File Size: 152.98 MB
Downloads: 2848
Rating: (22 votes)
Description
Rexaura is a mod for Portal 1. It features puzzles based on high energy pellets and several new mechanics surrounding them.
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Damn, considering that i loved all your previous projects, guess i'll need to reinstall Portal. I have a feeling it will worth it. 
This project has been in the works for about a year. I started it back in December of 2010 to give myself something to work on before Portal 2 was released, and I've continued to work on it since then.
This is a beta release so if you want to help me release a polished product, please give feedback about:
- Bugs (of course)
- Alternate solutions
- Areas where you got stuck/need a hint
- Potential fewest portals, steps, or least time challenges
- Any suggestions you have
If you want, provide demos or videos for more thorough feedback.
As of this release there are no Easter eggs, but I want to add some.
As i expected, it was awesome! Played until chamber 12, but i had to quit. Loved all the new mechanics, great work dude. I liked how you have almost complete freedom to move around the chambers, missed that from the first Portal. Considering such freedom, there might be place for ninja ways to solve things, but for now i'm playing the normal way without trying weird things.
So far, i had only one minor issue, but i suspect it might be a general Portal problem which i don't remember and not caused by your map. At the chamber where you get the fully upgraded portal gun, if you shoot anywhere a blue portal the same time the gun auto-shoots the orange, the orange won't appear as it should be. Also if you have a blue portal where the orange is about to be placed, the blue stays and again, no orange.
Everything else worked perfect. I'm glad i decided to put Portal back in to try this. I hope it will get the attention it deserves, because it's a great mod.
soad667 wrote:
Considering such freedom, there might be place for ninja ways to solve things, but for now i'm playing the normal way without trying weird things.
As someone who did a lot of testing with Mevious for Rexaura, I can confirm that he put a lot of effort into preventing ninja solutions that make the puzzle significantly easier. Most of the tricks are either very hard to do (at which point you might as well just solve the puzzle as intended), or let you skip one of the easier steps to the puzzle. This isn't Portal Pro where a few portal tunnels can easily break a puzzle. To my knowledge, there's no ninja tricks that aren't really obvious bugs (like portal bumping under doors... and if you're using portal bumping you might as well just be noclipping to the exit) left in the mod that trivialize any puzzle, although it's possible we missed some-- feel free to mention if you find any!
This mod is damn good.Think I'm on 14 or 15.Been playing since this morning and my mind has gone for the shits now so taking a break. Great work!
Awesome mod. I played through it a few nights ago and did another checking for exploits. I like when someone takes a new concept and really expands on it through the space of each level, like a full game would. It has a fair difficulty curve with each test clever and different enough to stay interesting. Generous length as well.
BUGS
I didn't encounter this at all during my first playthrough, and never when I was trying to get it to work. It's kind of a big one though; it seems like if you step off the super button for a green energy pellet quickly enough, it just won't explode.
Here it happened multiple times and it just kept spawning them!
Oh, and not a bug at all but there's a patch of acid that looks different from the rest in chamber 7.
Here I wrote down my own least portal records and noteworthy exploits I found. Hope it helps, you can ask if you want to know how I did something.
Least Portals & Exploits
Ch 01= 0 Portals, easy enough to just knock the pellets with the box (I understand why you allow freedom here)
Ch 02= 1 Portal, basically the same as above
Ch 03= 3 Portals
Ch 04= 2 Portals
Ch 05= 2 Portals, you can cross the gap by jumping along the tiles sticking out of the walls.
Ch 06= 7 Portals, couldn't find anything special here
Ch 07= 7 Portals
Ch 08= 0 Portals by stacking a cube in front of the exit, other than that it took 5 portals
Ch 09= 5 Portals by standing on another cube in front the portal gun, 7 portals doing it normally
Ch 10= 4 Portals, had to fire one while halfway through another portal.
Ch 11= 8
Ch 12= 3 Portals
Ch 13= 4 Portals
Ch 14= 4 Portals by skipping the second puzzle, 10 portals doing it normally
Ch 15= 4 Portals
Ch 16= 5 Portals
Ch 17= 7 Portals
Ch 18= 8 Portals
Ch 19= 8 Portals as of the 1.0 update
Excellent, polished work. I had quite a bit of fun until I reached the last few chambers, which felt very "fragile," in that if you messed up one step in the solving process you had to start from step one. Not something you can really fix, but it was annoying. I eventually noclipped the last two levels because I had figured out what to do, but couldn't actually perform the solution.
