Out of the dark, into the night.
Thru the portals, follow the light!
Watch the guardians, broad and tight,
Or dive in the Abyss, you better might.

My second mapping attempt, and my very first contest entry. Have fun playing with light bridges, deadly lasers, and even more deadly Turrets!

File Name: SMI_contest_entry_shroudeye.rar
File Size: 8.72 MiB
Click here to download The Abyss

Loved this map. Great usage of Hard Light Surfaces, and the puzzles had that perfect balance of "challenging" and "I am a super scientist" when you get things right.

The final bridge took me a mintue to figure out, only because I didn't see where the one you finally take actually hits. It's obscured behind walls and glass when it's actually activated, so it's not immediately apparant what needs to happen next.

My biggest complaint is the turrets. "Use Super Damage" is cool, but the first time I loaded the map I didn't even realize they were there and I was like 3 pixels shy of being protected by the Hard Light Wall and got killed.

You have a VertexLit texture on one surface that I noted here. Aside from this, this map is visually phenomenal. Great example of the large, open, cavernous Aperture style. Lighting is top notch and the little details such as the ropes/cables really add to the feel. Excellent work.

I do like deadly turrets.

Totally offtopic but: Omigosh, haven't played red alert in ages! (sorry Msleeper I looked at your profile :S).

chickenmobile wrote:
Totally offtopic but: Omigosh, haven't played red alert in ages! (sorry Msleeper I looked at your profile :S).

I made a thread.

Turrets aren't that bad, I died from accidentally hitting the laser like 6 times!!!! not cool.

Large, open-air map with a double coat of shiny to the right degree. Keeps teasing your interest with what seems a solution close at hand.

But, quite anticlimatic to die by a billion bullets in the first 5 seconds of play and later finding no danger whatsoever.

Yeah the lasers and the turrets were a little high on deadliness, but able to work around to solve the medium hard bridge puzzle. Nice map, thanks for creating.

dont change dmg settings from valve. thank you. stopped playing the map after dieing by hitting the laser. yeah for sure its a laser but for the game fun its just so annoying.

Thank you all for the critics, I'm glad to be a part of this contest!

For the lasers: I'm sorry, but it was a misinterpretation of mine: I thought the "Lethal" damage type was one for creating a laser that DID hurt you (Which was expected in the game), and the "Non-Lethal" one was for... creating a laser that DID NOT killed you (Which was unexpected).

I have playtested this. A LOT. And I've got killed by the laser. But I've thought the laser was ok, as it is expected to be deadly, not harmless.

So it never occured to me that the "Non-Lethal" setting was dealing the standard amount of damage... until I've checked an other contest map AFTER the deadline passed. It was a big, hard "Facepalm" moment for me, as soon as I've realised that this would (and HAD!) end up frustrating people.

For those who have died for science: I'd like to apologise for this inconvenience of mine.
Thanks,
-Shroudeye

Cool map I found it cool that the player had to keep going back to one spot to activate/deactivate the bridges. However I agree the laser was a one hit kill but trust me I thought the exact same thing as you when I started my first map. It was kind of dark to in my opinion but still overall it was a great map.

Great Puzzle, i really like it. I've got only one problem,that i've don't seen the second cube dropper at mapbeginn, so i've tried a long time at mapend with only one cube. You can place the "final bridge" to exit, but you can't go on it. I thought i have to place the portal after the panels and then i have to activate the other bridge so i can go on it. But this was my fail. This map is very good.

Not bad, but it has a couple of small problems.


-I have to agree with msleeper regarding the turrets. I died ~8 times before finally getting frustrated and turning on godmode just to be able to begin the level...
-Falling into the pit doesn't kill you...? I fell in towards the end and experienced a screen fade, but no death.
-Additionally, one of the later platforms has a spot where you can fall down and end up unable to get out except to fall off (which, again, didn't kill me).
-I completely ignored the dropper for the non-laser cubes at first because I thought it was the laser-cube dropper. It's not obvious that it's important. Made finishing the level way easier once I found it and used it though.

Enjoyed it once I managed to get rid of the unnecessary-instant-death turrets.

Well, the turrets... Now that is my mistake, Looks like I've left them at super damage on. I agree, they weren't needed to be that deadly.

Looks like after the contest judgement complete, I've got some things to fix.

@Will T.
Falling into the pit didn't killed you? That is odd. I don't remember now if I left the trigger short or not, but I do remember setting it to at least 1000 units of damage to be double-sure... And I've jumped numerous times to test it, and it worked, I got killed & restarted.

Also, can you be more specific about that platform that you stuck?

There's a large square area on the platform where the light bridge used to reach the exit hits the portal-able wall, low on the side in the direction the bridge comes from. It's enclosed by walls on 3 sides. It's easy to simply jump down there and find yourself with no way out.

I can get a screenshot if needed, but it'll have to be a bit later.

Also, I realized now why I didn't die in the pit: Remember I mentioned I turned on godmode to get past the turrets? Well... I never turned it off. So that was my bad.

Thanks! I'll be sure to fix that one in the version 1.1 of the Abyss. That is, after the contest's judgement is done.

So according to all the critics:
-Turrets and Lasers needs to be toned down.
-Turrets may require a little more forewarning.
-The box puzzle needs to be more clarified.
-A platform where the player got stuck needs work.
-And some other minor improvements, whereever necessary.

Thank you all for the critics!

The only fix you should need for the turrets is just to disable "Super Damage Mode".

Looks like it's all been said already and yeah those turrets were super annoying (just the first ones up on the ledge) I kept dying way faster than expected because I thought it was just normal damage. Died a lot from the lasers, mostly when I pick up a cube that is interrupting or redirecting it.

It was visually fairly unintereting, could use more stuff hanging around. I also noticed one of the textures's cubemap is off. I had the same problem in one of my maps and I noticed that next to the metal texture I used there was an exact same texture with the word "vertex" after the pathname. I did see one on the wall around the second bridge. You want to use the NON-vertex version so that the effects line up with the textures surrounding it. Im not sure what these "vertex" textures are for, all I know is they look weird when against other, normal textures

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:

bNuAjib8DOQ
(Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNuAjib8DOQ)

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

Once I figured out the turrets were super deadly, they weren't a problem. I was surprised at how many times I thought I was doing the right thing, only have to go back and reverse a step I had taken. Thank you, mapper, for not making me jump onto lightbridges. I get so sick of overshooting those suckers.
For such an actually cavernous map, this didn't feel unnecessarily large to me. I can't wait to have my brother try this one (he gets vertigo!)
This map wasn't exactly fun to play, but it was challenging enough to keep me interested until almost the end. 4/5 from me.