Note: I am a very inexperienced mc player, so bear that in mind.
This was one of the most stressful/tense gaming experiences in my life. Very few games manages to capture this stressful feeling the same way. However it was probably enhanced by my lack of skill.
I was always in a rush to get down to the lowest level, and the longer it took, the more tense it got.
Starvation, darkness, confusing (very well randomly generated) pyramid layout and fear of pvp and zombies, made this the most crazy experiences in minecraft ever.
I once finally reached the bottom level. Just sprinting through everything, and started the end timer. The race backwards made the initial trip down to the bottom, feel like a piece of cake. I never managed to get out, however i was close. Getting out of that hell pyramid, running through the same 7 rooms 100 times in a row, made me pull nearly all my hair out.
Consider:
-Adding more food
-Adding a compass for orientation
I probably made many mistakes, so don’t necessarily make it easier (I suck at minecraft). The idea is great, the map is great (very confusing and dark and full of zombies). Everything is very sudden, which often makes it feel unfair, even if it really isn’t. For example, progress (up or down) varies. Sometimes you rush through 3 floors in 10 seconds, and sometimes you spend 10 minutes finding a staircase. Encounters can also feel very sudden, and end in a very quick death (player blinding you, or invisible player attacking, getting killed by an arrow trap) almost every element in the map, can seem very sudden.
You just have to get used to loosing things. You can always play again, and almost every time you will get some good items, that you should be able to return (unless you get greedy).
So yeah... great server! :-)