Other than that, the mod was a lot of fun to play, very nice looking, and the testing elements you came up with were awesome. I also enjoyed the writing, which managed to get a few laughs out of me. The voice acting itself wasn't perfect, but it was definitely better than Prelude's Microsoft Sam.
In short, 5/5. A must-play for anyone looking for something new and a challenge.
I had a hard time on the last 3,3 or 4 chambers also.Dont remember how many actually but I really enjoyed it up till then.The timers were a killer for me in the end maps thats why I noclipped after trying over and over again
Great feedback so far.
I'd like to know some of your solutions (or attempted solutions that are hard to perform) for the final few levels. None of the intended solutions require strict timing or difficult maneuvers, so I think you might be getting a potential solution in mind and then stuck in a loop of trying to perform something that wasn't designed to be possible. In order to limit frustration, I'd like to fix the levels so players don't get stuck trying to perform one of these near impossible solutions.
Random, I'm curious how you did 19.
Idolon wrote:
I eventually noclipped the last two levels because I had figured out what to do, but couldn't actually perform the solution.
None of the intended solutions are particularly hard to perform. Can you share what you were doing too?
andyb wrote:
The timers were a killer for me in the end maps thats why I noclipped after trying over and over again
The timing isn't supposed to be really quick so you're probably trying something I didn't plan.
I look forward to seeing your solutions.
I went back and looked at the last two chambers again. I solved 18, but 19 still has me stumped.
Chamber 19
I am with the timed gate. One of my portals is on the wall before it and the timed gate and the other is on the ceiling across the pit. When I go back across, I can leave the portal on the ceiling or move it somewhere else, changing the time it takes for the ball to bounce back and forth.
When I enter the first room, my portals will fizzle. There is no way to avoid this. I must wait until the energy ball dies to launch the next one through the gate activated by the timed gate. The quickest way to do this is to reroute it into the purple orb.
Theoretically, the fastest way to do this procedure is to have the ball activate the gate when it is coming back, hit the purple orb, and the be re-launched in the next room. However, doing this does not leave enough time for the ball to go through the gate. So obviously, this assumption must be wrong.
The only way to go faster than this is to have one portal on either side of the fizzler. Use of noclip reveals that the timer on the gate is almost perfectly suited for this solution. However, I can't figure out for the life of me how to do that.
tl;dr: I know what to do but not how to do it.
I am stuck in chamber 17 and 18 - both are catch-22s that seem to be impossible because the timings are so short:
open Door #1 with the pellet
need to open Door #2 - MUST backtrack to the beginning room and shoot both Portals there in order to send the pellet down the hallway and open Door #2
no way to get into that room, shoot both portals there - and get out to Door #2 !!
I have tried EVERYTHING. Can I get a clue here ?
It must be something dumb that I am overlooking.
I finally no-clipped to 18 and am stuck there as well. It is a catch-22 . . .
to shoot portal in the Exit room you need cube on button
you come back to main room
you now need cube to deflect pellet and allow one pellet to enter long hallway and then ride back to Exit room
but to get cube you must go through fizzlers
fizzler removes your Portal in the Exit room - and to ride back to Exit takes too long and Pellet is long gone
AAARRRGGG - need a clue here too
Here are some hints.
Hint for 17
You'll want one portal in the starting area with the launcher and the other portal on the other side of door 1. You can send a ball through portal 1 and move portal 1 to a different place. Meanwhile the ball bounces off a wall, goes back through portal 2, and returns out of portal 1's new location. Using this technique, you don't need to place both portals in the starting area.
Hint for 18
PCdoc, you have all the steps, but you're doing them in the wrong order. Deflect the cube first, then get a new one for the button.
Hint for 19
||You are correct that you do not have time to launch a new ball and get it to the door in time. You need to keep a portal on both sides of the fizzler. To do this, use a technique simialr to chamber 17 to control the ball.
Idolon wrote:
When I enter the first room, my portals will fizzle. There is no way to avoid this.
There is a way to avoid that.
