Ziscor

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• India

Chateau Frontenac is such a cozy map, down to the choice in music. Sick architecture in the town, and the twist of an autumn festival just adds a nice layer of uniqueness. The whole vibe of fall trees, pumpkins, tent booths selling what I imagine to be art, crafts, local produce, etc, the music in this secion... it all ends up really reminding me of Stardew Valley, in a way. I would love to go here as a peep and sit in one of the outside seating areas by a cafe. Even the chimneys let out smoke in a chill way, haha. The fleur de lis looks excellent, the merry-go-round is also really good looking, and I'm a fan of the way the mossy growth along the pier edge was done with diagonal boiler room walls!

The church and that corner mansion were so cool, and the street details:

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Before taking the train over to the hotel itself, went down the waterfall and what a great area. Between the town and this wilderness section, nature looks so full of motion. Very good waterfall, the grass swaying gently in the wind, autumn leaves falling all over, saw a bird flying around, some fishes in the river, Fly Fisherman with a wild freeze frame as the fishing cable swings wildly, haha. Perfect camping, adventure retreat vibes all over.

Going up the rocks again and wow, I think the coaster visually compliments the stuff around it very well, framing things together. The bridge looks so well done, tying the town together to the hotel. Arriving at the station, you definitely get the idea that this is a more reserved area, in contrast to the town. Great music! I could listen to this for a long time, really helps set expectations for what vibes this hotel represents. Tolsimir! Golf course is sick for this area! Can imagine there being white lunch tables under shade somewhere off map, people having tea. I wish that what's there was a more active scene with maybe moving peeps, or even more motion overall through animated objects, maybe crowds chatting and the like, or more golf related stuff?

Loved this scene:

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Coming in to the entrance of the hotel, I love the peeps in black and white. I don't get what it represents, but it looks like maybe hotel staff welcoming guests? Or guests in black suits for some event? It looks cool! The street level detail does feel a little less, coming from the town. Sick valet service that gives off old elegance and going with the music of course. I'm afraid I found the hotel itself to be a little flat. It must be a challenge to do because of the real thing, but I think some creative liberties would have won me over here. Details like extra balconies or scenes of people repairing stuff, maybe painting stuff, a window planter here or there, even peeps looking out the windows! As it is, the simple windows and lack of details to break up the repetition made it seem just slightly underwhelming. I only say it that much because I imagine the map's main narrative is of journeying to Chateau Frontenac. But what a surprise to find a very decent interior! The lobby area was amazing with the grand piano, and also quite a few rooms were very nice too! This interior gives me the feeling that if time wasn't an issue, the life I missed outside the hotel would have absolutely been all around inside!

Overall I loved two areas, liked the third, but wish you guys could have maybe had more time to develop that third. Maybe it didn't come across how much I enjoyed it, but this is really such a good park. Lovely vibes all around.

Ol' Smokey's Showboat blew me away more than a few times.

First, at the surprise of moving through water so convincingly (the tree logs and bushes going 'past' it really sell it) and also the incredibly stylistic way of void edges making a wave. It felt like both, a faded old stock film, and also like a rubberhose-era Steamboat Willie style animation, especially with the black smoke billowing from the top.

The second way it blew me away was through its clean execution and detail. I must have gone through many moments of opening the eye-dropper tool to figure out how the heck something was done, but also other times simply being impressed by dense detail that doesn't take any tricks to do, just old fashioned putting down objects and selling the vibe. It's even a bit overwhelming in detail, because I would stay on one tiny scene for ages, before realising I have more to get through! I tried to navigate from front to back, going over the dancing and music at the very top, moving to Rocket Ships and the prize shops, the huge tent, the Swooper, and then over to the very back. So far, I was very much amazed, but when I saw there's an indoor haunted mansion ride, I figured I'd try to see if maybe it has an interior?

And that's the third way this park blew me away, because obviously as the cutaway value gradually went lower, the whole dang ship revealed itself layer-by-layer! I should have known the outside facade wasn't all there was to it. Way too much to deal with right now I figured, and then went for the lowest value where I could see the interior to The Princess and the Dragon. Man, that was fun! First going through a sort of faraway grassy forest-y clearing at the kingdom gates with our hero, entering in as a viewer, into the kingdom and into a tavern or something. I'm guessing then the Prince meets the Princess in purple, and there's an evil spirit plotting shit haha. Stuff happens, princess is taken away or stuck and needs help, then whoosh, down a lil hill and the prince is ready to do battle! The queen is saved, the prince gets thanked, the dragon does some jail time, princess says bye bye and the adventure is over!

