A 1900's Aperture map and my second finished map, I wanted to see if I could capture the essence of the Valve paint co-op maps and I guess I sort of succeeded.

This "enrichment sphere" uses Conversion Gel, Turrets, Excursion Funnels and Repulsion Gel and can be solved in several ways depending on how keen eyed you are.

Yes, I realise there are some visual glitches with quite a bit of fail lighting and overlays. But how about we just ignore those for the sake of science.

File Name: Zeitgeist.rar
File Size: 4.64 MiB
Click here to download Zeitgeist (Old Aperture Co-op)

Stellar job, complex and layered Old Aperture map with pleasant atmosphere. Not the easiest, requiring a bit of communication.

We spent 20 mins in assorted foolery, then "alternatively" solved it by sniping the last ramps from the area above the fizzler-covered platform.

Lol at all these maps getting swamped under E3 and the sheer quantity of levels uploaded in the last 2 days.

Overall a pretty good use of the 1940's style. I like the player spawns are the 40's box droppers. I also like the use of stripped down turrets. The sphere lighting is a weird problem, I haven't messed with those so I don't know what the cause is, but I do know that other people have used them without any issues.

My biggest problem with the map is that I simply did not know where I was going, or what I was supposed to be doing. Me and my partner shot a portal from the first area next to/under the Excursion Funnel that you activate with the switch, and then on to the floor right next to the exit. By luck we noticed the switch which opens the exit doors, but again there was so little direction that we never actually managed to hit it. Then when we noclipped to press the switch (to see if it did let us exit), and the exit door simply opened - it didn't wait for both players to be present.

In short, indicator strips and other visual clues on what direction we should be taking would help this map in a big way. Work on that and the lighting issues and this would be a rock solid release!

Thanks for the review, and yeah I have absolutely no idea what was causing the lighting glitch, I even deleted the original sphere and replaced it with the Valve instance to see if that would help but nothing changed.

The lack of direction probably stems from the fact that I made this map as I went along instead of having an overall plan, this combined with the open nature of 1900's maps meant that there was little specific obvious path for the players to follow, and it is fairly easy to exploit it when you get stuck on a test.

The door was an attempt to create an addition puzzle in the map without having to use much space because I didn't think the map was long enough by that point. I thought I made it clear with the sparks on the door that it had to be happened by other means, but it also links in with the fact that I couldn't get Valve's instance to work, so I just made my own door.

Yes, it does need a fair bit of work in terms of visual aids for the player, and maybe blocking off more panels to keep the flow of the map. Cheers for the feedback.

Making up a puzzle as you go along definitely causes problems with flow and solveability. Did you start this map before the contest was announced, or did you start mapping on the announcement day? Assuming the latter, I definitely think that with longer than two weeks and a game plan that you could make this into a great map.

Like I said, aside from the sphere's lighting I think you really hit the 40's visual style. Talk to Lobster and see if he can give you any protips or look at your VMF.

I started the map at the end of May, did the spawn area and then left it until June 2nd when I thought that I should probably release a competition map.

I definitely know now that I should write a plan of action for my next map, I think i'll try to do some more Sphere levels since they seem to be underused and I like the olde-worlde theme they've got going for them.

Personally i'd love to see Lobster make a co-op map, it'd be interesting.

Any other feedback? It'd be nice to hear what people think.

Love the style of this map, the whole 1900's style is very atmospheric and it really worked for us. As has been said previously after destroying the turrets we weren't really sure what we were meant to do and we are pretty sure we used an 'alternative' method for completing the map.

As always we recorded our play through of this map, don't watch it if you haven't yet played the map.

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coopcrowd wrote:
Love the style of this map, the whole 1900's style is very atmospheric and it really worked for us. As has been said previously after destroying the turrets we weren't really sure what we were meant to do and we are pretty sure we used an 'alternative' method for completing the map.

As always we recorded our play through of this map, don't watch it if you haven't yet played the map.

Very enjoyable to watch that, the evil laugh made my day I think.

The section with the turrets involves one player jumping into the funnel, the having the other drop white gel into the portal and then into the funnel by the turrets, so that you then have a portalable surface for the funnel for the next part.

It turns out you missed about 50% of the map involving turrets and funnels but that was my fault. Very informative to watch, thanks.