Are you a cyber athlete?

Olympic is a marriage of puzzles and sports.

File Name: sp_olympic_v1.57.zip
File Size: 3.57 MiB
Click here to download Olympic

That was different, and amusing.

The first part gave me a little trouble because
the "Bat" would keep on turning instead of making a complete spin and stopping again. Actually it would make a quick spin then keep going at a slower rate as if by momentum. After pressing the mini button several times it started acting normal again and I was able to get through that challenge.
I'm not sure I got the intention of Chamber 2.
It looks like kind of a basketball type thing, but it was very easy, using blue gel, to jump up to the top with the ball and just drop it in the hole. Maybe that was the intended solution, but after the required timing in Chamber 1 I was expecting something that required more sport skill than simply figuring out how to get up there.
Also it took me a moment to figure out that I could and should get the ball from Chamber 1. I think someone who shoots both portals in Chamber 2 without getting the ball could be stuck having to reload.
I think there is some good map making here, but to be honest I'm not a fan of the sports theme. I'm just not a sports fan in general.

Quote:
I think someone who shoots both portals in Chamber 2 without getting the ball could be stuck having to reload.

The door re-opens if you approach it. This is designed to prevent re-loading.

I am aware of the rotation issue. I spent over a week to troubleshoot it, and this is the best that I can do at this time.

How did you get the propulsion gel to paint the chamber? Don't you need to deactivate the light bridge that's blocking the floor first? To accomplish that, you have to do something "sporty" first that requires fast reflexes.

Not a bad little map.

In the second chamber, I flinged myself with the ball over the button, and it stayed activated, so then I just used the gel to put the ball in the whole. Is there meant to be more than one ball used?.

No, not more than one ball.

But how did you guys get into the area with the basketball buttons in the first place? I cannot think of a way myself, but then again, I made the map, so it's difficult for me to think from a new perspective.

Never mind, I just figured it out. I'll come up with a fix to prevent that unintended solution.

Short map with no ending, borderline prototype. Features 2 mildly interesting puzzles in large, non-descript rooms. One is a first, "cube baseball": the other I discovered here being bastketball, but looked like any gel puzzle to me. Unimpressive and underdetailed as it is, it might have worked better with a stated goal (a timer?) or as a coop race.

The basketball chamber is completely broken at its current state because I did not foresee a way to bypass the intended solution.

I will fix it this evening when I get home.

I see, we weren't supposed to reach the basket. Maybe some grids on those white panels...

I'll put it in a glass enclosure.

Personally I prefer grids to glass. A grid is more definitive... Glass makes you want to find a gap in it

I scrapped the glass idea. I'm using murderous turrets instead!

Ooo . . . I can't wait for you guys to try out the new version. I swear the basketball area is tons of fun--once you play it the way it was intended.

Thank you all you guys for the quick feedback.

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:

NvQe-JuJn6U
(Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvQe-JuJn6U)

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

Thanks for the recording, Djinndrache.

But you recorded so soon, before I had the chance to fix the major gameplay design error.

I just released version 1.50, which hopefully fixed this error.

I seriously encourage you to try the new version. It should be much more fun.

Just asking this before I re-playing it: Are there any more updates expected for this map soonish? If so, then I would wait for them before re-playing.

It is likely that there will be more updates, perhaps for the next few days.

Just like with my previous maps, I keep making revisions after getting feedback from players until nearly everyone is satisfied.

Please wait until at least 7/30 before replaying and recording another video.

Thank you again.

satchmo wrote:
Please wait until at least 7/30 before replaying and recording another video.

Roger that

Version 1.53 just released.

This should be close to the final version, unless someone reveals any additional glitches or problems.

Played 1.53- certainly was novel. The bat is just a timing puzzle, with a new twist. A little hard to see how it moved and I had a glitch where it just slowly turned. Glitch disappeared on restart.
Going back to chamber 1 was not obvious, but necessary - after some frustration I passed the door and it opened - maybe some guidance somehow?
Got the ball blue gelled - nasty had to find the cleaner again. Turrets made it harder to complete, but didn't really add much to the puzzle.
Need an ending, why not use an elevator rather than just end at top of stairs?
Still nice creative puzzle - not sure I'd want to do it again though...Thanks for mapping.

