APERATURE'S FIRST LUNAR SPACE TEST

Transverse an exceedingly hard map with no direction, lots of traps and deadly...traps. Also lasers.

save after every step. you will die a lot, and get stuck a lot.

This map will be refined for future use.

File Name: thats_no_moon.rar
File Size: 18.29 MiB
Click here to download [sp] That's no moon

ooo im excited after seeing you forum help threads ill download once its up

EDIT 1: ok so i havent beat it but i think this map still needs a lot more work ex: u need indicator lights a lot of your textures arent aligned and im not sure where to start first also i hate having to walk across the whole room to get to one white wall i can portal through....all in all i think this needs to be moved to WIP so u can get help there but it looks good imo especially getting the ball to go through the tubes i havent done it yet but its guna be cool


EDIT 2: hey whats ur name on steam?

I almost solved the level.
To me this isn't a very good level. Although there are some nice puzzles and some nice new stuff the map feels like a mix of puzzles. I had no idea where to start; where I had to use what. The lack of indicator lights made it even more confusing: there were loads of cubes and buttons but I had no idea what to do.

A lot of puzzles had flaws in them:
The laser puzzle could be done without the external one.
Fizzling cubes often created an unsolvable puzzle.
I'm pretty tired right now so I don't have full details on all puzzles but it was obviously your first map.

Don't feel discouraged by this though. I think it would have been a better idea if you started small. A small puzzle is a lot easier to make and if you make gamebreaking errors it's a lot easier to fix.

I suggest to start working on a new; small map, practice working on grid, using instances and prefabs to speed up your mapping and make it look better, learn to use the proper lights and just create some basic tests. Publishing these in the work in progress section will get you lots of useful advices on how to improve your map. Once you know all the ins and outs you're really ready to make a huge map. And even then it's never a bad idea to ask for more advice!

So yea, although there were a couple of funny puzzles I think my rating would be a 2/5: cute you tried to map. I won't rate it yet though. And once again: don't feel discouraged, it's your first map there's a lot of things you can still learn

Havent finished yet... but, this needs a lot more work.. Sorry. Solved the laser puzzle first without a cube on the button because I couldn't get a portal to place.. had that problem a lot... 50 shots later one finally comes up. Cool concepts, but zero direction.

I'm stuck inside the middle "room" (After the room with 8 faith plates). I tried a lot of things with the laser but i can't bring it to the receiver. And what is the button over the transport beam for?

There could happen a lot of things in this map where the player is stuck. For example i firstly portaled me to the cube cage on the wall, and there was no way out. I think this map needs a lot of work...

Actually, this map is way better than the first comments suggest. It is written in the description that there are no indicators; so it is wanted like that. Furthermore it doesn't matter where you start in the huge room, because there are several ways to solve it.
Nevertheless it seems that you don't have to do the laser puzzle. The button just appeared before I did it, I pressed it and that's it. In addition you can indeed get stuck at different places, so the quicksave-function should be used.
The little room, where you have to use the pile of cubes, is just awesome, but the faithplate-room is kinda mean and the invisible ledge and not to know if and how many cubes you have to take along, is just bad. In the room after the faithplate-room, I also couldn't figure out, what the button on the ceiling does; but I managed to solve that chamber. The next one however has another awesome element - the sliding cube - but I'm stuck there right now. I just can't figure out, how to activate the last laser-receiver in the upper corner.

I won't rate this map yet, because I haven't solved it and you should take care of some issues first. But this map isn't bad at all, it's just different and doesn't guide you as much as most of the other maps do.

Well It is a work in progress, I made a lots of mistakes that i will work on. But if you want me to make a video on how to get through the whole map, i will.

Bearing in with all the input, this map will be revised, but completely from scratch.

Horrible for so many reasons.. I think this is the hugest room I've seen for any Portal map. Also there are so many ways to get stuck... Even for a WIP this is poor quality.

Glad to read that you wanna start over. Let's see how much better the quality of your next map will be

Ahhh, i got it!! The earth is destroyed

As i sayed, there is a lot of work to do. But i allready enjoyed it. This map teaches me to use the quick save button on every step i do . I think it would help the player a lot to give some hints what to do next and how the things in the room work. Took me some time to find out that i can still use the lift in the middle to get higher after opening the big hole in the ceiling of the sliding cube room.

