BoxyTrixy! *work in progress

DOWNLOAD:http://www.sahv.com/prtl/BoxyTrixyBeta2.bmz
If you download this, you are morally obligated to leave feedback here.
If you don't want to leave feedback here, then just wait for the finished version! Thanks

UPDATED: The cube funnel doesn't get jammed anymore. And even if it does, the jammed cube will disappear and the next cube will drop.

Extract 3 tricky boxes to escape.
Average completion time: 7min (once you've figured it all out)

There aren't any new devices, but it is full of puzzles that challenge you to use familiar items in new ways. This is not a reflex-twitch map. There are no double flings. This chamber is for those who like to solve puzzles. I'm making it because--let's face it--Portal is too short. So I hope that when this level is finished, it can satisfy you with more good ol' Portal fun.

Screenshots:
http://www.sahv.com/prtl/boxytrixybeta1.jpg
http://www.sahv.com/prtl/boxytrixybeta2.jpg
http://www.sahv.com/prtl/boxytrixybeta3.jpg

This is NOT finished, so I'd appreciate your feedback!
Tell me if you find a ninja solution, etc...
I would especially like to see your first-runs and solutions posted on YouTube.

I still have to:
1) Add auto-saves, music, and metal boxes sticking out from the metal walls.
2) Find the right sound file for the pneumatic lift.
3) Make the moving platforms look more like the originals.

HOW TO INSTALL
1) Download from the link above
2) In Portal, choose "Bonus Maps"
3) Click "Import Bonus Maps..."
4) Navigate to wherever you saved "BoxyTrixyBeta.bmz", and open it.

How to uninstall:
1) Go to "C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\<your-account-name>\portal\portal\maps"
2) Erase the "BoxyTrixyBeta" folder

Ok, first let me say this map was very, very good. However, it contains one major flaw you need to fix ASAP.

THIS:

The cubes get stuck in the funnel about 70% of the time, and since you cant do anything else but load an old save after that, it is very annoying. This should be your first priority when you'll start fixing the map. Also, in the very same room, if you get on the pillars slightly above the goo, you're stuck there forever. Make a little portable section on the upside part to fix this.

And thats all for now... cant think of anything else wrong atm.
Ah, let me add that the last puzzle was really clever-I've been scratching my head for about 3 minutes before I figured that out, and believe me, that's a lot of time. Props to you!!

Thanks for the good info!

I have to say I'm disappointed that the box is getting stuck in there for you. It used to get stuck for me too until I tweaked it. Now it never gets stuck for me. That's odd.

I'll make an update where the box gets fizzled if it is still in the funnel 2 seconds after falling from the dispenser. That should clear it up. I'll post that revision tomorrow.

Kiavik wrote:
Ok, first let me say this map was very, very good. However, it contains one major flaw you need to fix ASAP.

THIS:

The cubes get stuck in the funnel about 70% of the time, and since you cant do anything else but load an old save after that, it is very annoying. This should be your first priority when you'll start fixing the map. Also, in the very same room, if you get on the pillars slightly above the goo, you're stuck there forever. Make a little portable section on the upside part to fix this.

And thats all for now... cant think of anything else wrong atm.
Ah, let me add that the last puzzle was really clever-I've been scratching my head for about 3 minutes before I figured that out, and believe me, that's a lot of time. Props to you!!

i would firstly like to say. yeah the box got stuck for me. ALOT. to much.

but onto the rest. in test #1: i bounced the cube off of the top of the piller using an energy ball.. is that the proposed solution?

and i REALLY LOVED test #2, it was really easy, and understood instantly the best way to solve it. however. i still found it really fun, and inventive. never seen anything ~exactly~ like this before. so props.

and test #3 funny thing about that is the ball catcher i knew exactly what needed to be done before i even had a cube but i wasn't sure how to get the energy ball in position until i remembered that damn x on the opposing wall. lol i was trying alot of different ways before i accidently set a portal i was using to get the energy ball into that room. and had to back and reset it. then saw the X and was like ~damn it~ lol so very nice. and the end of test #3 i really liked the idea of flying the cube. and quickly having to run through and grab it. very cool, i have a similiar idea for a puzzle element in on of the maps i was ~working~ on. but different enough i suppose that if i ever do release something. it won't feel "ripped off"

and the "last" true puzzle was very cool having to break the glass in the VERY FIRST tunnel you use. way to bring the map ~full circle~ forcing the player to backtrack to the beginning to see the solution, of coarse once you know thats the solution you don't have to do that. but by then who cares. you DO have to the first time very nice

I'm writing this as I'm playing, and I must say that so far this map has been very well constructed and challenging. At first I thought it may have had some design flaws, but then I realized I was just doing it wrong.

