The name says it all, and when you walk through those doors, you'll understand. Sounds are Key, so listen carefully.

File Name: sp_Laser_Encounters_v3.1_pack.zip
File Size: 16.71 MiB
Click here to download Laser Encounters

Is this really a Portal 1 map?

2 actually. Didn't mark it properly. Sorry about that.

This is probably the best map I have ever played with a caveat - it needs work.

Mostly the room the the rotating Laser needs work - I sprayed white gel everywhere but some of the white gel surfaces change from portable to non-portable. I can see now that was done to prevent certain non-intended solutions, but there should be a better way. When near the end of that room I needed to portal the laser into the sensor to open the small room and then portal the laser into the small room - but when the rotating laser hit my portal it acted as a fizzler and both portals vanished. I spent hours in that room and finally found the ONE ALLOWABLE Portal placement and ANGLE to turn on the laser sensor in the small room. I found other ways but the map would not activate the sensor using those angles.

But still it was complex, long, and extremely FUN.
I really loved this map - thanks so much.

I tried this yesterday and again today.Still no idea what the hell your supposed to do.

You can skip the series of clustered buttons in the main area.
Go to any of the other 4 buttons, press, and a room magically appears just off the the side and through a fizzler. There are 4 rooms, although some of them have other small rooms too or small rooms you must go through to get to the large room.

To complete a room aim a Laser back through a small opening and into the main area to hit the sensor (there are 4 of them, 2 on each side). Once all 4 rooms are completed [spoiler]and all 4 sensors are lit (will take quite a while) then finally, go to the cluster of buttons in the center.

wow. WOW !!! This made my day - what a blast. Never seen anything quite like this.
You really have a talent for mapping - great job, man.

So far I have enjoyed 2 hours of this interesting wonderland.. I have 2 rooms done and a 3rd room I am still working on (the weird World Portal room with the bouncy water - LOL, what a wild idea). I got stuck - royally - in the rotating platforms area, so will need to go back and work on that later.

Lit white gel = portals. Missing texture gel = reflective. My error in not putting it in description, and I apologize. This should open up new solutions. I'm glad that folks are enjoying this. I may just drop something else in place of the reflective gel.

Ugly, too dark or too bright, confusing and frustrating: I'm surprised I liked this map as much as I did. I should probably replay the map before I rate it, because I can't even remember half of it anymore.

Game killing glitch: sometimes reflectocubes bounce when lasers turn off. The second cube from the left of the final array bounced so that it was hitting the leftmost target. I had to noclip over and reset it. Nail them suckers down!

The surprise entrance to the room with the rotating panels left my in an autosave death loop. Once I got there, it was too dark, it made depth perception almost non-existent in a puzzle that requires it. Combine that with the rotation speed of the panels, and I got sick. And I don't suffer from vertigo in the least.

That tiny little faithplate waaay up there drove me batty, and a completely unnecessary element. Just make the ramp jump reach. Same thing with the hidden cubes, an unnecessary complicaton. Just line up the room properly in the first place.

The black and white maze rooms were non-sensical. Look, there's a drawer that does nothing. And a door to a tiny room that does nothing. And absolutely no indication of where the final laser placement was. Obfuscating a simple puzzle with useless details doesn't count as increasing difficulty, but absolutely decreases my rating.

Speaking of nonsense, what's with the white lasers? If you want to show that you can create new game elements, use them for something.

Well, now I'm just ranting, I'm so angry. Definitely not the right mood for rating this one. Let me cool down, and try it again tomorrow.

Kenn, can you give an example of the cube jump on the final array? Before I released I only ever experienced that in the white room, and that was after I hit the forced reset button in the main room several prereleased versions ago. As to some of the other things you mentioned, the white/blue lasers in general, I kind of agree on their needlessness in the blue room. I had intended them as a bit of a jump sequence, but that seems to be an incomplete idea. I'll have to think on what to do with those.

