My first published map, first complete Portal map, and first time attempted submitting over the connection on my phone because I'm stuck with an awful ISP. Sadly I was not able to submit for the contest on time because of the outage.

Have been playing with Hammer for two weeks, this being the result. Shepherd a Personality Core around a small course to complete the chamber.

Pretty pleased with my Core dispenser, I mean to use it again, though I'm sure I can streamline the whole thing and tidy it up a lot. There are things I thought about doing differently, you will see there are two tractor beams going in different directions, I could have had one with a button to switch direction, but I think this is a bit better for the player.

It's not too long but I hope you like the concept and presentation, spent some time trying to match it to the Aperture style.

Any anyone who for whatever reason dislikes Personality Cores, they may want to see what happens when they keep pressing the button for the dispenser..

Pictures to follow, lost a lot of sleep. Meantime you can see some WIP stuff on my blog-

EscapeFromTheWaterTemple.com

File Name: SphereScramble.rar
File Size: 1.02 MiB
Click here to download [SP] Sphere Scramble

Ah, seems I can't post images directly@

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h214/ChimeraAzrael/2011-06-07_00001.jpg
Level entrance

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h214/ChimeraAzrael/2011-06-07_00002.jpg
Tractor beams. Added coloured spotlights to light the ceiling above them.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h214/ChimeraAzrael/2011-06-07_00004.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h214/ChimeraAzrael/2011-06-07_00005.jpg
The Sphere chute.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h214/ChimeraAzrael/2011-06-07_00007.jpg
Our Personality Sphere being helpful

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h214/ChimeraAzrael/2011-06-07_00011.jpg
Remember to fill out an Aperture Science Test Evaluation Form.

Nice concept. Kind of a tedious puzzle but overall still pretty good, and the personality core is a nice change from the button we're so used to seeing. Keep at it and hope that next time your ISP doesn't crap out on you (let me guess, Comcast?).

Nah, I'm in the UK. I originally envisioned a more involved puzzle that was less exclusively about redirecting tractor beams and had more gimmicks to clear a path, but time constraints put paid to that for now.

Technically I could have done the same puzzle with a cube much easier, but I'm still learning the tool and was having fun with the Cores, though I've not used all I can do with them here. I thought about a different coloured Core to differentiate it from the ones in the game, but in the end I wanted the white chassis to show up against the dark floor, especially since it took a bit of effort to get the trenches lit.

Out of interest would you have rather had a single tractor beam with a button to switch directions?

Not a bad map. ButI did end up skipping past all the turrets using the portal for the light wall. You can enter behind the initial lightwall and take the stairs to the exit.

I you're talking about another map, no light walls or turrets in mine!

Enjoyable short map based on the premise, or rather the twist of the remotely-controlled-cube puzzle. You are still in control via the usual means, but this time more in a first person marble madness - or the tilted table games of old. Remarkable mapping leaves no room to critics.

A creative idea to use cores as the switch to the door instead of boxes and buttons. The chamber is a little bit easy, but it has much potential. We're expecting you to use this idea in more maps, maybe a mod. And could you make the cores talk while passing the level? I think it's more fun to have cores talking.

I started playing custom maps and record me playing them. It's neither a perfect run nor do I have to have solved the map in the way it's meant to solve it. I play the maps "blind", that means I've never been in them before and play them for the very first time. I also give a little feedback for the map in the video description.

Maybe you are interested in the fact, that I played your map: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ5uwS5hb5A

Idea is nice but the mechanism gets tedious quickly and the map itself is too short. After the third or fourth funnel, there is no point in continuing, the one and only obstacle is solved and the rest is just grinding through the map with no further rewards.

I didn't shepherd the core around all the floor, just went to the end and pushed it up - took < 5 min to finish....? Guess that wasn't your puzzle? Still, thanks for mapping.

smwlover wrote:
A creative idea to use cores as the switch to the door instead of boxes and buttons. The chamber is a little bit easy, but it has much potential. We're expecting you to use this idea in more maps, maybe a mod. And could you make the cores talk while passing the level? I think it's more fun to have cores talking.

I'm sure it's possible but I've not yet figured how to get the spheres to talk, and under the contest rules I couldn't use new sound assets. Definitely something I'd want to do for a larger project though.

Nahor wrote:
Idea is nice but the mechanism gets tedious quickly and the map itself is too short. After the third or fourth funnel, there is no point in continuing, the one and only obstacle is solved and the rest is just grinding through the map with no further rewards.

Yep, would have liked to do more but time constraints meant this was as much as I could do with this idea, since I had only been using Hammer for two weeks. would really like to figure out some other gimmicks to prolong the puzzle without it all being about tractor beam flow control. Main challenge is supposed to be the dead end you can send the sphere down but that's only a minor inconvenience.

quatrus wrote:
I didn't shepherd the core around all the floor, just went to the end and pushed it up - took < 5 min to finish....? Guess that wasn't your puzzle? Still, thanks for mapping.

I'm not sure I understand, because it sounds like you did the map as intended, it's by no means a long map.

And I appreciate the YT playthrough Djinndrache! It's very useful to be able to see someone play the level for the first time, since I was wondering how much would be apparent to the player (would have tried to get it playtested if I had more time)

If you put a portal at the beginning and the end and push the button, there's a good chance it will just roll to the finish.

I like the use of personality cores, but the gameplay is tedious and not challenging,

Well that was a fun little thing to do. I was thinking perhaps you should add grates covering the portal surfaces below to help explain that the core wont pass through a portal.

Also (and this is just my fault for being curious) I portaled above both funnels, "mixing" them. And I was curious which direction they would take me. So I hopped in the orange one, and was pushed down to a point where I was stuck.

But that was a fun little concept

I like the concept here. I did find it slightly tedious, so instead of guiding the core through the whole maze I just used the funnels to give it a little momentum and then roll it through a portal from the beginning of the maze to the end. You could always eliminate this shortcut by putting grates in front of all the portal surfaces in the maze.

Simple concept with clean execution and a nice touch using the personality core. 4/5 from me.