One minor complaint about the second room is that players typically hate having to fling while holding a cube. You might want to change it so that the player doesn't have to fling while holding the cube to get it to the middle button.
One thing I liked about the second room is how you have the box dropper right next to the first floor button, so that the player is able to see what the buttons do right away, and get a sense of how to retrieve that room's cube.

One thing that I discovered, and I don't imagine any rational player doing this, but in the third room after you activate the mobile platform, you can lose one of your cubes forever by carrying it on the platform through the fizzler into the next room with you.

As was mentioned in previous posts, often cubes would get stuck in the funnel in the third room for me. It didn't happen every time though, and sometimes several would go through in a row with no problems, but it did happen often enough to become irritating.
Unfortunately I didn't realize how I was supposed to get the cube until I read rellkipd's post. I was worried about it getting stuck, so I managed to stop it on the second pillar in the goo pit and then spent forever trying to figure out how to get it up to my level.

Also, now that I have all three cubes, I'm totally stumped as to how to get through the final door. I can see the rocket turret's laser, and I tried getting it to shoot me through the glass floor above the door, but the angle is such that I can never position myself so that it can see me. I really have no clue what to do..

UPDATED
Thanks for the feedback. The jamming cube funnel doesn't jam anymore, and I've made it so the cube fizzles away if it does jam.

You can download the new version at the top of this thread.

I realized that it was jamming only after loading a saved game. So if you started the level fresh and went through it without loading a quick save (which is what I was doing), there would be no jamming problem. Once you do a quick load, the jamming problem started. I wonder why that would happen.

Anyway, I think that's fixed now.**

Ralen wrote:
I'm writing this as I'm playing, and I must say that so far this map has been very well constructed and challenging. At first I thought it may have had some design flaws, but then I realized I was just doing it wrong.

One minor complaint about the second room is that
~(1)players typically hate having to fling while holding a cube. You might want to change it so that the player doesn't have to fling while holding the cube to get it to the middle button.
One thing I liked about the second room is how you have the box dropper right next to the first floor button, so that the player is able to see what the buttons do right away, and get a sense of how to retrieve that room's cube.

~(2)One thing that I discovered, and I don't imagine any rational player doing this, but in the third room after you activate the mobile platform, you can lose one of your cubes forever by carrying it on the platform through the fizzler into the next room with you.

As was mentioned in previous posts, often cubes would get stuck in the funnel in the third room for me. It didn't happen every time though, and sometimes several would go through in a row with no problems, but it did happen often enough to become irritating.
Unfortunately I didn't realize how I was supposed to get the cube until I read rellkipd's post. I was worried about it getting stuck, so I managed to stop it on the second pillar in the goo pit and then spent forever trying to figure out how to get it up to my level.

~(3)Also, now that I have all three cubes, I'm totally stumped as to how to get through the final door. I can see the rocket turret's laser, and I tried getting it to shoot me through the glass floor above the door, but the angle is such that I can never position myself so that it can see me. I really have no clue what to do..

1) You don't have to fling while holding the cube, you can just put one portal on the angled floor, another on the floor at the bottom of the pit, and just drop your cube, it should land right on the button, and if it doesn't land perfectly (like mine did) you can then just jump through said portal and fix it, cuz i too hate flinging while holding a cube
2)i almost did this too. cuz i typically try to keep atleast 1 cube with me at all times (in most custom maps, incase said mapper will require it) i've seen MANY maps that require a cube WAY later in the map. but with no indication of needing it, i had said cube on the platform with me, but once i saw the fizzler i went ahead and left it on the platform
3) think with portals.

rellikpd, ditto 1), 2), and 3).

