Hi there. This is the very WIP version of my map (there will be 5 room) of my next 4th Portal 2 singleplayer map, for popular demand, a harder one (compared to my previous ones)

This map will have 4+1 test. Since I'm afraid to make hard maps (but there is a big demand from "pros"), I will make it a hub, so if someone got stuck on a puzzle, can just skip it and move to the next room and still have fun.
From a central half-outdoor area, you can go 4 different direction and complete the rooms in any order. Each will give you an uniquely shaped indicator piece (the concept that I introduced in my latest #3 map) and using those to fix an indicator that will unlock the final puzzle on the surface.

I need some feedback about the difficulty. It's still a WIP, so havent done any detailing or light-finetuning yet, however everything works fine, and the intended solution does not need any ninja skill, hard jumps, cube flipping etc.
I have this room (and the other 4) on paper almost since Portal2 launch, but if its too hard, I'll reduce difficulty.
Also if you stuck, or finished it and you feel may not solved it the intended way, check out the walkthrough video:
SPOILER!
Room1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7WXeAapEqM
Room2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7tMT7_AcWE

Also send feedbacks and errors/bugs, but nothing about the texture style or alignment or the rest. As soon I fixed this room and gave its final look, I'll continue working on the rest of the map, and will not post it till fully finished.

Updates:
- Added "smart" autosaves
- A very WIP version of the second room. One portal bug: the redircube becomes ethereal after been near the end of the funnel, dont know why (and only that cube). Destroy it to fix it, the new one will be solid again.
- take the door behind your spawnpoint to get back to the first room

File Name: sp_damagepy_04_wip_v0.293.zip
File Size: 7.26 MiB
Click here to download DaMaGepy's P2 map #4 (WIP: 29%)

I found some bugs that can skip most of the chamber. I'll make a video when I have time.

cool thanks,that kind of problems I looking for. I hope it doesn't involves cube throwing or far/high jumps, I tought I blocked those. If you have youtube, then make a private video, that you can delete after. I really don't like make WIP maps, because some ppl treat them as normal maps, but I dont know many steam friend who can test it privately, and I'll need some testing on my other rooms too later. The more complex they are, the more unintended solution and possible bug appears

Hey nice little puzzle... getting started here took me some time but if you get the funnel reversed the rest is pretty easy. I found some shortcuts.


Kind of a big shortcut to get the cube to the funnelbutton.




This is not really a shortcut but its a little bit faster than the intended solution

ye, I know that with cube flipping it can be done, but the intended one is easier. Of course the thing in this puzzle is to find out how you must arrange the cubes, the execution is does not matter.

The first will be fixed, along with some other exploit when you can lean thru the portal up there, and make the funnel (blue) suck you and you can grab the 2 refcube. I'll fix all of them soon, and will start making the second room, hopefully with less ninja method (bunnyhopping, long jumps, etc.

Hopefully will find some tester, sinc I dont want to ruin (spoiler) the map by posting every new room here with disappointing errors. And ye, I thought that the hold things thru portal cant be too obvious for those who not played my previous training maps (my first map's end tried to teach it, also the 2nd map's turret part and my 3rd map too). Maybe I need a small pre-room to teach it again.

Thanks for the intended solutions. I looked at it after I got through the puzzles. I didn't use the funnel 3 times to get the cube to 1-dot, I tried dropping it, after pinning it up with the funnel, through portals and bouncing it off the angle surface - it consistently bounced on the glass ledge and into the goo - so I no-clipped - sorry, guess I should have had faith and thought of using the funnel again. Otherwise, all worked fine for me. Look forward to the map series..Thanks

ye, thats why I arranged the glass ledge and the upper angled that way, so if someone not using the funnel again, it probably never land there maybe that angled surface above the button gives a hint about this.
Should I not do it? Anyone completed the room the intended way? There were lot of ninja and bunnyhopping farjumping etc solution, but I fixed all. Anyway, the next room will be easier, so non-pros can have some fun there too.

Very interesting and fun to try and figure it all out.
Unlike some of the ones that are nearly impossible - and therefore I do not enjoy - this one was challenging but solvable in a moderate amount of time.

2 things - I too pinned the cube for dot 1 to the top with plans to drop it down and portal it to the buttton, but it always overshot and landed on the far edge to the right. I ended up pressing the button to defeat fizzlers, letting it drop, then portaled and re-funneled it for a half sec and immediately dropped it so that it portaled band through . . out of the angled portal, and landed right on the button. So there is a workaround. Maybe that is intended though.

