File Size: 11.26 MB
Downloads: 940
Rating: (4 votes)
Description
Updated version of Manic Mechanic This is a minor update to the Manic Mechanic portal map, which fixes a long existing bug with some physics simulation puzzles. See the README file for details. To extract this package, you need 7zip, which can be obtained at http://www.7-zip.org.
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Well done on a great map. I found it challenging and thoroughly enjoyed playing it.
I only played a part of this map for this time. I got stuck when returning to the beginning (the place where you cannot jam the door with the cube - I lol'd at that). Could you possibly give me some hint?
I had to noclip only one part - the one with the rotating platform, since it is impossible to reach the door in time (is there another solution when you don't have both portals?)
The timings at the "Combinations" part were very low, I had 5 unsuccessful tries and after I decided to give it up, suddendly I managed it. Damn, I hate those timings in maps 
But that's just me and my humble opinion.
After all, this map is very nice, the atmosphere is great and the lighting and brushwork are all polished. Great work.
Mek wrote:
I only played a part of this map for this time. I got stuck when returning to the beginning (the place where you cannot jam the door with the cube - I lol'd at that). Could you possibly give me some hint?
Go to the other end of the hallway, walk up to the vertical glass panels and look down.
Mek wrote:
I had to noclip only one part - the one with the rotating platform, since it is impossible to reach the door in time (is there another solution when you don't have both portals?)
The timings at the "Combinations" part were very low, I had 5 unsuccessful tries and after I decided to give it up, suddendly I managed it. Damn, I hate those timings in maps
After all, this map is very nice, the atmosphere is great and the lighting and brushwork are all polished. Great work.
You should have plenty of time if you use the intended solutions. I understand your criticism though, i also hate timing puzzles which give you only half a second of tolerance. (The "stub your toe once along the way and you're too late" kind. 
)
In the first room with the rotating portal gun, before pressing any button, work things out so that you are inside the chamber with the mesh window and the ball is on the two blocks in front of it. Wait for the orange portal to open in the other chamber, then get over there, push the button, get back and push the other button. The next stop for the orange portal is above the funnel. When it gets there, place a blue portal on the wall where the ball is and it will roll neatly into the funnel and to its destination.
For the part with the rotating platform, press the right button first, wait five seconds, then press the left button and see what happens. This circuitry returns in the last part of the map, so make sure you understand how it works before moving on.
amazing map! i really love the atmospher and some of the lighting effects you used! the puzzles are the first real new and innovative thing si've seen in quite a while! my only qualm is that the signs do not work for me at all. i have a feeling the last puzzle would be a bit more possible if i knew what all of the signs were saying. and some of the textures and platforms still looks like a bunch of white lines.
wait, i think i know what the problem is, never mind.
EDIT: nope still doesnt work.
EDIT2: never mind, i got it to work. but some of the objects look like they are made of white lines...?
HMW wrote:
In the first room with the rotating portal gun, before pressing any button, work things out so that you are inside the chamber with the mesh window and the ball is on the two blocks in front of it. Wait for the orange portal to open in the other chamber, then get over there, push the button, get back and push the other button. The next stop for the orange portal is above the funnel. When it gets there, place a blue portal on the wall where the ball is and it will roll neatly into the funnel and to its destination.
wow 
I didn't even use the two blocks, now I know I found an alternate solution (but a little time-critical one): First I brought the ball from the second room and put it on the top of the funnel thingy (made sure it doesn't roll in). Then I did what was supposed to do, but instead of just firing portals I went on the top of the funnel thingy where I left my ball before and put it in myself 
Thanks for your hints, I will try again tomorrow.
MSLEEPER, YOU'RE ALIVE!!!
Can you update the community spotlight, now? I think you promised sbrown a shot at the glory 
again wrote:
EDIT2: never mind, i got it to work. but some of the objects look like they are made of white lines...?
Very cool that you figured it out on your own eventually.
The white lines indicate that one or more material files are missing. You need to copy the entire portal folder from the zip file over the "inner" game folder, merging their contents. All files will then end up in their correct places. (map file under portal/maps/hmw and materials under portal/materials/HMW_*.) If you look in the bonus maps menu, there should be an "HMW" entry on the first screen. If the HMW folder is in a separate "portal" folder, you've copied the files one directory level too deep, and it won't find any custom materials.
