Double Gubble
by sicklebrick · Uploaded Mar 17, 2012
File Size: 2.59 MB
Downloads: 885
Rating: (18 votes)
Description
A clean, disorientating, 2-parter of medium/hard difficulty.
Comments
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Interesting! I didn't get your hint first, found the trick by accident. And then it still took me a good while to figure out how to get the cube! Good job, 4/5 for me, keep them coming!
I actually got the cube but I didn't find out how to connect the two sides of the laser
If you got the cube the way that I did, connecting the laser should be rather easy... Small hint: Get the cube on the second button.
I too found the trick by accident. But when I did it pushed me through the grating and I didn't really know what happened. I got the cube and placed it on the button near the laser catcher. After several minutes and rereading your description I tried the trick again and this time it worked without pushing me through the grating and I was able to get the two portals where they needed to be to complete the puzzle.
benvent wrote:
I too found the trick by accident. But when I did it pushed me through the grating and I didn't really know what happened. I got the cube and placed it on the button near the laser catcher. After several minutes and rereading your description I tried the trick again and this time it worked without pushing me through the grating and I was able to get the two portals where they needed to be to complete the puzzle.
It depends on what color of portal you're peeking through and which one you're moving. For example, if you have orange above the grating and you're standing on the grating, and you shoot orange, you get pushed through the grating, if you shoot blue, you get moved to the new location of blue.
I thought this was a nice map, plenty of things to think about, execution was fairly easy, and a new puzzle element. I was not sure why the button by the laser catcher also seems to turn off the fizzlers around the dropper -- it seemed unnecessary -- but maybe something else was going on. And I'm not sure this was a very good use of world portals; nothing seemed to depend on it. Still, very enjoyable. Thanks!
benvent wrote:
But when I did it pushed me through the grating and I didn't really know what happened.
Heh, yeah.. you have to remember to keep track of your portals with that mechanic. As a rule, I always put the orange one by the grate just incase. In previous versions, misplacing a portal like that would kill you instantly, but this is about the best workaround I could muster.
There's also a bug when you headportal (open to other suggestions for a name for this technique) from a wall to the floor or ceiling resulting in lots of pretty little dead Chelles, so a few puzzle elements were cut.
RogerL wrote:
I was not sure why the button by the laser catcher also seems to turn off the fizzlers around the dropper
This is basically incase you accidentally destroy your new shiney cube; you don't have to work through getting it again. Figured I'd be kind 
RogerL wrote:
And I'm not sure this was a very good use of world portals; nothing seemed to depend on it. Thanks!
It's there purely to disorientate and mess with your head. As you probably noticed in getting the cube, there are other unnecessary parts to make the thing seem over complex, and darker areas in the grating area to keep you on your toes
Can't have our test subjects slacking off on the job now, can we?
Abdoo2 wrote:
I actually got the cube but I didn't find out how to connect the two sides of the laser
Hint: Repeat
Bringing the cube through the portal at the end seems harder than it should be. Other than that, the map is pretty good. It's pretty easy once you know what to do.
henotalkie wrote:
Bringing the cube through the portal at the end seems harder than it should be. Other than that, the map is pretty good. It's pretty easy once you know what to do.
Yeah, it's pretty tough to grab a cube while headportaling, but there's an easy enough way around that.
Anyhoo, here's the intended solution:
I just played your map:
On the map:
The cube dropper was very buggy; the cube got stuck and I couldn't get any new cubes anymore.
The design is ok; but why a broken elevator at the exit of a clean map?
Why is there no entrance elevator?
Why is the exit door the wrong way around?
Lighting could be a lot better.
On the puzzle:
You did a great job on adding seemingly intended solutions that don't work. HOWEVER:
Your intended solution is strange; the grating technique is something I've never seen before and it just feels strange: Half your body is in Canada; the other Half is in Japan; suddenly The upper part of your body is moved to Brazil while your legs are still in Japan... No, this won't work; your body WILL be split. This is NOT logical.
The addition of worldportals just do disorientate is also something I don't like. If you use worldportals; use them to switch rooms like you did in your previous map!
