Review - MyPad's Challenge
(Version August 16th 2023)
Synopsis: MyPad's Challenge is a melee map featuring a strange setup of Shipyards and Way Gates allowing players to move also through the waterways. While the idea of incorporating naval elements in Warcraft III is desirable, the execution is weak as there's no actual reason to go naval on the map. In the current state, the map does not meet the standard melee criteria.
Map Aesthetics: Lordaeron Summer tileset is one of the most iconic, natural-looking tilesets of Warcraft III, which is why it's a little weird to choose it in such a symmetric map. The terrain and environmental aspects of the map look rather synthetic as the ground is flat and the cliffs look inorganic. The tile variation is somewhat okay, though it could also be improved. Decorative objects have been used to make the environment look more man-made, but their placement and thematic continuity look a little scattered. There are also clear glitches in terrain ramps that should be fixed.
Map Layout: The layout is quite odd and it features way too many narrow chokepoints that are unhealthy for standard melee gameplay. The idea of including the naval aspect can work, but it is a tough job to achieve properly. In the current state of the map, there's no reason to go for ships as the Transport Ship (which is the only one available) has no places to unload the units - what's the point of the ships if they can only be moved around but not utilized in their practical way? Unguarded Mercenary Camps and Goblin Merchants are also very weird approaches - while I'm not entirely against that, the map seems to include just way too many random factors that do not align well with each other.
Neutral Objectives: The creep camps continue the route of strange combinations with mixtures of standard units mixed in with creep units. While this can be done to spice up the creep camps it needs to be done with care - why would a Sorceress team up with two gnolls? I'd recommend checking other melee maps or tutorials on how to properly create creep camps with correct difficulty, appropriate item drops as well as good placement and number of the units.
Map Gameplay: The gameplay tries to incorporate naval units into the gameplay, but fails to do so. The Transport Ships have no good locations to drop off the units. In addition, the waterways are very exposed to ranged ground and air units from high ground, making the ships vessels of death (their death). In addition, strange design choices, such as unusual units as creeps and unguarded neutral buildings cause further confusion for players.
Recommendations:
I'd recommend planning how you want to incorporate the naval aspect of the game into the map properly and think it could be carried out well. In the current iteration, it just makes the gameplay experience worse. Why use the Human Shipyards - they do not show up on the minimap like their Neutral Passive counterpart.