The "maze" rooms, I'll admit, were supposed to be in a different configuration before, but due to linked portals hating anything door related being close to them while open, I swapped it for what it is now.

wow very nice map!! one of the best ive seen so far..

i really liked the fact that this is not an ordinary portal2 looking map. it was fun just to walk around and discover.(im tired of these grey walls)
i dont know why but ur puzzle style reminds me of some oldschool tomb raider and myst levels what i really enjoyed.

the yellow room was the bomb! very nice usage of the worldportal. big aha effect when i noticed one room shows the solution in the other one.

i spent most of the time in the red room which was the hardest. took quite some time to figure out the right portal placement with the laser. the second gel and the funnel confused me because i never needed them.

i started with the green room. afterwards im feeling lucky about that because it helped alot to understand the whole puzzle mechanism. when solving the other rooms i knew i had to get a laser outside what made it a little bit easier. i think its very confusing for players who start in the red room because u dont see any door or exit.

i dont think this map is ugly as kennkong said. maybe the lighting is not perfect but these are only cosmetics.. its like movies... a movie is not getting better if it uses a lot of special effects while the story is crap.

really enjoyed this one and looking forward for more...thank you sir 5/5

Well, another day, another review. Let me be positive this time. First, I enjoyed the map enough to play it 3 more times and give it 4/5. Here's my playthrough:

Part 1 The Red Room
Part 2 The Green Room
Part 3 The Yellow Room
Part 4 The Blue Rooms and Exit

A lot of work must have gone into making this map. The length and variety of the puzzles is up there with the likes of Nystrke.

Additional glitches found:

1. Fell into the drink entering the red room
2. Buttons are too close to the wall in the yellow room
3. The bridge in the blue room is very difficult to coat with gel
4. Don't need the rotating panels at all

Definitely gonna take the advice to heart. I'll definitely have to rework the blue and red rooms. I'll add some lights to those and the hub room as well, since the green room is supposed to be dark on initial entrance, then illuminate only the platforms once the player reaches the bottom. Those rotating platforms in the blue room were intended to be used, though, as you mentioned, the speed is ridiculous, so I'll probably stop them and re-purpose them another way. I also need to figure out what is causing that nasty lag when a portal is placed in the small room near the grate. That has been frustrating me for a while now.

I'm going to try to make an effort to improve the texture presentation as well, though thats probably my achilles's heel.

I thought this map was highly imaginative and highly ambitious -- maybe too ambitious. My main problem was that there is very little indication of what anything does. For example, it took me forever to see that a little door had opened in the red room after I powered the laser catcher. At least there's a surprise around every corner.

Wanderer2021 wrote:
Lit white gel = portals. Missing texture gel = reflective.

I'm sorry, but on my monitor I could not see any difference, even when I placed them side-by-side, with graphics settings on high.

I encountered a bug, but it may be the engine and not something you can fix: if I loaded a save made in the second part of the maze (yellow) room, the linked portals in the middle are gone and I'm stuck, and have to go to an even earlier save.

Another possible bug was the mini button in the corner all by itself in the red room. After I pressed it, confirmed by the yellow checkmark, and finally got the lightbridge to the exit, it had turned itself off. Its either on a timer or its state didn't survive a load from a save. This happened twice.

In all, it was easy to see that you put a lot of effort in this, and I highly recommend this map, especially for people who like to explore.

Update time. Did a lot of testing and adjusting, and fixed some of the issues with the linked portal doors. Increased brightness in the red, green, and blue rooms, and added some indicator decals to help guide the player a bit more. I've also added a bypass system in the room, so the rotating panels can be skipped if the player figures out the system. Also added the proper system so the player can't just mash the buttons to open the final door. Also, remember to put in the custom sounds into the sounds folder.

I guess I'm unsure of where to place the custom sounds. I have them in "portal2\sounds\custom", but I get this error message:

Quote:
[Sound] S_StartSound(): Failed to load sound 'custom\music_note_me_tone.wav'. File is missing from disk/repository.

the path should be that. My path is Steam\steamapps\common\portal 2\portal2\sound\custom, and its worked fine.

Ah, okay. I used the folder "sounds" like it is in your zip file, not "sound." But I still get the error message. I also found this earlier in the dev console:
"[Sound] total_channels == 128 - SEND A BUG" Don't know if its related. I take it they are supposed to play when you press one of the six buttons in the main room. If so, it might make it more intelligible what you are supposed to do in there. As it was, I just stumbled on the correct sequence by accident.

yeah, the sounds were supposed to be played throughout the map to hint at the sequence. Added a .vpk to the download in the hopes that it'll pack it in proper, otherwise, drop the sounds where they belong. I'm really not sure why the sounds aren't loading. For those that haven't installed .vpk files (I'm sure someone hasn't at this point), see https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Releasing_A_Portal_2_Map under the installing section.

Initial comments for ver. 2:
1. The blue room is now quite a bit harder and I can now see your intentions with the rotating platforms. The only thing I noticed was that I saw no purpose for the very top button on the first set of platforms. I know what it does, I just never needed it.
2. Thank you for more room around the buttons in the yellow room!
3. Red room is much better. I like that you got rid of the funnel and made the lightbridge appear with the button that I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what it does in ver. 1.

