A challenging coop map with some original puzzles that take strict cooperation. I tried to come up with some of my own ideas, things you didn't see through the portal game. It is a good sized map with 4 puzzle rooms that will be sure to really test you. Please enjoy my cooperative map!

Thank you.

Please check the thread for changes, screenshots, or for help with any parts of the map.

I would appreciate feedback!

*UPDATE* Fixed No Edict Crash

Map no longer has exit elevators. Just know you've completed the map once you hit the final button in the glass in the last room.

File Name: coop_secleratus_fix.zip
File Size: 11.03 MiB
Click here to download Secleratus

Here are some spoilers if you are having trouble with any parts of the map.

First room-

Catching the cube
One player must place a portal on the top angled shoot and then below you on the lower platform. As you are flying, replace both portals after you cross the grid, One on the platform below the cube path, and the other on the angled shoot that you hit. At the same time, the other player needs to time the button so you can catch it. After the cube is caught, your partner either needs to switch you portals or make sure you don't fall back in to your own portal.

Exiting the room
Once you have placed the cube, the animated ledge will open. Once on the ledge, you can open the panels with a button in the chute. 6 Panels will open, 2 below you, 2 on the ceiling and 2 islands below that.

Place your left click portal on the ceiling and your right click portal on the platforms below the animated ledge. Jumping from the ledge, fall through the portal below you. As you fall looking down, place your left click portal directly below you. This will shoot you up to the buttons on the ceiling. Press them and as you fall you will need to change your left click again to the panels that open on the wall across from the exit gate.

2nd room-

This one will take some practice. You need to first place your portals on the only platforms lit up with spotlights. Use the gel ramp to get your momentum. As you are flying, you will see new platforms available for portals, you need to switch both. Just shoot for the only light you see! You both need to be flying together in order to complete the puzzle correctly.

3rd room-

aim the spheres with portals while you press the button, both need to land together

Final Room

Getting the cube
You need to catch the laser redirect cube in air by timing the catapult launch and then opening the animation ledge so you don't hit the emancipation grid.

Firing the gel
Place a portal underneath the laser beam and then one down in the pit. Hold the cube and jump in to it, then aim the laser at the laser catch.

Getting the Button
You need to direct the GEL to the walls using the angled panels next to the button pedastal. Once you've put gel on both walls, place portals accordingly. Time your jumps so that you hit each other in air, dropping you in to the button.

THE BEST MAP IN THE SITE I LOVE YOU DEMISE

haha TY =)

Hey there.

This map is just amazing!
It was so much fun and a good challenge to solve it.
Thanks for your work and thanks for sharing it to us.

rotating panels
- the room with the rotating panels (and spotlights) has 1 problem
- when both have to place the last 2 portals, each of them can see all previous spotlights
- so if you fall down onto the last spot, it was hard to find the correct place for the portals

altough this room was really fun!
placing the balls
- when placing the balls at the moving buttons, we did not use portals
- we just pressed the button, when they took the outer way to the middle
- both balls directly landed on the buttons

dunno if it was that easy or if we should have used portals...
This map is definitely one of the best co-op maps so far!


Regards
PortalCombat

Thank you for your reply! Im glad you had fun with my map!

As for the rotating panels, I've tried to make that second room perfect, but its a lot of complicated stuff.

And the balls, you dont exactly haveto use portals. You CAN completely by using correct timing and wall bounce, but aiming them with portals is another way that you can complete it.

Updated*

Uninteded completion of 3rd puzzle room fixed.

Rite, so me and my coop buddy just wanted to play a random but hard map; so we decided to give yours a go.
I'm not denying that those 'enticing' screenshots lured us in , but the fact that you mentioned that your level was challenging, as in the level being difficult!

"NEVER HAS THIS BEEN DONE BEFORE!!"

I said to my coop buddy. (referring to maps where you can put a portal to the exit, so to speak, ehemmmm be shamed the lot of you !) Long story short , your map ticked all the boxes. Perfectly executed and well thought out.

