Well here it is. My 1st map created for Portal 2 or any game as a matter of fact.
Fairly short map that shouldn't give you much trouble.

Any constructive criticism greatly appreciated.Thanks
-----------------------------------------------------
Updates:
- Fixed propulsion gel area
- Added alternate map with easier solution
- Fixed cube dropper area
- Fixed mirrored 'tick' /thanks PortalCombat for reminding me about that. was aware of it but forgot to fix it x)
- Added alternate map with orig "propulsion gel area".
- Fixed issue(shortcut) in the last room
- Removed unnecessary tubes.

Screenshot
Screenshot


RfiLlbGeK1M

1huNTPt74Z0



Best regards,
Stylus

File Name: T2Stylus_01final.rar
File Size: 3.38?MiB
Stylus01

nice one. i really enjoyed it

good map

Good challenge! I will admit, as used as I am to the idea of the propulsion gel + repulsion gel combination, I never really thought of having the repulsion and propulsion gel seperated by portals, so it took me a moment or two to figure that one out.

If this is just your first map, though, I look forward to seeing what else you could churn out! Spreading the propulsion gel out is a bit difficult, though- I'd recommend fixing that. It's also rather difficult to get through that hole in the wall even with crouching.

Thursaz wrote:
Good challenge! I will admit, as used as I am to the idea of the propulsion gel + repulsion gel combination, I never really thought of having the repulsion and propulsion gel seperated by portals, so it took me a moment or two to figure that one out.

If this is just your first map, though, I look forward to seeing what else you could churn out! Spreading the propulsion gel out is a bit difficult, though- I'd recommend fixing that.

brilliant map, really enjoyed it, only criticism is the same as what the above poster said about spreading the gel. 5/5

Added getting through the hole, since I don't /always/ make it through even with a crouch. Some players might, given this obstacle, believe it impossible to do so- try find another, nonexistant method of getting through. >>;

Great map, great design.In the first chamber it might be possible for someone to get stuck after they use the button/plate portal surface to get to the cube, cuz that portal would disappear after getting into the cube section. and if the person uses the wrong portal to get out they wouldnt have another visible surface to shoot another portal. i suppose they can just reload or something, but maybe something more forgiving could be put in place, like a trigger that after u get down to the cube that will make the plate surface flip permanently. Everything else others mentioned already.

Justevil wrote:
In the first chamber it might be possible for someone to get stuck after they use the button/plate portal surface to get to the cube, cuz that portal would disappear after getting into the cube section. and if the person uses the wrong portal to get out they wouldnt have another visible surface to shoot another portal. i suppose they can just reload or something, but maybe something more forgiving could be put in place, like a trigger that after u get down to the cube that will make the plate surface flip permanently. Everything else others mentioned already.

Yeah, I got stuck in there... lol (I just used noclip to get out)

And also, just a personal opinion... In some places if you don't have the portal at the very top of the area, you will not make the jump, even if you use the crouch trick. Some people might not realize this and think its impossible.

But overall it was really fun

very well put together map. keep em coming!

As many of you suggested I've fixed the propolsion gel area and added alternate map where you don't have to crouch when trying to get trough those small holes.
I plan on fixing box dropper area right now.

Also thanks for your feedback guys. You're awesome!! I really appreciate it and it helps me make the map better so others can fully enjoy it.

Getting the propulsion gel spread around properly, especially at the ledge near the toxic water was pretty annoying. Other than that, great map.

Hey there.

Very nice map (I have played v1, not v2).
Good puzzles and a nice jumpin technique!
I would not change anything about this map.

placing the gel
- some people were talking about the gel would be hard to place
- I dont think so...
- it was really nice that you have to place the portal at a different spot
=> Please, dont change anything about this part!
=> It is not a bug! People just have to think about it!

bugs
- you can get stuck at the place, where the cube lies.
(if you would place the wrong portal or even place both of them down there)
=> suggestion: make it possible to jump back to the start, from there

- missplaced/mirrored 'tick' at the 2nd exit-door
(the one, which gets enabled from the button in the 2nd room)

video of complete map solving
GTx_ZNWQ0hI

Keep up that good work. I really enjoyed playing this map!


