The Hard Way
by Thornscrup · Uploaded Feb 25, 2012
File Size: 6.99 MB
Downloads: 747
Rating: (11 votes)
Description
Crushers! Laserfields! Deadly pits! So many ways to die with style and dignity! And very vicious, crooked puzzles, for awesome players only. [V2.0] No more shortcuts, I hope. Only one way left, the hard one! [V 2.3] Others unexpected solution deleted. I hope they were the last ones... Special thanks to greykarel, lifeson99 and a2912871!
Comments
Sign in to comment.
I put the bsp in my portal 2 maps folder and the console is not recognizing it saying the map load has failed. Can you help. I'd like to play. Thanks!
Oh that's weird...
I'm not sure I can help you. That's my first map so it's very possible I made a mistake while uploading or compiling it.
Still I just tried and downloaded it myself and it seems to work just fine...
I'm really sorry it doesn't for you! All I can do is wait for somebody else to download it and see if there's still a problem. If so, I'll call for help!
So, patience...and thanks for downloading!
OnePortalizedGal wrote:
I put the bsp in my portal 2 maps folder and the console is not recognizing it saying the map load has failed. Can you help. I'd like to play. Thanks!
Needs to be renamed by author with underscores between words. ie: The_Hard_way.bsp or TheHardWay.bsp I don't think consoles like spaces...
Works fine on my Mac, just stick at the moment trying to figure out where to go..
Have redirect cube.. went down and placed.. and? no direction. don't know where to go now???
everything else so far seems great. very nice mapping
Ok, at the end now.. I think.. nice so far.. except.. if you get in the funnel without the reidrection cube you're fucked.. need a way back or cannot leave without, but major setback.. good thing I save a lot..
Works fine on my pc. But the missing underscores could be the problem here.
Anyhow, I got both cubes, placed them were they have to be, so I have to go "this way up ^^". I was able to jump over there, but I don't know how to get this far up. Blue gel doesn't seem to work, neither does flinging do. Great map so far, even though it is indeed a bit tough. 
There seems to be quite a bit of mis-aligned textures (http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/45284 ... 962556800/ etc)
The 2 buttons in the second room are hovering above the floor. (http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/45284 ... 2BBB7D6C2/)
Okay. There's already things to fix. Just in the second room. Okay.
Hum.
I feel I'm gonna have a lot of work to improve it...Thanks for the report!
ok, quitting for now until bugs are fixed, but nice mapping so far for a first effort... Ideas I have never seen, good mechanics.. just needs refining and thinking sideways like playtesters.. 
Damn! In the double-crusher room, the front wall appears dark, although it's portalable! Sorry!
http://imgur.com/Ura2W
V2 will rock, I swear!
If your going to do some fixing anyway please rename the file so those that can't download and play it will be able to. Thanks! Look forward to playing it.
OnePortalizedGal wrote:
If your going to do some fixing anyway please rename the file so those that can't download and play it will be able to. Thanks! Look forward to playing it.
You can rename the .bsp yourself for now. Although it worked anyways here.
Thornscrup wrote:
Damn! In the double-crusher room, the front wall appears dark, although it's portalable! Sorry!
Mmmhm, I had almost given up before I found that.
Steam valve games have never ever used spaces in the names If you rename it its possible to break things that it was compiled with.Just recompile with a proper name
Here's a tiny improvement with version 1.1.
Just fixed the file name, the problem with the button and the dark wall.
I'll re-work the texturing on next version. But that's for later.
Thanks everybody!
Thornscrup, here's a video of the first part showing some flaws and shortcuts:
The second part was cool, I just stock piled the parts of the floor on top of the companion cubes. You can also skip the entire underground puzzle by grabbing a piece before it falls down.
ksr76HjdO8c
Hi, I installed and played the map but the thing is that I never had level with the gel and all that. I just had two chambers, the first with the cube near the roof and then after a fizzler the chamber where the black floor colapses. That's it, after that when the door was open, I took the elevator and the map ended. Is this[spoiler] supposed to happen??
