This is something a little bit different, aimed more at fun than difficulty. I hope you'll enjoy it.


Version 1.1 uploaded. Includes some wall decoration and tweaks to make things more intuitive.
Version 1.2 - aesthetic fixes.
Version 1.3 - Converter tubes no longer work from below. Can now only have one reflective cube and one turret at a time.

File Name: sp_theskinnerbox-1-3.zip
File Size: 2.26 MiB
Click here to download The Skinner Box

Contains unacceptable errors. Rid yourself!
Overall not a bad map.

A map in which I can build a cube stairway! Hooray!

Enigmaphase wrote:
A map in which I can build a cube stairway! Hooray!

So, i played totally different map O_

This map have lots of very unacceptable things.
-you destroy a cube in the fizzler, it respawn a ball
-the 3-button puzzle (no real a puzzle, just random buttons and lasers)
-the tube wich trasform the cube in a ball. Viceversa is strange and antigravity
-the goo don't kill you, and you need to walk through it.
-the turret dispenser?

Also, the graphic style was quite bad to see, but is the minor thing in this map.

Infernet, yes, those things are all true and intentional. As I said, this map is a little different. I would be surprised if everyone liked it. (Edit: I forgot to mention, the puzzle with the 3 lasers is not as random as it may seem. Each button turns one laser on and one off).


As for the cube stairway, that's pretty cool, although not the intended way reach to the door


Cache, can you please tell what errors you encountered?

This was an interesting but odd operant conditioning chambers. However, since all of us know that toxic water kills the player (via Portal conditioning stimulus), this is a major flaw in design. Therefore, I recommend changing the toxic water to pure water, as it were, if one can do that of course...otherwise, I was stuck and as I was walking around the room I finally got tired of it and jumped in (dying to self)...only to my surprise. This was kind of a toxic baptism only to come out the other side with more emotional filth than when I went in?rules have been broken. Ok, now is this a freedom that we no longer bound by the standard perceptions of Portal norms? I guess my surprise was my unconditioned stimulus. On the philosophical side, so is earth a "skinner box?" Ok ok, skinner sphere... The converting objects back and forth were, hmm, interesting. Overall, I agree that it was a fun map. The design gave an odd feeling though, not quite sure what that feeling was, maybe a mental ward with terrible colored padded walls, or some kind of warehouse being renovated with old carpet flooring for walls... (Muttering to self as I walk away...)
Eastward,
P.S. May our souls find the narrow path to every true solution.

Eastward, you are spot on about the reference. Although I don't mean to say the whole word is a skinner box, but certainly Aperture's test chambers. This map is meant to emphasize that fact and play with it. Annoying to some folks, but hopefully fun for most.

Indeed, I made the water appear toxic to toy with people's conditioned response.Making it pure water would eliminate the need to figure it out, although I apologize for your frustration. If more people get stuck on that bit, I'll have to consider it further.

In the very first room, one can get stuck by trying to slip behind the panels when the laser hits its target. Given the "try out everything" nature of the puzzles, this seems like a bad design idea...

Alors! Here's a rough gem: peel away the unconvincing skinning (and oversized rooms, and dispenser bugs) and you are left with 2 revolutionary testing elements. Swimming and the brilliant recycler machine which morphs items.

The problem is they are all undocumented: people will just treat them as random bugs. Show what they are: signs, pop-up text, manifests, Glados snippets. And check that map "The Cube": it had a crazy contraption which left no doubt as what it was, and you want the same effect for the novel recycler. Swimming might be a harder bet, I suggest shallow and blue waters not to convince people too much.

Proper Clean style would suit you best imho, you can also get crazy with the checkerboard to keep the mood lighter (as it seems to be). What I suggest is to institute a recycling rotation, like Cube -> Lasercube -> Sphere -> Turret -> Cube. Have it shown somewhere, then there's only a world of possibilities to continue.

Arvisrend, thanks for pointing that out. I don't want players to get stuck back there! When I have a chance to upload version 1.1, I'll be sure to fix that issue.

Xdiesp, were I more adept at this sort of thing, I would have created a custom sign. With that said, you have some good ideas there for making these features a bit clearer. I tried to drop a hint with the circle and square signs, but perhaps it's too subtle/unclear. I need to think on that.

By the way, can anyone enlighten me as to what bugs are occurring with dispensers?


I am getting some great feedback... Thanks, folks!

I liked all your chambers, but the unconventional use of effects was not instinctive - only when no other option did I jump into the brown water, to find it was not toxic. The conversion tubes on the wall was also really not obvious until I dropped something in one...I think you could have used a little tutorial chamber or maybe some quidance plaques? Also why not make the water clear itf it is not toxic. The cube changers were a creative new feature. What was the deal with the spike table which didn't smash anything? Again a nonstandard use of Portal effects....doesn't make the puzzle hard, only confusing...Thanks for mapping...
Even just standard P2 effects and multiple chambers would have been a 5/5, sorry have to rate this a bit lower....

Marise wrote:
can anyone enlighten me as to what bugs are occurring with dispensers?

See that the turret dispenser destroys the previous turret + lasercube when triggered. More: the crusher's spikes don't kill, they really should. See how it would be like to mix up signs like "Turret Arrow Lasercube".

Also, floor buttons in the game usually stop working if the weight is taken away: players might get confused at what happens in your map. I suggest to either pair them with a pole button aside (powered by the floor one), or just spawn several cubes at once: you might even place turrets in the level and have the player recycle them all (just be careful they can't burn them with the laser).

