Some of you may remember this map's ancestor, brainbender01, from long ago. Well, it's been awhile and I've come back to this mapmaking thing, so here is the first map in a series I am working on: The Forsaken Chambers.

Heed my warning that these puzzles will be HARD, then take solace in the fact that the execution of the solutions will not be hard, (no cube-tossing, strafe-jumping, etc.) just figuring them out will be. Then, go ahead and try this one on for size. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated!

-- v1.1 Update --
See thread for details

-- v1.2 Update --
Map #2 is uploaded!
Also I recommend replaying map #1 even if you beat v1.1 already. It has received a makeover that explains the scenery in map #2 more transitionally. Extra notes in the thread.

-- v1.3 Update --
Bug fixes, mentioned in thread.
This will be the last [WIP] submission for this map series: Next installment is going to [SP] baby!

--v1.4 Update--
Moved to [SP]: Forsaken Chambers
Easter Egg has been added to map 002. More content is now in the works

File Name: forsakenchambers_1_3.zip
File Size: 8.09 MiB
Click here to download Forsaken Chambers

A possible unintended solution :


31XpYL7gEzg

Argh, I figured that shortcut might be possible. You are correct; that is an unintended solution. I'll use a playerclip/trigger to make it impossible in the next update.

As for portaling the ramped surface from that position, while not what I intended, it saves you a trivial amount of time, so I'll probably leave it in.
Also I clearly need to make that central pool larger. I knew you could jump down to the center platform but I didn't realize you could get to the exit door platform so easily with the funnel... will be fixed.

I am a bit concerned about the graphics glitches you got though. Is that something on your end? Or have I angered the god of AreaPortals?

Otherwise, very smooth run, well done. I'd like to see you figure out the proper solution though

-- Update: --
Widening the chamber after the map is finished is so tedious
I fixed the graphics glitch; water should look fine now. The new space prevents the shortcut(s) shown in Xtreger's video. I'll upload these later once I have the 2nd (maybe 3rd?) map ready to go as well.

Took me quite some time, but here we go for my blindrun:

oAI_am5vIpM
(Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAI_am5vIpM)

v1.1 uploaded!

The cube jump shortcut in the hallway exploit has been fixed, as well as a few other aesthetic changes, which indirectly make the solution a bit more restrictive. I have sketches for puzzles 2 & 3 in the works, not finished developing yet :/

Happy solving!

Good map, but I recommend not to have that much orange light.
And add different versions of metal walls, not just that kind.
Also if you want, you canadd those white holes in the wall that gives out light.

Awesome !! Thanks so much for this.

I never thought of it that way. Distractions and all that.
I think I'll just post this finished map for it. It's basically an upgrade from brainbender anyway.

Btw, did YOU get the good solution? I mean I know the puzzle's not that hard, so I know people have solved it, but no one has mentioned/discussed the solution at all :/

Although my solution differs from Djinndrache's slightly - I did use his trick where after 50 to 100 tries you finally jump into the side of the button corridor by jumping from the cube. I had also thought of that but until he did it - I thought it was impossible. Once I made that difficult jump then I had extra time since I no longer had to get all the way across and press the cube dropper button again. Then I had plenty of time left to portal the funnel and send the cube to the button.

uJPLkuDrnws

I have what seems like an intended solution that would work but I cannot complete it in time. It is this:
- press button in corridor
- run out and change funnel to Orange
- Jump in and go across
- Shoot portal in bottom to funnel upward
- Shoot portal in angled surface below dropper and drop down next to button
- Hit button to fizzle old cube and drop new cube into angled funnel
- Shoot portal in bottom to drop cube onto center platform and let funnel take you up
- Shoot portal in wall and drop into funnel to go across
- Shoot portal into center platform to move you and cube upward
- Shoot portal into angled surface to drop cube back into center platform and move you to final room
- shoot portal into side surface to move cube over to button

27 seconds IS NOT ENOUGH TIME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wish you would add a couple of seconds to the timer because I have the same problem with Brainbender - I run out of time no matter how fast I move. I guess some guys have lightning reflexes and some do not (sigh). I never could get even close the intended way.

v1.2 is uploaded! Map 002 is now available, and Map 001 got a makeover. (Just details, puzzle remains the same as in 1.1)

I should note that Map 002 can be solved in multiple ways. In general, whenever there is a sub-task to be accomplished, there is a quick dextrous way to achieve it and a slower, but more ingenious way to achieve it (that does not require nearly as much dexterity). Below is some extra information about the map. Anything solution-related is further hidden inside.

Info
- You may find the co-existence of red-orange abyss and plain-orange abyss to be nonsensical. For now, just accept that the red-orange abyss represents machinery / interior void-ness, while the plain-orange abyss represents a massive gaping nothing-ness outside of all that you traverse. I intend to make this more apparent on map 003.

