Hello fellow Portaller!
This is MrBob806, and you just found my first map! A few testing elements included are buttons (huge surprise, I know), boxes, aerial faith plates, fizzlers, a home-made dumbwaiter, unusual gravity, impossible structures, and even a death grid! (You should fling yourself into it. The sound is amazing.) At various times in playtesting, it has been reported to be that a puzzle is impossible to solve. This is not the case. All the puzzles are quite simple, but with a few tricks that aren't typically extremely obvious.
Have fun, and any feedback is welcome!
v2: Made red grid of lasers in the first room fizzle boxes, erasing the player's ability to trap themselves by flingng the box through the grid. Also added a bit of humor to the exit elevator.
v3: put it back to v1 so a MAJOR bug created by v2 is fixed. I'm working on a true v3 (which will be labeled as v4) so that both issues are fixed.
v4:problem solved. lasers now kill the box, while allowing for the solution to be executed. I also lit up the elevator screens and added a message to the end elevator.

File Name: not_just_a_box_v4.zip
File Size: 2.5 MiB
Click here to download Not Just A Box (v4)

This was nice! Even though my blindrun took not even 5 minutes this map was very enjoyable and worth the play. I'll post my blindrun video later.

Very nice map and not impossible to solve, in fact I found this quite easy, but still enjoyable, thanks

Ok map (it was too easy), and a few things to note;

In the first chamber (the one with the faith plates), I could launch the cube over to the other side of the red grid (no way to get it back). you might want to connect the cube dispenser to a button in that room.

Also, in the second chamber, where the panels are, It's possible to get yourself stuck trying to see what's on the other side of the MEG.

In both of those cases I had to noclip my way to a solution.

While I'm a fan of creative use of the world portal, be careful not to use them pointlessly. Walking down a hallway shouldn't be disorienting. If you're going to use them, maybe try using them as a testing element, not an annoying or aesthetic one. The only exception to that rule, I'd say, is when the alternative is messy and complicated (ie. getting from one side of the map to the other past previous tests).

Djinndrache wrote:
This was nice! Even though my blindrun took not even 5 minutes this map was very enjoyable and worth the play. I'll post my blindrun video later.

Told you.

3PLJHPlCRD4
(Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PLJHPlCRD4)

The map was enjoyable. I feel that the use of world portals was clever, but be warned that they won't always work on lower end systems/settings.
Thank you,
Sound Logic
EDIT: If you fizzle the companion cube a regular cube comes out. Is that supposed to happen?

Very well made, and very disorientating.

Hey guys, thanks for all the feedback! Easy (with a few minor tricks) and enjoyable was the goal. good to know I achieved that! I'm thinking that for the first room, on the issue of launching the cube, I'll simply make the red laser field dissolve the cube as well. Did anyone, perchance, decide to fling themselves into the field of lasers? There's an amazing, and actually slightly gruesome sounding, noise for if you get killed. It's a mash of various sounds =D To the excessive use of world portals: I know that I got carried away. I was excited when I figured out how to work them =P Yes, it is QUITE intended that you only get one companion cube. You killed it, and it's not coming back.
Again, thanks for the feedback; it's all quite appreciated. I'll be fixing a few issues listed, possibly making a bit of a comical elevator ride at the end.
-MrBob806

Excellent map, nothing too hard and it all worked fine. Thanks for creating.

I don't know why but I never have the portalgun when the map is loaded. So I thought it was very very horrible and there must be some tricks that I didn't discover yet. Then for a few days this map made me crazy and finally beat me down, I had to watch the spoiler video, then I saw the portalgun...........

hjlld wrote:
I don't know why but I never have the portalgun when the map is loaded. So I thought it was very very horrible and there must be some tricks that I didn't discover yet. Then for a few days this map made me crazy and finally beat me down, I had to watch the spoiler video, then I saw the portalgun...........

Playing Portal without portal gun is difficult, indeed.

Djinndrache wrote:
Playing Portal without portal gun is difficult, indeed.

I've never had anyone else report that. Go back in and try going into the console, put in give_portalgun close the console,open it again, and put in upgrade_portalgun I hope you canget it fixed to play it =)

version 2 is ready to be released, but I might wait a bit for any other reports of what I could fix... I'm leaving the last room exactly as is, so you're not getting away from the gravity changes. The red field of lasers in the first room now fizzles cubes, so now you can't trap yourself by launching the cube across. Well, once I upload v2.