Fun map. Took me almost exactly two hours. Some parts demanded quite a bit of careful execution so the quicksave feature got a lot of use. Also, for a long time, I couldn't figure out what the laser catcher below the redirection cube dropper was for - I expected that it would turn on the tractor beam and was thrown off by there not being any sort of indicator at all. Other than that, the map was quite good - 4/5 from me - and if made less use of the F7 key it would be one of my favorites.
Alright, I finally made it (without the spoilers). After I found the button to activate the funnel, everything went well and was rather easy (because you don't need the funnel to get enough gel into the corridor in front of the pit). If you fix or have already fixed those issues, this map would be more than awesome. I really liked this map. Kept me busy for over 90 minutes but didn't get frustrating at any time. Great work.
Thanks to all of you, I can see now there's a lot of big problems in my map that make it a lot easier than I wanted it to be.
I'll fix that and also clean the textures and light a little bit.
Version 2.0 should be on line next week, I'm kind of busy right now. Exams!
I apologize for disabling the download! Thanks a lot for the reports!
a2912871 wrote:
Thornscrup, here's a video of the first part showing some flaws and shortcuts:
Wow! Thanks a lot. This is far more easy that I wanted. I'm gonna have some work to do...
I really loved playing this map and am giving it a FULL review. How ingenious - to have the player get all frustrated . . . then force them to take this fantastic long voyage through the underworld - only to have them return to the very spot where they were racking their brains out !! Man, you really are indeed a Genius.
a2912871's solution was good - but he missed the fun part with the lasers room and traveling across the death beams, and missed the room at the far end of the crushers. (the very act of getting to that room and back again was new and unique), and missed the wild ending.
I realize yoiu have pulled the Map to fix those shortcuts . . . well, no matter what you do to prevent them, I am afraid that people will keep finding more. Anyway here is my solution to the ending. I could not get the cube orientated correctly due to the narrowness of the walkway - so I used the board:
Screenshot-14.jpg
The main goal in the underworld was quite a challenge. You had to get both cubes, plus the both gels spread out properly, AND have the funnel available too. Getting ALL of those things to the final area was a huge challenge. It involved going all the way back through - which normally I hate - but in this map it was so fun that I "wanted" to have to go back to get more stuff.
BUT . . . some parts I could ONLY play if I set "mat_fullbright 1". The lighting was frustratingly dark. Darkness has a great, eery feeling but only if you can clearly see what you need to see. Also there was so many cool areas to see - why hide it ? What a shame to cast those areas in pitch black. So I just lit it all up as needed.
Once I got the lighting so I could see . . . I must say, that this is one of the most hell-bent, rollicking, roller-coaster rides that I have been on with Portal. It was a facinating wonderland where you never know what is around the next turn. And it goes ON and ON and ON. All the while I was thinking of the Title and realizing that Yes - the Title says it ALL.
It also made me wonder if I was missing the Easy way Out.
After getting stuck in the 3-cube single-laser room for a while - I thought all I needed was another cube or a good idea to finish it up. Then finally out of desperation I went down into the hell-hole . . . . hours later I emerged . . . . bloodshot eyes, dizzy, permanent butt-cheek indentations in my chair, fingers that had to be pried off the mouse . . . you know.
True it needs work, is unprofessional, too dark, disjointed, etc etc etc.
But I don't care - it is a BLAST !!
More of this - please - make more !!
Now I am really blushing...Thank you, mate!
I'm really happy that you seem to have found the solution I was thinking about! I'd like to make it as much as possible the only one, but that's gonna be tough!
Damn, you even found the thing with the three cubes and a laser. I am delighted! I think I understand why Wheatley feels so good when he tests...that's also quite frightening :p.
Just make my day one last time: can you please tell me how you went across the two laserfields? That's another one I'm quite proud about, and I want to be sure you didn't "missed" it!
And don't worry, I've got plenty of others ideas I can barely wait to submit to you! I just need to fix this one first.
Thank you very very much and well done! You're the genius!