Hmmm. My intention with these elements was that the player needs to figure them out. But what I'm hearing is that the puzzles are enjoyable on their own, and people would prefer I make these non-traditional elements a little more intuitive. Well, it was a fun experiment with the non-killing brown water and crusher, but it looks like science has spoken.

I'm working on an update that incorporates a lot of the feedback without changing the puzzles. Same map, but more intuitive.

Also working on the visuals, but I can't do anything about the large chambers without a major overhaul. For what it's worth, I did realize they were too large, but it was too late by then. My next map will have much more reasonably sized rooms!

Oh, and I purposely made it so you can create as many laser cubes and/or turrets as you want. Just for fun, to let people play around. So I will be leaving that 'bug' in

It's been a real pleasure so far uploading my work here and getting people's opinions and advice. What a great, active community.


Edit: New version is up!

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:

8sgUxXSass4
(Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sgUxXSass4)

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

Thanks for the vid. You found two "cheats" that I had not considered. I'm debating about leaving them in as alternate solutions though.

Glad you liked the map.

Took me a while to figure out that the fizzler causes the ball to drop in the first room, but other than that this was certainly a clever, inventive map. The item swaps were a brilliant highlight, but I did also enjoy swimming in portal! Who would have thought...

My major issue is textures which are aligned with "half a panel" - it makes a technically impressive map with highly original puzzles seem somewhat sloppy. A shame, as in terms of gameplay (in the later rooms, at least) this is a fantastic map.

James,

Could you elaborate on what you mean by "half a panel"? Also, if you could tell me which version you played (original upload or 1.1) that would help me fix it. Thanks!

Marise wrote:
what you mean by "half a panel"?

He means decapitating tiles due to unalignments in textures, you essentially see a tile cut in half when the floor meets the wall.

xdiesp wrote:
He means decapitating tiles due to unalignments in textures, you essentially see a tile cut in half when the floor meets the wall.

Thanks! I was wondering how I was going to say that ^^"

Also, I think I downloaded the most recent version. I didn't select a different one form the drop-down list, at any rate.

That's what I thought you probably meant, but I wanted to be sure. I thought I fixed those in 1.1 but I will check again. Thanks.


Edit: Last night I uploaded v1.2, in which the cut-off panels are fixed. Thanks to everyone for the feedback.

I really liked your map since it is really really different from the regular map, with new ideas (the tubes that transform balls into cubes for example) and new rules (we can go through water (why not, pretty odd).
It was fun, but the problem is your map suffers multiple problems to be really nice.
We can build as many cubes as we wants (unacceptable), when we go underwater, we don't see anything, the "changer tubes" work even if you go from the bottom whereas it should only work when we throw an object from the top.
Correct these exploits and it will be a nice original map.

So... I would love to fix it so the converter tubes cannot be used from the bottom. But short of making them taller, I don't know of a way. Can anyone offer me some advice?


Edit: I found a solution. Version 1.3 is uploading now. Fixed it so conversion tubes work from the top only. And by popular demand, you can only have one reflective cube and one turret at a time.

Please let me know if you encounter any other bugs.

I am done with this one now. Thanks, Marise, for the fix to the bug I mentioned!

What is still discomforting me is the presence of puzzle elements that add difficulty to the level by functioning differently than they should. While this concords with the name of the mod, this is not the kind of puzzles most people I know play Portal 2 mods for (and generally considered to be a bad substitute for genuine difficulty). This mod would totally function without them. As for the non-lethal murky water, I have no idea whether I would have figured it out if I hadn't read about it here, and nor do I have any idea what this mod would lose if you replaced it by clear water. As for the first fizzler replacing the cube by a ball, I'm wondering whether you could retex the fizzler to another color, like yellow, so that people wouldn't assume it behaves like any other fizzler in Portal 2. Besides, you could then add this kind of re-colored fizzler to the metamorphosis tubes to make it clear what exactly they are doing. With all these changes, the mod would still be a nontrivial challenge.

I am wondering whether the "mashy spike-plate" in the very last room has any use at all - at least, I haven't found any for it.

There is a use for it, but there's an alternate solution, too.

I want to leave the differently-functioning elements in because they are the whole point of the map for me. But I appreciate that some people don't find them appealing. It's an experimental map
As for the fizzler, I put in the indicator lights leading from it to the ball dispenser as a little clue. Not sure if anyone is picking up on that or not.

Thanks for the feedback and thanks for playing.

Your fix for the object transformation tubes may have introduced a way to get stuck. In the third room, I dropped the companion cube into the top of the tube, and it got stuck in the middle, leaving me unable to finish. Your operant conditioning having worked to make me stubborn and unconventional (OK, I was already stubborn) I jumped in there to retrieve it, and got stuck as well.

I was (and still am) baffled by the spike plate. I had put both the companion cube and reflectocube on it, in the hopes that they would be destroyed, but they just fell through. I was very surprised when the reflectocube stayed on top when I carried it on there.

I have mixed feeling about this map. On the positive side, I like maps that are different and unusual. On the negative side, I don't think you designed the level to train the player that conventions are being broken quickly or well enough. 3/5 from me.

I think the mapmaker succeeded at what he or she set out to do: polarize the community. The diversity of opinions about this map reveal the depth to which each of us has or has not been conditioned by the conventions of Portal 2 -- exactly what a Skinner Box is supposed to do. Once I understood the spirit of the map, I really enjoyed it. I was a bit disappointed, though, with the gel room -- it was too conventional. Thanks for the test, Marise.

And watching Djinndrache run this map was just about the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. But I give his blindrun only a 4/5 because he actually thought he made it through the toxic water using his lightening-quick ninja moves.