I spawned in a not-so-moving elevator, so I had to noclip up to the elevator room.
There seems to be a hole here->http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/596957419830197094/F3229B45597FE6DE6C9A739AE23D531B1DE08A86/

And yeah, the getting cooked by the lasers sounds quite nice.

Very decent map. I myself was having trouble with the portal gun as well as at least one other where it wasn't appearing at the start of the map. Not totally convinced either way of where the error is (creator vs. player). I was able to do a console command give_portalgun and upgrade_portal gun to remedy.

Personally I'm not a big fan of gravity changes on maps, but this wasn't so bad. The only problem I had with it was at 2:55 (watch my walkthrough) where the gravity changes were gravitating me back and forth almost uncontrollably. Also there were transparent textures (maybe that was me also?) when you go into the 'small rooms' with fizzlers. All-in-all great job. 5/5.

Warning: major spoiler
t5OndMs04Wo

Rotab wrote:
I spawned in a not-so-moving elevator, so I had to noclip up to the elevator room.
There seems to be a hole here->http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/596957419830197094/F3229B45597FE6DE6C9A739AE23D531B1DE08A86/

And yeah, the getting cooked by the lasers sounds quite nice.

I do know that there are a couple visible seams where the world portals are, but I can't seem to make them go away, that one being the most visible, due to the downhill and the tilt of the portal.
GLaD to know someone decided to try out the lasers to see if they even work =D

mvmishler: sorry about the gravity stuff. I will try to stay away form excessive world portals in the future, seeing as that's what most people dislike about this map. The invisible texures in the transition rooms are safegurds against players trapping themselves. If the player leaves the box in the first half of the room, then uses the fizzler to clean their portals, they're trapped. If the player throws the box over the glass without having a portal on the other side, they're trapped. All invisble textures are there intentionally. Thanks for the concern and notificaton, though. (One unintentional side-effect, of keeping you from fizzling your portals without haveing a box in that side, is when you fizzle the box, you can't pass through the fizzler until the new box drops in completely.)

I don't quite know what the issues with the elevator and the missing portal gun are. Never encountered them myself, and I don't know how to fix them. Sorry if it happens to you.

Hey dude,

I love Portal and want to collect some gameplays (first blind run), speedruns and bug reports.
My records should help you to understand how the player thinks.
Well, I hope I can support you with my uploads to fix any bugs and make new awesome maps.

Here are yours!

gameplay
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Had a lot of fun with your map!

+ interesting idea!

-first cube is overblended
-graphical bugs and stuck (about 5:40) because of world portals

THX for mapping...

Keep it up!

BlumCoLe, what do you mean by the cube being, "overblended"? Also, when you get stuck near 5:40, most players charge of the edge, rather than inching off, and that solves the problem, but otherwise, I don't know how to fix that issue. Same with the visual problems; I simply don't know how to fix them. Any advice and help (from anyone) would be appreciated for the release of v2. Thanks for the video! Recordings are always so much better, and interesting to watch.
-MrBob806

mrbob806 wrote:
BlumCoLe, what do you mean by the cube being, "overblended"?

Sorry, mistranslation. :/

I wanted to say, that the cube is too bright!
Now I hope you can understand what I mean.

Oh, right, now i understand. I did notice that too, and I'm not quite sure why that is.
I noticed on your video that the game's language was German. The "saving" was interestng to read.

I'm having a fair amount of trouble playing this map. I first noticed the lack of a lot of ambient sound; portal gun firing, faith plates, the timer, etc. In the Developer Console, I got the below error about a hundred times. It's not my game, because I brought up a few other maps, custom and Valve, and all had the sound working fine.

[Sound] total_channels == 128 - SEND A BUG

I could do without the sound, and tried to keep playing, but I couldn't get out of the first room, so I resorted to peeking at Djinndrache's video for clues. While he was able to fire a portal through the laser grid, I could not. I tried mimicing all of his actions up to that, thinking I needed to somehow enable it with a specific task, but no luck.

Also, I must load the map when the game first opens. If I play another map first, then try to load this one, I get stuck in the elevator. Nothing loads but the avatar. The doors don't open, and I can't go anywhere. This problem I've had on other maps.

Have exactly the same problems as cerrita....

Interestng. I know the reason for the lack of ability to get out of the first room, which I'll immediately fix, but I have a hunch what the problem is with all the sounds and elevators. I'll upload a v3 later today that's hopefully fixed. Thank you for your feedback
EDIT: ok, I think everything's fixed. If you had problems earlier and couldn't play the test properly, please do so now.