Ralen wrote:
At first I thought it may have had some design flaws, but then I realized I was just doing it wrong.

One minor complaint about the second room is that players typically hate having to fling while holding a cube. You might want to change it so that the player doesn't have to fling while holding the cube to get it to the middle button.

Ralen, thanks for your input. Funny that your minor complaint came right after you said "then I realized I was just doing it wrong"

Kiavik wrote:
Also, in the very same room, if you get on the pillars slightly above the goo, you're stuck there forever. Make a little portable section on the upside part to fix this.

Thanks for the input! Making a little portable section at the top would take the challenge out of this puzzle. I don't want the player falling down there at all. So I've moved the other platform out of reach, thanks to your input.

Okay, I figured out the final puzzle, but only because the rocket turret just randomly happened to shine its laser through the door while the door was open. Up until that point I had caught glimpses of it shining across the inside of the locked room while I had the door open, but in all that time it had never shined the laser out the door where I could see it in the button room (or where it could potentially get a lock on me).

Also, on the second room I never used the angled surface to fling when I played the map, I just placed a portal on the floor and flung vertically to reach the upper button.

ok, i made some practice through the map and i'm quite sure i can run that in less than 5 minutes.

Today i'm fucking wasted.. but i'll make a video soon :]

infernet89 wrote:
i'll make a video soon :]

Looking forward to that.

A FEW QUESTIONS FOR YOU ALL

(1) Ralen and rellikpd, you're right about being able to mess up the level by carrying a cube up the moving platform to the fizzler in Room 3. I designed that moving platform room to separate the player from his cubes. Any ideas about what I could change to fix this problem?

(2) You can also screw up the level in Room 2 by dropping the 1st cube into the goo before you extract the 2nd cube. That would be really hard to do. You'd basically have to do it on purpose, but it's still possible. Do you think this needs to be fixed, too? Or is it fine as is?

(3) For the power lifts in Portal, what are the filenames of the sounds used for starting, moving, and stopping? Right now the lift in Room 1 just makes a generic door opening sound. EDIT: Nevermind, I found them. They're not labeled as Portal sounds so I had to decompile a map to find what they were.

Again thanks for the feedback!

My recommendation for solving the cube problem would be to have the cube dispenser in room 2 queue up a new cube every time an old one is destroyed. That way the player can always obtain a new one if he needs to, but still can't obtain more than 3. Although I don't know if you could tell the dispenser in room 2 to distinguish between the first two cubes being destroyed versus the cubes from the third room being destroyed (which happens frequently until the player figures out how to obtain the third cube).
I'm not sure about losing the first cube in the goo in the second room though.

An alternative would be to do a half-life style ending where when one of the first two cubes is destroyed, the map ends with a "Subject failed to utilize essential test equipment" message or something.

Which reminds me, you should include some auto-saves in your map.

That's a good idea. I was thinking about including an extra box dispenser in the main button room to take care of lost cubes, but I like the idea of putting a cube back in Room 2, like a penalty for being stupid enough to throw your hard-earned cube into a fizzler. I think I can distinguish Cubes 1&2 from Cube 3 by making that fizzler into 2 fizzlers (an outer fizzler that triggers Room 2 dispenser, and an inner fizzler that triggers Room 3 dispenser). But I would make it look like just 1 fizzler.

For the "Cube 1 in Room 2 goo" problem, I don't know how I'd distinguish Cube 1 and Cube 2, so it might just have to stay as is.

Ralen wrote:
you should include some auto-saves in your map.

Yep that's in my "I still have to..." section in the top post of this thread.

Glovis wrote:
Looking forward to that.

A FEW QUESTIONS FOR YOU ALL

(1) Ralen and rellikpd, you're right about being able to mess up the level by carrying a cube up the moving platform to the fizzler in Room 3. I designed that moving platform room to separate the player from his cubes. Any ideas about what I could change to fix this problem?

(2) You can also screw up the level in Room 2 by dropping the 1st cube into the goo before you extract the 2nd cube. That would be really hard to do. You'd basically have to do it on purpose, but it's still possible. Do you think this needs to be fixed, too? Or is it fine as is?

