With stellar presentation, P'nk Black has once again blown me away with the amount of effort, love and care done in one map. Despite Void Mall being a rather large map, it seems to be dwarved by Pink Place, which has pumped up the labyrinth-like nature of this strange liminal dimension to eleven, however, there are a few elements I think could have been worked on or that I found unecessary, but the map is still amazing regardless.

My Experience with the Map:

I must admit that I somewhat "cheated" the map's atmosphere due to my dislike of the overwhelming droning ambient sounds by listening to "Leave me Alone" while playing. Personally, I think the map would've gone well enough without these strange sounds, but mostly because I'm kind of a coward, and listening to Inno sing gave me some auditory courage.
The start of the exploration went relatively smoothly, as usual, coming across locked doors, coming across doors that open shortcuts, the norm you'd expect from a Voidplaces map.

That is until I had reached the first surprise of the map, at least in my eyes. Coming across the enigmatic Mimic, a creature made out of what I assume to be stone and rebar, sitting in a desolate room, with writing on the wall claiming how "we deserve this". After I left the room and explored a little more, the next time I came across it, the Mimic was gone.

Despite that, however, I felt more comforted than scared, because now I know I'm not completely alone in this. I know this sounds strange, but after Void Mall, thanks to Inno, I like to think I know a bit better than just instantly consider something "Unknown" as "Hostile". If anything, I felt as if the Mimic was just as lost as I was and trying to find it's way out of this mysterious facility as well. Sure, I can 100% be wrong and maybe the Mimic IS malicious, but he hasn't bothered me through the rest of the playthrough, and as far as I can tell he doesn't try to harm anyone in their playtrhoughs, so until the creator tells me otherwise, I'll consider the Mimic just another unlucky lost bastard like me.

So, with newfound relief and curiousity that something else is also exploring this place, and PROBABLY opening up areas I couldn't explore before, I steeled myself and continued to explore the Halls of neon pink. After a while hitting dead ends, opening up some more doors, I noticed something that wasn't there before. A pit. A huge pit leading to nothing but Darkness. I know for a fact that wasn't in the room before, and it added an extra layer of mystery to my exploration. Why was this here? I noticed it was in the same place where one of the Sun Carpets were. Not sure if I could call this a "trapdoor" considering I accidentally triggered it somewhere most likely unrelated.

Despite that, I easily jumped over it with a sprint jump to another door I had opened before. Coming across the "hotel" section of this map, that dark brown, almost maroon hallway, with the "Jimmy was Here" room, I found myself rather disoriented, but in a good way. Sure, there were some dark places in the map, but that place, for some reason, felt like such an extreme contrast from the rest the map. It was a bit unnerving, but nothing I could really consider the creepiest thing ever. Mostly... confusing. I felt confused. I think that's a decent way to describe it.

Anywho, continuing my journey, I don't know when or how, but I triggered another pit to show up. I THINK it was after I found the first key, But it really made me wonder what the Hell is trying to stop me. I couldn't tell if something was actively trying to stop me, or if the map itself was alive and trying to keep me from leaving. But this told me that this wasn't ilke Inno and the Mall.

The Mall, while maybe not exactly PASSIVE, never really TOOK ACTION to harm me. That jumpscare with the fake exit, yeah, it was unnerving and it left me screaming like a panicked crow, swinging my mouse around wildly and spamming left click with my safety shotgun... whiiiich is why nowadays I play these games listening to Inno sing rather than complete silence. I'm not a fan of jumpscares, but it was still a good scare. Inno herself never tried to harm me either, more like she was trying to aid me in this bloody mess.

However, in Pink Place, someone, something OR even the map itself is TRYING to harm you. Not just scare you. HARM you. I still didn't blame the Mimic though, but now I decided to be a bit more weary of where I was going.

I also think I saw a door open on it's own for me. So, there's SOMETHING trying to harm me and SOMETHING trying to AID me. That threw me for a loop but hey. The door just led back to the outside area with the hands statue as far as I can tell.

Came across the Pink Hair basement, went up the stairs, came across the vents room, continued exploring, more opening doors, more finding locked doors, more getting jumpscared by the shadow creature drawn on the wall, ONE instance of getting scared by the painting in the numbered doors hallway (I don't know WHY this thing didn't scare me after that, the shadow grafitti ALWAYS makes me jump, you'd think that THING would ALSO make me jump), aaaand eventually I found myself BEYOND lost. And I mean BEYOND bloody lost. Sure, I got the key, but I didn't know where to use it, and most doors I found were locked... or non-functional.

