Tutorials/Creating a challenge map

You might want to make a challenge map. Need some pointers? Don't know where to start? Read on!

Customize the Superflat world type
Changing the Superflat options can make a good Superflat survival world.

Make a spawn area
You could make a spawn pad, a pre-made house, or anything you can think of!

Add Bonuses
Hide some little rewards for the player. Extra surprises make a challenge map exciting and fun. Diamonds or emeralds work well if you hide 100 it can it can be a fun way to keep score. If you want a surprise ending for the players to build up to (literally and figuratively), make the maximum bonus count a multiple of 9 (if the prizes are diamonds, gold, lapis, emeralds, or iron to make the necessary blocks, for others it may vary).

Beacons give extraordinary powers, so why not add a mystic powers room? Haste, speed, strength powers etc, an enchanting table, the XP farm outlet, and some positive splash potion dispensers (maybe add some negatives for the lulz.)

Make obstacles
Add pits, traps, etc. Check out the Puzzles and Traps section.

Make dungeons
Making pre-made dungeons hidden around your map can give players a very fun time!

Add some fancy stuff
Hack stuff into your inventory. Monster Spawners would be useful for some traps or funboxes, or simply decorations. Bedrock or end portal frames could encase areas where you do not want the player to escape from. Ender Crystals look very elegant, but due to their obstructive and explosive powers, can be used as sorts of obstacles the player has to safely destroy. (Check out the "Look before you Detonate" trap!)

Checkpoints can be created by placing beds. A bug with this is that you can only use these at night. This can be fixed by using command blocks to either set the time to night or to set the spawn.

Indiana Jones-ing
Make a large room and put lots of lava at the bottom. Now place a bunch of floating blocks which leads to a small alcove with a valuable chest. The aim is that the player must carefully jump on the blocks to get to the chest.

Any blocks sitting next to the wall can be controlled with Sticky Pistons to extend and then go back into the wall, to time jumps.

"Tightropes" can be made by putting strings of glass panes or iron bars.

The Cakes Are A Lie
Place 5 cakes in a line over BUD switches for the player to eat. One of the cakes, when eaten, will push up a small chest area with valuable stuff. The remaining 4 will send the player into a very deep lava pit!

What Tiles?
Create a room with a grid of wooden and stone pressure plates. Only some plates are good. For example, wood pressure plates are safe to walk on while stone ones push the player into the Void.

Be Flamin' Careful
Create a maze with netherrack sides at ground level. Set the netherrack on fire. Players will find it hard to complete this maze without a scald. To stop them jumping over the flames put some floating obsidian/bedrock/end portal frame blocks two blocks above the maze path. For some extra amusement, make it a maze that climbs upwards and then add a lever saying "Trophy" which when pulled will make a lava flow chase the player, who has to either burn or burn.

Be smart...
Put a hard question to solve with 3 answers. To do so, put 3 levers and 3 signs with answers. The right answer will open a path for the player to pass. Others will throw lava into the room. Take advantage of the fact that dispensers with Buckets can place lava, then suck it back up.

It's just H2O!
Make a path that goes slightly underground, then fill it to the ceiling with water. Add some air pockets so your players can breathe. Spawn some squid if you want to see some ragequits.

Creepah
Creepers are nice for dealing with your challenge map victims but can blow up parts of your structure, so try building the creeper room out of obsidian and add some inaccessible charged creeper spawners. Alternatively you can use /gamerule mobGriefing false to make it so that Creepers, Endermen, Zombies, Ghasts and Withers, yes, even those Ender Dragons in the boss room can't damage the enviroment.

Look Before You Detonate
We all know that ender crystals explode when you destroy them? OK, so why not add this simple trap to your map (no stupid rhyme intended).

Put some lines of TNT underground, 1 block under the floor. Line these up to a central Ender Crystal obstructing the player's way. A simple lesson: look before you detonate something.

Sand Falls...
Tripwire is a very good tool and plays a role in this trap. Place a tripwire, then wire it up to a set of pistons. When the player comes along they will not see the tripwire, trip over the wire, and stumble into a hey... where did all the sand go? Make it fall into a ravine, a room with plenty mob spawners and if you are really mean, an end portal.

Test Your Brain
Put numbers along the game that players have to remember, then add a room to enter these numbers. If they get it right, they can move along. If not, they'd better explain it to the cactus. It is probably a good idea to prevent the players from going back to these numbers somehow, for example, using pistons to create a door that locks behind the players.

There! Oh,no nvm.
Make something like Indiana Jones-ing. Put attractive blocks like diamond / gold stuck to a wall. When the player touches it -Pressure plate/tripwire etc etc- the block would come to the other side and the player would fall in... The void? The end? Lava? Water? Charged creepers? Up to you.

Indiana Jones-ing... again...
Now that Dispensers can face upwards, fill them with arrows and put a pressure plate or tripwire on top for an instant semi-hidden trap.

Falling Floors
To make your level exciting, arrange a floor of TNT, with gravel on top. Then add a preessure plate on the gravel, so when you step on it, it disintegrates. Make some parts of the floor NOT fall, or a fail would render the level unplayable.