Still a problem for me is the sounds, without which it makes solving the button puzzle for the last door impossible since your changes. There is no .vpk file in the ver.2 download, which is just as well, as that functionality got wiped out in the DLC update. Also, your readme has some extraneous material you forgot to delete from the ver. 1 readme.

Still a great map, still quirky and entertaining, but the red and blue rooms make more sense but still require exploration and puzzle-solving. I'm going to see what I can find out about the sounds and finish this map.

Well this is frustrating. I'll keep trying then. I'm sure I'm overlooking something somewhere.

It might have something to do with the fact that you developed this on your computer and have the SDK installed and I don't. I've placed the files in every likely subdirectory in Steam and nothing works. Playing around with the snd_ commands on the console and looking at the config files, makes me think the sounds have to be bundled with the map in a pack file, but I'm no expert on developing in Hammer. Have you tried this map on a computer other than the one it was developed on?

okay, I think I got it. I did use the snd_rebuildaudiocache to get the sounds to work in my map. I only had to do it once though, compared to various reports of people having to do it multiple times. I'm going to make a quick update to fix a few minor things, and then I'll probably leave this map alone before I cause it further harm, unless something really nasty rears its ugly head again.

minor update: removed the button mentioned, and did a bit more streamlining. Tested the vpk on my own, and yeah, its broken. Map loads, but the custom sounds don't.

I don't suppose this is the shortcut to avoid the rotating platforms that you had in mind:

[Video Removed]

Btw, the sounds now work for me. Thanks.

Well, that was an incredibly difficult series of rooms, but hugely satisfying. In every room I got seriously stuck, but kept at it until I found the solution (and, in each case, found the intended solution rather than sneaking through a chink in the design).

Very, very clever stuff. The final sequence was frustrating, since I wasn't able to install the sound files, but overall this kept me going for around three hours of very entertaining play. Thank you.

RogerL: nope. Friend of mine pointed it out to me last night. I never knew the stars texture was portable. Fixing it now, as well as a few other things he caught that no one else had. He also managed to get the sounds to work, so the snd_rebuildaudio seems to work.

updated to v2.2 now.

-Blocked the star portable surfaces
-Fixed height of elevator button at end of Blue room so that a cube could be retrieved if left on the button.
-fixed a bypass in the red room that could leave the player stuck
-added completion indicators in red and blue rooms(light cue in Blue, audio in Red.)
-Blocked portable ceiling in the yellow room

I found another way to bypass the rotating platforms, but it too is probably not what you intended. If you stand near the end of the lightbridge near the portable wall, you can just barely catch the corner of the portable wall next to the button that opens the doors.

As far as your intended bypass, I see a new lightbridge emitter, but I haven't found what triggers it yet. I know you can just barely place a portal on the floor of the button/laser room at the top of the fling. So now, I just need to find the trigger...

EDIT: More exploits in this room: The floor under the toxic water is portable, though that's not very helpful. You can reach the elevator by the door button by portaling onto the sloped area behind the fizzler from the area you made to get onto the rotating plaforms. Then just jump at an angle through, you'll get stuck against the fizzler emitter, then another jump onto elevator. Also, you can skip the lower platforms by portaling through the grated flooring on the upper platform from the starting platform.

And fixed. As for the actual bypass, the trigger is somewhere in the entire blue room, not just where the rotating panels are. Happy exploring!

I finally found the trigger. Ohhhhh, that was painful.

I don't think your latest version uploaded correctly. The exploits are still there and so is the portable stars.

Strange. well, reupped it as version 2.2.3, and the map file should have the date of the 26th on it now. That has all the revisions.

Nope, it didn't update. The date on the file is the 24th. If I understand correctly, you need to change the name of the zip file for the Download button to link to the new file that you upload.

alright, zip file is renamed. Now it should work.

Yep, that worked.

Ah, good. Startin' to get worried there.

I've been having a few problems with the lasers in this map. After I completed all the rooms (I did the blue one first), I returned to the main chamber to find that the laser from the blue room was slightly off target. I was unable to return to the room with the laser so I had to noclip to fix it. After I did that, I tried to use the buttons in the main room, but many of the lasers ended up not hitting the targets as well.

It has something to do with the linked_portal_doors being opened and closed at times. For some reason, it causes the reflector cubes to jump or shift. Its funky like that.

