Link: dload.php?action=file&file_id=94

3 weeks in the making, here is my first ever released level for Portal. A level with some rather unique and difficult challenges that force you to think differently as opposed to having lightning reflexes.

The map takes place in a standard test chamber, assuming that Glados doesn't attempt to kill you and that you just continued through the test chambers.

Looking for a lot of constructive criticisms on my very first released map so I can make some better ones down the line. Tell me what you think! Thanks.

Edit:
Please Note: This level has been played through and completed dozens of times by 3 different people including myself.
The feeling of having cheated or exploited the map is generally intended for some parts of the map.

My puzzles are specifically designed for players who feel they are capable of completing difficult (but logical) puzzles with as few obvious hints as possible. This usually leads to puzzles in which the only possible solution is to apparently "exploit" the map, as such the case in the last test chamber for this map.

Download link and screenshots please.

Link: dload.php?action=file&file_id=94

Finished map. Nicely done.

I had no real problems this map. It looked nice, it had interesting yet challenging chambers.

The only thing that I had a sort of problem with, was the final chamber. And I'm pretty sure I did it wrong. To a point where I'm not sure you could fix it.

So I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get the WCC past the emancipation, so it can hold the door open.
What I ended up doing, was...think differently. I used my beloved companion cube, and set it against the door on an angle. When the I pushed the door button, the door open, and the cube fell flat - into the path of the door. When I left the button, there was enough space for me to hop through. However, I didn't want to leave my cube behind, so I just shot a portal through the crack, and brought my cube with me. Too bad it was emancipated.

I'm pretty sure I missed something rather significant in that room, as I couldn't figure out any other solution to it. Unless I did it right, in which case I think you need to give more direction to that solution.

Lorithad wrote:
Finished map. Nicely done.

I had no real problems this map. It looked nice, it had interesting yet challenging chambers.

The only thing that I had a sort of problem with, was the final chamber. And I'm pretty sure I did it wrong. To a point where I'm not sure you could fix it.

So I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get the WCC past the emancipation, so it can hold the door open.
What I ended up doing, was...think differently. I used my beloved companion cube, and set it against the door on an angle. When the I pushed the door button, the door open, and the cube fell flat - into the path of the door. When I left the button, there was enough space for me to hop through. However, I didn't want to leave my cube behind, so I just shot a portal through the crack, and brought my cube with me. Too bad it was emancipated.

I'm pretty sure I missed something rather significant in that room, as I couldn't figure out any other solution to it. Unless I did it right, in which case I think you need to give more direction to that solution.

You did the last puzzle EXACTLY how it was supposed to be done.

Note: The idea behind that puzzle was to make the room appear as if it was designed for a different puzzle, but because it was incomplete, you had to solve it a unique way by thinking differently about the challenge. The piece of wall sitting against the actual wall, beside the door, is perfectly angled so that the cube can be sat down on the wall at an angle, then picked back up to be propped against the door.

Edit:
I updated the map so that the last chamber has some hints as to what you should do.

I did it a lot differently... using the companion cube a lot more than just leaving it on the same button.

yeah thats the solution I was going to attempt before I came on and read it but it just seemed like too much work to try for something that I have never remotely seen done before in any map.

Astro wrote:
yeah thats the solution I was going to attempt before I came on and read it but it just seemed like too much work to try for something that I have never remotely seen done before in any map.

Aware and still respecting that I asked for critique, would you say that's a compliment (not being done before) or not. It could be taken both ways.

I tried to make my puzzles as unique as I could, and this experience right here showed that maybe with the original ideas, I should give more hints as to how they're done. I'll do that next time.

I thought it was great, one thing you could do... is in an unfinished area before that puzzle... have a door jammed open with an object, maybe a cube but it doesn't have to be... that could put the idea in peoples heads faster

Just played it again after the updates.

While I don't think the clues that you've provided will immediatly give away the solution, I think it will definatly help. So that should be good enough.

One thing I forgot to mention. In the first room, Where you have the one cube, and the two buttons. You have a redundant button. The one where can you portal to, you don't actually need. I'm assuming that button is supposed to be so that you can fling the box onto the other button. But really, you can just hold the cube and jump. Sort of tossing the cube onto the button.

Then there's the fact that you can actually get unto that button by putting a portal on the wall close to it, and jumping over.

First off, I really enjoyed this map - your puzzles were very refreshing.

There are a few issues I noticed in one play-though:

- During the first puzzle, you can become permanently trapped in the tall room behind the slow-closing doors by placing both your portals inside that room.

- Some of the floor lighting does not have proper brush work - when you look in the crack you see into pure blackness.

- In the last room, GlaDOS was talking over herself - I'd assume this is two speech triggers that are too close together.

- Some of your walls do not accept portals especially well, this can be fixed though the use of portal bumpers.