MAKE SOME MOAR, plz and fast!

everyones happy; even him:

PortalCombat wrote:

rotating panels
||- the room with the rotating panels (and spotlights) has 1 problem
- when both have to place the last 2 portals, each of them can see all previous spotlights
- so if you fall down onto the last spot, it was hard to find the correct place for the portals

altough this room was really fun!||

Regards
PortalCombat

I agree with you, the last part does seem a tad bit confusing but for some reason you just KNOW where to put your portals at cause it just flowed so well, just like the map. It didn't seem like a user created map it seemed like some room glados would have put you through in the name of science.

Overall great map, it flows, looks clean, and the puzzles are a great way to put you and your buds heads together. Sick work!

ewart wrote:
Rite, so me and my coop buddy just wanted to play a random but hard map; so we decided to give yours a go.
I'm not denying that those 'enticing' screenshots lured us in , but the fact that you mentioned that your level was challenging, as in the level being difficult!

"NEVER HAS THIS BEEN DONE BEFORE!!"

I said to my coop buddy. (referring to maps where you can put a portal to the exit, so to speak, ehemmmm be shamed the lot of you !) Long story short , your map ticked all the boxes. Perfectly executed and well thought out.

MAKE SOME MOAR, plz and fast!

everyones happy; even him:

This is very good to hear =) this is exactly what i wanted to happen, an enjoyable and different map. I will eventually do some more mapping, i would like to wait until after this contest is over though, I'm interested in seeing the results!

Thanks again, and im glad to hear you enjoyed this as much as you did

This was without a doubt the toughest map we played so far. Both you and your partner have to do some pretty crazy stuff and most importantly: you have to do it at the exact same time. Very challenging indeed.
Review
We found a way to make catching the cube in the first room a little easier. After the first player flings himself through the fizzler and flies up from his floor portal to catch the cube, his partner can shoot a portal on the floor on his side and replace his partner's portal. This prevents his partner from flying back from the sloped platform to the fizzler and makes it possible to try catching the cube without having to redo the fling every time. I think you should keep that, it makes your map a bit more accessible for the public.

Somehow the part where you had to press the button to reveal the portal platforms didn't work too well. We could get up on the panels but the button was just out of reach. Eventually we brought the cube over to the faith plate and placed it on the small ledge underneath the button so we could climb on the cube. We just couldn't get enough height from the faith plate for some reason.

We had some technical difficulties with the next part. My computer (hosting the game) began slowing down and caused a bit of lag. Even when we counted down our jumps and flew almost perfectly synchronised through our portals, the cameras still didn't pick us up at the same time. Eventually we had to noclip to the next area, it just never worked out perfectly. Perhaps you should make that part a bit less strict, I don't know.

The room with the spotlights was a serious killer. This took us many tries before we could even get up to the last faith plate individually and then even more tries trying to get there at the same time. Again, a combination of tough skill with perfect timing. What a relief when we finally did it!

We got the spheres in their receptacles at the first try. No need for portals, just wait for the receptacles to meet in the middle and let the spheres bounce into them. Clever puzzle though, but if you managed to get through the first two chambers then this was a piece of cake.

The last room was simple compared to the others. In the meantime we got used to catching cubes before hitting fizzlers and the synchronised fling was pretty straight-forward as well.
Overall, an excellent map with some very tough timing puzzles. The solutions weren't too hard to figure out, the biggest challenge was executing it. The map is very well designed with a nice touch of GLaDOS's motivating voice lines.

Keep up the good work!

Calculator wrote:
This was without a doubt the toughest map we played so far. Both you and your partner have to do some pretty crazy stuff and most importantly: you have to do it at the exact same time. Very challenging indeed.
Review
||We found a way to make catching the cube in the first room a little easier. After the first player flings himself through the fizzler and flies up from his floor portal to catch the cube, his partner can shoot a portal on the floor on his side and replace his partner's portal. This prevents his partner from flying back from the sloped platform to the fizzler and makes it possible to try catching the cube without having to redo the fling every time. I think you should keep that, it makes your map a bit more accessible for the public.