[edit]

Updated the map a bit, adding a laser grid to the 6 buttons in the main room, while moving the door reset button outside. I figure that one reason a lot of issues arise is that the reset button is being overlooked or is considered unnecessary, so I moved it out of the 'organ' room and had it hidden in the main room until two criteria were met. Once they are, the button will reappear and can reset the portals. This way, should a save file disrupt the reliability of the mini portal_doors(and I know it will happen, it can be ignored until it comes time to solve the final puzzle. I've also moved the final receivers apart a bit more so the cube alignment won't be so odd, and I restricted the visible cubes so they can't shift, should the game decide to make them jump again.

Very cool map although the green room was very frustrating for me.

Where are the 6 music notes for the buttons? I'm pretty sure my volume was working, but I'll go back to each location if you want to provide it to find the notes. Also, in the room with the door that opens to the same room with a reversed color scheme I think I screwed up by accidently incinerating the Thermal Discouragement cube you get from above the "drawer" that slides out above the Discouragement cube receptor. So right now I have two. So, do I have to restart the level?

Edit: I forgot to add it, but I was able to go into the six-button room after beating three chambers. Is this intentional? If not, I'm sorry I forgot to add it into the original post. Amazing map by the way, even though I'm having trouble with the audio, and the yellow room. The Red and Blue Room are my favorites of the four rooms, with Green being a close second. I like how it allows you to play with the Repulsion Gel, which we weren't able to do much with in the original game.

Hmmm, thats curious. I could of swore I had set the door in the inverted rooms to close 2 seconds after walking in. I'll take care of that ASAP. As for the music notes, you did follow the instructions in the read me, then rebuild the audio, correct? This wouldn't be an issue if the vmf files were working again, but rebuilding is the only way for now, so I apologize.

[edit]

and updated. Hid the yellow room's door button now, which will be revealed once the room is solved. Meanwhile, made sure the yellow room's portal door actually closes, so now none of the cubes will be vaporized, unless you solve the room and then drag one into the grid. Also made the final access button appear after solving all of the rooms, rather than just two.

I dont usually post comments here, but for this one I felt I had to just because it was so far off the beaten path. My first comment is to mention that I dont understand why I needed to install sound files, I assume they were for the final puzzle, but the sound from the lasers was so loud that I could not hear the puzzle, and solved it by button mashing. I too could not distinguish the reflective gel in the red room, and would have never figured that puzzle out if one of my lasers hadnt accidentally moved over a patch of it. Finally, I had performance issues on this map, which I have never had in Portal or Portal 2, this came up really any time there was a light bridge, particularly in the red room.

Besides these things, its an excellent and very unique map!

Mabye I'm just a complete idiot, but I'm having a helluva time figuring out what I'm supposed to be doing in this map.

{Edit}

Yes, I am an idiot. Previous negative commentary redacted.

I will mention one thing about the "mystery faith plate of death". Sometimes the floor closed under me after it kicked me up into the next room, sometimes it didn't and thus remained available to bounce and look around, as long as the rotating platform didn't knock me into the goo. I'm not sure which is intended, as the behavior is not consistent. I was able to carry the turret with me into the next room but that's obviously just there for entertainment value, not part of the puzzle. Nice touch!

I had a little bit of trouble with the laser cube in the sliding channel. It kept wanting to turn in the wrong direction and once it did, it was hell to get it back right again.

This map was actually quite fun once I pulled my head of my rectal orifice and paid better attention to the environment. The rotating platform room was a bit frustrating for me, but only because I am still very clumsy with keyboard navigation (and not all that much better with a controller).

The rotating laser room had me scratching my head for a while until I realized that the droppers provide two different types of white gel.

Overall, good map, good puzzles, plenty of neat stuff I hadn't seen before. The vast majority of the frustration I experienced was due to my own lack of skill. I'm giving this one 5/5.

redunzl wrote:
The sounds on the "musical note" buttons are barely audible. And, although I'm not tone-deaf, if this puzzle relies on playing musical notes in some kind of proper sequence (I don't know, I haven't made it that far yet!), that's going to be a nearly-impossible task for anyone who is.

Headphones help. But audio level is kind of out of the mapmaker's hands.

Quote:
I'm also getting very frustrated by the "mystery faith plate of death" after I get past the turrets in the "Red room". I understand the misdirection (and don't have any problem at all with that concept!), but my problem is that about 75% of the time the thing kicks me up through the ceiling only to get knocked into the goo before I have a chance to do anything else. I'll give you credit for a well-placed auto-save that makes it easy to try again, but I think that part of the map needs some work. Perhaps this is just a personal thing, but I really hate "random death" elements in a puzzle. I'm also assuming that it is literally impossible to get through this section while holding the "Take me with you" turret, as it keeps getting knocked out of my grip no matter what. If the turret is essential to the solution, then that needs work, too.