- [spoiler]When the giant metal ledge falls and breaks the floor, you are NOT supposed to catch the cube. I tried to make this clean by trapping the cube against the platform so you couldn't grab it before it escaped into the abyss, but it just caused too many problems with the physics of the crash and I couldn't get it to work, so I made the cube fizzle when you touch it. Sorry :/

- There comes a point in the puzzle where you may think that the only way to get the cube from Point A to Point B is by grabbing it right after passing through a portal in mid-air after a tough fling. Fear not: There is another way! You just gotta think on it a bit more [/spoiler]

One more thing: These puzzles are rather unforgiving if you drop your cubes in water or otherwise lose them (though you can never get stuck, as far as I know). I have placed multiple auto-saves in each map, but I strongly recommend quick-saving before attempting anything daring with your cubes. It will save you much time.

---

@PCdoc:
The solution you are describing would only work in 1.0, where the central pool is much smaller than in 1.1 (and 1.2). This was something that I fixed :/
There is an alternative solution which I can perform reliably in about 24 seconds that involves getting to the fizzler button through the door as intended, not the hallway jump, and given what I saw in your video I am no better than you are . I recommend looking for the alternative solution.
Also I raised the time limit to 30 seconds anyway, not looking to alienate players after all.

I just played 002 - it was a great environment and interesting.
I solved it after a lot of restarts. One thing, I did find an angled surface in the upper rafters that I never ended up needing. But when I found it, I thought "THAT HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE SOLUTION". But apparently not.

I think I found a bug. For the final part I stepped on the platform, and I used a portal to suck the cube UP with the now Orange funnel - and to my dismay it went THROUGH THE GRATE. Must be a bug I guess. But I was able to complete it anyway as it came back through when I changed the funnel to Blue, cube went down onto button - and then raised the platform the rest of the way.

Very inventive - I love both OO1 and now OO2. Can't wait for 003 - superb mapping, Dude ! !

I am curious as to how you got the 2nd cube (the one dropping continuously into the abyss) without using the angled surface in the rafters, as that is my intended solution.

As to the cube going through the grate, idk what the problem is there because I had that problem, expanded my func_clip_vphysics to compensate and now have no more problem...so your report confuses me

Also:

lifeson99 wrote:
I solved it after a lot of restarts.

I am hoping you never got (technically) stuck, at least? If you did, please detail the situation - letting the player get technically stuck and forcing a restart is a big no-no in map design.

Thanks for playing & reviewing!

I meant a lot of "restarts from Saves". It's not a problem at all - in fact that means it is more challenging, that's all. Most of them are attempts to get the cube to nudge ON and then OFF that button and back ON again.

As far as the 2nd cube - actually I realize now that I did destroy the area the first try by jumping down in there. But when I retried it I did not jump down and was able to get the 2nd cube without destroying the area. I used the blue portal in the floor to funnel and pin the first cube to the ceiling, then re-shot the floor portal a few times to move it sideways, then shot the Orange portal right below where I was standing on the ledge. The cube dropped down and through the Blue and then up through the Orange but did not go high enough for me to grab it. So I shot the Blue into the side panel so now the funnel moved the cube the rest of the way up to me, and I grabbed it . . . it fizzled and the room did not self-destruct:

I then repeated this with the new (2nd) cube and grabbed it. That 2nd cube did not fizzle and I walked away with the room intact. So long as you stay up high and do not let either cube drop down to the floor the room will not self destruct


Image-0.jpg

As to the grate - yes it is a problem for me and I just downloaded this today so must have the most recent version. Here is the cube going through the grate. I am unable to move through it, so it does block me successfully :


Image-1.jpg

lifeson99 wrote:
Most of them are attempts to get the cube to nudge ON and then OFF that button and back ON again.

Just gonna throw it out there that that process is not necessary! It is sufficient to be able to push the cube ON and then OFF, but not back ON again. There is a much cleaner/more robust way to solve the puzzle

lifeson99 wrote:
||As far as the 2nd cube - actually I realize now that I did destroy the area the first try by jumping down in there. But when I retried it I did not jump down and was able to get the 2nd cube without destroying the area. I used the blue portal in the floor to funnel and pin the first cube to the ceiling, then re-shot the floor portal a few times to move it sideways, then shot the Orange portal right below where I was standing on the ledge. The cube dropped down and through the Blue and then up through the Orange but did not go high enough for me to grab it. So I shot the Blue into the side panel so now the funnel moved the cube the rest of the way up to me, and I grabbed it . . . it fizzled and the room did not self-destruct:

I then repeated this with the new (2nd) cube and grabbed it. That 2nd cube did not fizzle and I walked away with the room intact. So long as you stay up high and do not let either cube drop down to the floor the room will not self destruct||

That is definitely an exploit I did not consider :/. The room self-destructing is supposed to be unavoidable, you need to use the 1st cube in the safe room to get the 2nd cube. Will fix in 1.3, as well as the phantom grate problem.

