Welcome Back Test Subjects,

This is the second chapter to the series "The Untold Truth". This chapter introduces the characters that will be seen throughout the series. As mentioned before in Chapter 1: The Escape, I do not tend to give hints and by hints I mean the blue/orange indicators. This map is not for people who want a challenge. As much as I wanted to make a challenging map, I wanted to introduce the environment along with a story plot to the people who are interested in seeing how my story turns out. So once again, this map is not challenging what so ever, if you thought Chapter 1: The Escape was easy, this is easier, but as stated, this is only the beginning. I promise to make challenging maps to go along with the story and Chapter 3 should be the map to uphold that promise.

Thanks and I hope you enjoy,

BlackBird Studios


[News Update:] If anybody is intrested in a [CO-OP] project, I know that this amazing story I have in mind, will win any Portal Contest. I lack the skills for Hammer, but story is another thing. If you are interested in this story and would like to help, PM me. This story is lacking the skills, and I hate to waste this story with my knowledge of Hammer, so I'm thinking about halting these chapters, unless people say otherwise. If people want to see this story continue, I promise to put more effort into these maps, and maybe at the end, I can polish it up alot as one full download. Let me know what you guys think.


[This part of the section is dedicated to the people who are nice enough to help me, as a Portal 2 Community Member, in my "Toughess Times".]

I would like to thank MasterLagger for supplying me with his crusher he made.

I would also like to thank "andyb" for supplying a very easy tutorial on Indicator lights, looks time consuming but I'll manage.

File Name: SP_TheCatacombs_v1.rar
File Size: 3.76 MiB
Click here to download Chapter 2: The Catacombs

A huge improvement over the first Chapter, the turret management scene was funny, but few things to do:

The rooms are still kind of big and look like just Black&White without almost any details.
It's too dark sometimes.
After the turret scene, the wall just destroys itself. It's kinda weird. No gibs? No Explosion?
The textures were mis-alighning sometimes.
* The map is generally too easy and too short.

Not bad, but still improvements to do.

I got stuck multiple times.
My brain hurts from big orange flashing lights.
I could see the thingies you used to turn that wall.
The floor/ceiling went through the wall and the player?
The arms in the final room aren't solid.
The scenes took to long, and if you're doing these kind of scenes, make sure they're properly voice-acted.
The textures were horribly misaligned.

Other than that it's quite ok, but it just needs a hell of a lot more work before it's a good map. I think that specially in a map that is about storyline the looks of the map are more important that in any other map!

Just my two cents!
For now 2/5.

I thank you guys for downloading the map so fast, that really tells me that you guys were looking foward to Chapter 2. I am very sorry that it wasn't what you guys were looking foward to. When I made this map, I did the same from Chapter 1. I went along with what I had as I was making it, nothing was preplanned in the sense of image. Here I was teaching myself more on triggers than anything else along with functions. While I was making it everything that is in that map was meant to happen.
Those things you see that are floating from the movement of the wall, are explained from the turret after you drop down. I could have easily removed them and set them somewhere else. I kept them there to tell the player that something is watching the facility of Aperture and that those things aka "The Jammers", were placed there to block the signal of an unkown character, from being able to listen to what the turret had to say. As for that moveable wall that gets the player stuck, I also knew that was going to be a problem, but I kept it in the way I wanted, before hand that wall was smacking things and actually froze my game. So I know what you are saying, but I wanted a better way to transition to the rest of the map by having one floor do 3 things. As for the lighting, it is the way I wanted it. I wanted it to feel undergroundish, in that you were in the old unforgotten parts of Aperture and as for the orange lights, I wanted it to give the player the sense of, "Get me out of this sh** hole". They acted as a annoying feature, which seemed to work... you don't like them, which was the point, if I were to add regular lights in there, it would loose interest and you would be able to see, making the temptation of the part of the map, crappy. So, I understand what you guys are saying, there are a lot of things wrong with that map, but I didn't want to spend to much time with that, just wanted to show a little part of the story and get you guys in the feel for my story. As stated in the description, this map is NOT HARD AT ALL, the first chamber of Portal 1 is harder then this map. But as stated, that is the point... I wanted to build more to this Chapter, but for some reason, this file became very laggy, and it got annoying to move around and add more blocks to make it even laggier. Chapter 3 will have more time put into it, I promise...

