Greetings and welcome to another episode of Week in Review!  This week was the conclusion of the Underwater Wonderland Contest, so obviously you guys are in for a special treat.  ;)

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This best project of the week, a week teeming with submerged castles galore, was Deep Sea, created by arguably the best build team around: BlockWorks.  It’s a massive, underwater laboratory that serves as a parallel between deep space exploration and deep sea exploration.



BlockWorks apparently made this to emphasize the uncharted, ambiguous nature of the depths of the ocean.  I like to think of this build as a little nod to James Cameron’s The Abyss, though to be completely honest, this map is much more vivid and detailed than anything in that movie.  That’s right, BlockWorks has improved the visual effects of a 70 million dollar blockbuster film using only a 25 dollar computer program.  Suck it, Cameron!  You lose!



But aside from that, this map is pretty cool.  What we’ve got here, basically, is a cluster of alien technology sitting at the bottom of an ocean trench.  Apparently, fish have a vested interest in solving the greatest debacle Earth has ever known: Donald Trump’s hair.  It’s a problem that threatens all life on this planet; if the orange fibers become malignant and spread beyond the Don’s scalp into the water supply, we’ll all become infected and die a horrible death (or we’ll just contract gout and go bald; still horrifying).  The fish scientists are close to synthesizing a vaccine, but time is against us.



Assuming that I’m just joking around (I’M NOT!), let’s move on to the actual map.  This ocean laboratory sports a great variety of technological goodies, including but not limited to: a time vortex similar to the model seen in the Terminator series, highly advanced underwater combat vehicles, a ball of dark matter, a giant particle accelerator, nuclear silos, massive electromagnetic nodes tangled in a sentient coral reef, a hideous mutant eel monster, and much more that defies my identification skills.



Oh, and there’s one particularly ominous looking egg sack enclosed in a metal cage that I’m guessing will hatch into either Godzilla or the Cloverfield monster.  Place your bets ladies and gentlemen!  If it’s Godzilla, we’re all screwed.  If it’s Clover, I guess we can just bomb Manhattan and hope for the best.



But regardless of mankind’s coming destruction (either through atomic fire breath, or through a cancerous spread of Trump’s gruesome hair-fiasco), this map seems to be a statement about Mankind’s fascination with uncharted realms.  What is at the bottom of the ocean?  Could it be a mutant species of intelligent fish, plotting the demise of all life on the atmospheric world above?  Could it be a nuclear fusion reactor, sucking the Earth’s geothermal core dry, while assembling a cybernetic army of fish-robots?



Or maybe, just maybe, that’s not the question BlockWorks wants you to ask.  Maybe what they’re saying is that ignorance is bliss.  Do you really want to know what’s lurking in that abyss?  It could be horrifying beyond belief.  There could be scary stuff down there.  Maybe we should just accept our over-world and not go looking for something we don’t understand.  And, just for good measure, maybe we should limit how much nuclear waste we throw into it.  You know, just to prevent Godzilla from actually coming up and knocking all our buildings down.



Nevertheless, whatever the message or theme this map is intended to deliver to us, I think we can all agree that this is really fun to look at.  Like always, BlockWorks has given us a sharp, vast conglomeration of architectural goodness, blended together with domes, infrastructure, and some sprinkles of organic work.  And what’s better than looking at all this through the delightful lens of a top-notch Nati797 render?  Nothing.




P.S. If this doesn’t win the Underwater Wonderland Contest, I’m burning something down.  Yes, Horwitz, it’s your house!  >:(

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Taking a break from analyzing the untold depths of the ocean, let’s analyze some nice terraforming!  The best terraforming of the week was Reach - A World Unfolding, created by kilgrim.



Reach is a vast, mountainous terrain, filled to the brim with towering evergreens, and splashed here and there with some vividly colored planes.  Like all massive landscapes, there’s a small tundra region to the north (Canada!), and the mainland is fragmented by various rivers and lakes.



However, unlike most massive landscapes, Reach has a secret hidden beneath it.  That’s right, below the golden plains there’s a hellish cave system, filled with lava and downright scary.  Now that I think of it, it does remind me of that place where you encounter the Centipede Demon in Dark Souls.  God damn it, kilgrim!  Why must you remind me of that?!?  I still have nightmares. -_-



Is this map a statement about how every seemingly peaceful place has a hidden darkness buried somewhere within it?  Perhaps.  But, overall, this is some solid terraforming that looks highly realistic, while giving the player some neat secrets to explore.  And that is what terraforming is all about.

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And, moving back to the underwater theme, let’s talk about the best organic work of the week.  That map would be Xephira, created by Pandoras_Blocks.



Xephira is a massive mollusk-type organism that lives on the bottom of the ocean.  Apparently, it’s a sort of primordial entity responsible for the early evolution of life 4 billion years ago.  It’s covered in jagged spikes, valves, and a rich sandy texture.



It seems that, at some point, a vast civilization formed around Xephira, as Romanesque architecture surrounds it on all sides.  The city is covered in a thick haze of seaweed, sea creatures, and massive jellyfish.



There’s a sort of symbiotic vibe at hand here; a fusion between man-made architecture and organic sea life.  Whatever civilization inhabited this underwater kingdom seems to have lived peacefully alongside Xephira, either out of respect or perhaps even fear of its baleful wrath.



The most impressive feature of this map is what lies within Xephira.  It’s an almost completely hollow shell, with a large beating heart suspended in the epicenter.  Wrapped around the large organ is what appears to be a giant squid.  It’s unclear if this relationship is symbiotic or parasitic.



This is one of the most mysterious and perplexing underwater kingdom maps.  It tells a story so intriguing that it could very well be the basis for a novel or film.  The theme is elegant and simple, and the audience can interpret it in a variety of different ways.  It’s the quintessential setting for a timeless sci-fi story ready to be told.

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Thank you very much for checking out this blog!  If you enjoyed it, please toss me some diamonds, and don't forget to spread the diamonds to the map creators as well.  I'll see you guys next week!