So yea; don't really like the map and with the broken cube dropper I just don't like it. It is playable; your previous map was good so I'll be nice and give you a 3/5: good, but needs work.
sicklebrick wrote:
Anyhoo, here's the intended solution:
I yo-yoed the cube between two portals while I got down from the platform; I didn't think to intentionally kill the cube since not all droppers keep spilling out new ones after they get fizzled.
RogerL wrote:
sicklebrick wrote:Anyhoo, here's the intended solution:
I yo-yoed the cube between two portals while I got down from the platform; I didn't think to intentionally kill the cube since not all droppers keep spilling out new ones after they get fizzled.
I need a trollface smiley for that one :p
lpfreaky90 wrote:
On the map...
As far as the lighting and elevator and stuff go though, I honestly don't care much about the aesthetics and wouldn't have noticed given a full week, but ty for the info on the buggy cube and stuff. Seems it was just the reset and spawn delays causing stuckage. Most of it should be fixed now
lpfreaky90 wrote:
On the puzzle...
Lol, love the analogy. Gotta admit it's more than a little counter intuitive, and that the world portal was a total dick move but I love that kinda backwardness in a map!
All in all, I had about a day and a half off to do the map, so 3/5's cool with me =)
sicklebrick wrote:
As far as the lighting and elevator and stuff go though, I honestly don't care much about the aesthetics and wouldn't have noticed given a full week, but ty for the info on the buggy cube and stuff. Seems it was just the reset and spawn delays causing stuckage. Most of it should be fixed now
But you added an exit elevator? It's only a matter of adding a couple of instances and you're done. Same goes for lighting; just a couple of instances and it looks a lot better 
sicklebrick wrote:
Lol, love the analogy. Gotta admit it's more than a little counter intuitive, and that the world portal was a total dick move but I love that kinda backwardness in a map!All in all, I had about a day and a half off to do the map, so 3/5's cool with me =)
Awesome job for a day and a half work! But yea; the puzzle wasn't my style 
This map is absurd.
Stay half-way between a portal and the other makes it too difficult to solve logical reasoning and more for
attempts and luck than logic.
Do not express any vote, but this is not the Portal that I love to play.
Hi
I did not see any World Portals - must be missing something.
I did use the strange grate to move through the large room grates to get to the end result - maybe that movement was afforded by World Portals.
Actually it did not seem right, because once you go into the portal above the small grate you body is now just beneath that portal and your head is above it. So shooting portals elsewhere at that point should not be possible since physically you are "under" the portal that is above the grate.
If the ability to shoot portals from there is made possible by World Portals then I have to agree that is a bit beyond what I would want to see - but I am glad you are thinking out of the box since you can use this feedback to not do that anymore but to do other and greater out of the box things. Or in the box things that are hard to figure out - those are the best IMO.
"The Hard Way" is a great example of this. Great, standard but complex gameplay with a cool twist.
I was unable to solve the map until I had a glance at your video. The portal hopping is something I have never seen nor thought of, and even though it's weird and logically thinking impossible (dead Chells, as you said), I was able to use it. You should have made a small room where one needs to use the technique to get to the main room. Given that, you could have made the remaining map more complex.
The rest of the map was not very difficult, except that I was struggling with the cube dropper too...
The world portal was a bit disorienting at first, but afterwards it was just a useless gravity shift. It is not used as part of the puzzle solving.
The aesthetics were ok - thinking of it, there were no observations rooms which I would have expected.
All in all: Congratulations for the discovery of the portal hopping technique, but a thumbs down for not making the player familiar with the idea at first, so I can only give you a 3/5.
i'm new here, so sorry if i gone to far
as some of you said the grating thing is weird .. for me it is a bug/glitch and should not be part of a puzzle, especially if you have to watch witch color you use
i didn't even thought about that as a solution because it doesn't make any sense for me
PCdoc wrote:
I did not see any World Portals......you can use this feedback to not do that anymore but to do other and greater out of the box things. Or in the box things that are hard to figure out - those are the best IMO...
..."The Hard Way" is a great example of this. Great, standard but complex gameplay with a cool twist.
The world portal was just above the button behind the third grate. Basically it went from a vertical face to horizontal as you transfered up to the laser emitter. Chances are you wouldn't notice it unless you jumped in from the top, but just felt more disorientated.