Mek wrote:
[...] now I know I found an alternate solution (but a little time-critical one): [...]
There are actually lots of ways to do it. I tried multiple ways while designing this part. Eventually i settled on placing the ball on the floor where the blocks are now and putting a portal under it, but the darn thing kept rolling away. So i added the blocks as a nice stable holding place.
By the way, if the ball is in the funnel when the time runs out, the seesaw will stay in the open position until the ball gets through, as a sort of "grace period". The indicator lights will flash orange/blue when this happens. So if you see the seesaw flipping back right as the ball rolls off of it, it's not necessarily due to tight timing.
Still don't get the ball puzzle, every time I get a ball up and locked in place it just evaporates when i hit the button; and the other balls just stay up top doing nothing!
dvlstx wrote:
MSLEEPER, YOU'RE ALIVE!!!Can you update the community spotlight, now? I think you promised sbrown a shot at the glory
He deserves it. I enjoyed playing PESP. The atmosphere is great and the voice really plays on your conscience in the end.
Sleepwalker wrote:
Still don't get the ball puzzle, every time I get a ball up and locked in place it just evaporates when i hit the button; and the other balls just stay up top doing nothing!
You need to set up everything so it solves itself, using the first ball to release the others. The button near the door is just an 'emergency' reset button in case your solution doesn't work. Also, notice that the dial configuration on the right is the same as in the third room of "Combinations"!
Difficulty killed it, after sitting close to a hour and half on the damn ball puzzle I quit, not all of us can understand those **** equations and signs, if I would want myself this headache I would just go and do math tests.
Graphically and "ideally" it was great.
I would love to see a video walkthrough, just to see how it can be solved.
I got stuck on the last room with all the moving parts and the 3 balls. It confuses me to death. I don't know what to do, and the glowing signs don't tell ANYTHING at all.
I'm in-game right now, and wondering how to get the balls INSIDE the fan mechanism. I get the last puzzle, just not how to send them up through the fan.
Okay. So, the last puzzle is obviously too hard for some people. The large projected signs are ment to give some indication of what you are supposed to do, but obviously that is not clear enough.
I've got very mixed reactions to this part of the map, ranging from very positive to very negative. Both kinds of feedback are very valuable, as it helps me tune the difficulty of future maps to a point where it is entertaining for as many people as possible.
So for everyone who can't figure it out, here is the full solution:
Put a portal on the wall inside the glass enclosure at the very top of the room.
Put the other portal on the grey column opposite the fan pipe. It should be all the way to the bottom, so a ball coming from the paddle wheel will fall on the slanted floor and roll into it.
Connect the left cable to the left socket and the right cable to the right socket.
Get to the control room (above the projected signs) by jumping through the portals and down the platform on the left side of the room. (Don't go around the outside, 'cause the portals will disappear.)
Press the button and wait. (The cirular one, not the one near the door.)
This is what should happen when you press the button:
The first ball rolls down and turns the paddle wheel, activating the first switch. It then goes through the portal and activates the dispenser, which releases the second ball.
Then it goes back to the paddle wheel, activating the second switch. Once both switches are activated, the fan pipe door opens and the ball rolls inside (instead of going through the portal.)
When the first switch times out, the door closes and the fan turns on, sending the ball up through the pipe.
When the second switch times out, the gate now holding back the next ball opens and it all happens again.
In VERY rare cases, due to the random nature of the physics, the ball doesn't make it to the fan pipe door before it closes. In that case you should press the door button to reset the puzzle and try again, making sure that the paddle wheel is in the correct starting position. (This is annoying but, again, it's very rare.)
When the last ball has gone through the pipe, the control room door will open and you can activate the moving tiles in the previous large room. Put a portal there, head back to the beginning, take the cube off the button so the exit door opens and drop through the portals to get to the exit.
Again, thanks to everyone for the valuable and honest feedback and sorry if i've caused anyone sleepless nights with this.
I've played the Beta and I really liked that one, I'll give this one a try too, see whats changed
So far, looks are nice and the puzzle mechanism is very unique.
It requires trying out a few things before actually trying to solve the puzzle. Press the buttons, see what happens and think of a way how to get the things how they should. That's what I like in a map like this.