Its hard to know where to start with this huge, multi-layered map. There are certainly some good ideas in it, but there are glaring errors of execution. For anybody playing this map, save often, there are death traps, many places to get stuck (the mapmaker even planned several places to trap you .... on purpose ... with no way out). There was too often a sense of being lost. I know you warned us, but it sometimes just got ridiculous. I don't think you need to start over, but definitely take the advice of some of the other mapmakers. The room with the sliding cube can mostly be skipped: Portal the laser, get on the ramp with a cube, portal next to the last catcher on the right, jump up with the cube held high, and hit the last catcher.

damn. i will have to work on that stage too now. i might just make several minimaps instead. each area being separated, all looking at a developing fake pyramid, then the real pyramid lastly.

i also just learned theres a work in progress section in downloads :p

wheres the delete button? :[

I was able to complete it but with alot of trial and error. I did like the majority of it but I agree with others that some areas are breakable. I laughed when I saw earth being blown up by lasers The name of the map makes sense now.

yeah, even i got frustrated by my own map wheen i tested it a thousand times and died by tripping into a hazard or forgetting to release the forward key when hitting the blue goo.

plus the compiling time was a bitch.

thats why i will cut it into multiple maps next time.

seriously though i cannot find the delete button for the file. i am on my 3ds at work here and cant find it. ):?

My blind playthrough was 4:14:36!!! I am not going to post that, but if you want to see some small parts of it, I might be willing to find them and edit it down. Maybe tomorrow I'll break it up into manageable chunks and start editing out the repeated failures.

Let me start with the positives. There was quite a variety of elements and puzzles in this. It was long. And it had a novel ending.

I can't remember all the problems I had with this map. But the big problems have already been pointed out: it's unnecessarily huge, and there's no direction.

Putting the sphere in the receptacle was a lot easier than it should have been, due to what are apparently a lot of physics clips. I just rolled it down the lightbridge and the rest took care of itself.

I never figured out what opened the panel from the gel ramp to the side room. At some point, it was open, but I don't know why.

What was that weird gravity thing going on in the room with the laser and the lift? Something kept grabbing me and pushing across the room, and if you left the cubes on the floor, they slowly slid across the floor. Also, there is a trivial solution to that puzzle which uses only the cubes and the laser.

Why do you have to press the button on the central platform multiple times at the end?

Suggestions for improvement:

1. Shrink the main room, a lot
2. If you can't make it smaller, put faithplates to propel the player from one area to another
3. Signs - lots and lots of signs
4. Indicator lights
5. Big red buttons or throw switches to active each part of the central platform, instead of button pedestals in boxes
6. Autosaves
7. Independent playtesters (I volunteer)

You had that gravity issue too? I didn't even know where the hell that was coming from. I didn't put in gravity devices in anywhere at all. Several times the reflection cube went flying across the room for no apparent reason. I think the elevator clipped it like a mousetrap.

The panel that opens to the acid room was activated by one of the laser diodes. I wont tell you which one.

That 4 cube slotted elevator with the buttons was designed that way so you wouldn't go anywhere until you collected the cubes for it. It was just an idea i had. i figured why have more cubes than you need, just re-use them for multiple tests.

I will be making a whole lots of changes. But at least read my posts before commenting on what i already READ!!

NOW WILL SOMEONE TELL ME HOW TO DELETE THE MAP FROM THE DOWNLOADS PAGE?!?!

Kinda like a Picaso. Weird, disjointed, but there's a method to the madness.
After a while I was wondering if I had dropped a hit of acid accidentally.

LOL

lolwut?

I am receiving every brandname of comment here

Fracture wrote:
NOW WILL SOMEONE TELL ME HOW TO DELETE THE MAP FROM THE DOWNLOADS PAGE?!?!

Ask a moderator If you want I can delete it.
BUT I just had two friends over at my place, let them play through your map and they really enjoyed it. You have to keep in mind that most people who react on twp are mappers: they worked a long time on maps themselves and are often able to spot every tiny or big error in a map. If the map was a better technical quality: less useless room (I also count the big pyramid in the middle useless space since when you're solving the first couple of tests you won't need that space and you do have to cross it., respawn points for the cubes and a more logical level construction I'm sure this map could have been in the roundup and possibly even spotlighted and I'm not the only one who thinks this way. So I don't know if you really want to delete your map

consider it hard mode for what i am coming up with next.

initially the pyramid was going to be just one big platform that you scale up to in order to reach the exit that you would have no means of reaching at the beginning. You solve some mini-tests, and each one opens up something that progresses you to the exit. It wasn't until later i decided to add 3 more tests inside the platforms

Fracture wrote:
But at least read my posts before commenting on what i already READ!!

