[UPDATED] A coop map of moderate difficulty that requires a little bit of coordination ...

Edit : Re-uploaded in zip format.
Edit : minor modif : changed the button into floor button
Edit : avoided being able to go in the paint rooms, pimped the map a little bit.

File Name: mp_coop_catapults_and_buttons.zip
File Size: 2.94 MiB
Click here to download Catapults and buttons

Hey there.

Nice map, but a little bit to short in my opinion.
Also the puzzles were too easy, because you just have to do it at the same time... and that's it

thoughts
=> First room was very nice :thumbup:
- everything was clear, because of the arrows

=> 2nd room was looking great at the beginning, but ended up a little bit boring
- get the cubes, fling them...
- 1 player fling to the buttons...
- other player fling to the gel...
- place the gel on the platform... done

=> mapping was really nice
- all parts of the map looks fine and we did not have to search for anything
- really good job on the mapping part

bugs
=> the gel does not always fit in the right spot
- or maybe we did it wrong
- we did not use the 2 portal places under the gel (which are facing each other)
- we 1st used blue-gel, then we used orange-gel over it
- so a small part of blue-gel would be at the last few centimeters of the platform
- (sometimes blue was "overwritten by orange completely)

Thanks for sharing that map. Iam waiting for more maps of this kind.
But we definitely need more action in the puzzles!


Regards
PortalCombat

PortalCombat wrote:

bugs
=> the gel does not always fit in the right spot
- or maybe we did it wrong
- we did not use the 2 portal places under the gel (which are facing each other)
- we 1st used blue-gel, then we used orange-gel over it
- so a small part of blue-gel would be at the last few centimeters of the platform
- (sometimes blue was "overwritten by orange completely)

You did it the wrong way

msleeper wrote:
Please upload all maps in a ZIP, RAR, or some other common compressed format. Thanks.

The first parts, with the synchronized jumps were fun. The last puzzle, where you have to get the paint just right took us like five years to figure out, just because it's unintuitive. We kept trying to use the slanting panels to put blue gel at the end of the "runway", but they just shot the gel in to the water. And jumping from the highest level down to the middle, using the orange gel felt really imprecise, trying to use it to jump straight to the middle.

In short, I feel like a Portal puzzle should be all about discovery. Once you know the solution, executing it is rather simple. That wasn't the case here, and it took a lot of trial and error sometimes. That said, it was a fun and funny map. Well done.

Yeah I'm still really confused what the rotating slanted panels are supposed to be used for. If they are a part of the intended solution, then I wonder what was broken on our end. We tried every which way to get the gel from the droppers, off of the rotating slanted panels and on to the edge of the runway, and every time it fell short. Like Hober said, everything up until that point was really awesome, just executing that very last puzzle took a lot more work than was really necessary or fun.

Also, I really like that you used either the Behind The Scenes or 1940's look (I can't tell which, it seemed like BTS but then you had the 1940's box droppers), but it felt a little flat, especially in the second area. With really large, uninterrupted walls like that, you really need to either vary the texturing or break up the walls and show some of the large, open, cavernous Aperture area.

Ok, i think i'll have to change the map a little bit ... you shouldn't be able to make it through without the good order.

The map is the easiest to execute here is what you have to do :

"Video of the paint order"
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Can you tell me your way of getting the block painted ?

And yeah, you're right the map lack a bit of polish on the details and textures ... i'll work on it.

Oh wow, we totally were not using the second set of portals that way.

Our dumb solution.
We were trying to put a portal directly under the gel flow and then on to the slanted panel. What we wound up doing was having 1 player upstairs sitting by the switch with their portals under the gel flow and on the angled surface by the gel buttons. And the other player was controlling the gel, without any portal placement. The person upstairs would let the first couple of gel blobs through, then go through the fizzler to destroy the portals. This let us come up with the correct paint pattern on the runway, entirely by luck.

The intended solution is really cool, but I never would have thought to try that in a million years. Honestly I'm going to blame our frustration on the fact that we played it at 4am, we were just so dead set on doing it our dumb way that I never thought to fling the gel like that.

Yeah no prob, i'm uploading an update to have a floor button up there, it will be more intuitive : one player got to stay on top of it , and a stronger spray for the orange

I think that would be a really awesome change actually.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with the map, visually. Are you going to keep the 1940's box droppers, or is the whole map supposed to be in the 1940's theme?

msleeper wrote:
I think that would be a really awesome change actually.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with the map, visually. Are you going to keep the 1940's box droppers, or is the whole map supposed to be in the 1940's theme?

What alternative box dropper .mdl could i use ? i don't find any that fit the environment ...

Thanks for the feedback btw

Edit : ho you must be talking about the cubes themselves ? you'd prefer normal ones ?

It's just an art direction thing. You could use a normal box dropper + normal box (using the "Old" or "Dirty" skin) and it would seem more like a consistently Behind The Scenes themed map.

I guess the question is, are you trying to make the map be a 1940's map, or a BTS map?