I got stuck in the last part too (in beta version), but then I thought: DOH i have a portal gun, that must mean I should use it somewhere for the puzzle. The part with wires etc. was a bit complex, when try 1 didnt work, I switched the cables and then did the same as before. Then it worked
All in all a very original and fun map to play, with a very nice difficulty level (for me at least)
Woha, really a well-made map! That let me think a lot to find the way for solving it, i think i'll make a video-walkthrough.
infernet89 wrote:
Woha, really a well-made map! That let me think a lot to find the way for solving it, i think i'll make a video-walkthrough.
Thanks, please do! I haven't figured out how to capture video from a game yet. (Software to use etc.)
HMW wrote:
Thanks, please do! I haven't figured out how to capture video from a game yet. (Software to use etc.)
Fraps.
Here it is:
That's a cool video! It's fun to watch someone else play through my map and see how you do things differently than me.
It's true that you can't really speedrun this, because the physics are too unpredictable. That's someting for me to keep in mind for future maps: speedrunnability!
I like your alternate solution to get onto the upper platform at "Combinations". I'm normally quite religious about placing portal bumpers, but i forgot to put one on the ceiling there. Sorry for that!
This is one of the best maps I've played! And I've played near all of them! Kinda one of those who appreciates the difficulty though.
I understand how some can be frustrated but we need more maps this challenging!
The signs for the last puzzle were pretty confusing. They kinda distracted me for a while before I just focused on the mechanism itself and got it. They serve as a good red herring though!
Dimn wrote:
The signs for the last puzzle were pretty confusing. [...] They serve as a good red herring though!
Yes, that's for sure. However, that was not intended. I'm working on an alternative set of signs that hopefully are more helpful. As soon as i'm done with this, and a few other minor tweaks, i'll release an updated version.
Dimn wrote:
I understand how some can be frustrated but we need more maps this challenging!
I already have some cool ideas for my next map, and the one after that. All the good feedback from you guys is certainly encouraging me to keep working on it! (Perhaps Portal 2 will be out in the meantime, hopefully providing some new game mechanisms to play with. 
)
HMW wrote:
I already have some cool ideas for my next map, and the one after that...
Just hearing this makes me smile. Your map is really unique in terms of creativity and i wonder what more you can think of. Keep it up, there.
This is without question one of the best maps out there. Well done. I had some trouble with the last room, but I eventually figured it out. I look forward to more maps like this one in the future.
One of the best maps I've played! Really great news that you are planning to make more since as far as I can see not many people are still making maps for portal.
I have released an updated version, mainly because i wanted to do a better job with the directional signs in the last section, and i took the opportunity to make some other minor changes.
Version 1.1 can be downloaded from here.
If you played the 1.0 version, there is probably no need to go back and play this one, as none of the changes are really big. (As i said, i just wanted to clean up my act.) However, if you got stuck in the last section and haven't read the spoilers yet (or watched infernet89's video), have a go at this one and tell me if it's any better!
Now i'd better go and justify the "s" in my bonus maps folder title "Portal mapS by HMW".
HMW wrote:
I have released an updated version, mainly because i wanted to do a better job with the directional signs in the last section, and i took the opportunity to make some other minor changes.Version 1.1 can be downloaded from here.
If you played the 1.0 version, there is probably no need to go back and play this one, as none of the changes are really big. (As i said, i just wanted to clean up my act.) However, if you got stuck in the last section and haven't read the spoilers yet (or watched infernet89's video), have a go at this one and tell me if it's any better!
Now i'd better go and justify the "s" in my bonus maps folder title "Portal mapS by HMW".
I'd replay this map anyway because it was so good. You mentioned that you have some ideas for another map, I don't mean to rush you but when do you think you might come out with another one? Roughly.
Aargh, the pressure!
I'd say somewhere between now and when the universe ends. Roughly.
Serious answer: I only have one room at the moment, and i made it just for testing a particular game mechnanic, so it's still very early. (It loads pretty fast though.)
I'm aiming at releasing the public beta somewhere near the summer. (This year's, preferrably.)
HMW wrote:
Aargh, the pressure!
I'd say somewhere between now and when the universe ends. Roughly.
At least that gives us an idea.
Seriously: That was a great map, I hope you release another one.
