't much else to do in the map without someone to shoot at. Fuck it.

GAMEPLAY: Well, you bounce up and down in a box and if you can find someone stupid enough to join your game, you can try to shoot them. End of category.