(3) For the power lifts in Portal, what are the filenames of the sounds used for starting, moving, and stopping? Right now the lift in Room 1 just makes a generic door opening sound. EDIT: Nevermind, I found them. They're not labeled as Portal sounds so I had to decompile a map to find what they were.

Again thanks for the feedback!

well let me respond to (2) first and say that in MY OPINION yes, they need to be fixed, because i believe that all maps (that are widely distributed) should be designed like the retail maps; in that (pretty much) all possible outcomes were tested and planned for. lets face it, players do some pretty stupid stuff sometimes, and they will find a way to break maps, most of the time on accident.

now as far as ways to fix this. you could place alot of test triggers to find out how many and which boxes the player has gotten, destroyed, or yet to attain and put a cube dispenser (probly in the 4 button room) that would dispense a cube whenever a cube that has already been attained is destroyed, OR something i didn't even think about was ralen's idea of ending the map with a message whenever "vital testing aperatus" is destroyed. your choice. but i think that (although a REALLY COOL IDEA) this might piss people off. the cube dispenser might be harder but would feel more right.

edit: jinx on the main button room dispenser idea
EDIT #2: Also to answer #1 you could fix this by designing the cube redistrubution or level ending thing, OR the quick and dirty way is you could put a clip somewhere along that moving platform that just simply wouldn't allow "those" cubes to travel on it/through it like an invisible brick wall that only affects those non-room 3 cubes. either solution would work. but if you just the quick and dirty you might want to consider some way to explain WHY those cubes can't travel with you. either a fizzler field that doesn't destroy the cubes but rather won't allow them to pass (basically just put all the fizzler stuff in there without the fizzler trigger, instead use a func_clip

I've promised that.

http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=kpGO3HsUPq4

Final time is around 2 minutes and 40 seconds.

Holy crap.

You basically skipped all of Room 1. And there's nothing I can change to prevent that (I think (any ideas?)).

I'm trying to figure out how you got the energy ball into the Room 3 catcher without using a box. I'm going to have to fix that.

You did Room 2 basically like I intended, although you may be able to shave some seconds off your time if you just drop the box down the shaft and let it fly to the button on its own instead of going down through the portal with it. Or maybe that doesn't save time, I don't know.

You skipped the Room 3a puzzle by flinging instead of using boxes. Maybe I'll fix that.

You skipped 2 of the 3 steps in Room 3b. I'll leave that as an acceptable solution.

And you did the rocket turret puzzle exactly like I intended (though using the camera as a shield was an interesting touch.

Seeing how you solved the level is very valuable info. Thanks for finding the weak links!

Glovis wrote:
You basically skipped all of Room 1. And there's nothing I can change to prevent that (I think (any ideas?)).

Make the ceiling in the main room non-portalable, except for the part over the glass floor. This also prevents the circumvention of room 3a.

Glovis wrote:

I'm trying to figure out how you got the energy ball into the Room 3 catcher without using a box. I'm going to have to fix that.[/spoiler]

I'm wondering that too. It looks like he did it the regular way, just without putting the angled box in place, so I'm not sure how the ball was able to enter the catcher.

Glovis wrote:
Holy crap.

I'm trying to figure out how you got the energy ball into the Room 3 catcher without using a box. I'm going to have to fix that.

Oh, it's more easy than u can think.

First, put the blue portal more higher than possible, like that:

http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/747/ ... 004la4.jpg

Then, put the orange one lower than possible:

http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/2426 ... 006ze5.jpg

As you can see, the ball will go in the catcher by himself

infernet89 wrote:

i've said it once, and i'll say it again, infernet is an asshole when it comes to running people's (who think they've thought of everything) maps.

love your speed runs man.

Ralen wrote:
Make the ceiling in the main room non-portalable, except for the part over the glass floor. This also prevents the circumvention of room 3a.

But you could still use the fling space leading to Room 2, where the neon stairs are.

I was also trying to figure out how infernet extracted the energy ball for Room 3 ball catcher so easily, and I noticed he used a shady trick. He fired a blue portal, but went into the old blue portal before it had time to change, in effect giving him 3 portals to work with instead of 2! No fair. I had to watch that part of the video like 6 times to finally catch what he did.