Absolute quality. The attention to detail on this map is awesome and I really like your style. It's got a very portal-but-not-portal feel to it which is great and original. Some puzzles are a tad overwhelming at first imo but after a short while of studying the level it becomes clear what you got to do. I did get a bit stuck on the ball puzzle but generally the difficulty is fair and moderate.
Classic map dude. Hope to see more in the future 
mazk1985 wrote:
Absolute quality. The attention to detail on this map is awesome and I really like your style. It's got a very portal-but-not-portal feel to it which is great and original.
I noticed that too. I was reminded of the original Myst games when I was playing this. It was great.
yeah... Myst included more than only puzzles. It showed lots of detailed things moving etc. when you solved a puzzle, and to get to a puzzle, the surroundings where nice. Many times you also get the pretty surroundings being part of the puzzle.
Same as with this map. It's not 100% time puzzling your way out as in most other maps.
Again, thanks everyone for the great feedback! I notice that many people see parallels between my map and other games. I've heard of the Myst series and have seen screenshots of it, but never actually played it. That sounds like an interesting thing to check out.
BTW i'm making good progress on my next map. I was originally planning to give it a more authentic Portal look, but i may have to come back on that decision.
HMW wrote:
Again, thanks everyone for the great feedback! I notice that many people see parallels between my map and other games. I've heard of the Myst series and have seen screenshots of it, but never actually played it. That sounds like an interesting thing to check out.
It was the pictures on the wall of the last room, the room where most people got stuck, that reminded me of Myst. They had picture clues like that in their games.
I thought the part where you walk over a bridge to the ball puzzle looked like the Myst series... those pillars etc. Also at the end, when the pieces of the ceiling come together so you can place a portal on them, giving you just the thing you needed to complete the puzzle on a golden platter.
But yeah, keep your maps in the style you've made this one, it's unique and good looking, whilst still having the feel of being at Aperture science.
Thought this wasa brilliant, totally confused at the end puzzle and had to resort to the solve after 2 days of pulling my hair out, saw the top glassw chamber, couldnt work it out tho, ah well, all good in the end. If and when portal 2 comes out, i reckon you will have a job!
claguey wrote:
[...] totally confused at the end puzzle [...]
Yes, that's where many people got stuck. Luckily there are plenty of hints in this thread
claguey wrote:
If and when portal 2 comes out, i reckon you will have a job!
I totally look forward to that! If Valve knows how to make money, they should make a second Portal game.
HMW wrote:
I totally look forward to that! If Valve knows how to make money, they should make a second Portal game.
They are making a second Portal game.
Was a great map, I enjoyed messing around in it. Didn't find many bugs, cept being able to portal bump into an observation room, but beyond that good stuff!
Absolutely brilliant map, one of the best and innovative ones I ever played.
I enjoyed every second in it and only looked one time here in the thread for a hint because I was too blind to see the obvious solution.
All of the riddles weren't that hard, some solve themselves if you watch and examine them carefully.
Looking forward to see more like this in the future.
Thanks guys!
Just a quick post to let people know that I'm still alive and still working on my next map pack. As always with these things, this turns out to be a lot more work than I anticipated, but I'll get there.
I'll post some screen shots when I have the first three chambers done!
Whats funny is that on the very first part with the cube, i tried flinging the cube out of the room below the orange portal before realizing i couldve just dropped it over the wall...i was pised at that lol.
oh yeah, a small bug: in the Balls out puzzle, in the room with the "emergency button" and ball release button, i accidentally shot my portal gun on some glass, and a portal was placed there...too bad i couldnt jump up....sigh
There are still some minor bugs left in this map. (Portal-enabled windows, some lighting bugs and some portal bumping / edge glitch errors, nothing serious.) I'm debating whether it would be useful to release an update some time.
Opinions, anyone?
HMW wrote:
There are still some minor bugs left in this map. (Portal-enabled windows, some lighting bugs and some portal bumping / edge glitch errors, nothing serious.) I'm debating whether it would be useful to release an update some time.Opinions, anyone?
I think it's good just the way it is. Doesn't HAVE to be perfect.
jrlauer wrote:
I think it's good just the way it is. Doesn't HAVE to be perfect.
Same here. As long as there aren't any gamebreaking bugs, I think it's fine. I didn't even notice any errors.
Thanks, mate! T.I.M. was indeed an inspiration for this. That game is a lot more popular than I thought.
Also, welcome to the forum!