You need to deactivate the cleanser twice: once to get in and once to get out.||
It's good to know where you're getting stuck. This way I can revisit these levels and try to add some subtle hints. I like my puzzles to be challenging, but I want to avoid players getting stopped dead in their tracks and getting frustrated.
I didn't have any timing problems with the others which is why I knew I was doing 19 wrong. I almost slapped myself when I thought of a more natural solution that I think would buy me time to run through the fizzler, but I can't check any time soon to see if I'm right.
Anyway this is how I did it at first, you might want to do something about it.19 unintended
I deactivated the fizzler. I kept the blue portal in front of the ball launcher and fired the orange on the back of the hallway behind the fizzler. Then I went back to the first room and waited for the pellet to go through. When it bounces back I switch the blue portal to the platform facing the angled wall.
I ran to the wall in front of the ball launcher and waited for the pellet to come back out the blue portal. Right away I shot the blue portal on the wall in front of the launcher and raced to the edge of the hallway as the pellet enters the receiver. There I could barely manage to fire the orange portal on the wall facing the angle before the fizzler turned back on. The new pellets would go
through the portals, continuously turning the fizzler off.
Basically I added an extra step because I missed a really obvious step.
Chamber 18 was one of my favorites, by the way.
Even though I got stuck - I wouldn't want it any other way.
This rocked - don't change anything.
19 had me for a while but I managed to solve that without reading the hint. #14 also really had me for a while - that was a very vexing puzzle. Then of course, 17, 18, and 19 we all hard until you figure them out then you wonder why you were so stupid - LOL.
Great series man - here are my recommendations:
if not too much work - make more of the earlier puzzles tricky like the last few
but keep the beginning Intro puzzles for beginners - that is standard Portal 1 series
add one mega puzzle as a new map #20 something huge and daunting - a Boss Battle or just a very long and hard puzzle
change the sound of the Purple Spheres to a more pleasant "Electric zapping" sound as the ball is vaporized and do not shake the room as much or not at all. That is actually very annoying to me. I had to mute the sound each time
allow the cube stands to deflect in more than just one direction - just an idea but not important
Thanks for this marvelous effort - major Kudos on a job well done !!
Updated to version 0.2
Changes include the following:
- Added easter eggs in rex_11, rex_14, and rex_18
- General restructure of rex_19 to have more portalable surfaces
- Made rex_19's energy ball be an infinite energy ball
- Aligned liquid textures in rex_07 (thanks Random)
- Made infinite ball naming time slightley shorter in an attempt to fix the multiple balls bug
- Added images for chapter and bonus maps
- Changed the portalable floor platform position in rex_18
See the readme for a more complete change list.
I got all the way to 18 and am stuck - yes even with your hint....?
I deflect the e-ball - door is closed (red) - cube drops into floor portal to ceiling portal & down onto pad which starts transport - but I can't make it upstairs & make new portal and then move floor portal under cube drop to wall before the e-ball gets there... Almost ready to give up....must be another easy way I can't see...
quatrus wrote:
I got all the way to 18 and am stuck - yes even with your hint....?
I deflect the e-ball - door is closed (red) - cube drops into floor portal to ceiling portal & down onto pad which starts transport - but I can't make it upstairs & make new portal and then move floor portal under cube drop to wall before the e-ball gets there... Almost ready to give up....must be another easy way I can't see...
You're probably forgetting or not noticing another element to the level which at first seems useless. Look around a bit and see if you can figure out how to get infinite time to do what you're trying to do. Mevious very rarely forces you to do very fast, time-sensitive actions. Hope that helps, and if it doesn't, I'll be happy to give you a bigger hint :)
Played earlier the updated version as the changelog was quite interesting. Loved it even more, unlimited supply of cakes for you.
An outstanding creation using energy balls. I am amazed by your "almost" able to solve misdirections in 18 and 19 and then the even easier real solution. After getting 18 with a little help, 19 was easier as I looked for the intended solution.
The collaborators in this mod (credits) is a list of the most creative map contributors I enjoyed in Portal 1.
Back to Portal 2 now, thanks.
rossman231 wrote:
Rock Paper Shotgun has published an article about Rexaura.
Shame they don't link here.
I just got to chamber 16 (will leave the rest for later...). You can see the bugs I found in the attachment.