Sorry, I don't mean to make you feel like you're being piled onto. When I'm writing a post, I don't usually go back and forth to the forum comparing what I'm saying to what's already been said. So a bit of repetitition is inevitable, especially on a map this large.

And despite the criticism you're getting, most people's impression seems to be that this is a great map waiting to be finished. I agree with lpfreaky90: if this was polished up quite a bit, we'd be talking Community Spotlight.

While you're starting over with this (and you really shouldn't give up on it yet) I found one more exploit that's easily fixed. In the room with the sliding cube puzzle, you don't need to do the puzzle at all. Just put a reflectocube on the shelf from the column beneath, and direct the laser at it from the portal across the room. You need at least 8 units from the top of a portal to the surface above to prevent players from jumping (or just reaching) from the portal.

im not sure if i can picture what areas you are talking about, but i will copy paste it in a separate file and check that out.

I will work on the tests, to see if there are loop holes and self-entrapments


Now i am having difficulty looking up info about what the vertex textures are. I don't have prior knowledge on them

@IPFREAKY: can you move the download and thread to the work in progress section, please?

I've recorded another complete playthrough, my fifth one. So you see, I really do like this map. The actual playtime was 43:49, but I edited it down to 29:43 by speeding up some of the long traversals, and removing repeated failures and some fiddling around lining up cubes. The game crashed in the middle, but I've been having that a lot lately with other maps, so I don't think it's a problem with your map. Verifying the local game cache seems to fix the problem for a while.

Link: That's No Moon
EmbeddedjJlG9C1otxE
Note in particular the exploit at 19:43, the invisible monster attack at 20:05, and the exploit at 22:13. I'd really like to see a screenshot or something of the intended solution to the first one, because my exploit took almost 8 minutes to pull off. Of course, if you don't want to give away your secret there, I completely understand.

EDIT: I have a saved game where I can play with the invisible monster.
Here's the cube sliding across the floor: Poltergeist
The cube clips the invisible monster: The Invisible Monster lives here

INVISIBLE MONSTER?????!?!??!?

WHO THE HELL POSSESED MY MAP???

DARTH VADER, GET OUT HERE YOU SEAKY FUCKER!!!!!

I will check out that link when i get home from work. my 3ds wont make youtube work.

Moderator note:
Moved map on OP's request.
OP: would you kindly change the name again to a normal map name like "That's No Moon"? People will know it's in WIP now

k

KennKong wrote:
I've recorded another complete playthrough, my fifth one.

That was a very interesting playthrough. For example, I did not know you didn't need a cube on the last button in the seven-button room. I would put a cube on that button and it seemed like it took a few minutes before the door opened. Also your exploit at 16:41 was nice and saves some time. But I think it would have been faster to do the rest of the room the intended way. You might be interested to see my exploit for the next room that I posted back on page one. Its quite a bit faster and easier. Also, I would like to point out to the mapmaker that the star-field at the end of the map is portable (as it is in the original campaign, where it has its purpose). There is no advantage to be gained, but it looks bad.

portable space?! THINK OF THE POSSIBLITIES!!!!!!!!!!!!! 8D

edit: i just took a look at those videos you made and noticed several distressing problems with my map, the playthrough that was totally all over the place, and how my map can be exploited so easily.

First part, the spawned reflection cube for the funnel was meant to be used for the first laser. I guess i needed to move the diodes some more.

Second part, you activated section 3 of the pyramid that was meant to be done after the gels and acid.

Third, used the weighted cube that was meant to be cube 7 in the grinder room, against the turrets, instead of the gel

Fourth, didn't go up the funnel, transerve the catapults, and used the funnel to avoid the crusher, and slip in to the first light bridge, I have no idea why you ran all the way around the room to walk on that bridge. You could have just walked right up it.

Five: theres a panel in the grating and under the suspended cube in the funnel, it goes with the 6 others.

Six: that door was not supposed to be open by physical interaction, You ignored the button that comes down for section 2 of the pyramid. That just fucks up a shit ton of things. Including getting onto the elevator without using the cubes as intended.