Like you say, I think I went too far with this technique; it's too unnatural, and highly illogical when you think it through. I didn't enjoy The Hard Way all that much, it did drag on a bit, but I know what you're getting at. My last map probably had a better balance than this one in this department.
mak wrote:
You should have made a small room where one needs to use the technique to get to the main room. Given that, you could have made the remaining map more complex.gum wrote:
i'm new here, so sorry if i gone to far
as some of you said the grating thing is weird .. for me it is a bug/glitch and should not be part of a puzzle, especially if you have to watch witch color you use
i didn't even thought about that as a solution because it doesn't make any sense for me
In retrospect, it seems like that introduction room could have been a good idea, but I kinda expected more people to have discovered this technique before.
As for watching what color you use, to be honest, I've never made a mistake with it and checked only to see what would happen. Didn't really think it would be an issue!
Oh well.
All in all, I wouldn't say it was a waste of time; I know now how far I should push things with the next few maps introducing new concepts =)
When i read this was a medium/hard level, i instantly jumped to the challenge. However using the portal glitch to solve, and adding useless components which don't work makes this a map of luck, not logic. You cannot possibly solve this level by following logic. For those of you who did solve this on your own, all i can say is that you know portal glitches which you like to use to your advantage.
As mentioned previous, the cube dropper got stuck, and took about 5 seconds to drop one
The world portals add to the confusion meaning that a logical mind CANNOT solve this. Making something which cannot be made in the real world is bad level design, it's a nightmare for end users. World Portals have their use, and as for people saying hardly anybody uses them in mapping, THEY'RE USED IN EVERY MAP I'VE SEEN FOR PORTAL 2. Just use them for their intended purpose of switching rooms about.
I also managed to see 3 portals drawn on the map, which is a bad idea. I'm pretty sure if you go past x amount then the engine will fault, just a note, if you're going to do world portal trickery, make sure that the rooms are far enough apart so it doesn't draw things like my orange portal twice.
Overall, this map was pretty terrible, this isn't the challenging portal 2 I've come to know and love, it relies on glitches which might not work in a few months time, and luck. No logical solving, and the light fixtures on the right wall are just bizarre.
I give this 2/5 
Radon wrote:
When i read this was a medium/hard level, i instantly jumped to the challenge. However using the portal glitch to solve, and adding useless components which don't work makes this a map of luck, not logic. You cannot possibly solve this level by following logic. For those of you who did solve this on your own, all i can say is that you know portal glitches which you like to use to your advantage.As mentioned previous, the cube dropper got stuck, and took about 5 seconds to drop one
The world portals add to the confusion meaning that a logical mind CANNOT solve this. Making something which cannot be made in the real world is bad level design, it's a nightmare for end users. World Portals have their use, and as for people saying hardly anybody uses them in mapping, THEY'RE USED IN EVERY MAP I'VE SEEN FOR PORTAL 2. Just use them for their intended purpose of switching rooms about.
I also managed to see 3 portals drawn on the map, which is a bad idea. I'm pretty sure if you go past x amount then the engine will fault, just a note, if you're going to do world portal trickery, make sure that the rooms are far enough apart so it doesn't draw things like my orange portal twice.
Overall, this map was pretty terrible, this isn't the challenging portal 2 I've come to know and love, it relies on glitches which might not work in a few months time, and luck. No logical solving, and the light fixtures on the right wall are just bizarre.
I give this 2/5
Fair enough man.. like I say.. this concept was probably a bad one, but saying that a logical mind cannot solve this is code for "I could not solve this". Place orange on portal surface, place blue on wall, jump in, move with blue. That's all there is to it.
Once you have the core concept it's straightforward from there. Likewise, on the concept of introducing portals to walls.., immagine a situation where you were between two linked portals facing eachother, and they were moved infinitely close to eachother. Where would you be then? That's equally illogical.
Things that cannot be done in real life? Faith plates, inteligent bipedal robots, antigravity funnels, portals in walls, sentient companion cubes, insane sentient AI.... enough said.