Ooh this map was a lot of fun. Only two gripes:
When you need a cube to unlock access to the big machine room there was a new cube randomly spawned in the first room... That felt really weird. I was expecting to find a neat way to reuse the first cube, so spent a while on that before noticing that conspiciously added new cube.
On the big machine my crankshaft didn't stop at neat 90 degree angles as I could see it was supposed to in the video linked earlier. This made the programming and execution of that machine pretty random :/
I really loved the feel of crawling all over the big machine, trying to figure out how it worked and where all the tubes went and so on. So badly want to see more maps with that in
Thanks, I'm glad you liked it!
About the "extra" cube: if you remember the very beginning of the map, after leaving the first room, you have to remove a cube from an upside-down button inside a glass box, by putting a portal under it. Since the orange portal end is still fixed in the first room, that cube ends up there. When you return after getting the advanced portal gun, there is no (legal) way of taking the first cube out of the room, so you have to use the one that came from the glass box.
So far I've only had one other complaint about badly behaving physics in the last section. The big paddle wheel has a weight pushing down on it that should always stop it with the paddles facing the right way. I have no idea why that doesn't work for you. Can you describe what goes wrong? Does it just spin and stop wherever it runs out of momentum, or is something else happening?
As for the continuation of creativity: I'm currently working on a small series of maps that have more traditional puzzles, but with a twist...
I'm hoping to release a beta of that this year.
HMW wrote:
About the "extra" cube
Ah yeah of course. That was so long ago that I completely forgot about it though
HMW wrote:
So far I've only had one other complaint about badly behaving physics in the last section. The big paddle wheel has a weight pushing down on it that should always stop it with the paddles facing the right way. I have no idea why that doesn't work for you. Can you describe what goes wrong? Does it just spin and stop wherever it runs out of momentum, or is something else happening?
Yes, basically it keeps running until out of momentum, which made resetting the machine to a proper configuration pretty annoying. I had to nudge the paddles back and forth until I could persuade it to stop. And when the machine was running it would keep spinning making it semi-random whether or not the next ball would be kept in check before the first ball was in the wind tube. And the third ball had to keep running through the machine many times before randomness finally made it pop into the tube.
I did notice the square on the end of the crankshaft and was wondering why it wasn't doing it's job.
Here's how the mechanism is supposed to look:
-- Rest position
-- Rotating
The light grey beam should push down on the square bit to make it stop in the correct position. The only thing I can think of is that for some reason, the collision between the two objects doesn't work on your computer. In that case, the beam would be hanging down behind the square instead of sitting on top of it. If that's the case I have no idea how to fix that 
Haha, then I know what went wrong, though I don't know how.
The beam was below the squre thingy, resting on the floor. It looked like it almost touched the square, but I don't think it did. It was still attached to the joint up top.
Can't see how it could physically have gotten there though.
I just tried making the square a little bit larger so it intersects the beam. Now the beam just falls down as if the square isn't there at all, just as you described.
Normally both parts are drawn so they just touch each other; I suspect that the game sometimes thinks that they intersect and gives up on trying to detect collisions. So the solution would be to make sure that there is a little space between both parts.
I have made a few other minor changes since the latest release, so I think it's time for an update.
Probably best to setup physics props so they only just barely don't touch at design time and then have the game let them fall into place so to speak. What you describe is almost certainly what happened to me.
I released an update that hopefully fixes this. I made sure that there is a 1 unit gap between any two physics objects, which should prevent them from interacting (or failing to interact) in weird ways.
-- New version download --
Pretty nice looking map, and nice puzzles.
Although, the download link isn't working here.
Can anyone help me with that? When I click on the link, it automatically takes me to the forum's index.
The download database currently isn't working, No idea when that will be fixed.
hopefully MSLEEPER will see this and FIX THE DATABASE so that new people don't get annoyed and leave hinthint*
I also posted this map on mAL and temporarily pointed the download link there until the TWP download DB is fixed.
I will also post the beta of Try Anything Twice on mAL (should be any day now... ).
I'll give you guys a heads up when that happens of course.
This is the best Portal Map I have ever played. I am addicted to this map. I. LOVED. THE. RUBE GOLDBERG MACHINE. That entire sequence was awesome. I watched it fail like seven times before I realized "Oh, yeah, the plugs don't have to be in that order!". And the modular portaling platform at the end, I had planned for something like that in the mod I'm working on now. Although not as a reward for a puzzle anywhere NEAR as awesome as it was.