Yeah the thing about putting the cube on an angle, is that it naturally does everything in its power to right itself and to get it to rest on an angle you have to drag it across the top of the door etc. Suffice to say it takes a good deal of effort and I bet most people would never think to even try and then would give up on the effort when they found how hard that solution might be especially when they prolly think its not the inteded solution to begin with. Like others have said, come up with some way (perhaps a graphic) to show it.

I think showing a door held open by a cube or some other object earlier in the map would do the job.

the first way I tried was placing the cube a foot away from the door, and setting the sphere from the previous room on the space between the door and cube, so that the sphere would hold it open, but it bounced too fast and too far so I used the cube

Astro wrote:
Yeah the thing about putting the cube on an angle, is that it naturally does everything in its power to right itself and to get it to rest on an angle you have to drag it across the top of the door etc. Suffice to say it takes a good deal of effort and I bet most people would never think to even try and then would give up on the effort when they found how hard that solution might be especially when they prolly think its not the inteded solution to begin with. Like others have said, come up with some way (perhaps a graphic) to show it.

You don't use the door to angle the cube though, you use the angled platform beside the door, which is exactly the right angle to prop it against the door. I'll take your advice, but I just want to point out that the puzzle really doesn't require as much effort as I think you're thinking it does.

PS: Showing a door behind held open by a box is a very good idea, I never thought of that. I'll be sure to do something like that in future maps. Thanks!

PSS: I'm aware of a couple spots in my level where you can get yourself stuck, and I'm trying to find out how to detect if both portals are within a specific zone so that I can fire a trigger to open the door. If anyone could give a link or example, I'd really appreciate it.

I believe covering the walls in that room with portal detectors and using OnStartTouchBothLinkedPortals would do the job... I'll throw together a map and see if it works.

Edit
This works fine... just make brushes 1 unit thick, give it the trigger texture cover all the walls in that small room with them. Select them all and tie them to a portal_detector... add the output

OnStartTouchBothLinkedPortals ---> Door ---> Open

since the door is slow in closing... they should be able to shoot a portal out before it closes again. And if they miss it... shooting another portal anywhere in the room will re-open it anyway.

CassataGames wrote:
You don't use the door to angle the cube though, you use the angled platform beside the door, which is exactly the right angle to prop it against the door. I'll take your advice, but I just want to point out that the puzzle really doesn't require as much effort as I think you're thinking it does.

PS: Showing a door behind held open by a box is a very good idea, I never thought of that. I'll be sure to do something like that in future maps. Thanks!

PSS: I'm aware of a couple spots in my level where you can get yourself stuck, and I'm trying to find out how to detect if both portals are within a specific zone so that I can fire a trigger to open the door. If anyone could give a link or example, I'd really appreciate it.

When I did that it would auto correct it self and go back to a 90 degree angle.

Did you release the cube and re-grab it?

Astro wrote:
When I did that it would auto correct it self and go back to a 90 degree angle.

You need to drop the cube on the platform, then pick it back up from an angle. It wont auto correct the angle unless it's very close to a 90 degree angle (like 80 to something).

@Rivid, thanks a lot! I'll give that a shot and then release an update for the map. Thanks.

I managed to solve the last puzzle in a completely different, exploitative way, by tossing the nemesis sphere sheer through the emancipation grill. By doing this, it was in contact with the button for a split second and opened the door long enough for me to shoot a portal through it. This was probably not what you had in mind, though...

Overall, enjoyable map. I only really felt exploitative near the end, though, and I bet I was. ;p

Also, One of the sidechambers in the first room seemed completely redundant and had no function with regards to the puzzle at all. Was this intentional?

I hate to use the words "Beaten Correctly" because like I say, my intention for map design is to make it seem like any way you beat it is a solution, whether or not you did it the way I initially intended or not.

So I'll use this sparingly when I say: beaten correctly, the first room requires both chambers to perform the fling move properly.

What fling move? After getting the cube, getting it onto the button above the rightmost door is as simple as just throwing it up there. It doesn't even take any portals. And if you do want to use portals, putting one on the concrete wall next to the button platform is just as easy.

I think he's referring to the fling move to get up to the cube in the first place

What I did to get the cube:

portal one on ceiling.
portal 2 in first drop.
Jump into portal 2
Immediatly after falling out of portal one, put new portal 1 on ground.
Manuver self in air onto platform where cube was located.
Ta da.

It never even occured to me to use the other room.

if I recall you can't use the other room for that because you need a cube to keep the door open, the door is underneath you

Right. I did what Lorithad did to get up to the cube in the first place, and then I never had to use the door on the left at all; I just tossed the cube up onto the right button and walked through the door. No more flinging required.