Somehow the part where you had to press the button to reveal the portal platforms didn't work too well. We could get up on the panels but the button was just out of reach. Eventually we brought the cube over to the faith plate and placed it on the small ledge underneath the button so we could climb on the cube. We just couldn't get enough height from the faith plate for some reason.

We had some technical difficulties with the next part. My computer (hosting the game) began slowing down and caused a bit of lag. Even when we counted down our jumps and flew almost perfectly synchronised through our portals, the cameras still didn't pick us up at the same time. Eventually we had to noclip to the next area, it just never worked out perfectly. Perhaps you should make that part a bit less strict, I don't know.

The room with the spotlights was a serious killer. This took us many tries before we could even get up to the last faith plate individually and then even more tries trying to get there at the same time. Again, a combination of tough skill with perfect timing. What a relief when we finally did it!

We got the spheres in their receptacles at the first try. No need for portals, just wait for the receptacles to meet in the middle and let the spheres bounce into them. Clever puzzle though, but if you managed to get through the first two chambers then this was a piece of cake.

The last room was simple compared to the others. In the meantime we got used to catching cubes before hitting fizzlers and the synchronised fling was pretty straight-forward as well.||
Overall, an excellent map with some very tough timing puzzles. The solutions weren't too hard to figure out, the biggest challenge was executing it. The map is very well designed with a nice touch of GLaDOS's motivating voice lines.

Keep up the good work!

Thank you for the compliments I'm glad to hear you had fun! Although, I have come to realize that if you and your partner have a bit higher than normal latency, or if there is any lag of any sort.. the first room can be a bit difficult to pass. I am going to extend the box that recognizes both players to make it a bit easier to trigger. I've always tested this with partners that connect well to me and in lag free conditions.

Demise asked for me and my partner to do his level this is what happened.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgX6aHyNSZc
I will upload another video tomorrow most likely with us finishing the level since we know what went wrong.

Im glad to see the headscratching, as I wanted it to take some thought. I definitely dont want you to be completely stumped as to where you cannot continue. Once editing is unlocked I will be making some minor changes to the first room to make it apparent as to what needs to be done.

I thank you all thus far for all of your thoughts and input to help this map be better!

I've uploaded a video of my playthough: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40moGNtEb8U

It was quite long. Not really a problem, but still, quite long

It's overall very good, and I liked that it required a lot better co-operative timing than other maps do, although the second chamber wasn't really a puzzle, just quickly and accurately aiming at platforms, although it was still quite good. I didn't like the third chamber, since it was just pressing 1 button at the correct time and didn't actually involve 2 people at all.

Salamandra wrote:
I've uploaded a video of my playthough: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40moGNtEb8U

It was quite long. Not really a problem, but still, quite long

It's overall very good, and I liked that it required a lot better co-operative timing than other maps do, although the second chamber wasn't really a puzzle, just quickly and accurately aiming at platforms, although it was still quite good. I didn't like the third chamber, since it was just pressing 1 button at the correct time and didn't actually involve 2 people at all.

Yes this is actually in need to be fixed.

It is supposed to:

One person pressed the buttons and both of you need to aim the spheres with your portals. This is the way it was meant to be solved but now i realize that there are other ways of doing this in which i did not intend.

Thank you for your playthrough!

This map is well done. I didn't really like it because I've never been a fan of timing puzzles, and having 2 players to get their timing exactly right makes it even worse.
Took us about 30 seconds to figure each of the puzzles out (except the last one, crashing while in the air is something I usually don't think of), but it took a very long time to solve. One always messed up the timing.

