2/1/2022
Review of [fr0g] clan official server 24/7 zk map (for stranger)
Developed by: mkapolk
2019, PC
The name zk map apparently comes from a game mode in different versions of Counter-Strike called "KZ", which involves climbing to the top of custom-made maps. "ZK" is the opposite of that as you descend levels. Descending is more interesting than climbing, because climbing entails that you reach one point at the summit, while climbing down means there are many different places you could end up. Instead of making you follow one correct path upward, zk map lets you find your way down its levels any way you want, as long as you can make it to somewhere at the bottom.
Descending is also more physically interesting in a videogame than climbing. Falling from a height feels visceral in a way that climbing doesn't, and zk map somehow did a good job of making its movement feel very visceral to me. Usually I don't move my body to mimic on-screen action, such as tilting your head to look around a corner, but in zk map I would constantly notice myself straightening my back and craning my head up as I tried to jump over a large gap, and the size of the levels made standing at an edge or falling feel kind of terrifying. The game has unusual movement abilities that give you more speed in a jump, such as jumping diagonally or moving the mouse quickly to the side while in the air, and trying to pull these off during a jump contributed to the physicality of it, as I was swinging my arm wildly trying to reach the next platform.
The game reminded me of Dark Souls (8), not because it's difficult but because its difficulty is heightened by its supposed lack of regard for you. In Dark Souls you aren't given the typical amount of information for a game, so when you succeed it feels like you did it even though the game hates you, when really it was designed for your success. It's unclear how to proceed through most of a level in zk map because there are so many offshoots and dead ends along the way, and there are irrelevant pieces of level floating around and intersecting with the path you need to follow so it becomes disorienting. It obscures the fact that sometimes you're on a route with only one option, and when you find the one space between two narrow walls that you can only reach by strafe-jumping and moving the mouse in some bizarre way, it feels like you outsmarted the game.
I liked the design of these levels, because they made it feel like I was somewhere I wasn't supposed to be. Maybe that's a feeling that videogames are particularly good at conveying, because in a film or novel you have to be on the authored path. When I made it to the bottom of a level, I'd look up at the eerily huge, impossible geometry and walk around the barren space surrounded by mountains in the distance. It felt like somewhere you might wander through after you die before you cross over to the other side.
Note: Bennett Foddy wrote something good about this here: https://thatsnot.fun/zk-map-for-stranger/