Well, it's easier to use the ceiling, but the intended seems to be To put a portal inside the right door using a portal into portal echnique, then going and using the pit inside the right chamber to fling yourself inside the left chamber.

Fix: Ceiling of 1st floor is now a non-portalable surface.

The map is good. Since i played a lot in chamber 17 with getting stuck in the room and having GLaDOS bail me out, I found the last puzzle a bit easy. Next time, do it with a TURRET! Using a turret to jam the door is how I achieved my high score on room 18 (56 seconds)

Of course, people that spend a bit less time abusing the living crap out of this game found the map harder, and it is challenging. Nice job on it.

BlackSphinx wrote:
Well, it's easier to use the ceiling, but the intended seems to be To put a portal inside the right door using a portal into portal echnique, then going and using the pit inside the right chamber to fling yourself inside the left chamber.

Fix: Ceiling of 1st floor is now a non-portalable surface.

The map is good. Since i played a lot in chamber 17 with getting stuck in the room and having GLaDOS bail me out, I found the last puzzle a bit easy. Next time, do it with a TURRET! Using a turret to jam the door is how I achieved my high score on room 18 (56 seconds)

Of course, people that spend a bit less time abusing the living crap out of this game found the map harder, and it is challenging. Nice job on it.

Heh, well I don't plan on doing any stuff like using objects to climb walls, because stuff like that in my opinion is just a bit to glitched and annoying.

I figured, Portal is a puzzle game, but ironically the designers of the actual game seemed to have left out some of the simplest aspects of a door puzzle. Prop a box against a door, open door, close door and box will keep door propped open for you. Simple concept that seems to be very over looked in favor of more complex solutions.

Thanks for the advice and critique everyone, I'm working on an updated release to fix up the chambers where you can get stuck.

Rather then destroying some of the very minor puzzle aspects, because thinking with a door that closes on you all the time is a major part of these simple puzzles, I'm creating secondary escape chambers, as opposed to just opening the door. These secondary chambers will drop you off into the outside chamber again.
This will keep you from having to restart the map, and will also avoid destroying some of the smaller puzzle elements I tried to keep with the map.

Like I said, any solution (that isn't cheating) is a solution. I still appreciate everyone telling me how they completed my puzzles though. Not only are they extremely interesting to hear, but they are amazing inspiration for future maps. Thanks everyone, keep it up!

Quote:
I managed to solve the last puzzle in a completely different, exploitative way, by tossing the nemesis sphere sheer through the emancipation grill. By doing this, it was in contact with the button for a split second and opened the door long enough for me to shoot a portal through it. This was probably not what you had in mind, though...

Hahaha, I did the same thing. It took me forever to get the timing right... I probably went through a zillion companion cubes. =D

BTW, I really enjoyed this map.

I also initially solved the final puzzle this way as well. I could only get it to work once though. Second time through I got too annoyed at trying after going through 20 companion cubes.

my only disappointment in the map was that the ladder did not work.

lol I tried to climb the ladder too

Okay, I just updated the map with Portal bumpers to make placing portals in tight spots, a lot easier.

I also added Portal detectors thanks to Rivid, and a new escape chamber on in the first room if you manage to trap yourself.

I would fix the level against the solution of throwing cubes into the grill and hoping for the best (making it less obvious that it might be a solution), but I stand by what I say when, any solution is a solution never the less. I just hope that my new tips will make it a little more obvious how the puzzle is really done.

PS: I think everyone has tried the ladder. lol All of my map testers (friends) went for it as soon as I saw it. I would have made it work, but I wasn't exactly sure, and the fact that it was completely irrelevant, I decided not to worry about it.

Oh, by the way, now that you mention the ladder... it might be a good idea to put a noportal brush where it meets the wall. Right now you can create a portal on the wall behind it and create a minor glitch that doesn't really affect gameplay but looks kind of ugly.

Sounds good, I'll add that in with the next update along with fixing up a few other area's around the map where that's possible. If anyone else has any other suggestions I'd be happy to add them to the next and hopefully final update before I start working on a new map.

In the latest version available here, the ceiling above the starting elevator is nodraw and probably ought to be fixed...

Korjagun wrote:
In the latest version available here, the ceiling above the starting elevator is nodraw and probably ought to be fixed...

Strange, I don't recall ever having messed with the starting elevator.

At any rate, I'll fix it when I get home later today. I'm at school right now, but as soon as I get home I'll fix the ceiling and give locations such as the elevator, no portal volume.

Hey, I loved this map. Especially the last puzzle, when I saw the red cross in front of the door after 10 minutes explorating the room, I told myself "Heck? Should I... Damn it, this room contains bended walls!". I think that element is the best hint in the room.