Regards
PortalCombat

Tricky, but well designed. Good job

Once again updated guys. Thanks for such quick feedback.

As PortalCombat suggested i've added fixed original map.

PortalCombat wrote:
video of complete map solving
GTx_ZNWQ0hI

thanks for playing and recording your solution!

I found a lot of stuff to be very out of place. You have to understand people will miss things / do not notice things on the first try, and must give people room to fix those mistakes.

There were a total of two times that I had to reset the map due to faulty design.

1) I totally missed the button that drops the cube, after I flung myself over and managed to take down the turrets I noticed where the button was, and with no way back I had to reset the map. Frustrating. Reading from the top post I think this is fixed though

2) I didn't take the cube with me in the 2nd room (Why should I?) after inspecting the room I assumed there must be another cube further up ahead. There was none, and the door to the previous room was now closed. I know the solution and reach the door, but with no way to go back and retrieve my cube I am again forced to reset. Frustrating.

I gave it a 2/5 for those reasons, it seems a nice map if it worked, but it didn't and ended up frustrating me. As a tip: Try to think outside the box during designing, because even though the objects are obvious to you, they may not be to new players. And make sure you make all puzzle elements in visible spots.

For example: The placement of the button that turns the ceiling platform into a portal surface is placed so that once pressed, you can immediatly notice the movement of the ceiling. These kinds of strategic placements avoid confusion and prevent frustration.


Edit:

Didn't think there was another room, the potato thing was nice. However, I suggest you move away from agility / twitch puzzles. They are faily annoying. Also I got scared of your use of crouch jumping. Because it's a horrid thing, please don't bring it back.

The last chamber was nice if it wasn't for that turret jump you had to execute. Like I said, knowing the answer to a puzzle then trying 100 times to get it right isn't fun, it's annoying.

Good map, though there are a couple of shortcuts:

Spoiler
Once in the second room and the door open, you can have the repulsion gel shoot at the clear gel, even though it'll clear it, you can still jump 3-4 times and hit it before it clears, allowing you to jump up to the door.
Also, the last room can be done fairly quickly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdAeVVKQ73E (sorry for the bad quality)

Excellent map. Thanks for creating.

Evulmeh wrote:
1) I totally missed the button that drops the cube, after I flung myself over and managed to take down the turrets I noticed where the button was, and with no way back I had to reset the map. Frustrating. Reading from the top post I think this is fixed though

This is one thing were i agree with you.but not 100%. i get it if you play the map for the 1st time. that's why i put the stickers on the walls. so if you didn't see the button on the left you saw stickers on the right and with them 2 dot sticker, which clearly indicates you forgot something..but the position of the button is awkward and if a lot of people have problems with it i'll change it to a different position. Thanks for reminding me about this. Also there is a way to get the cube without restarting. if you jump on the ledge you can jump and hit portal back to the room so you can press the button. that's why the glass is not up all the way..but when you don't know the map it's an issue so it's my design flaw.

Evulmeh wrote:
2) I didn't take the cube with me in the 2nd room (Why should I?) after inspecting the room I assumed there must be another cube further up ahead. There was none, and the door to the previous room was now closed. I know the solution and reach the door, but with no way to go back and retrieve my cube I am again forced to reset. Frustrating.

I'd like to ask you how you managed to close the doors without taking the cube off the button so i can fix this. because if the cube is on the button it will stay open all the time.there's no other way to close those doors without the cube

PhenExMachina wrote:
Good map, though there are a couple of shortcuts

Thanks for posting this PhenEx. i gotta hand it to you, nicely found I think i found a pretty easy solution to work around this.

As forrepulsion gel i just don't know what to do..before i released the map i knew that i had to eather put water where i put it..and i thought it would do the work if i increase the amount of bloobs but i guess it doesnt. or i could remove the ledge but then people would complain if they died falling into water.

Anyway if anyone played Portal Prelude then they know how easy my map is x)

The only thing I can think of would be to move the ledge with the door a little lower while moving the wall that you fling from back a bit. At its current position you can get just barely enough splash of the repulsion gel on the ledge to get up. Doesn't seem to be too big of an issue though, probably not a lot of people see it.

Quote:

- some people were talking about the gel would be hard to place
- I dont think so...
- it was really nice that you have to place the portal at a different spot
=> Please, dont change anything about this part!
=> It is not a bug! People just have to think about it!