For me, the hardest was chamber 09 because I thought the orange portal gets fizzled too but it does not. Figured it out by watching the walkthrough video 
There were so many elements... a real mind-bender.
Downloaded from moddb v1.0
Hard to believe that you made the design,mapping and even the music all by yourself.
Took me about 5hrs to finish the campaign
I guess i played all chambers the intended way. I had no problems solving 18 & 19.
The level of difficulty was high mostly because of timed puzzles.
But in the end i was a little disappointed. I thought that you must have made a bts area after 19.
I didn't pay much attention to the dialogues but who were the 2 announcers?
Anyway great mod:5/5 Loved the music and the new elements
I see that you live in Seattle. That is close to Valve. Your mod is as good as your proximity to Valve. I'm also 24 & just started mapping 
Some bugs that i found:
a line inside the portal. Maybe a textured side surface:ch 16:1
blue reflections in goo:2
Maybe source's problem .White area. ch 19:3 4
I have finished now (if it can be called that...). I had trouble figuring out the harder puzzles because there were those little pieces missing. After watching a video I though "I didn't think you could do that". And, when I saw particular part of a chamber I was like "wtf is that good for". Plus, to reiterate, timed puzzles suck and everyone knows that. Please, DO NOT make any timed puzzles anymore. I lost my patience on chamber 19 and noclipped.
On the positive side, what I really liked were the earlier chambers, the music was great and speech was almost indistinguishable from the original. Keep up the good work.
Mek wrote:
Plus, to reiterate, timed puzzles suck and everyone knows that. Please, DO NOT make any timed puzzles anymore. I lost my patience on chamber 19 and noclipped.
I've heard this complaint a lot about Rexaura and every time I hear it, it baffles me. No step of any puzzle in Rexaura requires tight timing (you typically have about a 5+ second window for most of the steps that actually involve timing), and very, very few puzzles actually involve timing. Most of the time, I suspect people are coming up with solutions that they assume involve timing, but don't require it, or just have the solution completely wrong. Most steps of most puzzles you either have infinite time to set up (don't forget that if the ball is going through two portals back and forth, it will continue to do so for all eternity), or a really long time to set up. Nearly every one of the "timing" elements is shooting a portal at the right time, but again, you have infinite time to prepare yourself and get yourself ready, and the actual timing window for when you need to shoot the portal is large. On top of that, you nearly always have both a visual and audio cue to tell you when to do it. The example that you gave, Chamber 19 is a perfect example of this: no step requires tight timing (I think pretty much all of them give you 5-10 seconds) and every step you have infinite time to look around and figure out what to do next.
What really gets me is that both Portal 1 and Portal 2 have a lot more instances where timing is much harder, e.g., shooting a portal while flinging, which is not only difficult as a timing challenge, but you're also trying to hit a moving target. I've never heard people complain that Portal 1 and Portal 2 have too difficult of timing challenges.
EDIT: I forgot to mention this when I originally wrote this post, but I actually agree with your general point that timing-based puzzles generally suck and should be avoided. Also, quick saving and loading can save you a ridiculous amount of stress when it comes to having to worry about "timing" something that if done wrong would cause you to restart the whole or part of a level.
rossman231 wrote:
I've heard this complaint a lot about Rexaura and every time I hear it, it baffles me. No step of any puzzle in Rexaura requires tight timing (you typically have about a 5+ second window for most of the steps that actually involve timing), and very, very few puzzles actually involve timing. Most of the time, I suspect people are coming up with solutions that they assume involve timing, but don't require it. Most steps of most puzzles you either have infinite time to set up (don't forget that if the ball is going through two portals back and forth, it will continue to do so for all eternity)
Very much agreed. In fact, one of my favorite things about this mod was that I never felt like the solutions were strained or difficult to execute. The puzzles seem designed so you don't have to time much, beyond obviously making sure the pellet has already gone through a portal before you remove it. I think Mevious took the worst thing about energy balls and made it a non-issue.
Quick edit: Was the solution for the bonus chamber 02 supposed to require timing? It wasn't as bad as I remember, but it was more than the main game. I guess that's why it's a bonus.
Oh yeah, and getting the cake in chamber 14 was great.
