JOINT POTENTIAL - Act 1 (by Moth)

An entry for the Heavy-duty super-mapping super-contest
-[ thinkingwithportals.com ]-



Three small to medium-sized puzzles, plus an additional BTS mini-puzzle


Note: This is part 1 of a set of 2. It is highly recommended that you download
'Joint Potential - Act 2' by Skotty

JOINT POTENTIAL - Act 2 (by Skotty)







Thanks to:
Skotty and Chicken Mobile for instances
Brainstone for the TWP poster
Myeka for the final chamber
Skotty for custom models





Installation Instructions:
-------------------------------------

Place the BSP file in the following folder:

steam/steamapps/common/portal2/portal2/maps

start a new cooperative game, and from the lobby, type the following
console command:

changelevel mp_coop_joint-potential_Act-1

File Name: mp_coop_Joint-Potential_Act-1.7z
File Size: 22.88?MiB
JOINT POTENTIAL - Act 1 (by Moth)

Nice map based on puzzles with energy balls and light bridges (using bridge for bouncing ball off is a nice idea). First puzzle was a little bit frustrating, we solved it by accident. Second puzzle was really engaging, we had a lot of fun when we were trying to solve it. BTS part was nicely detailed, but I think we skipped one part because there is a gap underneath the fizzler. Overall this is really good map. 4.5/5

P.S: PM me if you want demo file of our blind playthrough.

Official TWP channel video of offical-ness:

uz1845Tknro

I have a script running to force Picture-In-Picture; watch in fullscreen HD if you care about that.

5:30 - "WTF?! The ball's just chilling down there .... it's just being a ball"

Thanks for the genuinely hilarious video

Would you kindly play Part 2 next?

Hello Moth!
This map was highly enjoyable, great Portal 1 atmosphere, test elements detailing and sounds. However we both have things to say, a bit of criticism so that you could improve the map after the judging procedures:
Review
Gameplay:
In the second chamber we only needed only one pair of portals to complete the chamber... Yeah it's possible and it quite annoyed me, personally, that we didn't need each other. But we both agreed the solution was clever, and it disappointed us we couldn't use this in the third chamber. We both felt quite smart when we decided rotating the bridge to a 45? angle painting it with gel and falling from the ceiling to "gel-fling" ourselves to the upper ledge would be a great idea. We also thought the previous two chambers have been preparing us to this momentous moment of testing. But it was impossible. And when we found the solution we were quite disappointing as Portal is a thinking game, not a platformer and it took us about 10 tries to get that jumping part right.
And last. I know this is a competition and you want to impress as much s you can but the bts section wasn't that great. Of course it looked good - but there was no purpose to it, in any way. There is no reason GLaDOS would let them venture like that outside the chambers...
Bugs:
1. In the third chamber painting the bridge and moving it slightly left or right would occasionally leave the gel texture on the bridge only without it's attributes (landing on it won't make you jump). So that too made the bridge jumping harder as the jumper had no idea where to land.
2. I guess you already know that but the High Energy Pellet is missing some of its textures.
Miscellaneous:
It took us 40 minutes to solve from which we spent half an hour in the third chamber.
But at the end we had a lot of fun.

Aesthetics
Clean style executed brilliantly. A few small problems: in puzzle three one of the roof pipes wasn't lit correctly, and in the final dissassembler if you turned round there was a mass of nodraw visible. Great work in the BTS zone: both of us loved the network of pipes and the red/yellow/green traffic lights on the sphere dispenser. I wasn't 100% sure about the Unstationary Scaffold, but it did help to evoke the feeling of the original Portal.

The energy ball texture wasn't packed into the BSP.

Difficulty
Medium difficulty. The energy balls were fiddley - or rather setting up the portal placements for them were. Placement helpers would have been tremendously useful throughout the map. The third puzzle was the most fiddley: it took me about ten attempts to get the ball to bounce off the two bridges and then into the receiever. The fizzler in that puzzle was annoying, too: it caused me to lose the bridge on more than one occasion. Wouldn't glass be better there?

Gameplay
I've never been too keen on energy balls but despite that I really enjoyed the map. The downside is, like I said, getting the right portal placements. There were plenty of fun co-operative moments for me and Vordawnn to enjoy. In particular I (and I'm sure Vordwann too) enjoyed figuring out how to navigate the third puzzle's slime.

Bugs and Mapping Details
* Wouldn't it make more sense if the first disassembler droppped you and then the second dissasembled you?
It's possible to shoot a portal underneath the fizzler in the BTS zone
In the third puzzle, a roof pipe isn't lit correctly and is darker than its neighbours.

BEARD! wrote:
I've never been too keen on energy balls but despite that I really enjoyed the map.

This sums it up for me, and I'm very pleased.
Skotty and I plan to add a changelevel between our maps, and re-release with bug fixes, including placement helpers. This will also make the last coop-dropper make sense.

I really appreciate your time and comments

Edit:

WOO!! - Thanks to all who voted!

I think this was the base for a great map, and everything could have been perfect, but I found one or two small ttghings in each chamber.
Chamber 1. Not too much here. Even a portal bump through the fizzler didn't help UsCobra or me.
Chamber 2. Very simple, only problem was the trial and error that could get it in with one set of portals.
Chamber 3. UsCobra was messing around on this one, so we were able to get up into the big hole on the ceiling. I was able airstrafe from somewhere to get up in an unintended way. (It has been a while) eventually when we stopped playing around, we were able to get the intended solution, but we would place it too low, at which point we gave up. That was probably our fault though. Overall, I hope to see more of these. 8/10

How did you make it so that the disassembler was not the end of the level, and then the second one opens rather than disassembling you. Also, what instance from ChickenMobile did you use?