Leave the turret. He's just playing on your sympathies. Just after the fling, look down at your feet and be prepared to hold "left" for a second or two.

Good luck!

Yeah, I've tried boosting the sound levels, but nothing works, so I try to localize the sound emission points to the player's primary location. At least I figured out how to reduce the buzz from the receivers in the main room. What happens is that when the linked doors are closed and reopened, it amplifies the receiver's sound for some reason. I've moved them to opposite ends of the room in order to prevent that from happening again.

As to the hidden faith plate in the blue room, the opening in the ceiling is large enough to allow for some off center players and the plate platform is wide enough to save yourself from a mistake. You can also get the turret and the cube into the rotating panels room.

Updated the map with the changes. And remember, listen carefully. Just because the sounds are there, doesn't mean you'll find them in the right order.

Wanderer2021 wrote:
Yeah, I've tried boosting the sound levels...

Once I realized how you are using them, I think they work OK.

Wanderer2021 wrote:
As to the hidden faith plate in the blue room, the opening in the ceiling is large enough to allow for some off center players and the plate platform is wide enough to save yourself from a mistake. You can also get the turret and the cube into the rotating panels room.

I mentioned this in my previous (edited) post: Sometimes the platform closed under me after the faith plated kicked me up, sometimes it didn't. I'm not sure which is intended. I also had trouble when I came up out of the floor into the faith plate room -- sometimes it spat me forward out of the portal and I landed on the retracting floor instead. That may very well be more of a problem with portal placement and/or my own poor navigational skill. After I tried it a few times, I realized that there's plenty of room to adjust where the portal is before you go through it.

redunzl wrote:
I mentioned this in my previous (edited) post: Sometimes the platform closed under me after the faith plated kicked me up, sometimes it didn't. I'm not sure which is intended. I also had trouble when I came up out of the floor into the faith plate room -- sometimes it spat me forward out of the portal and I landed on the retracting floor instead. That may very well be more of a problem with portal placement and/or my own poor navigational skill. After I tried it a few times, I realized that there's plenty of room to adjust where the portal is before you go through it.

A lot depends on how much forward momentum you have when you go through the floor portal. For best results, go through very slowly. For something different, just as you fall into the portal, quickly but briefly press "back", and you won't trigger the fling at all. Its intended that the platform closes under you and I'm surprised that you are having so many problems with it -- it has only happpened once to me that it didn't fully close.

This map is like a giant labyrinth. It's probably the most difficult Portal 2 map I've ever played. If you're not good at puzzle solving, I would not recommend this map to you. It's very creative, just very difficult and confusing.

portal2companioncube wrote:
It's probably the most difficult Portal 2 map I've ever played.

Wow, you'd better not try any of Jonatan's or Chander's maps. Your head will probably explode!

This one was a snap compared to some of the fiendishly difficult maps and puzzles those guys create! I got through this map on my second try, and I suck compared to most of the "ninjas" who frequent this board.

For example, take a shot at Jonatan's "Devils Tower" map at http://forums.thinking.withportals.com/downloads.php?view=detail&df_id=1556, then tell me if you still think this one is "the most difficult". Having watched my brother (KennKong) wrestle with that one, it will probably be quite a while before I even try it because I simply do not have the skills it requires.

RogerL wrote:
A lot depends on how much forward momentum you have when you go through the floor portal. For best results, go through very slowly.

Yes. It can also help to position the portal on the near (i.e., "back") side of the plate before you go through.

RogerL wrote:
For something different, just as you fall into the portal, quickly but briefly press "back", and you won't trigger the fling at all.

Same thing happens with the portal at the back side of the plate.

RogerL wrote:
Its intended that the platform closes under you and I'm surprised that you are having so many problems with it -- it has only happpened once to me that it didn't fully close.

It's not really a "problem". A better description would be, "observed behavior."

Most of the time, it did close after I went through. A couple of times it stayed open for a while, then closed later. I'm not sure what triggered it to close. One time, it never closed at all (or it may have closed after I went off to explore the room, my memory isn't clear).

Even if it doesn't close, it's no big deal. It can actually be useful because you have more time to look around the room from a somehat-higher vantage point while you're in the air and, if you don't want to keep bouncing, just slide a little bit in any direction to land on the edge of the platform instead of dropping back through the hole.