Quote:
Going back to chamber 1 was not obvious, but necessary - after some frustration I passed the door and it opened - maybe some guidance somehow?

That's the reason I added a sign which specifically points to that door, indicating the door is bi-directional.

The turrets are absolutely necessary--otherwise the player would just portal himself into the basketball court and toss the ball into the basket.

How did you deactivate the turrets? I am truly curious.

satchmo wrote:
The turrets are absolutely necessary--otherwise the player would just portal himself into the basketball court and toss the ball into the basket

Okay I have to admit I still don't understand the intended solution to Chamber 2. I was still able to drop the ball into the basket by hand. I used a slightly different method to get up there because the portable surfaces are now different, but it was essentially the same idea as before.

As for the turrets I notice you made them un-grabbable so I just nudged them over. I used blue gel on the turrets behind the laser grid.

Demos
Here's a demo I made. This was a second run of 1.53. I didn't actually finish the map in the demo because the ball got coated, but it still shows the methods I used. olympic.rar
Edit: Don't ask why, but I decided to make a better demo: olympic_2.rar

Thank you, Adair, for recording the demo and showing me the way.

Based on your playtest recording, I made version 1.55

I sincerely invite you to try this version.

Judging from the feedback, I believe quatrus is the only person who figured out the intended solution so far.

Has anyone else done it?

First let me say that the "follow the bouncing ball" thing gets old really fast. I have played the the chamber for over an hour and I still have not been able the bounce the ball into the first basket. I have managed to take out all of the turrets.

It should be challenging but not impossible. Players will just give up if the test is too angle specific to complete. And the bounce dynamics of the ball are all over the place. Only in portal can a ball gain height while bouncing on a flat surface.

I think the difficulty needs to be pulled back to make it easier to get the ball into the overly protected basket.

You may have noticed that no one has posted a completion comment since your latest update to the map. This may be because no one has been able to finish it.

- TechOwl -

Yup, I finally gave up trying to bounce the ball onto the switch.

Here's how I finished the level...


I went back through the door and got a new ball after the turrets had been knocked over by all of my attempts to bounce the the thing onto the switch. The new ball was clean so it wouldn't bounce.

I placed the ball on the holder to shut down the field in front of the door, then went through and made a portal on that high spot on the right wall in the room with the "baskets". I went back through the door and made the second portal in the floor.

Then I picked up the ball and dropped through the portal ending up in the room with the "baskets".

At first I made a portal behind the red screen and dropped the ball though the second portal I made on the floor. This shut down the light bridges, but gave no way back to the blue gel. I later discovered that I didn't need the gel, so this test was not necessary to complete.

I made a portal up high on that right wall. This is the wall that goes up above the area were that red curtained room is that had the 2 turrets in it.

I made a second portal low enough to walk into on the first basket column, then walked though it and made the first portal on the way down to fall into, to start the flinging action we have used so many times. Once I got flung to the high point above the lower red curtain, I walked off, picked up the ball that was rolling around the floor, and side stepped back onto the first portal, now on the floor. If you hold the ball straight up, you will fall back into the same hole and get flung over to the side of the wall containing the second switch. The ball will likely fall into the switch when you hit, and you will here the door open.

Just walk off and fall back to the floor and out the door, back into the first room where you started. In a bit you will see the "Thank You For Playing" message ending the test.

A couple of things I noticed while playing;

1: The ball suddenly disappeared in a portal for some strange reason. I checked to see if a new appeared, but it did not, and I had to go back out and trip the floor switch again to get a new one. Then I had to do everything over again from that point on.

2: The room with 2 turrets in it captured my rolling ball in one of it's corners and although I could drop into the room from it's ceiling, I could not exit without going through the red field and killing myself off. There probably needs to be a portal surface somewhere lower to allow escape from this trap.

All in all, not a bad map, I just got tired of playing follow the bouncing ball.



- TechOwl -

Thanks for the feedback. I have been waiting to hear someone other than quatrus who can finish the map.