The 2nd part of this map has too many exploits! One way is to go to the top where the button is, portal 1 on that wall, portal 2 below 1 of the gels, and go through the portal. You can shoot through the grates from there, defeating most of the purpose of having the force field there...

GenWatsonHV wrote:
The 2nd part of this map has too many exploits! One way is to go to the top where the button is, portal 1 on that wall, portal 2 below 1 of the gels, and go through the portal. You can shoot through the grates from there, defeating most of the purpose of having the force field there...

Yeah you're right, but the main purpose of the force field is not letting you go down to reach the slanted panel down there, which must still be impossible, but i'll update.

Can you explain the other exploits please ?

msleeper wrote:
It's just an art direction thing. You could use a normal box dropper + normal box (using the "Old" or "Dirty" skin) and it would seem more like a consistently Behind The Scenes themed map.

I guess the question is, are you trying to make the map be a 1940's map, or a BTS map?

I don't know a bit like the theme of the mp_coop_paint_come_along ? that mixes 1940 items in BTS environment.
I must admit the part with the cube button in the glass is not quite getting along with the rest.

Uploaded a new version to add a bit of detail to the map.

Map is great, full of overcomplicated little things to try in sychronous. What we didn't get was the last puzzle: we just filled the ramp with orange, but very last step with a single blue blob.

On a side note, imho it's very important that coop maps give you room for fooling around. White walls, stupid stuff - sure we spent 20 mins playing puzzles which didn't exist, but surely we solved them all.

Great level dude, really enjoyed the first section and got really confused on the second part mainly due to poor powers of observation But we were very happy once we figured it out and saw just how simple we were for not noticing the solution

Check out our play through and break downs below (You probably don't want to watch this if you haven't completed this map yet).

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Howdy,

We quite enjoyed playing this map. Took a little while to figure out the correct order, but that's all part of the fun.

Good job.

AiRPoD wrote:
Howdy,

We quite enjoyed playing this map. Took a little while to figure out the correct order, but that's all part of the fun.

Good job.

Thanks, i appreciate

Thank you! One of the best custom maps we've come across yet. It was true to the original in every way which we liked (though different is also good). After some of the nearly impossible maps we've tried, it was very refreshing to find one we could actually solve AND execute. The lack of bugs was also much appreciated.

The only improvement I would suggest is that it could have been a little more difficult to solve.

I'm now your biggest fan and can't wait for you to make more! Please stay in good health. Look both ways before crossing the street and eat your veggies!

Here's a cookie for you:

Hayabusalvr wrote:
Thank you! One of the best custom maps we've come across yet. It was true to the original in every way which we liked (though different is also good). After some of the nearly impossible maps we've tried, it was very refreshing to find one we could actually solve AND execute. The lack of bugs was also much appreciated.

The only improvement I would suggest is that it could have been a little more difficult to solve.

I'm now your biggest fan and can't wait for you to make more! Please stay in good health. Look both ways before crossing the street and eat your veggies!

Here's a cookie for you:

Thanks ! I really like this kind of feedback
It's quite hard to create really chalenging puzzles without making them impossible for the large majority of players. But i'll try promise.
I'm polishing my next map for the contest. It will be out soon, it will definitly be more challenging, and a bit longer to solve ... stay tuned, i'll update this thread to inform you.

She cube buttons are a bit hard to spot
other than that, great map.

Good map, nice use of synchronized jumping, since I haven't seen that in any other custom maps so far. A big problem we had was realizing that we needed to put the cube on that button (since it was difficult to see), and having no idea that the thing blocking the cube would just slide away

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A friend and I played your map. I think we put the repulsion gel at the end of the ramp the "wrong" way.

tEDt9dofBTs

TyIzaeL wrote:
A friend and I played your map. I think we put the repulsion gel at the end of the ramp the "wrong" way.

tEDt9dofBTs

Yeah you did it wrong, but somehow you manage to do it in an almost more complicated way than the "normal" solution, so i'm okay with that ... and moreover, i can't think of any "simple" way of preventing this solution without completly designing again the level ...

What's funny is the first time we tried the map we got stuck at that part for like 20 minutes. We then got the accelerated gel to go on to the platform on the first try. When we recorded the video it took several tries.

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:

EHda5SttTOg
(Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHda5SttTOg)

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

sorry for the bump but here's another vid

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We recorded our blind run of this map:
Catapults & ButtonsCatapults & Buttons
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Redunzl and I both enjoy flinging, so this map gave us plenty of that. While coordination was necessary, there was no tight timing. The puzzles were straightforward except when the players split near the end, but even then you can see it didn't take long for us to figure out the different tasks. The visuals were neatly done, perhaps a little too much so. Valve made their older style maps look like government work, with shoddy workmanship stuck in here and there. That's not a criticism, just noting the difference in styles.

This was just a little too short and simple for excellence (any map that takes us less than an hour must be easy), but since we had a great time playing it, it definitely merits a 4/5 from us.