This map was wonderful. Exactly the sort of novelty I was hoping for when I decided to see what kinds of custom maps were available online.
Until I read this thread, I didn't realize how the earlier mini-puzzles teach the skills you need to run the big machine--very clever. Perhaps they primed my subconscious, though, because I didn't have too much trouble.
My only complaint is that it was over too quickly.
I just realised I only have the beta version of this. Downloading and playing the full version...
I have not read most of the posts in this thread because I haven't finished this mod, so I apologize if somebody else has posted this. So far I really like it but I'm pretty sure I found a work-around that skips what looks to be half the level.
POSSIBLE SPOILER
Soon after getting the upgraded portal gun, when you can go back to the first room of the game you can immediately finish the map:
First, take one of the boxes outside the room to use on the button in the exit room.
Next, shoot a portal on the far wall near the floor button (not the ceiling), where the height is roughly on par with an upper wall tile.
Next, shoot the other portal right next to the door.
Finally, stand right next to the door and drop the box on the portal near the door so that the box has momentum.
The box will fall through the portal and onto the floor button, and roll off of it. However, the box will have been on the button long enough for you to walk through the door quickly. With the other box outside you'll be able to finish the level in no time.
That's a very clever short-cut! I was able to replicate this after a few tries, but I think it's hard enough to let it stand as an "alternate solution". (Just like Valve left a few similar short-cuts in the official maps.)
However this is something to keep in mind for future maps. Thanks for sharing!
I'm glad I got the full version and played it.
It is very good.
Because quite a few people have already related this tio the impossible machine, I shall buy the impossible machine....
It's called "the incredible machine"
However it's quite old, and I don't know if it's still for sale at this time. (Try http://www.gog.com.)
This is a very unique and original map. It's almost a whole new game rather than a custom map for the regular Portal game. You have to figure out a complete new set of rules. Rather challenging. But the last chamber needed too much precision, I had to rely on chance after figuring out what to do; in fact I had to look for a clue on a walkthrough video on youtube before figuring it out.
Thanks for the map man. By the way, have you released your next map yet?
Thanks, I'm glad you liked it!
The last puzzle shouldn't rely on chance if you use the correct solution. It's supposed to be hard to figure out, but not hard to do once you know how it works. If there is some physics thing that works unreliable for you in some way, then that may be a bug that I don't know of yet...
My next project is already partially released here. I'm still working on the last chamber, which will take quite a lot of time still. Being the last chamber of the series, it of course needs to be the biggest and most complex of them all
Finally, I did it!!!
It took me 2 hour to get through this map. I only needed a little help at the end, when I didn't know where to put the two portals for the first coming ball, which releases the next two. But that is the only help I needed.
Really, really, really great job on this map HMW!
It's a little bit complicated, but that's not bad. You have to think a lot and join things in your mind to solve it.
This is the best map I've ever went through.
I love it, but I don't know whether I'll go through again.
Thanks! I really appreciate the positive feedback on my maps so long after their release.
It's nice to see that maps for the original Portal are still played after the release of Portal 2, especially since I'm still working on one
HMW wrote:
Thanks! I really appreciate the positive feedback on my maps so long after their release.
It's nice to see that maps for the original Portal are still played after the release of Portal 2, especially since I'm still working on one
Your very welcome! ^^
I can't wait to try your next project. Please inform me, when it is finished.
Well, the truth is... I haven't bought Portal 2 yet. Firstly, because it is too expensive for me now. I wait until it costs less. Secondly, a user created a hungarian dub (Glados) for Portal 1. (which is my native language) So I'm going to ask him if he'll make a hungrian dub for Portal 2 or not. It would be great to play it hearing Glados speaking to me hungarian.
I loved this map - it was so ingenious.
I can't imagine the time spent.
It really isn't fair to bring up any issues since this is such a feat - but I assume you want to hear feedback. It has to do with a couple problems I encountered that went against "golden rules" I thought were absolute:
You can't shoot portals into dark surfaces.
You can't shoot portals through glass.
This same thing happened in each of the 3 puzzles and prevented me from solving each one. Those 2 accepted standards do not apply for the 3 main solutions.