Hello Mevious,
great mod, but i think i need your help (or hints) for getting the cakes.
11 was easy, but im still trying to solve the bonus02, arrrrgh....
14 was really hard to find, but now i can't get back to the hidden room because the door to the first part of the chamber is closed. Help please ....
18 i searched everything but couldn't find anything unusual. Any hints where to search ?
many thx
Everyone, thanks for your feedback.
Mek wrote:
I had trouble figuring out the harder puzzles because there were those little pieces missing.
Hm, pieces missing? I'm not sure what you mean. Are you talking about the visual bugs you posted earlier? Can you specify?
chimera201 wrote:
The level of difficulty was high mostly because of timed puzzles.Mek wrote:
Plus, to reiterate, timed puzzles suck and everyone knows that. Please, DO NOT make any timed puzzles anymore. I lost my patience on chamber 19 and noclipped.
I don't know what you guys were attempting, but none of the solutions require any more "timing" than any of the early levels (e.g, rex_02, rex_04, rex_05, rex_07, rex_08). If you were fine with the timing of those levels then you should have no trouble performing the final ones. If you want to be more helpful, provide the steps you were trying to perform that led you to your frustration so that I can make it obvious that it's a dead-end for future players.
Here's some hints about the bonus chambers and secrets:
bonus chamber 2 solution
Bonus chmaber 02 does actually require some good timing (hence why I removed it from the main set of levels). Bounce the ball off the door once, open it to let the ball through and then close it as you run to the platforms. You'll also need to shoot another portal as you run to the platforms.
chamber 14 secret hint
Once the door closes you can't get back in. The trick is to keep the ball alive so it won't respawn and destroy the box.
chamber 18 secret hint
If you are standing at the platform and look across the goo pit, you'll see an open section in the wall on the right. The button which activates the platform also closes that wall. I'll leave it to you to figre out how it's done.
Another superb Portal mod! Thank you (and your accomplished list of consultants) for sharing your talents.
I have completed a playthrough of version 1.0 looking for the fewest portals solutions. Most require unusual deflections of energy pellets, and a little luck. Please DON'T EVEN LOOK at these until you have put some serious effort into trying for yourself.
Fewest Portals Scores
Ch 00 : 1 portal
Ch 01 : 0 portals
Ch 02 : 0 portals
Ch 03 : 1 portal, video solution
Ch 04 : 0 portals
Ch 05 : 0 portals
Ch 06 : 4 portals (2+2), speedrun
Ch 07 : 2 portals, speedrun
Ch 08 : 0 portals, use cube to jump onto sign, then over gap
Ch 09 : 1 portal (4 without ABH), patience is a virtue
Ch 10 : 2 portals, speedrun
Ch 11 : 5 portals (2+3) (6 without ABH)
Ch 12 : 2 portals
Ch 13 : 0 portals
Ch 14 : 2 portals (2+0) (5 without wall-climbing or ABH)
Ch 15 : 0 portals, some tricky jumps to get a cube
Ch 16 : 0 portals
Ch 17 : 3 portals
Ch 18 : 2 portals (4 without ABH), video solutions, speedrun
Ch 19 : 2 portals
Bonus Ch 01 : 0 portals
Bonus Ch 02 : 0 portals (2 without ABH or wall-climbing)
Adv Ch 09 : 3 portals, same as standard chamber
Adv Ch 15 : 0 portals, same as standard chamber
* updated
Edit: All solutions still valid for version 1.2
Ask if you would like hints for any solutions, or can suggest further improvements.
One small bug : Bonus Chamber 02 doesn't show as completed in the bonus maps folder (I'm stuck on 75% completion).
Hello Mevious,
got bonus02 now and can confirm the above mentioned bug.(also stuck on 75% now)
thx for 18 i would have never seen it, i guess.
I can't keep the energy ball alive in Chamber14, except with two portals. I managed to get the ball to the other side of the door with two portals.
Somehow i did it, but it was anything else than easy. I even don't know if i did it the right way. Heavy timing and wild portal shooting, with an angry energyball in the neck.
A really really great mod, i had a lot of fun with it. I'm playing Portal Pro next.
Mevious wrote:
chimera201 wrote:The level of difficulty was high mostly because of timed puzzles.
