One chamber that combines Portal 1 style flinging with new Portal 2 elements (lasers, tractor beams).

v1.1.1 Additions
==============
Fixed issue with doors opening when touched
Increased lip amount on doors.

v1.1 Additions
==============
Changes to floor portal pads to increase size and improve portal placement ability.
Added sign decals to indicate steps of puzzle.
Changed cube location.
Slight modifications to one of the puzzle steps.
Added panel animations.
Added sign indicators to help show progression in puzzle.

Next version will add another test chamber.

Thanks

File Name: Entrapment v1-1-1.rar
File Size: 462.91?KiB
Entrapment

Hmm... Could you spoiler me some hints? I can't seem to figure this one out.

Specifically:
The decals indicate the first step of the room is to remove the weighted cube from the cube receptacle.

It seems I need to use momentum to fling up out of the parallel floor tile underneath it, but the only way to get leverage while one of my portals is placed on this tile (since I can only place it while standing down there next to it) is to jump off the catwalk into the tile under the exit, and this does not give me enough momentum.

Am I overlooking something / approaching it wrong? Am I just plain dumb?

Sure no problem, I might have to provide a sign to help illustrate it in the map.

You need to place a portal on the floor below cube platform. Lets call this portal A. Place a portal above exit door, this is portal B. Walk through portal A, and when you fall out, shoot portal B on the fall below you. You will then fly out portal A and you can grab cube, sometimes tricky to get off button.

Your not dumb hah, it's obvious to me how to complete as I made it, so it's hard to judge how hard it is.

Ahhhh, that's clever!

The rest of the level was pretty intuitive. It seems well built though, except for a small gap in the wall in the exit room.

I didn't really like the lasers though, there was no real puzzle there. Maybe because the receptacle in the floor is tall enough that the beam coming out of a cube hits it.

Thanks for the feedback, greatly appreciated.

The laser part was never suppose to use cubes really to get the power across, I initially started to use a combination of portals to get the power across (using one cube also) but I figured you couldn't do that AND power the tractor beam. I will have a think and reconfigure the laser part.

The fling idea was actually a lot harder (involved greater timing/accuracy), you had to shoot a portal above the door and below, fall through gaining momentum and then shoot a portal below the cube. Then I realised after I got that working, you could do it the way I explained to you.

I noticed a few things right off the bat: This map is very unoptimized, to the point where it is almost unplayable. This is probably also the reason portals are hard to make on the floor. Try mapping with a larger grid size (I suggest 8 or 16 units) and make sure all your brushes that are "in the middle of nowhere" (Like stairs and those windows) are func_detail.


The second thing is that it was really hard for me to figure out what piece of the puzzle I should do next. I assumed that I was supposed to use the excursion beam to get the cube near the "one dot" sign. After I figured out I needed to fling and I got the second cube on the button, I assumed I had finished the map and the door was broken because I didn't see the laser puzzle for at least two minutes.

Nightgunner5 wrote:
I noticed a few things right off the bat: This map is very unoptimized, to the point where it is almost unplayable. This is probably also the reason portals are hard to make on the floor. Try mapping with a larger grid size (I suggest 8 or 16 units) and make sure all your brushes that are "in the middle of nowhere" (Like stairs and those windows) are func_detail.

The second thing is that it was really hard for me to figure out what piece of the puzzle I should do next. I assumed that I was supposed to use the excursion beam to get the cube near the "one dot" sign. After I figured out I needed to fling and I got the second cube on the button, I assumed I had finished the map and the door was broken because I didn't see the laser puzzle for at least two minutes.

Well the portals are hard to place on the floor due to the size of the pad, but it needed to be relatively small so it would shoot out right. I've now added a few more signs on the map and the exit door now has some tick boxes for each step so you know when you are missing one.

I've made the window boxes on the main gangway func_detail and I've removed a couple of cubemaps that were not needed and probably causing FPS issues.

Apart from that I'm not sure how to optimise it, so any funky shapes should be func_detail, regular chamber walls are okay as default, right?

Beer-Me wrote:
Apart from that I'm not sure how to optimise it, so any funky shapes should be func_detail, regular chamber walls are okay as default, right?

Correct.

It's no fun when the portals don't take 70% of the time.

Beer-Me wrote:
The fling idea was actually a lot harder (involved greater timing/accuracy), you had to shoot a portal above the door and below, fall through gaining momentum and then shoot a portal below the cube. Then I realised after I got that working, you could do it the way I explained to you.

||The problem with the momentum thing is that falling through a portal relies heavily on the portal helper, which will make sure you go straight through any portal at which you are aiming. For one thing, that makes shooting portals while falling into another portal very tricky in itself, but especially so because you had to go through a floor portal to do it. So you have to first nail a jump into the floor portal, followed by nailing the shot at the floor tile under the cube, which was insanely hard even standing on top of it, then in a split second look back down and aim at the portal you just jumped through in order to not land on the ground next to it.

