This map nearly took all of the 2 weeks the contest had, it went through a load of beta testing.
This one is for the public, Thank you.

- Beta testers ("Thank you Lab Rat Team").
- Picture "http://i.imgur.com/EJc13.jpg"
- Gameplay <a href="http://dustpupimages.imgur.com/portal_2break_away" class="postlink">http://dustpupimages.imgur.com/portal_2break_away

File Name: Break Away.zip
File Size: 7.3?MiB
Break Away

I love the original concepts you used in this. The little ball rat maze was pretty fun and the transition between modern chamber to underground chamber flowed well.

Excellent map. The chambers are well-designed, the ball-maze was quite clever, if a bit easy.


Minor issues:

The large pipe-face spewing steam in the upper chamber is solid, but the pipe leading up to it is not. You can walk around and into it and clip through the pipe.

Also in the upper chamber, the gap next to the ramp allowing you to see down to the bottom of the sphere is a nice touch, gives a bit of delicious vertigo. However, there is a portal texture you can shoot at through the gap, part of the chain-fling section leading to the upper floor. Since the door behind you locks, I assume you don't want the player backtracking.

I do love the addition of music, but some of your sounds seem to overlap a bit much. I'll hear three different music tracks fading in and out on top of each other, some laser-catcher sounds from nowhere near my position, and various other oddities. So your music and ambient effects need a bit of tweaking. Maybe tone down the range at which they can be heard.

But glitches aside, this really is a lovely map. Well-constructed chambers with interesting dressing, lots of eye-candy.

Thank you for the review. I'm glad to see people enjoy my creation; If I had more time I could have fixed some of the ambient_generics. I had a lot of fun making this map, took as much time as I could.

Professional and calculated: divided into a more formal chamber featuring an adorable minigame, and a dreamy one where the bulk of the looks are. Also narrative is not considered secondary and that's a big plus.

Bug: both opening and closing, the grid used to execute the jump between the fizzlers, kills you.

Thank you for the review. I've know about that issue but it seems if I don't have some type of hurt function in the trap door, it will cause you to get stuck till reload.

Had a lot of fun with it, and especially like how you handled the BTS transition

Glad to see another happy face.

Oh and before I forget did any one find the secrete in the map?

Dustpup wrote:
Oh and before I forget did any one find the secrete in the map?

Space.

Did anyone else get stuck at the part where you had to get the blue gel past the fizzler? I was at it for ages trying to think of an alternative solution before I realised you could press the small button from a few steps away.

Apart from that, I quite enjoyed it.

NuclearDuckie wrote:
Did anyone else get stuck at the part where you had to get the blue gel past the fizzler? I was at it for ages trying to think of an alternative solution before I realised you could press the small button from a few steps away.

Apart from that, I quite enjoyed it.

Yeah, me too. Maybe the timer is too short, make it a little longer can raise the quality of the puzzle.

Great map and puzzles, nice environment. timers in last chamber were a tad short - at least for me - fizzler was always coming up as I was going through it - sorry had to noclip after numerous tries. thanks for creating.

Did you know you could Throw the box up there be for you flung your self over there?

NuclearDuckie wrote:
Did anyone else get stuck at the part where you had to get the blue gel past the fizzler? I was at it for ages trying to think of an alternative solution before I realised you could press the small button from a few steps away.

I also had to try that several times. I finally realized the gel drops after a very short delay so I stepped on the gel dropper button for a split second and raced to hit the mini button. Once I had that method in mind I got it on the second try.

Dustpup wrote:
Did you know you could Throw the box up there be for you flung your self over there?

Yes I did that, it was nice to have that be possible after the difficulty with the previous timer.

BTS:

When the BTS part started my first thought was that it seemed forced. I guess I'm used to feeling like the BTS area is somewhere that the test supervisor doesn't want me to go, but I found it and am going to explore it anyway. However, once I saw where it took me I felt like I was tricked into somewhere I wouldn't want to be as a way for the test supervisor to get me out of the way; much like what happens in P2.
Did that make sense? To put it simply: I didn't like the BTS part at first, but I ended up feeling like it served a purpose in the story department.

Thanks for the review Adair, I really like it when people take a deeper look in to things. Since this was single player, I was aiming for a untold storyline. This map actually was laid out on a peace of graph paper before I started out on the map. It when thru three revisions before I started mapping. Soon after the map started to come alive it went thru more revisions. It was about a week before I finished the first chamber; I had to crunch play testing along with mapping. A lot of quick planing went in to this map.

Very nice map. Second subchamber was challenging a little - need to be fast to push both buttons, create portals, get a box and fling through them, but I did it ;]

BTW. Does anyone decode QR? I tried but i-nigma on my cellphone can't do that.

The first chamber was just "OK". But the rest was excellent.
I too loved the ball maze.

The tube drop was incredible - to most it probably seems simple and it is . . . but the sound and the loud thud when you land was sheet perfection. So much so that I Alt-Tabbed back to windows and started up a sound recorder - went back to game - and recorded those 10 secs.

I too was perplexed by the 2.5 sec timer. I got so desperate that I began to think the slamming trap door might be a way to propel myself to the button faster - but no. And after 30 mins of trying gave up and read the spoilers here. I actually tried the solution myself a number of times but must have not timed it right. Then when I read it here and went back - it worked after several tries.

Simply put - a wonderful map.

SargonAnkro wrote:
BTW. Does anyone decode QR? I tried but i-nigma on my cellphone can't do that.

Takes you to the Lab Rat mod's website.

http://www.therewillbescience.com

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:

tRuPPA0rqxw
(Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRuPPA0rqxw)

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

Thanks for your video of the puzzle, I Greatly appreciate it.

This is such a beatifully crafted map. It has a little of all the extra touches that make a map enjoyable just to be in. Unfortunately, the tight timing sucked most of the fun out of it. I did eventually make it work, even playing with a controller. Getting killed by the trap door grate was annoying, too. Without those aggravations, I would have given this a 5, but I reserve those for maps I want to play many times. So close, but just 4/5 from me.

There is a loophole that allows to skip the last puzzle completely.

s-ddJ32PiOQ

"Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature." -Arthur C. Clarke

But seriously, nice find. I always thought that was a neat trick with portals. I know it was taught in the first Portal, but was it in Portal 2? (I could just be thinking of another community map.)