Thank you guys for commenting and I hope this has helped,

BlackBird Studios

Indicator lights 101 http://www.tophattwaffle.com/?p=2784

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:

DA_K6-NU2OY
(Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA_K6-NU2OY)

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

This is why I knew this project of mine was going to be a bit faulty. People are so caught up with the wanting to complete the map they don't stop. That is why at first I thought to put a wall at the beginning and to destory it when the turret was done talking. This video proves what I was fearing might happen. People need to get the idea in their head that I am not the kind of person just to make a map and have it stop there. I go above and beyond and try to make an experience memorable. I'm not doing a very good job at it though. I'm going to neeed to make it so people aren't going to post videos of what I do just to skim past the thing. I'm not mad at you Djinndrache, and I know you clearly state that the run is not perfect, but that is because you usually do the videos for test chambers. If you are going to do my maps, please could you at least slow it down a bit, so there is not a wrong impression. Like I said, later in the future after I'm done with my mini-story I might just do single test chamber maps, but as for now, the maps that signify a chapter, are for the story. I find it amazing that you show people what other maps look like and you record the experience for the first time you do it, but for time, these maps aren't for that experience. I would still love to have you continue recording my maps, but be considerate and at least give me and my maps a chance to breathe.

Sure, I'll slow the run down a little to get a better result for the video and the viewers.

To be honest I was bored in this map though. Nobody wants to read text-chats in Portal, it's not portal-style at all. There was always voice for Portal maps and even custom "story maps" use custom voice instead of text-chat.
Maybe you can go that way in future, maybe it's more interesting then.

As stated in the video description your map was too much "RPGMaker style" and too less "Portal style" for my taste. But I'm waiting for more to be done

If I knew how to use custom voice, I might give it a try. But I do not, so I can not. Simple as that. Like I stated before, I knew that this thing was going to be a bit faulty, I understand why some people don't want to watch text fly across the screen, but that is for some people. As I mentioned, this is not a Portal Style thing I am trying to do, but I am trying as hard as I can to make it go together with Portal. If you know how I can make the talking more better, please by all means, tell me. I am always interested in learning how to do new things on hammer.

Had fun with this one, the first 2 turrets gave me a good giggle

I think maybe if the text went a little faster though, and you had a trigger set in place to skip those the player could decide if they wanted to listen?
It's a pretty interesting design, but to be honest at times I did turn on the torch to ease my impatience :p

Oh, and a few bugs

The "you're fired" room:
I think I jumped back down the entrance shaft, and out of the sloped panel, in a loop to press the door opening button without using the one next to the pit... you can keep looping a bit until you hit the button.

Painty Hallway room:
I couldn't be bothered with the big spikey smasher, so I let some paint fall at the start of the hallway from the roof, jumped through and bounced back up to ceiling height, while in the air, I placed a portal nearby on the white surface, and one next to the door on the wall..
Fell through the nearby portal, and flew out onto the step.

Funnel room:
I still had an orange portal in the "lies" room, so I went back through and placed it under the blue paint.. then jumped back to the funnel room and painted stuff with the blue one.. quicker to get the cube!

Fire room:
You can place portals slightly underneath the big roof light. I got a bit stuck

Dear Sicklebrick,

Thank you for finding these problems, I thought when making the map there was not going to be any issues. Bad news is, I probably won't issue in update for this map reason be, I'm trying to partner up with somebody else to enlarge my story. So as of now, I'm thinking about halting these chapters, unless people are interested and still want me to contiune. I want to find somebody that has mastered the Hammer Program and can create features in seconds. I feel that I am not presenting this amazing story I have in mind that well. My skills on Hammer is lacking alot.. I don't want to waste this story with my skills and have it redone again, to make it look good. So as stated, thanks for the feed back, but the maps seem to be going dead.