Seven: I Don't know if you actually did test rooms 2 and 3, but you use one cube to turn off the elevator, get on with the same sube, drop it into a portal, up at the ceiling button, funneled through a portal, hit button, knocks over a cube, take other cube and aim laser at parrallel panel hit REVERSE button and portal the funnel at foot level, take a cube, face it at angled portal panel, hit reverse button again, jump inside, fire portal at angled panel, grab cube next to you in funnel, aim diagonal laser coming up from foot level panel at the receiver, DONE

EIGHT: Test room 3. Fire portal at lasered panel, grease up 2 cubes, bring to makeshift elevator, place dry cube on button, control panel for elevator opens, go up, slide down one cube facing upward the ramp, fire portal parrallel to it, laser comes right up ramp, take other greasy cube and let it slide down facing the diodes, blue panels and light bridge comes on. You run through, portal bridge, grab companion. REPREAT PROCESS! This time use companion on cube button and TAKE a cube back to where the companion cube was. use companion cube to drop a reflector cube into button facing upwards, Portal a laser at the panel facing the cube button, laser goes up, take a cube on the elevator, go up, aim laser at the cube across and into the receiver. DONE

NINE: Whatever that was that was blocking the cube may have been a movelinear that wasn't tagged as a nonsolid. The sliding of the cube may have been because the floor was crooked, Now whatever the hell was pushing you around scared the FUCK out of me!!! I don't even know what the hell that was and it made my skin crawl. There was nothing there that i put anywhere in my map that was supposed to do that. I recently saw the movie 'The Ward' and seeing that made my skin crawl!!

And TEN!!! Did you KNOW that was the Deathstar that blew up Earth?! You were looking at it upside down. Another issue that made me pop a blood vessel.

Well don't get mad with me, it was my fault that i let the map be so easily exploited. Several tests being interchanged, objects being used in unintended ways, All things that will be looked at with my revisions

RogerL wrote:
That was a very interesting playthrough. For example, I did not know you didn't need a cube on the last button in the seven-button room.

I didn't even know there was a seventh button. Ignorance is bliss.> Quote:

But I think it would have been faster to do the rest of the room the intended way.

Even having read Fracture's description of the intended solution, I still don't get it. Video, please? > Quote:

You might be interested to see my exploit for the next room that I posted back on page one. Its quite a bit faster and easier.

I was just demonstrating that the portal surface was too close to the ledge. If I didn't need to get the companion cube to use in the platform, there is a trivial solution using just two reflectocubes that can be done in under 20 seconds even by my clumsy ass. However, I actually had more fun solving the puzzle the intended way.

This just illustrates why I don't like laser puzzles. Because reflectocubes can be abused in so many ways (see the many solutions to Dispersed for even more abuse), it's hard to make an unbreakable laser puzzle.

Fracture wrote:
Third, used the weighted cube that was meant to be cube 7 in the grinder room, against the turrets, instead of the gel

That was just improvisation on that particular playthrough. You don't need the cube or the gel to get the turrets.> Quote:

Fourth, didn't go up the funnel, transerve the catapults, and used the funnel to avoid the crusher, and slip in to the first light bridge, I have no idea why you ran all the way around the room to walk on that bridge.

Because every time I used the funnel to avoid the crushers, the cube fell into the spikes> Quote:

Six: that door was not supposed to be open by physical interaction, You ignored the button that comes down for section 2 of the pyramid.

I'm not sure which door you mean, nor which button

Quote:
Well don't get mad with me, it was my fault that i let the map be so easily exploited. Several tests being interchanged, objects being used in unintended ways, All things that will be looked at with my revisions

I'm not mad at you, but I do think you were mad to attempt a project this grandiose for your first map. Even so, it's better to dream big and fail (and this was hardly a failure) than to dream small and succeed.

KennKong wrote:
Even having read Fracture's description of the intended solution, I still don't get it.

Well, after reading Fracture's description, I guess I didn't do it the intended way. What I did was this: Redirect the laser to the slanted panel. Put a cube into the funnel facing the catcher and pinned against the panel. (I used the wall segment by the button and reversed the funnel.) Then portal the slanted panel and then the panel where the cube is pinned. There are probably other ways to do it, though.

Well, i dont think the video will be necessary if you already played it through. And I dont really want to make one because i played the map myself SOOOOOOOOO many times already that it hurts my brains.