I already knew about the trick to moving the portal to get the thing to spread, but the thing is, even with moving the portal, it can be a bit troublesome to coat the area just in front of the portal. If that much was fixed, I wouldn't complain- I'll redownload the updated map when I have the time and run through it again.

I've updated it once again:
- Fixed issue(shortcut) in the last room
- Removed unnecessary tubes.

This will also be my last update on this map since i'll try to focun on my next project

PhenExMachina wrote:
The only thing I can think of would be to move the ledge with the door a little lower while moving the wall that you fling from back a bit. At its current position you can get just barely enough splash of the repulsion gel on the ledge to get up. Doesn't seem to be too big of an issue though, probably not a lot of people see it.

I've just decided not to change anything about it since as you said not many people pursue the issue. But thanks for trying to help out

Thursaz - everyone has it's own idea of challenge. that's why it's always nice when people express them selfs. and that's something i like.

And i've learned a lot just from all of your responses!! I'll also make sure next time when i release that i have my map tested by somebody else and not just me. Looking at you PhenExMachina

Cheers guys

I agree with pretty much everything that Evulmeh said.

The button that drops the cube at the very beginning should not be in that area. It should be where the cube drops. Also, if the cube gets vaporized, you need to respawn one (or put the button in a reachable area).

The turret crouch jump was annoying. Getting shot in the face over and over was frustrating.

Also, remove the crouch jumping from your next maps, if you don't know of it (it's not common knowledge), then you will get frustrated very quickly.

other than minor things, this map was very very good!

Can't wait for your next one.

Quote:
The turret crouch jump was annoying. Getting shot in the face over and over was frustrating.

You won't get shot in the face at all. You need to use the funnel to knock over the turret.

Quote:
Thursaz - everyone has it's own idea of challenge. that's why it's always nice when people express them selfs. and that's something i like.

I believe I came off the wrong way, and I apologise. I wasn't contesting his opinion so much as explaining my reasons for reporting it as a 'bug'.

Thursaz wrote:
I believe I came off the wrong way, and I apologise. I wasn't contesting his opinion so much as explaining my reasons for reporting it as a 'bug'.

There's really no need to apologise as i didn't find your post offending at all..as i said i like the responses as it helps me find the mistakes i've made.

EDIT: Crouch jumping

Seems like you managed to fix a lot of the bugs! The map is great now, though- there are some weird issues with crouch jumping that I can't seem to pinpoint. I can never make the fling 100% of the time, and even when I'm doing the exact same fling in the exact same way, it only works some of the time.

I just finished T1, if that's what the harder one is called. I would give it 4/5. It was moderately challenging, but having to reset it to get the cube was a tad annoying. Other than that, I enjoyed it. I liked the crouch jumping idea as it's novel and makes all the difference. I look forward to your next maps

That was fixed, I believe- You no longer have to reset to get the cube. (Unless you mean the doors closed as with the other person.)

Thank you i really enjoyed this map. It was challenging without being impossible.

I have to say out of all the custom P2 maps I've played (which is most of them here), this has got to be my absolute favorite. I had to really think about how to get some of the puzzles done. Crouch jumping was a very good idea. Very challenging and enjoyable, 5/5. I'd love to see a sequel.

EvilOttoJr wrote:
I have to say out of all the custom P2 maps I've played (which is most of them here), this has got to be my absolute favorite. I had to really think about how to get some of the puzzles done. Crouch jumping was a very good idea. Very challenging and enjoyable, 5/5. I'd love to see a sequel.

Woow thanks for this comment it just made my morning

I've already got an idea for my next project which is going to require a lot more work and time.
But i might make Part 2 for this map using crouch jumping.

as i said i won't be updating this map anymore so here is a spoiler for those that say you have to restart to get the cube...

1huNTPt74Z0

Awesome map, I agree it's either the best so far or right up there with it.

But I have to weigh in on the "crouch jumping" discussion. I actually thought that it doesn't exist in Portal 2.

Warning, I'm about to try to dissect crouch jumping in Portal 2, it's a little off topic:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but:
A) If you hold crouch and press jump, nothing happens.
and:
B) If you begin to hold crouch in midair you will not pull your legs up into your chest and you will land in a standing position, but will quickly drop into crouch.