Also - is one of the cubes supposed to be oddly able to be walked through ? I was trying to push a cube into the funnel and I ended up just walking through it. So I used the other cube which was "pushable". Also I had to stand on it to tip it upward and that did not work either on the first cube. Thanks - looks great so far

PCdoc wrote:
Also - is one of the cubes supposed to be oddly able to be walked through?

NO, and all redircube is the same. Must be a bug or something.
Btw no cube flipping needed for the intended one, but ofc thats a legit solution too.

After finishing the room, please watch the intended solution video, to find out if you did it right, and if not, tell me how you did it

I cannot recreate the transparent cube problem so maybe it was a glitch on my end.
I did the solution as you did with the exception of the Dot-1 cube which I dropped directly onto the button without the diagonal funnel. I funneled it up from the center bottom panel by about 2 feet then shot a portal below it and dropped it down and through, out the angled surface, and right into the hopper. Both ways work fine so no need to block that solution.

Thanks - looking forward to the rest.

I only block those solutions that easier than the intended, I dont mind multiple ones... I hope the next room will not be harder than this (or should be)?
Thanks for feedback.

Found a bug that lets you skip most of the second half of the puzzle.
If you walk down the stairs after reversing the Excursion Funnel, you can crouch and fire a portal underneath the fizzler/laser combo and the placement helper forces it up behind the fizzler. This lets the reversed Excursion Funnel pull out the cube/sphere from that platform. Just remove the portal and they fall safely to the ground.

Good puzzle otherwise

I solved the first part of the puzzle differently as well, but not by much.
Instead of using the funnel to get the cube to the button, I just dropped it from the light bridge, pressed the button to disable the fizzlers, and placed portals on both of the white surfaces. The cube hit the edge of the angled platform which decreased its momentum so it didn't overshoot. I also didn't use the light bridge at all when getting the two redirection cubes.

Edit
Difficulty felt fine overall. Got stuck for a few minutes since I was overcomplicating things but that was mostly my fault. Never noticed the single white panel on the ceiling near the light bridge until after watching your solution video, but it didn't affect my solution in any way.

Double Edit
Found two more bugs. Under the cube dropper, you can grab the cube before it hits the ground and push it back up into the cube dropper. This results in the animation resetting to open and the cube getting stuck permanently in mid-air.

Another, much less severe bug is that the cube can get stuck in the Excursion Funnel against a pushed out metal block. Easily circumvented by dropping the cube into goo and grabbing another one, but it just looks strange.

thanks again, will move the dropper higher a little, or lower the floor there, and fix the crouch portal under fizzler thing too.
For the ball + cube, the bridge is not needed, its just a funny sideeffect I made to push the cube down by the vertical bridge, otherwise the funnel sucking (then maybe dropping them into the goo, doesnt matter) is fine.
I'm happy with this room now, no real unintended ways, or they are close to the intended as difficulty.

I downloaded this to try it out. I worked on it for a while, and it's looking nice. So I checked the walkthrough for anything I might have missed, and the map in the walkthrough is an entirely different map than the one I downloaded. The intro text for the map I have says it's room 2/5.

cerrita wrote:
I downloaded this to try it out. I worked on it for a while, and it's looking nice. So I checked the walkthrough for anything I might have missed, and the map in the walkthrough is an entirely different map than the one I downloaded. The intro text for the map I have says it's room 2/5.

go back thru the door behind you where you spawn
I'm uploading a walkthrou for this second room too. Ignore the bug where the lasercube gets ethereal and cant step on it unless you call for a new one

I have played the first room so far and I enjoyed it very much. It's a great puzzle with several new ideas.
One point: While on the first run I managed to hit the target button with the solid cube on the first attempt, I missed it on the my second playthrough for 5 straight times.
The room's not too difficult, it took me about 20 minutes plus 5 for finding a solution that didn't involve cubeflipping. It's 5/5 from me, but you can still spice up the difficulty
I will comment on the other rooms once I have played them.

using the intended solution, the cube hits the button 100%, no luck involved. I made it hard (cube falls thru) to do it th unoficial way, however it can still be done (I left some other solution open, when they are not easier than the intended one).
Make sure you check the vids after you successfully finished the room(s) and report if you were able to skip something or solved differently.