First Puzzle - there is a small tinted glass square in the beginning puzzle that you have to shoot through. I spent a long time on the seemingly simple first puzzle - then gave up. I don't shoot through glass anymore since in the hundreds of tries - it NEVER works until now.
The Portal Gun is incapable of shooting through glass. Yet in this map it can.
Second Puzzle - same thing . . . there is a laser lens (glass) that you must shoot a portal through. I knew you can't shoot through glass so why try to shoot through a lens ??
Third Level - same thing . . . I finally gave up and watched the walkthrough and saw the solution. The walkthrough shows you have to shoot a portal onto a dark grey surface in the ball trap on the floor. ( see 1:20 in clip at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHHOPRKVYdo&feature=related I have always known that you CANNOT shoot a portal onto dark surfaces. But with this map you can
Final running of the Machine - I got it all set up just like the walkthrough but it works about 1 out of 10 times. I tried adjusting the two portals but nothing worked on a regular basis (i.e. repeatable). The rubber balls bounce around randomly and never act the same. If the ball bounced a bit too much and was delayed then the ball behind it catches up and you have two balls together. Also the Red Paddles axle has a lot of friction and the balls often have trouble to push it down and get delayed there - then 2 balls end up together.
I am sure some would disagree and think it is fine to make the most important part of the solutions all involve shooting dark surfaces and/or through glass . . . but I don't think so - the level of complexity is already extreme. But besides these problems I had, this is incredible. INCREDIBLE. Which is why I spent so much time explaining the problems I had.
Thanks for your feedback, lifeson99! Apparently you have some problems understanding things in this map, because of my design style. I like to hear comments like that; it helps a lot in improving future maps.
"(very) late arrival spoiler warning "
||> lifeson99 wrote:
First Puzzle - there is a small tinted glass square in the beginning puzzle that you have to shoot through.
The tinted glass square is actually a hole. The reason that it's darker is that the glass around it gets lit up by the lighting inside the box. You bring up a good point: it's hard to tell whether there's glass or air in a particular place, since they both have no texture I think I'll make a habit of always adding metal grating inside holes so that players recognise it as a hole, not a differently coloured piece of glass.
lifeson99 wrote:
Second Puzzle - same thing . . . there is a laser lens (glass) that you must shoot a portal through. I knew you can't shoot through glass so why try to shoot through a lens ??
I don't know for sure to which part you're referring (is it the pipe that goes from the third room back to the first?) but this is probably the same problem: not clear enough where there's glass and how it's shaped.
lifeson99 wrote:
Third Level - [...] The walkthrough shows you have to shoot a portal onto a dark grey surface in the ball trap on the floor.
This is probably a matter of individual interpretation rather than a hard rule... The official 'rule' seems to be something like: no portals on irregular or metal surfaces. However I am going to replace a few textures in the map I'm currently working on, based on your comment. Just to be on the safe side. (And it is true that the metal materials are generally darker than the concrete and plastic ones, so I see where you're coming from.)
lifeson99 wrote:
Final running of the Machine - I got it all set up just like the walkthrough but it works about 1 out of 10 times. I tried adjusting the two portals but nothing worked on a regular basis (i.e. repeatable). The rubber balls bounce around randomly and never act the same. If the ball bounced a bit too much and was delayed then the ball behind it catches up and you have two balls together. Also the Red Paddles axle has a lot of friction and the balls often have trouble to push it down and get delayed there - then 2 balls end up together.
I'm getting occasional reports of the physics acting up in that part, though I've never been able to replicate them. I'm thinking that perhaps you've plugged in the cables in the wrong way? Try swapping them and see what happens.||
Again, thanks for taking the time to write such a big explanation. I really appreciate that!
HMW, if you want to upload this to the DLDB, I'll move this thread over into the Releases and put it in the Portal 1 spotlight.
msleeper wrote:
HMW, if you want to upload this to the DLDB, I'll move this thread over into the Releases and put it in the Portal 1 spotlight.
Wow, thanks! I'm flattered! I assume that there will be two spotlights from now on, one for each game? That's a really good idea
The most recent version is already uploaded here, but the link in the original post still pointed to MAL. I've fixed that.
Okay I moved it. Go ahead and re-edit the download, so that the changes are reflected in the topic first post. You can put images in there as well so edit it with whatever you want.