In the middle of typing this I did some testing. I'm not quite sure about the results, but I think there's a few methods to achieve something like a crouch jump.

1) If you start up on a high ledge and hold crouch while moving off the edge then Chell will remain crouched until you stop holding the crouch button, even while falling. You can crouch at the very last second before falling to achieve this without losing much time/momentum. This works really well for the last few crouch-necessary jumps in Stylus01.

2) Again start up on a ledge standing and run toward the edge. If you get the distances right you can jump before you reach the edge, hold crouch in midair, and then the objective is to touch the very tip of the ledge before falling over the edge. This makes Chell pull her legs up in a crouch when you hit the tip and gets you a little more momentum than method 1. This method is half theoretical because I think I've done it kinda by accident, but I'm not very good at recreating it when I want to due to the precise nature of judging the jump distance.

3) A good place to try this method is the very first fling on Stylus01. You need to set up the portals in the obvious places and then go through the pair of them twice to get the required momentum to reach the ledge, but you need to be crouched when you get there. In testing I noticed that the only way I could do it was to hold crouch between the two pairs; to clarify: I would first run toward the ground portal, come out of the wall portal and begin falling back toward the ground portal, at this time I'd start to hold crouch, fall through the portals the second time with momentum, and make it onto the ledge still crouching.

If I tried holding crouch before going into the ground portal the first time I wouldn't have the momentum to get back to the ground portal the second time so that's an obvious failure. If I waited until I was through both portals the second time and was flying toward the ledge then Chell would not get in the crouch position at all, and her legs would bump off the wall just below the ledge and she would fall down.

So why does it work when holding crouch while falling back into the ground portal? I believe that when you go through the pair of portals that second time while holding crouch it is the same as Chell touching the ground for a split second. It's not enough ground to actually slow her momentum, but its enough to make her crouch as if she's standing on the ground. Then you proceed through the air still crouched just like you would if you would remain crouched when you fall from a ledge like in method 1. Other theories/proof are welcome.

So the point is: Yes you can fly through the air crouching in Portal 2 maps, but you have to get there in some odd and unintuitive ways and I don't think it can really be called "crouch jumping" anymore.

Sorry about the run-on sentences, did the best I could.

Good puzzles! Never boring. Also informative, I thought crouch jumping was disabled in P2.

It was good but it needs more of avisual appeal. Also, you missed some indicator lights.

It wasn't particularly difficult, it wasn't particularly great either. I'd say better than average...

Adair i agree with you..if i make it short. "crouch jumping" works if you do it at the right moment.

Motanum wrote:
It was good but it needs more of avisual appeal. Also, you missed some indicator lights.
It wasn't particularly difficult, it wasn't particularly great either. I'd say better than average...

Thanks for posting this. probably the most honest response i've got. Really appreciate it!!!

My biggest problem was with the crouching. This technique is never required in Portal 2 and for players who didn't play any of the hardcore Portal 1 maps probably don't "get" why they have to do it. I would really suggest removing that entirely.

I agree with Motanum, some areas were really bland visually. In the actual puzzle rooms it wasn't as bad, but in the interconnecting hallways it was noticeable. I really disliked the drop floor "trap", if only because I didn't even really know what was going on in that room before all of the sudden I'm falling into the next one and being told a really bad joke about something being a lie. If you were trying to transition from one area to the next, you should look into building an elevator room.

I'm mid playthrough, I'll edit this post with my full review once I'm done, but I just wanna ask, Was I supposed to be able to knock down every turret in the first room? I would think so, but something about the level design makes me think that the turrets were meant to be an ever-present obstacle in the first room.

EDIT: I probably could have solved the puzzle without taking out the turrets using some clever thinking. Maybe make a challenge version of the map where you have to do the whole first room under fire . Wait... no.

So far the only problem I've come across is I accidentally got blue paint on my cube, which bounced it off the button, sealing away the door that led to the only water in the level. I chased it around for a few minutes, caught it, sent it through the vaporizer in hopes that a new one would appear, but alas.