DaMaGepy wrote:
cerrita wrote:

I downloaded this to try it out. I worked on it for a while, and it's looking nice. So I checked the walkthrough for anything I might have missed, and the map in the walkthrough is an entirely different map than the one I downloaded. The intro text for the map I have says it's room 2/5.

go back thru the door behind you where you spawn
I'm uploading a walkthrou for this second room too. Ignore the bug where the lasercube gets ethereal and cant step on it unless you call for a new one

Strange, that door didn't open for me. I had to redownload the map.

I've come across the most curious glitch in the map. I had just completed map two, and jumped onto one of the cubes while checking out the visual aspects of the chamber, and I noticed that I was "drifting". The cube was on a flat surface, but the atavar would begin to gently float up and away, maybe the quivelant of a foot, before falling back down. If I was still on the cube it'd repeat until I was on the floor. The only consistancy I could find was I drifted in the direction that I had last moved. I

It was both the redirection and weighted cubes in both chambers. Has anyone else seen this? If so, could someone document it on video, I don't have anything for that on my computer.

Yeah, you were right about the cube hitting always when doing it right. My apologies!
After having watched your video of room 1, I found out to have solved the laserpuzzle without having to enter the funnel and without flipping a cube: Put one cube on the red x in the direction indicated and the other one on the lightbridge up ahead facing the portalable wall. First let the cube on the x enter the funnel and as soon as it has passed, shoot the funnel up to the lightbridge to let the other cube get sucked in. Now quickly hit the lightbridge switch and put it in place to block the cubes from passing the laser catcher.
Now after having replayed the room, I really love it, but I think the puzzle would benefit strongly from removing the red x on the ground. I am a fan of letting the player find out on his own what has to be done to make it through a room: if you don't use hints the satisfaction after completion will be higher.
Since you already provided a walkthrough, I don't see any need for the red x. Let the player spend a couple of minutes more in the chamber. I would have liked to.

The new room is very vexing. I simply could NOT get it. Once I saw your solution it is so easy. But I never knew you could angle a cube using steps like that.

Genius. Sheer genius.

Well, first I just wanted the angled stairs there (raised by a timer) but I tought thats too obvious, so I made the exit there and the ballbutton, to distract the players. Maybe not too obvious, and I need some helper signage? Maybe a marker X on the top stair panel?
Anyone else had problem solving this?
Or maybe this method also needs some pre-training puzzle, for example the normal storagebox can start on an angled surface, and when the player "sucks" that out they will see that the cube keeps its orientation...

So, I came back to play the second room.
It's kind of tough, but easy to execute, simply great!
At first I didn't get it. I spent about half an hour in the chamber and quit, planning on coming back to the map the next day with a fresh mind. The "Heureka" moment hit me even before I sat down again to play the map.
Splendid puzzle, with a great difficulty: hard, but very much solvable, which creates a rewarding playing/thinking time.

In the room 2: the intended solution to angling the cube was brilliant - never thought of that. Actually, I just dropped the cube into the orange funnel at an angle - portal on the raised panel and the close wall. After a couple tries I got the right angle.. Again, look forward to the full series....

quatrus wrote:
In the room 2: the intended solution to angling the cube was brilliant - never thought of that

Actually since thats not an official puzzle solution, I'm planning to do some-pre training where the player can find out how can object be angled in a funnel, or maybe a marked spot on the stairs. I dont want the players to thing for long on things they normally cant even thought can work.
The worse about this map is the transparent (ethereal) cube bug when it gets near a brush with a funnel. Pretty gamebreaking thing, especially because you need a solid cube to jump on it and then to the funnel

DaMaGepy wrote:
Actually since thats not an official puzzle solution, I'm planning to do some-pre training where the player can find out how can object be angled in a funnel, or maybe a marked spot on the stairs. I dont want the players to thing for long on things they normally cant even thought can work.

Here we differ. It's obviously your choice since it's your map, but IMO a marked spot would only spoil the fun. I already made that point regarding the first room in this map, where I said you should remove the red x: It's simply so much more fun and more satisfying to solve a puzzle without hints!

Like I said it's your choice. But you do create some really awesome maps and puzzles. And softening these puzzles with hints only makes them less awesome.

I think the solution to angling the cube becomes pretty evident when you find that there is absolutely no way to angle the cube normally. (well, it is possible to angle it a bit, but not well enough for the solution)
At that point, the player is forced to take a look at what else is available, and the stairs being across from a portable surface, which has no apparent purpose for even being portable, should be hint enough.

This is a really great set of maps! Perfect amount of challenge for me, tricky but nothing with tight reaction timings. Looking forward to the final product.