EDIT
Nevermind, I see you manually changed the link. You can still edit the download to have the download page reflect the first post. Up to you.
This latest weekend I finally got time for playing HMW mappack Manic Mechanic and Try anything Twice. this is to share my absolute fascination. I played all maps during 1,5 hours or so on Saturday morning and I must say I didn't played them before ever, and I've got them for 1-2 years! The reason is that I've got a total of 400 Portal 1 maps since I met the game on last November (yes... and I'm N?1 fan!!!) and I'm still getting updated (I would like to finish them all ASAP)... but it's difficult having such an amazing amoint of Portal 2 maps since the contest.
The point is that I've become one of the best fans of HMW! Ey mister HMW: are you by any chance an architect or something? I am very impressed about how you used all material of Portal and combined it for making such those awesome buildings in the maps! Also I'm very impressed about all mechanisms and machinery created by you working perfectly in the manic mechanic maps!
And I need to say about Try anything Twice that I can't even imagine how the heck is it possible to think of such intelligent and creative puzzles that force you to play them twice from another point of view!I like much the one with the lasers yellow and blue... impressive!...
By the way, has anyone checked out that HMW was the pioneer about some of the new features of Portal 2? I'm referring to lasers, redirecting cubes and hard light bridges... I got so impressed that I had to take some pictures! (I hope this cannot be considered as spoiler because I don't know how to hide the images... ey Mr. Sleeper, I'm sorry if I'm doing anything bad, just tell me how to hide images you upload to a posted reply)... This beauty was almost incredible.
I have to urge people to play these maps! REAAAAALLY ESSENTIALS for any Portal player.
Thanks for mapping HMW!!! Of course I have to ask: WHEN ARE YOU SUPPOSE TO IMPRESS US WITH ANY PORTAL 2 MAP? OR BETTER A MAPPACK?
I'm IMPATIENT!!
Wow, thanks for that! I'm not an architect or something, but I do like to 'designify' things
The laser was indeed my original idea, but I 'borrowed' the cubes from Valve after seeing one of the early Portal 2 gameplay videos. (Before that I used mirrors that the player could carry around, but those turned out to be incredibly hard to aim.)
Yes, I'll definitely start mapping for Portal 2........ once I've finished the last chamber of Try Anything Twice!
It's the biggest and most complex one I've made so far, but it's almost done hopefully...
I'll see if I can put up some images soon.
By the way, you can hide big images (or long text, or YouTube links etc.) in a bigspoiler block:
code:[bigspoiler=summary text]<br />lots<br />of<br />lines<br />of<br />spoiler<br />text<br />[/bigspoiler]
result:
summary text
lots
of
lines
of
spoiler
text
Having just finished Try Anything Twice, I knew I shouldn't have missed this one. This is another brilliantly designed map, making interesting new puzzles out of older pieces.
If you like brain teasers, this map is a pretty good one. There are some timing sequences, but nothing really close (at least 3 seconds more than I needed.) For someone playing with a controller as I do, there is only one quick draw McGraw shot, and it only involves quick shooting, not quick aiming.
The Rube Goldberg ball machine had me frustrated for a while, because it kept leaving the last ball sitting on the fan. Fortunately, I figured out early on how to reset the machine by pushing the paddle wheel myself. I don't really know if it was intended this way, but the machine finally worked when the last two balls got blown through together.
One thing this map has in common with TAT is some really large rooms. Boy, are my legs tired!
EDIT: 10/11/2011 On the second playthrough, I realized why the machine wasn't working the first several tries (I had it cross-wired.) On the third playthrough, it worked like a charm.
Yes, the cross-wiring is a bit of an unintentional red herring, since it can work that way if you're lucky.
And thanks for the long-walks comment. I'll keep that in mind for future maps.
One of the best maps I've ever played for Portal.
Very ingenious how everything comes together.
Only problem I had was not knowing what to do after I lowered the platform from the ceiling.
Looking forward to more.
Updated version of Manic Mechanic
This is a minor update to the Manic Mechanic portal map, which fixes a long existing bug with some physics simulation puzzles.
See the README file for details.
To extract this package, you need 7zip, which can be obtained at http://www.7-zip.org.
File Name: hmw00_1_2.7z
File Size: 11.26?MiB
hmw00_1_2.7z