For fans of weird flings and intense timing, this is a real go to map, good job if you were shooting for that

Thank you, and yes i was shooting for a challenging map that steps away from the norm of the standard puzzles. I guess everyone has their preferences!

Thanks again!

The map is nicely put together, and challenging, but some parts are challenging for the wrong reason. I am Inouye's coop partner, and there are problems we continuously encounter. The first room, the final launch both players have to be synchronized, and we had many many times where we were just barely off and it always resulted in us just slamming against the door panel and dying, seemingly at the same time. We did eventually get past the first room despite the frustration, and in the 2nd room, we came across new problems. We know the order to shoot the portals as we are flying, we know where to shoot and have both made it through our entire paths. The problem is, when we go at the same time, seemingly perfectly synchronized but I'm assuming is truthfully just barely off, the panels are turning around before we get to them, usually on the 2nd or 3rd set. We tried quite a few times before the frustration became too much, sometimes I would make it all the way, sometimes he would, usually one of us would have the portals ready to go and the panels would start turning right before we got there, causing that one to slam into the wall and falling down. It just seems to me the timing necessary is too precise, a bit of leniency would be nice, say if the panels that turned stayed turned for another second, hell even half a second longer and we would probably have completed the 2nd part. Once frustration set in, we stopped caring and just played around for a bit before quitting. I went ahead and spoiler'd everything because I didn't know if I was giving anything away =D

Right, it is a pretty strict room. I'ts all about the ding sounds. If they're pretty close, you know you've timed your launch correctly. I did want this room to be challenging though so i guess try, and try again!

Thank you for your input, much appreciated.

For me, this is no portal 2 gaming. Like almost all the custom maps of the internet, mappers don't create puzzling rooms. All your rooms are based on one stuff : timing. And it's really boring (to my opinion) to just have to redo the map 100 times just because you did'nt jump at the right time. There's no map like this in the real game and I know why, the game wouldn't have been sold.
The level design is really impressive, really great. You have such talent for this. But there are no enigmas, NOTHING. You enter a room, you already know how to solve it. the only enerving problem is : when am I going to jump at the right time on the damn platform.
Do you understand my mind ? It's just to understand why all mappers do maps like this.
This has nothing to do with the portal spirit.
But still, I enjoyed discovering the level design of your map. Impressive.

wismeril wrote:
For me, this is no portal 2 gaming. Like almost all the custom maps of the internet, mappers don't create puzzling rooms. All your rooms are based on one stuff : timing. And it's really boring (to my opinion) to just have to redo the map 100 times just because you did'nt jump at the right time. There's no map like this in the real game and I know why, the game wouldn't have been sold.
The level design is really impressive, really great. You have such talent for this. But there are no enigmas, NOTHING. You enter a room, you already know how to solve it. the only enerving problem is : when am I going to jump at the right time on the damn platform.
Do you understand my mind ? It's just to understand why all mappers do maps like this.
This has nothing to do with the portal spirit.
But still, I enjoyed discovering the level design of your map. Impressive.

Just how many custom maps have you tried, exactly? Two? Theres 238 maps just from the contest, and a quite large part of them actually capture the portal spirit extremely well. Keep looking, I say!

wismeril wrote:
For me, this is no portal 2 gaming. Like almost all the custom maps of the internet, mappers don't create puzzling rooms. All your rooms are based on one stuff : timing. And it's really boring (to my opinion) to just have to redo the map 100 times just because you did'nt jump at the right time. There's no map like this in the real game and I know why, the game wouldn't have been sold.
The level design is really impressive, really great. You have such talent for this. But there are no enigmas, NOTHING. You enter a room, you already know how to solve it. the only enerving problem is : when am I going to jump at the right time on the damn platform.
Do you understand my mind ? It's just to understand why all mappers do maps like this.
This has nothing to do with the portal spirit.
But still, I enjoyed discovering the level design of your map. Impressive.