Yes, well if you stand there and look at the two kill-beam fields, one is on the left and one on the right. I will call the one on the left Field 1 and the one on the right Field 2. After trial and error I found that I needed to deactivate Field 2 (the one on the right). I turned around and entered the room behind me with the two lasers. I used the reflector cube to block the laser that turns off Field 2 and walked back out. Shot blue portal into the panel in other room (the end of the funnel). Turned around and shot Orange portal into the bottom, angled panel. That moved me upwards so I could then re-shoot Orange portal into the top panel and funnel across the activated death beams. Walked back across deactivated field.
Apparently you do not HAVE TO do this traversal of the two fields - but it would be cool to force players to do that. I look forward to playing v2.
Oh maan. Thanks a lot. Really. I totally screwed this up. The solution I had in mind is way, way funnier. I'll fix that up, if I can...
On the one hand the map is made badly (not to say awful), but on the other the puzzle is quite good
(though too messy to my taste).I like most the triple jump over duble crasher.
It is posible to beat the map not going down as a2912871's screanshots shown above or my way
So you have interesting ideas for puzzle, just improve your mapping and test more for unintended solutions.
I'll be waiting for next version and new maps of you.
It's still posible to beat the map not going down the way I shown above.
Now I'm going down.
greykarel wrote:
It's still posible to beat the map not going down the way I shown above.
Now I'm going down.
Oh sorry, I didn't notice the "show" button on your message. Now I see what you did, but come on. The cube on the turret? You're really a twisted mind (congratulations by the way) !
I'll try to fix it. Let me know how it's going on down there, ok?
Thank you!
P.S: now it's fixed.
a2912871 wrote:
Yes and there are still a couple more exploits to be fixed.
Excuse me but what do you mean by "exploits"? Did you find shortcuts again?
Thornscrup wrote:
a2912871 wrote:Yes and there are still a couple more exploits to be fixed.
Excuse me but what do you mean by "exploits"? Did you find shortcuts again?
Nothing major but there might be more for sure, didn't test much.
It was possible before but you can skip the rising platform and get to the other room by shooting a portal on the ground and the other on panel pointing down, you should land on some edge and from there you can shoot a portal in the other room:
You still can spread speed gel on the laser room floor and make one big jump, saving time.
Good point with the edge thing. In fact, I don't know how we can stand on here, because there ain't no real edge. I thing it's some kind of collision bug. I have to fix it.
On the other hand, I don't see the problem with the laser room. It might save time, but it doesn't solve the big problem of the room, does it?
Thanks for your advice anyway. You're really good at this.
Well, I did it. Very impressive. Much going around and back.I'll make a video latter.
Great! Thanks you very much, I'm looking forward to see the video. Just to be sure, you know.
Wow. WOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now this is my kinda map.
Why isn't anyone else making these ? Well, the SP_Ka_Maps guy is close - his first map was sort of delightfully twisted but in need of work. He is the Andy Worhol of Portal and you are the Edgar Allen Poe - because I felt like I was in the Pit without a Pendulum.
The triple-bounce with those crushers hot on my ass ! Sheesh, what a rush
I did not try this, but in the 3-cube room there was a black board in the wall with laser on it. No one would ever guess - until you find out at the end of your journey.
I wonder if I could have simply pulled it off the wall and used itto avoid the hard way.
Epic, dude.
lifeson99 wrote:
Now this is my kinda map.
Wow WOW thanks!
It's good to hear you found the map original. I'm quite new here so I was afraid some things in it may have been already done!
The double crusher thing is also my favourite part. I think you need to have rythm to beat it! I wanted to do something close to good old platform games, like a Rayman-Portal mix. I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Can I just ask you one thing: how did you get through the double laserfield room? It's another part I care a lot about, and I'm not sure yet my solution is the only one.
Thanks a lot!
The double crusher is an easy walk comparing to what I felt getting through the double laserfield room.
Now here is the promised video.To make it shorter I've cut out some repeated moves with delivering gels
to the room with the slime pit as it all the same (there's a text insertion instead).
eQotWPJ7i7s
P.S. About map design quality again. Next time you make such an awesome puzzle try to do your best
to design it proper way. If you can't or just lazy cooperate with someone who is good at mapping.
Nicely done greykarel! You didn't do exactly what I expected with the cube and the rising platform. I'm just doing one more fix to force player to do it differently. Don't take it wrong, I sware my solution is more fun!
