This is my entry to the Summer Mapping Initiative. It features Crushers, Orange gel, Excursion funnels and cubes. What more could you need?

File Name: Aly Crushers 008.zip
File Size: 4.78?MiB
Aly Crushers

Map based on speed, with possible shortcuts and puzzles at times a bit haphazard (crushers and blue gel). But good feeling of the late P2 levels, with opening walls and room having the shakes. You also get to see what happens with orange gel and turrets!

But how about some white on those big bad walls? Geometry is really good - only, monochrome.

The first part was a little dumb, as in you can't possibly time it right to jump without trial and error
The rest was really nice though, i epsecially liked the very last part because it reminded me of the part in the trailers that were not in the real game

That was awesome, great job man. I have to say it was interesting seeing the turrets slide from the propulsion gel.

A very fun map with some highly rewarding experiences, and a few great ideas. I found slowly bouncing away from giant crushers to be particularly suspenseful. And I found the easter egg.

But I had some issues. For some reason, when I launched at the exit to the first room and landed on the white floor below it, I bounced. Either this was unintentional, or the repulsion gel on the floor didn't appear.

And on the walkway slanted toward the excursion funnel, I was confused by the fact that there were multiple beams. They seem to complicate the mechanism needlessly. Only the bottom one should be necessary.

Overall, the map was much looser than I prefer, but definitely worth playing.

Kibate wrote:
The first part was a little dumb, as in you can't possibly time it right to jump without trial and error

This is true. But the problem could be easily fixed by removing the wall that juts out to block your view of the crushers, or replacing it with glass.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'm working on some of the more cheating shortcuts, but I'm always a fan of multiple solutions!
And I'll definitely see to breaking up the monotony of the walls, I'll be releasing a new version in a few days

This was a great map, and i loved the easter egg but why is there a ball there? If you are worried about perfection (and you should be) there is something wrong with the first room. I felt as though i was being accelerated and decelerated at random times. the first jump seems to be way too long for the speed you have, and it looks as though you enter an invisible excursion funnel before you reach the panel. Other than that though, this was a good map.

There's a trigger gravity to slow you down to have enough time to place the portals while your in air. Maybe it reduces your gravity a bit too much, I'll look into it, thanks. The sphere was a joke, as It was a companion cube, but then I realized you could use it to easily solve the puzzle. I didn't realize you could with the sphere also, so that's gone in the next version

Some replies got me thinking, the part with the easter egg and the three lasers right before the end... how do you solve it WITHOUT the ball?
You need to block to deactivate the blue-destroying-wall-thing(i forgot what its called), and the ball to activate the floor that lets you jump to the other side.
If you only got the block to activate the floor-ramp, the moment you go through the blue-wall-thing the block would fall down and therefore the ramp would go down too.

So what did you guys do?

The intended idea is to use the cube coated orange, sliding it down into the funnel.

I like the puzzle overall. The build details are nice.

I guess this would be considered a shortcut for the last room since it seems to avoid much of the puzzle:


Crushers pose no threat. Only need a bit of orange gel to get rid of the turrets.

Here is my speedrun + blind ride:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNRZtUMRpBs

Aly wrote:
There's a trigger gravity to slow you down to have enough time to place the portals while your in air. Maybe it reduces your gravity a bit too much, I'll look into it, thanks. The sphere was a joke, as It was a companion cube, but then I realized you could use it to easily solve the puzzle. I didn't realize you could with the sphere also, so that's gone in the next version

At one point I did something wrong and these triggers suddenly changed my direction in a totally nonsensical way. The map was great but ran at a somewhat low framerate compared to other maps.

Thanks for the run Internet and the feedback everyone else. The map is totally unoptimized at this point, but I'll work on that for next version.

There is a big shortcut that destroys the puzzel in the first room:

1.Shoot one portal at the surface of the tractor beam and one at the floor, in such a way as you can lift yourself up into the horizontal tractor beam.
2. Shoot a portal at the surface that is above, on the opposite of the crushers
and the tractor beam make you floating to the second crusher (blue gel).

All in all it was a nice map, thanks:)

When I played through this the first time, I didn't notice the button on the ceiling. I had to complete the test without it. I didn't find out about it until I read the posts here. Perhaps an arrow would make it more obvious. I managed to solve it by putting an unpainted cube across the laser and using the excursion funnel to cross the gap to the crushers which was a bit too easy. That secret area is a bit difficult to shoot into, but that doesn't really effect gameplay. This map shows promise, but it felt mostly like old puzzles rearranged with more crushers; however, I did find spraying propulsion gel onto turrets fun and satisfying. That was the only real moment where I felt like I was doing something new. Still, I enjoyed it. Needs harder puzzles, some fine tuning and more crushers (which there was a severe shortage of in portal 2).

Updated to 008.

Optimized, fixed some shortcuts, ironed out some of the glitchyness and updated some visuals, as well as a hole to make the first puzzle a bit less "hit and miss"

Enjoy!

Yo! I've been doing videos of all the mapping contest entries (how far I'll get is uncertain since there's like 200 to go), but I did make it to this one and wanted to share.


KsA9F01lW10

May I point you to my thread (post40066.html) which shows a few glitches in your map.

I'm playing custom maps and record my first time of playing them. So the run is not perfect and may not use only intended ways, but maybe it can let you see how other people may understand the map or you could just enjoy someone playing this map for entertainment.
Anyways, here is the recording:

w1F-xwR9zXE
(Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1F-xwR9zXE)

Also note the video description for more feedback and my signature for additional project information.

I've been trying to catch up on older maps, so these comments are primarily notes to myself about what I did and didn't like about the map.

I don't like splashing a lot of gel around, and this map has a lot of that. It often leads to huge shortcuts, and this map is no exception.

There were a lot of crushers (whodathunkit!) which make timing an issue, but not very much. What it does do is make the level very noisy. I was actually grateful for the huge shortcuts, so I could get to the end before I went deaf.

Just 3/5 for me (it isn't bad, I just don't like it), and I won't be playing this one again.