The strange thing is that when I test play this map myself, I can usually get the ball into the first basket in less than 30 seconds. Occasionally, I have gotten the ball in the basket with a single attempt. Maybe I am just extremely good at aiming, but I don't consider myself an expert player. In fact, I think my reflexes are fairly slow compared to most.

I wonder how other players are faring.

When I thought about it some more, I think my trick of getting the ball into the basket is positioning the portal on the backboard somewhat lower (lower than the center of the board). This allows the ball to drop into the basket rather than to bounce out.

I don't want to use a info_placement_helper on the backboard because I figure adjusting the portal position is part of the puzzle/game, just like in real world basketball.

I'm more confused than ever. The intended solution to chamber 2 eludes me.

BTW, what makes you think quatrus finished the map with the intended solution?

quatrus used several key words in describing the map. Specifically, the fact that he needed to use the cleaner tells me he figured out the solution.

Quote:
The room with 2 turrets in it captured my rolling ball in one of it's corners and although I could drop into the room from it's ceiling, I could not exit without going through the red field and killing myself off. There probably needs to be a portal surface somewhere lower to allow escape from this trap.

Well, I designed it as a trap. If the player carefully examined the situation, he would realize that it's not wise to drop into the chamber, because there is no way out.

If the ball rolls into the chamber, the best way to get it out is to coat it with the repulsion gel, and it will promptly bounce out on its own. If it's already coated with the gel, then it won't stay in there for long.

Is there a graphic setting to adjust to be able and see the shadow of the ball? Because without one, it's ludicrously hard to catch it: took me like 20 minutes to net it. Not really an enthralling experience: imho the "game" should either focus on catching the ball, or shooting it in the right place. Invisible walls to suck it to the target would easen the burden for the former option.

I guess I overestimated the ability of the players for the gameplay.

Like I said before, I am able to get the ball into the basket in less than 30 seconds whenever I test played the map (I timed myself the other day). I guess I just have a natural talent at this sort of thing.

Fun idea, but like other people here, I cannot complete the basketball room. After a while I was able to take out all but two turrets and get the ball to hit the button (it did not stay there, but it deactivated the lightbridge). I like how the fun music started up at that point.

Sadly I accidentally died to one of the remaining turrets. Upon seeing that I would have to start the room all over, I gave up.

With some tweaking this could be quite a fun map. I will watch for any updates.

Okay, after getting all the feedback from you guys, I realized that I made it too difficult to score a basket.

So I just updated the map. The dimensions of the basket hoop in version 1.57 should make it significantly easier to make a basket. I also added a placement_helper on the backboard to facilitate optimal aiming from the second portal.

Let me know how it plays now. I hope it's less frustrating.

Tried it again, and got farther this time. Unfortunately, while trying to get the ball into the top basket I accidentally hit the laser field and died. It's still quite a challenge. It would be nice if maybe the laser field deactivated once the turrets died.

It was only 14 votes 3/5, looks like not too many people took the effort to appreciate this map. I have rated it 5 and so risen the rate to 15 votes 4/5. I rated so because overall it's a good test, not obvious at once, not too hard and not too easy. It actually involves puzzles: how do I get rid of those turrets, how do I press the elevated buttons, how do I get on top to open the door to the exit. So there are puzzles and they are technically not too hard to perform once you figure them out. I quite liked this map and hope more people will try it out.

Olympic by Satchmo

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Thanks for recording the video.

You solved the puzzle using an unintentional method. I had designed it hoping that the player would use the bouncing blue ball to get the ball into the basket.

satchmo wrote:
Thanks for recording the video.

You solved the puzzle using an unintentional method. I had designed it hoping that the player would use the bouncing blue ball to get the ball into the basket.

I see, I should say though the intended solution looks harder to me. I'll try and maybe I'll change my mind.

I'm no athlete in real life, and not much of one in Portal, so the theme of this map didn't really appeal to me. The ball and bat trick was amusing. The basketball game was broken, because you can yoyo all over the place. It was like those dunking contests where guys are jumping off trampolines. Concept is OK, but gameplay is mostly a dud. 3/5 from me, including a bonus point for a new theme.