In Portal 1, almost all of the doors that separate rooms have an emancipation grid on it, however the same doesn't hold true for P2 custom maps. I personally had a lot of trouble realizing that I could bring the cube from the first room into the second via a portal. I thought I needed to go through the left emancipation grid (the higher one) to get another cube or something. I'm not sure if that's good puzzle design or not. On one hand, it made me think there were more possibilities in the first room and had me stumped for a while, but on the other hand, there's something kinda lame about having a useless grid up there. As far as I know, you can't go into it, and there's nothing in there essential to completing the level. It just seems like a cheap way to make the test more confusing, players tend to anticipate that all of the elements in the map will be used I've heard of designers making more of the walls portal-friendly than necessary so that it's less obvious where to place portals (though when you have gel in a level this doesn't always work), but the grid seems a little much.

The third room all I can tell is it's a little tricky to see that the button on the left pulls down the emancipation grid as well as reversing the funnel direction, but I see you put glass there so I'm guessing you realized this and did the best you can. That's really nitpicking however, the real issues with this room are detailed below.

In the third/final room, it's not really clear whether it's the button (on the right) that's letting you into the door, or if the door just opens when you approach it. The doorway itself is probably small enough that even if there was no door and just an opening, you'd need to be standing at least where the button currently is, if not closer, so it wouldn't really change any elements about the actual puzzle if you just replaced the button door with an opening. Especially considering the fact that at the start of the puzzle, when you solve the first room and get to the room with two gels, the door doesn't open up to let you back in unless the button is pressed.

Finally, that crouch-launching with the turrets at the end was just bad design. Valve never mandates crouch jumping into their maps for good reason. Portal is a puzzle game with action elements. The action derives mostly from reflexes and setting up chain reactions with quick thinking. Not by hitting the ctrl key at the perfect time.

I'm not telling you how "portal is meant to be played", and I doubt I could do any better designing a map, but just look at it from the players view:

"I know what to do, I know how to do it, yet it's really hard." Knowing what to do but not being able to do it is really frustrating in a game like Portal.

Very frustrating. I personally noclipped after failing 10 times. I get that you want to prevent the player from launching themselves and taking out the turret thus removing the excursion funnel puzzle, but there has to be a better way than those shitty crouchjumps.

Make no mistake, your map is still an easy 5/5, maybe 6/5. I'm just saying if you took care of these issues and made the maps flawless, you have a good shot of being included in one of the (hopefully) inevitable FREE PS3/360 DLC packs that Valve is going to release so console gamers can play maps made by the community. Not that most modders/mappers care about the console generation, but it would be pretty cool to have a map in a map pack on consoles.

I'm looking forward to all your maps, the only ones that really come close so far are the lob_sphere_of_roundness and lob_old_faithful, and those are aesthetically completely different chambers. I personally think more people should learn from your designs. For example, , in the second room where you're doing the speedpaint/bouncepaint combo through a Portal, even if you just didn't have the height, it was easy to just run back and try again. Remember consoles don't have quicksave, you should make all your maps with consoles in mind. . However, had you removed the required crouchjump, that wouldn't have even been an issue.

Why am I bringing up all this console optimization Free DLC pack stuff? Because Valve hires from the modding community. Every modder and their dog should be cleaning up their maps for an official release from Valve... you never know where it'll take you.


Really really good work. Make more, and if you ever need a playtester, I think I'm pretty good at giving... comprehensive feedback (looks at shrinking scrollbar)... VERY comprehensive feedback, as you can see .

It's maps like this that make me wanna bust out hammer again...

TL;DR Play this map.

EDIT: I actually liked the trapdoor drop into the final area of the testchamber. There's no reason to separate that with an elevator. I would have had something like Stylus show up instead of the potato text, but that's just me being a whore. I would plaster my name all over this shit.

You could use that trapdoor technique to make a endlessly looping test. Might be funny to see how many times people solved it before realizing. It could be like the Badger video the first time you saw it (or Magical Trevor or Kenya...) "Is it looping?"

Very fun map, loved playing it.

InertiaticESP i'll defenatly contact you when i need a tester for a next map. your feedback is very well written and you're not afraid to point out good and bad things about the map. I appreciate it.

I have to tell you guys that I haven't started on my next map yet. i thought about doing something thats going to require a lot of work and i had it all planed out but then decided to delay that project and maybe polish it before i start with it.