Nah man, don't give up!
It was pretty enojyable, and well done.... hang on in there with hammer and you'll get it

This needs to be put into WIP until you work out the kinks. There are just too many places where you can get stuck. I managed to find a way to get stuck in every room but the entrance! And after struggling through all that, the sleep chamber at the end never opened for me, so I never really made it to the end. This needs so much more work, I can barely give it a 2.
If you're trying to tell a story, you're a writer, not a mapper. So I can forgive the generally poor quality of the map itself, but not the incessant misspellings. What the heck is an "undercroft"?
As much as I can appreciate your desire to tell a story, please remember this is a game; people play it to do something, not just watch. You need to think about how to engage your audience.
I hope that you do find other mappers to work with you on your project. You will learn much faster that way, and their feedback will help your next chapter come out much better in the first release.
Don't give up just because you are having trouble with the mapping. Albert Einstein was a poor math student, but he accomplished a great deal that required a lot of math.

To KennKong,

As stated many times, I know that this map needs work, but I'm not going to fix any bugs on here, because as you mentioned, I'm trying to find somebody else to partner up with me. If I do not find anybody I will continue to do the Chapters and at the end, re-do the whole story and clean it up a lot. Now to the question regarding what an undercroft is... An undercroft is traditionally a cellar or storage room,often brick-lined and vaulted, and used for storage in buildings since medieval times. In modern usage, an undercroft is generally a ground (street-level) area which is relatively open to the sides, but covered by the building above. Here I thought people whould be able to put two-and-two together, but I was wrong, so I will stick to much smaller words. Unless I used it in wrong contex or mis-spelled it on the map itself, you need to do a little "define: undercroft" on Google. Thank you very much on your feedback. And for you, I will try to remember that this is a game and not not-a game. In all honesty, just to sum up how much I know this map was a complete failure, I'm just going to say 4 words, so people can stop mentioning the same thing. "This..was..a..test"

Dear Readers,

For the people who have played my map, you know that it looks crappy as hell... So I am going to pile drive my maps to the floor and beat it with a chair... Meaning I am starting from scratch... I won't lose the idea of the storyline but just really improve on the map structure. If anybody would love to help me with this project that would be GREAT!!! I am looking for a partner who knows what their doing.. I have all the ideas set in mind, just need the brains... If no one offers to help, I will just complete the map to the best of my ability. If anybody is willing to give support on how to do the complicated things for instance, making your own voices for GLADoS and other characters I have in mind, please help me, and I will be sure to include you in my project when complete. I promise this will be to the best of my ability, I have no life so theres a plus for you

PLEASE HELP ME. And from now own, don't be looking for Chapter 3... I hope to be able to make all the maps and send it all out as ONE.. No more parts just a complete series..

Thanks for reading,

BlackBird Studios

BlackBird Studios wrote:
To KennKong,

Now to the question regarding what an undercroft is... An undercroft is traditionally a cellar or storage room,often brick-lined and vaulted, and used for storage in buildings since medieval times. In modern usage, an undercroft is generally a ground (street-level) area which is relatively open to the sides, but covered by the building above. Here I thought people whould be able to put two-and-two together, but I was wrong, so I will stick to much smaller words. Unless I used it in wrong contex or mis-spelled it on the map itself, you need to do a little "define: undercroft" on Google.

Well researched but, why didn't you just say cellar? I "whould" have looked up undercroft but, when you spelled the "smaller words" sedate as "sidate" and anarchy as "anarcy", it was not clear whether you intentionally meant to say that. Being condescending to your (Portal 2) audience, is probably not the best way to attract productive criticism.
I like the idea of a story driven game, and after playing the first one I looked forward to this one, but waiting for the (misspelled) text was also an issue for me. I hope you find someone to help you tell your story, and I will be looking for it.
Good luck!

To Buckfuts,

I understand your point, I should have taken more time to have a spell check. It was not intentional, but that was the past. I am re-designing my maps, and I hope to be able to add custom voice and not just text. If you are looking for me to wave the white flag to my failure you got it. lol Thanks for the compliments and I hope you enjoy my new improved version of 'Chapter 1: The Escape'. I hope it is what you expect.