I don't know what you guys were attempting, but none of the solutions require any more "timing" than any of the early levels (e.g, rex_02, rex_04, rex_05, rex_07, rex_08).
Oh, I wasn't complaining about the timing and I totally agree with your point. As I said 18 & 19 seemed pretty easy to me(maybe i got hang of the nature of puzzles by then). Firstly, I personally don't have a lot of time for playing games or making maps.
The energy ball made the puzzles dynamic. You had to do some steps and see for yourself what happens. Also you had to do it once to see whether a button was timed or not or the duration of the ball. Also even if there were many white surfaces I pretty much walked around in the rooms in between the 'solution steps'. And I have to keep in mind the energy ball doesn't hit me while solving it(Sure I used quicksaves but the feeling would be still there.) The 'killer step' that was required to solve most of the puzzles was actually a number of steps and you had to do it in order with a little bit of timing(Making a quicksave in between these steps doesn't come to the mind). Figuring that out in advance with the dynamic nature was difficult. And that is one thing that i like about Portal 1.
And yeah bonus02 doesn't show completed that's sure.
Just had no more Portal 2 maps to play a few days ago, so I gave this mod a go. I like the ideas in here; I actually disliked energy balls in Portal 1, but in this map they are quite adorable. The puzzles are great even though some of them take some time. But you can find out about that because here I got my blindrun for you! (as for all big Portal 1 mods the playthrough is split into ~30min parts)
part 1:
t41dsyI_ARs
(Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t41dsyI_ARs)
part 2:
GvxCNa7zPQo
(Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvxCNa7zPQo)
part 3:
_pXpI4umhxc
(Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pXpI4umhxc)
part 4:
-PbWU7wLK0I
(Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PbWU7wLK0I)
I'm going to second that "superb" rating. No longer are the energy pellets hit-or-miss. Everything works. It's great fun.
Incredible mod! 4/5.
I was able to break the second bonus chamber by a technique only available in Portal: "portal throwing," namely, where you fire your portal gun while on the edge of a portal, and then quickly back out of the portal you're in. In fact I solved that test chamber using portal throwing before discovering the intended solution.
I was also able to solve rex_01 without having to use the cube stabilizers even once. It was especially easy to bypass them in the first part.
Also, credit where it's due: who did the vocals (for both the male and female AI voices)? I didn't see it anywhere in the credits, and if it was in the credits, it wasn't clear who did the vocals.
I'm on level 16 and taking a brain break. Thanks for your hard work. This is an outstanding mod.
I am having my friends, who have portal 1, get this. Once again, Thanks for your hard work and contributions to both Portal 1/2 community.
I had wondered why this was never a spotlight before, great job Mevious.
Inspirata: They sound like TTS voices to me, although that might just be a really-well-done GLaDOS voice filter.
FelixGriffin wrote:
I had wondered why this was never a spotlight before, great job Mevious.
Yes
and this reminds me that I need to finish playing this mod!
Also.. download count is at 1000! awesome
FelixGriffin wrote:
I had wondered why this was never a spotlight before, great job Mevious.Inspirata: They sound like TTS voices to me, although that might just be a really-well-done GLaDOS voice filter.
I think the mod has been added to spotlight section before, but it wasn't in the top left "Spotlight" section. And I think Mevious is using one of AT&T Natural Voices, but I don't remember which one.
Fluppy wrote:
FelixGriffin wrote:I had wondered why this was never a spotlight before, great job Mevious.
Inspirata: They sound like TTS voices to me, although that might just be a really-well-done GLaDOS voice filter.
I think the mod has been added to spotlight section before, but it wasn't in the top left "Spotlight" section. And I think Mevious is using one of AT&T Natural Voices, but I don't remember which one.
Audrey - UK English
I'm rather late to the party, but since you patched the gameinfo from the Steampipe update I only tried it now.
Anyways, there was not a single chamber I did not enjoy. I loved all of the new elements, but I wish that the cube-activated pellet redirector was used a little more during the final chambers. Also, the dialogue was great, a very Portally humor.
Great mod overall.
Rexaura is a mod for Portal 1. It features puzzles based on high energy pellets and several new mechanics surrounding them.
File Name: rexaura_1.3.7z
File Size: 152.98 MiB
Click here to download Rexaura