This is why they put so many helper tools in the game, like the portal bumpers, the portal info aim thingies and so on.||

Updated the map file with a newer version.

v1.1 Additions
==============
Changes to floor portal pads to increase size and improve portal placement ability.
Added sign decals to indicate steps of puzzle.
Changed cube location.
Slight modifications to one of the puzzle steps.
Added panel animations.
Added sign indicators to help show progression in puzzle.

Getting tired of this chamber though, next version will have second chamber in it that uses more elements.

Feedback is greatly appreciated

How do you solve it now, with just one cube?

eviloatmeal wrote:
How do you solve it now, with just one cube?

There is a sequence to follow, you'll find the cube soon enough

Hint: Place cube you see on round button, and look around.

So you moved the trigger for the hidden cube to the floor button next to the exit?

Yeah it didn't work on the cube box button and only works well to open on button press, not release.

Beer-Me wrote:
Yeah it didn't work on the cube box button and only works well to open on button press, not release.

I guess you missed the post in the thread we shamelessly hijacked yesterday. Basically you OnPressed and OnUnpressed on the cube_floor_button were reversed. When I put the right outputs on the right triggers the hidden door worked fine.

Also, I couldn't be bothered trying to solve the laser thing because I was a little bit annoyed by having to portal through the floor tile on the right, out of the one above the door, into the one beneath the door, out of the one above the door and so on every time I need to get to the other side of the room. And then having to reset the excursion funnel so the laser room opens again.

Maybe if one or both of the pits had some stairs, but I'm not sure whether this would detract from any of the puzzle elements.

Finished it Definitely not too easy.

I'm not sure if I solved it as you intended, but here's what I did and tell me if I did it right.

For the part where you need to use your fling momentum to grab the cube, instead of having the reflexes of Chuck Norris and whipping over and somehow placing my portal under the plate, I slowly crouched through the bottom of the one portal, and perched on the side of it. Then, simultaneously I jumped and placed my other portal on the ground to the right. For the part with the lasers, I shot one diagonally through the hole in the side, then I redirected it towards the laser receiver. Getting this part right was the hardest part I think. Next I stood on the third laser prism so that it would redirect down.



A very excellent map and I'm looking forward to the next chamber.

wjkmartin wrote:
Finished it Definitely not too easy.

I'm not sure if I solved it as you intended, but here's what I did and tell me if I did it right.

For the part where you need to use your fling momentum to grab the cube, instead of having the reflexes of Chuck Norris and whipping over and somehow placing my portal under the plate, I slowly crouched through the bottom of the one portal, and perched on the side of it. Then, simultaneously I jumped and placed my other portal on the ground to the right. For the part with the lasers, I shot one diagonally through the hole in the side, then I redirected it towards the laser receiver. Getting this part right was the hardest part I think. Next I stood on the third laser prism so that it would redirect down.

A very excellent map and I'm looking forward to the next chamber.

Welcome! Thanks for the feedback.||The flinging method is the same one I use in testing, theres a few alternative ways to fling, the most important part is you cannot put a portal below the cube and jump from the main platform and reach it, that was my most important requirement.

Same goes for the lasers, you can put the boxes inside of the secret room, therefore the beam won't get broken when the door shuts.||

eviloatmeal, there are a few ways to complete the puzzle, some which are more efficient than others. I like to see it as, you know how to complete the puzzle, but if you think hard you can work out how to complete it in the least steps. If you put a portal on the floor below button in air, and then shoot the one above door (jump shot), you can run and jump through the floor one and if done correctly, land on the middle platform (that has the white tile texture).

I'm back at work tomorrow so I won't have much time to work on map, but I have a few ideas of what to make

Runned on that!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeUTmEPXSoY

Done in 40 seconds.. as usually, don't look if you haven't solved by yourself

infernet89 wrote:
Runned on that!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeUTmEPXSoY

Done in 40 seconds.. as usually, don't look if you haven't solved by yourself

That was madness, great work

Heres my walkthrough version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLrjMQRoQeA

Currently working on new chamber.

Well i did it.... I didn't use your over the door panel though to get my height to grab the first cube... instead i thought you were trying to teach the two portals in the floor bounce trick, which i tried out for the first time, to great success ... it took me about 3 minutes of thinking about it to realize that i should put the cube on the first button on the left, and not onto the ceiling button... i kept standing on the first button for a while thinking how could i get into the door... then i realized i could do what i was doing backwards... and that's when i saw the other cube just sitting there ready to put on the 2nd button, DOH... then it only took me a few moments to arrange the glass cubes... that little door is strange... i mean easy to open from the side opposite the pedestal... i guess you meant for it to be that way yes?

Minor update to the map (if you've already played it, its not worth a redownload).

v1.1.1 Additions
==============
Fixed issue with doors opening when touched
Increased lip amount on doors.


I didnt even realise you could touch the doors and it would open, that has now been fixed

heh oh that makes it slightly more difficult O:-)

Very fun map like most people i found it hard to time the forst puzzle which was annoying. Took me ages to do as the cube wouldn't come out. the rest of the map was pretty straight forward and fun. 4/5 imo