It wasn't fun constantly rotating around to see such tiny scenes that are done in multiple angles in such cramped spaces, but it was still worth the effort, because most details really show the careful putting in of time and love and effort. Still, that would be the experience for many interior scenes I wanted to look at. Super tiny space. For some areas I couldn't quite understand things well too, like the interior to Temple of Mirth. From the exterior, it showed maybe it could be like a classical, roman cliche theme inside but it was mostly funhouse stuff. I suppose that's actually on-point for the theme too, in that it's all the usual carny stuff inside, but the theme outside gets changed around to get people interested lol. The rest of the ship certainly doesn't give that feeling of cheapness, though! The interiors are elegant, luxurious where need be, but also barren or tastefully simple or tacky by choice in others.

I think if I were to put screenshots of my favourite bits, I'd have to post the whole map in like 50 little images of each thing on super zoom, because there is way too much to enjoy... I have nothing that I do not like or love here, I can very confidently say. Performance issues are unfortunate, but it was more than worth the end result for me. Using cutaway and super zoom for the majority of time also helps. Again, sorry for not going into each thing I liked but I'll truly be here all day. I looked everywhere and saw everything there was and I loved each second of it.

Though, I don't usually have much to say about coasters, but it is so perfect for the setting haha, and for once I enjoyed the screaming sounds of peeps from one hill to another.

Ol' Smokey's Showboat not only immediately accomplished capturing my attention, but kept it for so, so, so long that I was going through everything with a magnifying glass, pausing on scenes like they're paintings, coming back to revisit places again, and just moving around in general like a real guest, man. I can not wait to return to this park even years later, exploring with the same sense of wonder as I do now.

Thank you so much for making this park, Dambusters!

Bene Volantes! Looking at it, it is so full of life, but not to the extreme degree where there's no room for stillness and serenity. Going through it, with the music, I was all 'oooh's and 'ahh's, like a character in a Ghibli movie arriving to this fantastical place for the first time. I went ahead and tried to describe that first journey!

Got dropped off at the wide open runway, looking up that road and the houses on each side, admiring the scenes from there, in a sort of quick glance ahead at the towering architecture. Quickly coming back, seeing the two paths on each side going up, I took the left and went through and up the lively streets lined with those colorful, clean, lived-in houses. This led to the main courtyard or plaza of sorts overlooking water. Taking in the scene, loved the peeps doing various things - a group passing the ball around, two folks sitting at the bench, a line forming around a small kiddie pony ride, people hustling and bustling but occasionally pausing and taking pictures of the shops like tourists. Looked just a little further and oh god, someone look after that poor bird sweeper! Turning away from that, there's a lovely library. Just outside are two groups playing a game of chess! Professor RWE takes a class here, probably making sure everyone behaves before they go in. Or maybe this is how education is at this wonderful place, just pupils following their professor through the streets and public buildings, as the lectures go through all sorts of stuff about life and science and art. And probably mostly aviation. Moving on, saw a bakery facing the library. Arrived just in time for a fresh batch! Walking a little further, went around the path and reached a bit of a deadend. Couldn't figure out where to go next, so I just went around the map at random after that. Fisch taking a class elsewhere too! So it is like I imagined. For a bit, I then stared at all the large structures, the rocky underside, the planetarium stuff, the unfortunate looking windmill attached to the library, that gorgeous dam over which the train runs! From there around the backside, saw more Evergreen Gardeners doing various things and also posix. That area was a great break in general from all the grand structures and peeps rushing about. Peeking just a little at the edge and you can see where the planes enter from too. Looking above, there's a nice stadium for football. I wonder how people spectate on games though. Now moving to the right side from this grassy area, I'm a casual witness to a murder. Moving to the left, I can sort of jump down to the area outside an amazing looking building where there's an interview going on for a painter I think. Best not interrupt. Just ahead there's more Evergreen Gardeners, doing repairs for weird looking flying cars! Looking down from the balcony, Flitght Trainer Coasterbill sharing his wisdom with new cadets I imagine. After that, I just found my way back to the main runway through the other path I could have first gone up.