"As mentioned previous, the cube dropper got stuck, and took about 5 seconds to drop one.."
If you'd take a moment to look at the actual button, you'd see it takes five seconds to reset. Granted there was a bug whereby the cubes were getting stuck sometimes, but that's been fixed.
World portals are not used in every map.. nor are they used in the majority of maps. There's no two ways about that, perhaps you're confusing the way doors and lighting work in hammer... but that's a completely different concept.
Seeing 3 portals is due to seeing the ghost of your portal through the world portal. There's not really 3, it's just seeing one through the other. I've taken heed, and I'll avoid adding world portals for the sake of it in the future, but don't make shit up, the engine's not gonna crash. Any time a world portal is used, you'll be able to see the ghost of a portal on the other side twice if it doesn't close and get blocked by a door/wall/corner immediately. If the world portals are straight on, you might not see it so clearly, but then there's the issue of world portal draw distance and lighting bugs. Nothing you can really do about that.
I understand that you didn't like the map, upon reflection I don't rate it too highly myself and it's turned out quite annoying, but don't talk shit and make stuff up to get your point accross.
sicklebrick wrote:
Radon wrote:When i read this was a medium/hard level, i instantly jumped to the challenge. However using the portal glitch to solve, and adding useless components which don't work makes this a map of luck, not logic. You cannot possibly solve this level by following logic. For those of you who did solve this on your own, all i can say is that you know portal glitches which you like to use to your advantage.
As mentioned previous, the cube dropper got stuck, and took about 5 seconds to drop one
The world portals add to the confusion meaning that a logical mind CANNOT solve this. Making something which cannot be made in the real world is bad level design, it's a nightmare for end users. World Portals have their use, and as for people saying hardly anybody uses them in mapping, THEY'RE USED IN EVERY MAP I'VE SEEN FOR PORTAL 2. Just use them for their intended purpose of switching rooms about.
I also managed to see 3 portals drawn on the map, which is a bad idea. I'm pretty sure if you go past x amount then the engine will fault, just a note, if you're going to do world portal trickery, make sure that the rooms are far enough apart so it doesn't draw things like my orange portal twice.
Overall, this map was pretty terrible, this isn't the challenging portal 2 I've come to know and love, it relies on glitches which might not work in a few months time, and luck. No logical solving, and the light fixtures on the right wall are just bizarre.
I give this 2/5
Fair enough man.. like I say.. this concept was probably a bad one, but saying that a logical mind cannot solve this is code for "I could not solve this". Place orange on portal surface, place blue on wall, jump in, move with blue. That's all there is to it.
Once you have the core concept it's straightforward from there. Likewise, on the concept of introducing portals to walls.., immagine a situation where you were between two linked portals facing eachother, and they were moved infinitely close to eachother. Where would you be then? That's equally illogical.Things that cannot be done in real life? Faith plates, inteligent bipedal robots, antigravity funnels, portals in walls, sentient companion cubes, insane sentient AI.... enough said.
"As mentioned previous, the cube dropper got stuck, and took about 5 seconds to drop one.."
If you'd take a moment to look at the actual button, you'd see it takes five seconds to reset. Granted there was a bug whereby the cubes were getting stuck sometimes, but that's been fixed.World portals are not used in every map.. nor are they used in the majority of maps. There's no two ways about that, perhaps you're confusing the way doors and lighting work in hammer... but that's a completely different concept.
Seeing 3 portals is due to seeing the ghost of your portal through the world portal. There's not really 3, it's just seeing one through the other. I've taken heed, and I'll avoid adding world portals for the sake of it in the future, but don't make shit up, the engine's not gonna crash. Any time a world portal is used, you'll be able to see the ghost of a portal on the other side twice if it doesn't close and get blocked by a door/wall/corner immediately. If the world portals are straight on, you might not see it so clearly, but then there's the issue of world portal draw distance and lighting bugs. Nothing you can really do about that.
I understand that you didn't like the map, upon reflection I don't rate it too highly myself and it's turned out quite annoying, but don't talk shit and make stuff up to get your point accross.
I'm not inventing things, the 'concept' as you call it, is a glitch. A glitch which isn't introduced to players, and isn't an evolution of a concept within the game, therefore it shouldn't be in your level.