I eventually jumped over a handrail and found myself finally finding a new area, with a window. A window which made me jump when some shadowy figure crawled along the wall past the window and made me finally pull out the safety Half Life 2 Pistol. Now, that thing is what actually got me on edge and a bit scared, but ALSO excited that I'm making progress again.

So, off I go to explore. And I do. I explore a lot. Unusable doors here and there... locked doors here and there. That's when I started to get a bit less excited. After a while, hallways just became... normal. The painting figure was disturbing, yeah, but getting past that area so many times, it just became... normal to me. I grew accustomed to the map. Too accustomed because of how much I explored the same areas over and over, looking for any gudiance.

Eventually, I went down a small set of stairs (a VERY small set of stairs) and I THINK that triggered and event, because I heard something and the map began shaking as if in an Earthquake. Then... nothing. I resumed exploring, running all over the map to see if something changed.

The pink hair basement, the Mimic room, even the House in the middle of that dark area, the hotels area, the number room hallway...

That's when exploring the map went from an intense experience to a bit of a chore. It came to the point I held "x" just so I could highlight doors to see if they were interectable or not, because I got tired of constantly running into unusable doors and narrow down my search area.

That helped a little find some doors I missed before, but eventually I just started coming across locked door after locked door. Eventually THAT became too tiring aswell, because I would lose track of which doors I highlighted and which doors I did NOT highlight, so I pulled out my toolgun and started to attached red lightbulbs to every non-interactable door I could find just so I could get a move on and stop falling for this same trick over and over.

BUT, after a while, I couldn't even bring myself to do that. Couldn't find out where else I'm supposed to go. Even with the keys. Eventually, tired and battered... I gave up.

Sadly, I did NOT complete the map and opened another Garry's mod map I use for fun to see what new props from that map I could find. That's how I found out the Mimic's name and how I sadly found that I missed some BEAUTIFUL 2D sprite Effects, I assume for some subtle scares (judging by one of the trailers, safe to assume these Effects, three skins each, one being Inno in a more shadowy form with a scythe, would show up peeking around a corner). I also found a more "complete" and taller version of the Mimic being the "Big Guy" prop. I just assumed the Mimic had found a way to upgrade himself as he explored the map along with me and would give us quite a scare watching from somewhere he wasn't before.

Sadly, I couldn't complete the map and didn't experience those amazing things in the map.
The map just seems to become a little too vague and cryptic about what the player is supposed to do after a while. Some events seem to trigger mostly at random, which makes me wonder if I'm ACTUALLY making progress or if some events ARE truly random and I'm just making a fool out of myself.

Now, it's worth nothing: I am NOT smart and I have a HORRIBLE sense of direction, so most likely the fact I couldn't complete the map could be on me.

This map clearly has a LOT to offer. Great scares, some which I was LUCKY enough to catch before I gave up, and a GREAT atmosphere. I may not like the horror soundscape (which is why I kept listening to "Leave me Alone"), and I don't think it even needed that, because just visually, the map's atmosphere is phenomenal. I am honestly impressed at how someone could make something in hammer, with so many branching paths, intersecting areas and loops that make you feel like you're in a book by Lewis Carroll sometimes, with so many trigger areas and events that I obviously didn't get, which shows me that despite this being a SUPER cryptic and confusing map to navigate (at least for an idiot like me), shows how much care and love P'nk Black puts in their work.

I implore you, PLEASE, do NOT feel discouraged to try this map yourself.
I HEAVILY encourage you to explore the map to it's fullest, but this map requires patience. LOTS of patience. And some good sense of direction. Two things I sadly don't have a lot of. Sense of direction especially.

Just remember: PATIENCE. This map requires a LOT of patience, and a LOT of exploring.
I can garuantee, even if you don't manage to complete it, you'll at least have an experience you won't forget anytime soon.

Rating
8/10


A great map, maybe a little TOO cryptic for me, but that aside, it's a BEAUTIFUL experience, so much that if you play it with an unarmed hands mod like I did, it will almost feel like you aren't even playing Garry's Mod anymore.

Keep up the good work, P'nk Black!
I look forward to see what you come up with next!

Thoooough maybe ease up on the amount of doors next time, yeah?