I'm sorry to have inconvenienced you with this map. As the description said

"A challenging coop map with some original puzzles that take strict cooperation. I tried to come up with some of my own ideas, things you didn't see through the portal game."

So, yes its a bit different from the game. The game was not challenging at all. That's why i made this. It challenges people looking for a challenge. To me... the GAME was boring, so i guess we have different feelings.

It's challenging yes, but not with a fun thing. Must we lose the fun part ? I agree when you say that portal2 was not challenging enough. But it was fun. Not bring at all. It's a good balance between puzzles and good rythm in order not to block the player with one thing that gets really really enerving. Getting blocked somewhere just because you can't do something and not because you did'nt understand how to pass is really horrible. At the end, my friend and I were almost fighting ourselves. We were pissed off, and did'nt have fun anymore. We were yelling at each other : BUT THE HELL YOU DID'NT JUMP WITH ME (I just want to add that your timing is REALLY very accurate and half a second is already too much) ! NO BUT I WAS LAGGING ! etc.
I repeat myself, your map was surely one of the best I've tried. Great design, but I really not agree with the timing issue. It's more challenging right, but not fun at all. In portal, the timing was very soft, you could have easily 2 sec of space between players to activate. I think it's because in their tests, it came out that people got bored with tring 100times the puzzles because the timing was really accurate.
Thanks anyway for doing such map, and for answering me. I'm waiting for more maps of you.

PS for Pete, yes I've tried maybe a 1hundred maps so far, and a lot are based on precision, timing, just putting a portal in a little hole almost invisible and with dynamics that don't fit with portal. People don't have the same spirit than valve. Valve tries to block you with a puzzle you don't understand (at least they try, alright, it's not very difficult but still), mappers just put you in a room were you immidiately see what to do, it's 6years old difficulty, no brain needed, but it requires so much timing or precision in the test, or it is so long, that it takes a lot to time to achieve it. Why ???? Because you'll gonna die a hundred times. And in the description, the mappers say ; my map is quite challenging. I say : yes, but not in the right way at all for my opinion.
My goal is not to criticise freely, there are a lot of good ideas, but some aspects piss me of in the game. I'm just waiting for someone who will do a valve map but more difficult, with the level design of Demise. That would be awesome !

Everyone has their own opinion! Thank you for playing my map and thank you for the compliments and feedback!

Just in order to put an image on my opinion. One of your mate , magicrat, did a map like yours, really really difficult with something about always dying 100times. I did the same criticism about his map. It was called fire of epimetheus. Did'nt like it at all. No brain, just dying.
He took this in count and posted me he did a new map according to my thoughts : rock of prometheus. IT IS AWESOME ! No dying problem. No need to redo the same thing 100times. Just a really challenging puzzle that needs brain. A really good map, just in the portal spirit of game.
Just try them both to see the difference betwenn them and the upgrade he did. So that you can have something actual about what I think.
If you did the same with your map, it would be so awesome, you have such talent.
Ciao. Wismeril !

Ok me and my friend have spent over an hour in the first room of this map and we've come to the conclusion that your map is bugged. There are 12 blue panels blocking the exit of the room and we cannot figure out how to get them down. We launch from the side panels that you have to press the buttons on the ceilings and we just hit the panels and die. We've even tried dancing at the cameras because of the decals over them, but nothing happens.

Hmmm. I like a good challenge, and I don't mind some ninja movies, but this was ninja overload. Primarily exiting the first room. Sure, it was fun to think-with-portals and discover what the solution was initially, but then we spent 20 minutes just trying to get the sync-fling right. There a difference in satisfaction between a hard map, and an obvious-solution-yet-hard map.

But I've played worse and this was entertaining. The final room with the white gel was a nice brainwork puzzle.

This map has been really well put together, it looks really good (+ love the ninjas at the end), isn't too hard to figure out and includes some inventive uses of the portal 2 mechanics especially the second area with the running and jumping with the use of fast reflexes.