Yes the dropper got caught, well done, that is indeed what i meant.
I'm pretty sure i said that it was drawing 2 orange portals, not that they were separate entities, drawing is the same as showing a ghost...
And by the whole not be replicated in reality, well done smart arse for mentioning robots. Of course i'm not on about that, i'm on about how the map 'flows'. Which by adding world portals and messing around with geometry, so that what things appear to be are completely different that what they are, induces a sense of confusion in the user.
Back to the whole 'concept', as you call it, The fact that your body remains in the lower half, your body is then in the top half, assuming that it would be possible to use the portal gun whilst through two portals, surely the portal would then disappear from the wall, as you've already passed through, for arguments sake, blue. Your body would be cut in half, and land flat on the floor.
Portals connect two physical locations, they don't teleport constrained things that are in front of them, and say, "hey you know what, i think the players bodies already gone through, oh we'll move that aswell". So the concept in itself shouldn't exist, ergo, it's a glitch, thus it shouldn't be used. You might aswell just edit the map page and mention it incorporates a glitch, and that i may not work if future updates occur.
Radon wrote:
I'm not inventing things, the 'concept' as you call it, is a glitch. A glitch which isn't introduced to players, and isn't an evolution of a concept within the game, therefore it shouldn't be in your level.Yes the dropper got caught, well done, that is indeed what i meant.
I'm pretty sure i said that it was drawing 2 orange portals, not that they were separate entities, drawing is the same as showing a ghost...
And by the whole not be replicated in reality, well done smart arse for mentioning robots. Of course i'm not on about that, i'm on about how the map 'flows'. Which by adding world portals and messing around with geometry, so that what things appear to be are completely different that what they are, induces a sense of confusion in the user.
Back to the whole 'concept', as you call it, The fact that your body remains in the lower half, your body is then in the top half, assuming that it would be possible to use the portal gun whilst through two portals, surely the portal would then disappear from the wall, as you've already passed through, for arguments sake, blue. Your body would be cut in half, and land flat on the floor.
Portals connect two physical locations, they don't teleport constrained things that are in front of them, and say, "hey you know what, i think the players bodies already gone through, oh we'll move that aswell". So the concept in itself shouldn't exist, ergo, it's a glitch, thus it shouldn't be used. You might aswell just edit the map page and mention it incorporates a glitch, and that i may not work if future updates occur.
Pfft.. I'm enjoying our little to & fro here, but what I still don't understand is the level of pure intense hatred for a silly little map that makes use of something that.. yeah, probably is a bit of a glitch, but was created purely for a bit of fun. This method of using portals is never introduced per se, but even back in Portal 1, there are areas where you could crouch and do this sorta thing. I've witnessed others discovering it for themselves as well, and really it's just an exploration of mechanics.
Just like the peekaportal technique, or the reportal bump, there was the odd map which made use of them and when that got fixed, people stopped playing the maps. I genuinely thought some people would get a kick out of messing with the established order of things like that - I certainly did - but a few things still ring true.
-Once you've got your head around it as a concept or a glitch ... it's still easy as hell to pull off.
-That button took 5 seconds to reset, hence the 5 second wait.
-World portals aren't that common.
-The engine's not gonna crash drawing lots of portal ghosts.
-It's just for a bloody laugh.. glitch or not, it's not affected your life adversely.
If it makes you feel any better, we can pretend that there's a big invisible force field around the player, there to protect them from portal harm, E.g. used in the same way that portals bump you out when you're stood inside 2 of them on vertical walls and fire another, so you don't die as a result of your own stupidity.
All is right with the world, everyone's happy and we can larp our happy arses right through aperture.
Radon, aren't you just extremly mad because you couldn't figure out the trick to solve the map? I don't mean this in an offensive way at all - in fact, I felt something similar when I wasn't able to finish Gubble myself. Remember: in it you need to let a cube float between two horizontal portals.
I was thinking: what, that's never been taught to me, how should I have known about that mechanic? Well, that's just the deal with some of the maps here. You have some that use the normal techniques to create difficult puzzles. And you have some that use techniques never seen before for rather easy puzzles. I found the satisfaction when finally solving either of these to be pretty equally. You just have to be prepared - and SickleBrick did prepare you when he gave those hints in the download description.