And you also placed the board a way I didn't think of. But I won't touch that, because I found your solution very elegant!
And you're right, the design quality is crap. But...this is my first map, it's quite big, and there's a lot of more important gameplay issues that needed to be dealed with, so please excuse me. I'll do my best on the next one!
Yes - the board trick is the fastest way(if you knew about it when you first entered the room) .
Here is just that small segment - leaving out the getting of all 3 cubes and the "cube on the board" ending.
kNdXCtBFZtU
Heeey that's not fair the board brush is supposed to be motion-disabled until you pass all the "hard way".
Oh, what the hell. I'm done with this map.
"Test subject, if you don't wanna do the hard way, go ahead and be a sissy!" That's the map's new catchphrase!
Thanks for your help mate!
Haha - got ya.
I actually no-clipped through the board and back into the room just before recoding that video clip. LOL - I was hoping you would be like . . . what the hell is going on ? ! ! ?
Oh, lol, there is more than those two rooms! I had finished it the same way a2912871 did and thought it was correct. I never noticed that way towards all the underground stuff. Obviously I should set my gamma higher...
Okay, finished now. I've attached a screenshot - is that the intended and "more fun" solution? Edit: Screenshot removed to avoid spoiling the correct solution.
I loved the idea of the collapse of the clean map, making the player explore the dark, rusty undergrounds behind the clean walls! Also, the puzzles are nicely difficult for more experienced players. However, I had to look at the other's walkthroughs more than once to finish - because several things were just too hard to see for me in the dark.
As I said, it started with the entry to the underworld already. I just couldn't see that small vent and kept restarting the map, assuming I was supposed to have one portal up in the starting room to get out of the hole. Maybe a flickering strobe light inside the vent could help here?
For some reason I didn't realize that the room with the laser cube button is directly below the normal cube dispenser. I was happy enough that I found the way to get to the faith plate, I didn't even think about looking around in that narrow area that much. I would suggest to remove that edge at the upper wall of the fling area to make the jump to the faith plate more easy, so that it becomes no problem for the player to jump there more often and look around. Also, I think it would be no problem to make the whole laser cube button room portal-able to make this more obvious.
I loved the two jump puzzles, very nice idea!
In the hallway at the end of the underground, it wasn't necessary to cover the whole hallway in orange. It's enough if only the last part is half-blue and half-orange. The jump is a bit risky, but it works. This area is an example for my problems with the light: I couldn't see that I was able to place a portal under that grid on the ground. I have been clicking a bit to see if a portal would be placed, but obviously I missed the portal-able area. Instead, I thought I was trapped and that I'd have to get gel, cubes and myself there at the same time. I would suggest another flickering light there to make this way out more obvious.
If my solution with the wall tile is correct, then this was a bit inconsequent for me. While stacking up all the other tiles from the collapse is not correct, now the use of a single tile is correct?
All in all, I had a lot of fun. The general idea was great and the jump puzzles were unique to me. 5/5 from me.
Thanks for your very complete rewiew! I'm afraid I'm too lasy to change anything on this map anymore because I've got a lot to do with the new one I'm working on. But I'll keep what you said on this map in mind while I'm making the other one!
Plus, I made the Hard Way quite randomly, I mean, this wasn't supposed to be so large but ideas popped in the way and I just glued them together! That's why it's so Frankenstein-ish in the end and a real pain in the ass to fix.
I'll make it up to you on the next map, swear.
That's understandable imho - but pleeeeaaaaase tell us what the intended solution for the exit door is now. :>
zivi7 if you're talking about the very last door, the solution you show in your last picture is actually the intended solution.
Crushers! Laserfields! Deadly pits!
So many ways to die with style and dignity!
And very vicious, crooked puzzles, for awesome players only.
[V2.0] No more shortcuts, I hope. Only one way left, the hard one!
[V 2.3] Others unexpected solution deleted. I hope they were the last ones...
Special thanks to greykarel, lifeson99 and a2912871!
File Name: sp_TheHardWay_2.3.rar
File Size: 6.99 MiB
Click here to download The Hard Way