Like many the only real critique we would have would be the need for strict synchronization in the first area of the map, but as you have described this map as being a strict co-op map i'm guessing this is what you were aiming for. (The video below is a play through so do not watch if you haven't played the level yet).

Boh7UhYpju8

Are you aware it's possible to jump on the panel with the button in room 1 without getting the platforms first? We spent 10 minutes on getting the cube afterwards only to realise I'd already done what the cube's intended for, haha.

Couldn't finish the map because my partner sucks at jumping!

Can anyone explain to me why I can't download this map? I got the direct link off of a YouTube video, then I clicked Download and keep getting a "The webpage cannot be found" error message.

Also, when I tried clicking on this map from the topic with all the contest entries, I get a message saying:

"Access denied!

You have no rights to do this!"

This map looks pretty good and I'd like to be able to play it, can someone help?

I re-uploaded the map to see if it will fix the download error. Hopefully it does. Sorry everyone.

Demise wrote:
I re-uploaded the map to see if it will fix the download error. Hopefully it does. Sorry everyone.

Yes, that seems to have fixed it now, I was able to download it no problem. Thanks.

OK just played the map and we found it really tough. I'm not really a fan of quick reaction 'puzzles' so the big dark room with the blue and orange panels was not for me. Unfortunately, we had to noclip through it as we were unable to do it legit!

I liked the last puzzle, the was nice.

I saw you said earlier in this thread, Demise, that you were planning to make a change to the timing trigger in the first room. Have you already done that? My friend and I spent a long time trying to get out of there (with the synchronizing of the pressing of the buttons on the ceiling) and it never worked properly. I don't know if it was a slight lag issue, though I suspect it was, as most of the time we were in the air right next to one another for the button press and hit the exit wall at the very same time, only to not have the platform shift triggered and end up falling into the water below. Cube was placed, hidden button in the wall was pressed. The only other issue that I can think of is one of us having a corrupt file installed, or a script wasn't firing. We plan to uninstall/reinstall it and see if the problem is still there.

I'm love difficult maps, and this one looks promising, but it simply can not be done if either player has any amount of lag. In my opinion, a map which relies less on the skill of the players than the strength of both players' connections, is very frustrating.

does this map crash for anyone else? when i try to change to it, portal 2 crashes and gives the error "no free edicts"

I've fixed the problem, turns out some of the new updates only allow a certain amount of entities in a map now.

I had to remove the entire exit elevator, Just know that you've completed the map when you hit the button in the Glass box platform in the last chamber.

The most frustrating map Ive ever played in Portal2. I was lured to this because everyone was writing about high level of difficulty. Unfortunately the difficulty doesnt mean complex puzzles those are just opposite. The difficulty is about ninja skills and timing. Zero fun, mega frustration. Complete disaster created for ninja players. 1/5 from me and this is generous.

Unfortunately, a mate from Australia and me from Germany weren't able to finish this without noclipping - and I'm wondering how much the latency of the connection between us had to do with it.

In the first and second room we seemed to jump synchronized, still the exit never opened. Maybe you could think about making the time frame in which the doors open a bit longer?

The third puzzle was a bit dull indeed, one of the players is only needed because he can place portals here.

We managed to solve the final step of the fourth puzzle with only one player. Somehow we got the wall gel just right so one could fling into the glass cube alone. The button then activated the beam and the stairs outside of the room, but no exit appeared.

While the flinging was fun, the final steps required too precise timing for me, 3/5 from me, keep up the good work!

macko68 wrote:
The most frustrating map Ive ever played in Portal2. I was lured to this because everyone was writing about high level of difficulty. Unfortunately the difficulty doesnt mean complex puzzles those are just opposite. The difficulty is about ninja skills and timing. Zero fun, mega frustration. Complete disaster created for ninja players. 1/5 from me and this is generous.

This map isn't for everyone. It is very difficult for a reason. It caters to the people that are looking for an epic challenge.

You want easy? go play the campaign.