Things I really liked
- Masterful use of gradients and crunch to sell the 'realness' of the archy. It all looks very clean, but with just enough manual texturing detail to also tell it received plenty love.
- Some of the residential looking archy, which has a unique tapering shape. Wish more contrast was there in their silhouette to really make it clear that these are not generic flat vertical houses.

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- New windows. Those 3 scenery tabs are going to find their way into many parks, I expect!
- Great worldbuilding details that help the theme, like the mail delivery plane doing rounds, the scene with repairs of the flying cars, the industrial backside with pipes, chimneys, a dam, etc.
- These:
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Haven't even talked about the background and the plugin, but I liked it a lot. It's a very neat way of changing things up. The way the whole thing is framed in between clouds is super dramatic and looks awesome when zoomed out! Lovely bit of implied worldbuilding, where I can almost imagine that through some technology or magic, the whole island maybe vanishes in one space above Earth and then rematerialises in another. Each background feels like a major area where unique kingdoms and cultures would thrive down below, in a Dragon Quest sort of way. The desert might have grand palaces and dungeons inside pyramids; the snowy mountains are home to giants and wooden strongholds; the grassy meadows may have a european middle ages stone castle kingdom... aaaand I'm getting off track. Anyways! On first viewing, my game actually crashed when I clicked on a button in the plugin window at least on two individual viewing sessions, which was annoying.

Things I didn't like as much:
- The way the map is laid out makes at least one angle (and frankly almost two angles) not as flattering as the rest. The one which shows the murder. Can see a few awkward backsides of buildings that are less detailed with not much going on and some visual clunkyness. I wonder if it just couldn't get as much attention as the other areas by the time deadline arrived. For example, the track for Hang Glider and Soaring Wings both go right through some solid wall in this angle.

- While I love the archy at the front with the colorful houses, some of the larger shapes at the back I wasn't a big fan of. It must be challenging to make them as visually interesting as smaller shapes and typical housing archy when the theme rests a bit on the Ghibli-adjacent European aestheic of bare beige walls with few windows, but worth mentioning.

- The rocky underside is just not good to look at, from at least two angles (again, the backside ones). Maybe it's close to what you guys envisioned it to be, but to me it looks a little too messy and spammy in an unpleasant way.

This is a lot of words so I'll stop I think. Most people reading probably checked out a long time ago haha. Despite my issues, it's fair to say I got more than my share of enjoyment out of Bene Volantes. It is a very polished experience aside from the very small areas I mentioned. What does the name mean, though? Without knowing what language to translate from, google translate made assumptions and said "Bene ruffles".

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Sorry Dambusters, I'll give my thoughts on Ol' Smokey's by tonight too!

I feel a little guilty in voting not null, with so little time spent indulging in both parks at this late of a stage, but honestly, one park just seriously spoke to me a little more with its details, its quality, its spectacle. Both parks were at a very high quality but I have to admit to myself this time that despite which side I wake up on, on any given day, I will just have one clear winner in mind.

I'll give both parks their well-deserved reviews soon. Sincerely apologize to both teams for my laziness with words right now. Congratulations on your efforts, The Evergreen Gardeners and The Lonely Hearts Club! These are parks to be so proud of.

I am so in love with both of these. Currently it is impossible for me to pick one over the other, they're just so polished. You guys have set benchmarks in my eyes for each theme. One might be my favorite representation of a conventional medieval-setting in this game ever, and the other... well I've never seen a Star Wars film and only know a little through internet culture, but I don't need to know jackshit to admire the work gone into this. This is magic and I feel like a kid again. I also really can't appreciate the sound design on both of the maps enough. It's insane to me that this much effort is possible in so little time.

I'll update this post to a proper review as early as I can before my vote. All the best to both parks! What a round.