There are few reasons for this. First I don't have a lot of time during the week while I'm at college, since there's always something going on. Secondly, the college year is coming to an end so I'll have to spend some time studying although i'm not the most dedicated student i still wish to finish the year successfully.

But when i do have some time just for myself i'll try to get some ideas on paper. probably make some more maps like this one as far as length and difficulty goes


Anyway thanks for commenting

+1 to InertiaticESP's and Adair's well thought out criticism. We always appreciate people who are willing to give this sort of high quality responses to maps!

InertiaticESP wrote:
So far the only problem I've come across is I accidentally got blue paint on my cube, which bounced it off the button, sealing away the door that led to the only water in the level.

This same thing happened to me. That would have been the second time I got stuck (or at least thought I was) in that level, the first being when the turrets killed me, I restarted, and forgot to hit the "give me a cube" button before crossing over. Reading back in the thread I see that it's possible to get back to the start area, but I definitely didn't notice that. Making that more obvious would have fixed both problems.

The combination of those two things were annoying enough that I quit and went to another map. I'll go back to it, because I really did like it otherwise, but that was not the good kind of frustrating.

3rd favorite map from the community right now. Very clever use of mechanics. I had to noclip in the second puzzle because I thought the light bridge was necessary due to the decal on the wall but that's just me. I did however have time to run through and get the cube into a portal to come out the ceiling before the ceiling flipped back over on the first part. I hope you leave that in because it felt fun and creative (I actually found the bounce trick and still stubbornly ran through trying again lol)

Great map. I hope we see more like this in the future.

Excellent map!! And thanks for reminding me that crouching when in the air can make you jump further. There're actually two or three places that need crouching-jump to get through. An easy but practical skill. And in the last chamber, you needn't jump over to kill the turret, all you have to do is portal the funnel through it. A great map in my opinion. I'm looking forward to more splendid maps!!

I started playing custom maps and record me playing them. It's neither a perfect run nor do I have to have solved the map in the way it's meant to solve it. I play the maps "blind", that means I've never been in them before and play them for the very first time. I also give a little feedback for the map in the video description.

Maybe you are interested in the fact, that I played your map: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u42mlkk4SdM

Great map!

I didn't have too much trouble with the crouch jumping but it was a little annoying at times.

There's two glitchy things. One, the room with the poison water, when you first enter it, its possible for the far wall not to turn white which obviously makes it unsolvable and you have to reload.

Also, near the light bridge where there's a button that switches the light bridge and also deactivates the emancipation grid, that's confusing and the grid looks strange. And the button to open the door is kind of weird.

Besides that, I had a lot of fun.

peterius wrote:
Also, near the light bridge where there's a button that switches the light bridge and also deactivates the emancipation grid, that's confusing and the grid looks strange. And the button to open the door is kind of weird.

Besides that, I had a lot of fun.

i think you've mistaken my map with some else because this isn't a part of my puzzle.

Stylus wrote:
peterius wrote:

Also, near the light bridge where there's a button that switches the light bridge and also deactivates the emancipation grid, that's confusing and the grid looks strange. And the button to open the door is kind of weird.

Besides that, I had a lot of fun.

i think you've mistaken my map with some else because this isn't a part of my puzzle.

Its right after you fall through the trap hole in the floor by the posterboard, and there's a room with a light bridge and then two buttons? One right in front of the door? Its not a big deal, it just looks a little off.

I very much liked the map. I thought the second and third puzzles were the best. a bit too much firepower on the first map though. Perhaps setting the turrets to not push you when you get fired at would help.

I enjoyed playing your map, not in spite of, but because it taught me to jump-crouch. (The crouch-jump is actually a different technique that worked in P1 but doesn't in P2.)
Because I play with a controller (I play on both PC and PS3, and my media center PC doesn't even have a mouse) it's a bit more difficult, but still possible.

I would tweak the gel placement part, because I tried and failed many times using the technique that eventually worked. The main problem was that if the repulsion gel was close to the wall, I'd whack the ceiling. It was a bit frustrating to get the repulsion gel only at the edge.

The level looked good, took a bit of thinking to solve, and taught me a new (to me) technique. A solid 4/5 from me.