Thanks for the pics! Ingenious method nonetheless.

Also I'd love to see a .dem or a YouTube of someone's blind reaction to the self-destructing chamber. Thanks in advance!

-- v1.3 Update --
Exploit fixed! You can no longer obtain the cube from the self-destructing chamber without first allowing the chamber to actually self-destruct.
Also cubes can no longer pass through grates. This was actually a problem in map 001 as well (though no one appears to have discovered this); fixed in this upload.

I really enjoyed the second map of this mappack. It's a nice puzzle in a custom environment. Either this puzzle requires hardcore agility or I did totally ninja some parts of it. Absolutely worth playing

My blindrun of map 2:

kHrpjvvBSv4
(Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHrpjvvBSv4)


I noticed some fpsdrop near the end of the map. But I installed a new GPU driver yesterday, so maybe it could also be caused by that.

I really hope that the black skybox is a rendering problem? That's supposed to be the same orange color as the fog - hope you didn't have to play the map with that ugly juxtaposition XD

Love your ninja skills! However I will note that there are other ways to (1) get to the safe chamber with cube #1 and (2) get the working funnel onto the central platform. These alternatives require using some slightly complex flings instead of knife-edge portaling. Do not despair those who are not ninjas!

Everything else looked good. I almost cheered aloud at the 'aha!' moment around 9:40. Thanks again for the playthrough!

---

Map 003 is in skeleton form right now (not uploaded), I will release it in the Forsaken Chambers [SP] mappack sometime in the next two weeks, along with a prequel map 000 and possibly an 004 map. Happy portals!

PCdoc wrote:
27 seconds IS NOT ENOUGH TIME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wish you would add a couple of seconds to the timer because I have the same problem with Brainbender - I run out of time no matter how fast I move. I guess some guys have lightning reflexes and some do not (sigh). I never could get even close the intended way.

Actually, I'm trying something where the timer is too freaking short :
- cube is on the first button (to open the room of the button with ~30s timer)
- Shoot portal in bottom wall to funnel upward
- Active button
- Run to the first button
- Shoot portal in wall on your left
- Take the cube
- Go through your portal, put the cube on the other side of your wall (plateform in the middle of water)
- Shoot other portal to the wall that is in the room of the exit
- Go trough this portal, then run up to the 2 buttons
- Push on the button to shut down funnel
- Create a portal where the cube fall
- Fall into the hole (where the funnel is, currently disabled with the button
- Mid-air, create the portal to the wall on your bottom right, to make the funnel go through it when it activates again

But man, this is about my 70th try, never worked, been about 10 times close to ~0.3s to make it work... I'm actually going half-insane (This is actually a compliment, great map btw , even tough I didn't test the n?2, the n?1 is giving me quite the challenge)

Did anyone try this and carried this out successfully ? Do you have to be a master of bunny jumping to carry this out ? (which I'm not)

EDIT : Carried this out in about ~~ 100 trials. Didn't count, but felt like it. Gotta train bunny tough Now let's go to n?2, for moar headache

My new favorite map, by the way. In fact, this was the map that finally made me want to formally join the group and make comments.
I finally figured it out and yes, 27 or so seconds is plenty of time for the exit room fizzler to be off.
Be prepared to reverse the funnel to send the cube first to the button to open the door to the exit room fizzler off-button. Turn the funnel off so you can go turn off the exit room fizzler. After pressing the defizzler button, run back to reverse the funnel again to send the cube all the way into the chamber where the funnel is first aimed. Finally, ride the funnel below the cube taking you into the exit door chamber, and fire the portal to send the cube to the door-opening button just before the cube emerges. There's some tricky timing in this latter set-up.

Forsaken 002 was also loads of fun to figure out. Both of these sent me back to this forum to look to see how others did them. When I saw people jumping on cubes to get into the defizzler button, I sensed this couldn't be what was intended because my ninja skills are padawan learner level at best.

Glad to have you here, idahomatt. And I'm glad you liked my puzzles

Puzzle 3 is in the works; midterms and what not have delayed me :/. Also I am adding an Easteregg to Puzzle 2 - one that will require great ninja powers to reach. These will both be released in [SP] when I finish them.

torquestomp wrote:
Also I am adding an Easteregg to Puzzle 2 - one that will require great ninja powers to reach.

Djinndrache wrote:
torquestomp wrote:

Also I am adding an Easteregg to Puzzle 2 - one that will require great ninja powers to reach.

Same here.

Maps have been moved to SP! Easter Egg added
No new maps yet; see SP description for more info