I've played through the map again, trying to do things in the order I think you meant:
Room order

1. Main room - use funnel to send companion cube around room, and get reflectocube
2. Main room - solve laser puzzle in glass room, push button to raise platform
3. Main room - use funnel to get to button by faithplate near ceiling to turn on lightbridge, get companion cube and drop it into chute
4. Press button above lightbridge to enter seven-button room, put cubes on all seven buttons, press drop down button to raise next platform, exit above gel
5. Use gel to get to acid room, exit acid room to second lightbridge button in main room
6. Use lightbridge to put sphere in receptacle, press button which pops up to raise another platform
7. Drop down to next button, use companion cube to open door to pyramid
8. Solve faithplate puzzle, push button to raise to funnel/laser room
9. Solve funnel laser puzzle to get another reflectocube, open ceiling and press button to raise platform to gel/lightbridge room
10. Solve gel/lightbridge puzzle to get companion cube, press button to lift platform out of pyramid
11. Use cubes to raise pillars, then funnel to return to platform, press button to finish map

Senf wrote:
Actually, this map is way better than the first comments suggest. It is written in the description that there are no indicators; so it is wanted like that.

You have got to be kidding! I don't care if they said the whole bloody map was full of leaks! You don't make a map without ANY indication of what to do and expect people to appreciate it.

Senf wrote:
Furthermore it doesn't matter where you start in the huge room, because there are several ways to solve it.

Oh yeah that clears things up.

Senf wrote:
Nevertheless it seems that you don't have to do the laser puzzle. The button just appeared before I did it, I pressed it and that's it. In addition you can indeed get stuck at different places, so the quicksave-function should be used.

The player should not be forced to quick-save. A good map will autosave in several places depending on the size. Big maps have many autosaves spots. Small maps have maybe one. Every map should have at least one autsave placed before the player is put in a position where they could die and one immediately after they have solved such situations. In other words, you need to give the player the protection of knowing they can easily restore the game to a point before they screwed up. That point should be relatively close to the last decision point the player passed so that the player can try again.

Senf wrote:
I won't rate this map yet, because I haven't solved it and you should take care of some issues first. But this map isn't bad at all, it's just different and doesn't guide you as much as most of the other maps do.

Or as much as it should guide you.

Has it ever occurred to you that being pointed in a direction is what hinders a players free will of thought and learning? If you expect to be pushed directly to the end of the game for you by doing the minimal amount of work in the least amount of time, then i can imagine that you wouldn't be giving out a lot of good reviews on any game that makes you think for yourself and try to solve a puzzle using your own brain. Think about THAT before you go looking up walkthroughs for the next dungeon.

I think what makes a game worth playing is the stopping to smell the roses and appreciating the moment you are in, the feeling of accomplishment when completing something all on your own. The sense of pride knowing you do it using your head and not getting help

Fracture wrote:
Has it ever occurred to you that being pointed in a direction is what hinders a players free will of thought and learning?

If you expect to be pushed directly to the end of the game for you by doing the minimal amount of work in the least amount of time, then i can imagine that you wouldn't be giving out a lot of good reviews on any game that makes you think for yourself and try to solve a puzzle using your own brain. Think about THAT before you go looking up walkthroughs for the next dungeon.

Well; It's the combination of lack of indication and the unnumbered puzzles.
If there was some sort of scoreboard where whenever you solve a puzzle a part is ticked of it will be obvious to players that they solved a puzzle. Without spoiling the order in which they need to be done. No destruction of free will but a more ordered puzzle!

And while the game points out where you are supposed to go that's ok; as long as there are decent puzzles preventing you from getting from a to b. And there are quite a lot of decent puzzles in here. If you made a map where these puzzles were solved sequentially I think it would still be a challenging map!

yeah i kinda didnt notice that certain panels would allow you getting to certain areas. And I have yet to figure out those scoreboards. All in due time

Fracture wrote:
yeah i kinda didnt notice that certain panels would allow you getting to certain areas. And I have yet to figure out those scoreboards. All in due time

You could have a signage with a number above it and the doorstate texture as indication; let the button of puzzle one check the doorstate for 1 etc. That's the easiest way.

You could do it fancy and have the number of solved parts count to the total but this is a bit more work.

KennKong wrote:
I have a theory about the invisible monster. Because I wasn't raising the platforms in the right order, I think something in the gel/lightbridge room was superimposed in the laser/funnel room. It wasn't visible because the ceiling wasn't open and the engine wasn't drawing it.

I'm not sure about this, because I raised them in the right order (assuming what you wrote is the right order), and I had the same problem both times I've played this map. The only difference for me was that it was more noticeable (or, at least, I ran into it more often) over by the button that reverses the funnel.

I never ran into it at all. I went and ran the map with an overide button i popped in and flew right in with noclip. Nothing got in my way or pushed me around. I looked over the vmf and saw that there is only laser receivers in around that area.

However. I remember when i began making the map i was fiddling with npcs. There was one for TF2 I tried to use but it never worked. maybe i forgot to delete it.