The ceiling above the ending elevator has a nodraw texture as well... also, it always bothered me the elevator doors don't close at the end >_> other than that... excellent fixes. It's hard to judge the clues in the last room since I already knew how to do it... but they seem sufficient. I'd say this is pretty close to being 100% done.

Updated the map again:
Fixed second escape chamber and added portal bumpers to make it easier to get in, if you accidentally destroy your sphere.
Added HDR Lighting to the map. Fixed lighting.
Re-created starting elevator ceiling to fix any no-draw problem. (Please note that no light gets to the ceiling, it's black.)

Just finished playing your map first time.
Looks like I just missed the latest update on Nov. 16

I don't know if this is known about, and it doesn't really break things too badly, but there is a weird door mechanic in the first puzzle.
Its the one door that is not opened by a button (the door GLaDOS opens to keep you from getting trapped). To see this glitch you stand in the main room (with the buttons) and place a portal directly to the right of that door. Then place other portal on the wall across the room looking at that door. If you stand between the portals in just the right place the door will actually open for you. If you look at the door and move in and out of the portals to open and close it while repeatedly shooting a portal at the door then eventually you'll get the timing right and you will have a portal on the opposite side of the door...which gets you nowhere useful.

Otherwise I think the map is great and I finished the final puzzle on my own the "intended way".

Thanks for a great map,
Adair

I also just played this map; my only major complaint is that it's just a .bsp file, no bonus script or anything. A little thing, really, but it's kind of annoying to have to open the console when all the other maps are right there in the bonus maps section - I'm sure someone here would even be able to do it for you if you asked.

Anyway, I loved the feeling of "beating the system". I spent about five or ten minutes wandering around the first room before I realized that I could use portal-through-portal to get behind one of the doors without holding it open. It was just awesome in a kind of "stick-it-to-the-man" kind of way.

Another thing, though I'm sure it's a problem of the Source engine, and not your mapping ability, is in the final chamber: sometimes, when I press the button to open the door, instead of falling into the gap, the WCC just stays sitting at an angle, as though it were still propped up against the door. Annoying, but nothing major.

All things considered, great job. I look foreword to your future work!

EDIT: This thread has everything you need to know to create a proper bonus map script.

I pretty much figured out what i had to do with the cube right away with the door, but i spent a long time, using the angled platform, or not, and really couldn't get the cube to lay against the door at an angle. it was very frustrating to try to get it to do that.

so that made me go get the ball from the last puzzle and it made me wonder how do you destroy a camera that is on a nonportable wall anyway?

so i spent a lot of wasted time trying something with the ball and the cube against the door to no avail. i'll try fiddling again with the angled platform and see if i can do it....

oh well after all that i did it on the first try. go figure.

I agree that a camera or a turret makes propping a door open easier.

I seem to remember that manipulating objects to be at certain angles was so much easier with the gravity gun in HL2.

Adair wrote:
I seem to remember that manipulating objects to be at certain angles was so much easier with the gravity gun in HL2.

there are certain objects that when you pick them up snap to an angle, this made it easier with certain things. Also the HL2 environment is more varied which makes it easier to prop things against something to rotate them

Awesome map, took me a good 35 minutes to beat.

I admit that I had to resort to spoilers for the last one (although I did manage to get the ----- from the other room into the final chamber by myself, it proved useless anyway XD).

10/10

For anyone stuck in the level, or interested in comparing how they beat it, to how it was intended to be beaten, here is a video I uploaded of the map.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmRHfeV0yDY

My pc crashes when I get near all those turrets

youme wrote:
My pc crashes when I get near all those turrets

Lol. Ouch.

youme wrote:
My pc crashes when I get near all those turrets

Whoa!
I thought my pc sucked with it's as-god-as extinct geforce 4800(which is just about the best part of them all )

Anyways, great map ^^ really liked the tricky way of getting through the first door...and just about everything else too!

This level was just about the most fun I've played so far. Top notch. I got to use all sorts of sneaky tricks in this level....I'm guessing other people have experienced the same feeling where you've encountered similar problems before, so you can use the same tricks sometimes..

In the last room for this one, I put a portal up on the wall opposite that of the gridded-off last door button, so that if something came through that portal, gravity would safely guide it down. Instead of looking in the same room, or even just the last big jump for a place to build momentum, I went back to the last big vertical drop so I knew it'd get me across the first time. This trick was also used for some in the 18th level in the normal game if you're looking for a quick way to fly past all those robots; blue portal on the "in room" tilted surface, orange portal down and back on one of the the big pads before the big robot area.

This level was a lot of fun and had a lot of interesting things used in its level construction.

Good map, excellent puzzles, i always find flings hard to do, and this was no exception, got there in the end tho !
Had to check out the spoilers for the final solution Doh !
Thanks

Phil

You better watch out. Sleeper doesn't like it when you bump the oldest thread on the site.