If you didn't like this little trick, don't even try the really advanced maps here, like Chander's Tests for example.
zivi7 wrote:
If you didn't like this little trick, don't even try the really advanced maps here, like Chander's Tests for example.
Well, I don't agree with you here: this trick was extremely illogical. Most of Chander's maps aren't illogical but they require a lot of "advanced" techniques. That's quite a difference. But yes, I keep away from certain mappers because I don't like how their maps are often intended to be solved.
I think whether players get this glitch or not might depend on how recently they've played the original Portal. It had a similar glitch, whereby you could stand on the edge of a portal, fire another portal and back out before the portal closed behind you.
Building a level which depends on a glitch is fine with me, but you never know if or when Valve will patch the glitch, like they did for the aforementioned glitch when they released Portal 2. They fixed the re-portaling glitch within Portal 2, as well, which broke a map or two here. And pity all the poor speedrunners whose herculean efforts went for naught when Valve patched the button-save glitch.
So how is this map aside from the glitch? Not pretty, not difficult, and not fun, at least for me. I give it 3/5, and I'm rounding up.
It's really random to come up with the "concept" of this map. Also I'd rather call it glitch than intended mechanic. Either way it's a funny map that forces you to think different. For now I like it, however, I wouldn't want to play many maps with this "mechanic".
Here is my blindrun:
VSeRSVPmenI
(Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSeRSVPmenI)
Heh, that was great, cheers again ^^
I loved the anticipation when your head was stuck outside the portal, aiming at a nearby wall and your brain's like "Well that will kill me... right?"
It's a very marmite map though. Whether it's a glitch of abuse of mechanics, and whether you love it or hate it, there's not gonna be a followup :p
Even after you've figured out the technique, and thought through a workable solution, it seems there's still some natural hesitation in using it.
This map is ok. I don't like the lighting/atmosphere, but the puzzle is good. I like this confusing world portal. But it would be nice if there is an explanation room infront of the puzzle that shows the user how the think with staying in the portal while shooting new ones work. I didn't get it without the videos here.
sicklebrick wrote:
marmite
Very true. I remember a lengthy discussion back in the Portal 1 days, whether or not it's ok to use glitches like this, especially the one that KennKong describes a few posts back. (It was called "portal peeking" or "tunneling".) Many people hated it (mostly mappers, because it creates lots of opportunities to 'cheat' that are incedibly hard to prevent), but many other people would say that anything allowed by the game is a valid move. Some maps even required its use, including one with exactly the same setup you used here!
Personally, although I would never use something like this in my own maps, I did enjoy playing this one. Let's hope there won't be a change in the game code that breaks this glitch, since it really seems to be an edge case!
(Oh also, I know you don't care much for visual design, but in your future maps, please make the fizzlers only 1 unit thick. The ones that don't reach all the way from the floor to the ceiling look really weird.)
HMW wrote:
I remember a lengthy discussion back in the Portal 1 days, whether or not it's ok to use glitches like this...
Heh, to be honest I'm not that bothered if it gets patched - like those old peekaportal maps, or the Portal 2 ones that relied on portal bumps for a speed boost. It's something you have to accept operating in this gray area I guess I don't think it's really in the same league as those other glitches though considering how rare it is to find the right setup, using this technique to the floor kills the player, and even when it is possible it's probably not that useful. I'll certainly have a wee look for the other map though; I like this kinda thing. Cheers!
HMW wrote:
(Oh also, I know you don't care much for visual design, but in your future maps, please make the fizzlers only 1 unit thick. The ones that don't reach all the way from the floor to the ceiling look really weird.)
Oh, just for you then
Like Gubble, this map makes use of 2 uncommonly used concepts.
If you're needing ninja timing or anal precision, you're doing it wrong
Likewise any world portal glitches, or mid-portal beheadings are beyond my control!
Anyway, have fun, I'd love to see some solutions!
Edit:
Updated a wee bit.
File Name: sp_doublegubble12.rar
File Size: 2.59?MiB
Double Gubble