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Lostileth

Throughout my experience with this map, one thing felt so apparent - there is an insane attention to polish here. As so many have also expressed, the way the rockwork is dealt with, the way the landscape makes way for the architecture to come in, is something I'll be using as reference to learn more often in the future. A little ashamed to say it but I very often mentally process-out any rollercoasters that I see, because it's just something I'm not good with identifying 'good/bad' in. That said, I really admire how well it was integrated into the map. Mad appreciation for how it goes through and around the rockwork, the way it comes through from between that abandoned looking tower-like red structure, and when it dives into that round pit of sorts. That kind of interaction made the environment all around those moments shine and really stay in my mind ever since day 1 of when I say this park.

Though it shouldn't have as much emphasis as the rest, I also adore the sound design as I mentioned in my quick impressions. This is the kind of music that can mesmerize someone in the theme, not wanting to leave and to keep exploring. There's individual stuff happening like the whirring spaceship things, the laser shooting sounds here and there, the muffled cantina music (the fact it is a little muffled being what I appreciate most). Although I deeply appreciate the effort that went into the eye-candy, the... ear-candy(?) really deserves appreciation too. <3

The most visually spare area of the map is also not full of stuff to look at either - the center. I have no clue what's going on and why posix needs to examine a rift with some R2D2 clone, but it looks ethereal with the pulsing wave of light moving through that blue gap in the land. Something which adds yet another layer to the map and keeping interest.

Past this (and also before this) I'd only be repeating the same words of appreciation that everyone else has said in much better words. I read through other reviews to read of any small details people mentioned that I possibly missed, so that I could find everything and every reference there might have been. I love the heist angle going on with the library. The way the map is shaped, you naturally end up at the library very soon, and that was a really fun narrative to explore! That said, this is just a map that, even without the Star Wars tag, shines so bright.

It feels unfair to ask for more from a park made in 28 days. This is one of my absolute favourite maps out of H2HX, and the contest has barely even started.

Troubadours et Baladins

I had so much to say about the sound design for Lostileth, but here's the park up against it, doing just as much, and perhaps more, I honestly think, to make this place feel real through music. There's so much individual stuff happening, that with the quality on display, this really comes close to giving off level-from-a-medieval-setting-based-isometric-2D-game-strategy-management-sim-from-the-90s energy. What a terrible phrase, I apologize. But you can hear the ballista going off I think, you  hear chains and gears pulling the stuff powering each ride here, you can hear horse carriages individually in each ear, with horse neighs, there's the sounds of chickens, there's little music made by the band near the stairs that lead all the way up to the bridge. There is fanfair from trumpets as something or the other happens (either the jousting, or the parade leading up to the castle? I get so excited every time is goes off again! It's like a victory chime from a game). I just love that aspect, and maybe I'm overreacting but I find both of the parks this round have had a greater impact on me through music than in R1.

When I think of all the things this park could have possibly done to do a medieval theme any better, I draw a blank. What is there is as good as I can currently imagine this type of theme to get. There are nitpicks with everything and so there's always a way to go higher, but the setting is so beautifully realised. Some nuance to the typical medieval theme is always nice to have, so that there's something novel to look at, but Troubadours doesn't bother with it much. It's a park I find to be quite confident in doing this stereotypical theme so well through the level of polish, the hidden details, the cheeky fun stuff, the great answer to "what if this was actually meant to be feasible?" And of course the architecture. I mentioned the animated peeps by MK on Discord but thank you for making them haha, I can not wait to see them add life to so many more parks in the future.

So much unique stuff stands out. There's the quarry, there's the burned and blackened house, there's the military camp with the tents, the quest giving tavern area... the little cart that met an accident, the ballista or whatever those are - aiming at the target made above the RMC's track. The bee house with the Nic Cage nod haha. There's the great jousting arena, too, which adds so much to the macro. Why was Kumba sitting underneath a suspiciously extended part of the castl--oh... oh no haha.

If there's one thing I've noticed through each repeated viewing, I think the ambition on this, with the 28 day limit, may have made one angle of the map hurt a little. That one view that's from the castle towards the town. In this angle a few things seem less detailed or touched up, but not at all by a lot. Worth a mention however, because I can only imagine how much you guys must have wished for there to have been more time to touch up more stuff.

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Despite sitting on my vote for so long, it is still quite difficult to justify one over the other. In the end, I found Troubadours won me over just a little more than Lostileth, and it's a painful decision to have made. Both teams should be so proud of these maps. I hope they are both strongly remembered and brought up in discussion in the future.