Connect the dots and feel the power. This test is made possible by Aperture's newest innovation, the Super-Conductive Hyper-Proximal Heavy-Duty Ultra-Cube.

This is a three-part map revolving around redirecting indicator strip signals with cubes. This was originally a 4-part map but it became too large to compile, much less upload. If the concept is well-received, I may release more parts.
Due to the large size of the map, it may not run well on older computers. Sorry :/

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Special thanks to Vordwann, Nacimota, Mevious, ChickenMobile, zivi7, BEARD, msleeper, and all the other people on IRC the past few days for helping me chase down an elusive vbsp bug; Vordwann again for a no-leak light instance and moral support; Brainstone for the elevator instance and the TWP poster found in the office connecting area; simharry3, maark59, and blackdiamond377 for playtesting; msleeper again for hosting the contest; and all the other people on the TWP forums.

Visit http://wrathofmobius.com/ for more.

Walkthrough may be posted soon.

supercontest2012 wrathofmobius

Click here to download [SP] Mho' Power

Click here to download [SP] Mho' Power

Heh, reading the description I thought playing with the indicator lights would be a bit tedious, but you've done a really nice job of it, and it works well It took a wee while to get used to, but when the map opened up it got really cool. Nice ending btw, I raged for a minute. Thanks!

This is a really good idea, and the puzzles were well built. However - the lighting seemed a bit weird which made the bts puzzle harder than it should be. (I aimlessly wondered the two 'chambers' for 5 minutes until I saw the portable surface near the door...) And this happened when I was stuck in the observation room desperately trying to find a portable surface in the test chamber.
One more thing, I also playeded your map with mat_wireframe on and my computer was rendering the whole map, even parts behind sealed doors. You might want to give it an optimization pass if you want more people to enjoy this map.
Oh and last, but not least, in the third chamber I had accidentally missed the chance to capture the cube with the funnel, and I had to wait for the timer to go off to try again. I suggest you either make the cube a separate button, or make it auto spwan.

Nice work!

This is my playthrough of this map. In order to not influence the opinion of anyone, I won't say what I think about this map yet. Have fun watching the video and get your own opinion about the map for now

DsVFc-YM04E
(Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsVFc-YM04E)

Nice puzzles, but I agree with Kiwi about both the lighting and the long timer in the end room - should be resettable.

One other thing - you can save yourself at the end by shooting the lightbridge at the wall in front of you, but then it just ends anyway. It would be cool to have some kind of little reward for those that manage it...

Pretty cool map. I have only one thing to add to the comments above: the grates need to be sealed for cubes as well as players. I lost a cube near the exit door and had to start that section over again. Also, you don't need the lightbridge to hold the cube to bridge the gap; just place it anywhere near the edge.

Thank you all for the feedback! Djinndrache's video broke my map very badly, so I'll try to respond to some of the strangeness:
00:51: That cube should have respawned. It does at least for me.
06:15: The weird white area should have been a custom poster. I did pack the .vmt and .vtf into the bsp using pakrat - was there anything else I had to do?
07:01: You were supposed to crouch through the window. Thus, you missed a trigger that opened up a Wheatley screen and did some other stuff in the chamber. (The weirdly lit place at 07:16 was supposed to be a Wheatley monitor)
09:58: ...wut? I've never had that happen. I'm assuming you got stuck in the ceiling.
13:40: Again, I've never had that happen, but I'll bet the cube kept entering and leaving the trigger.

These bugs will be fixed in the next release. Thanks for breaking my map!

@El Farmerino: Nice catch. Good idea, I'll make that a reward.

@RogerL: Hmm, there is a func_clip_vphysics over the grate so cubes shouldn't go through. Can you tell me exactly how that happened? Also, nice catch on not requiring a light bridge.

@Mr. P. Kiwi: Good idea, I shouldn't have expected players to be able to catch the cube the first time.

Thank you all again for the feedback!

wrathofmobius wrote:
07:01: You were supposed to crouch through the window. Thus, you missed a trigger that opened up a Wheatley screen and did some other stuff in the chamber. (The weirdly lit place at 07:16 was supposed to be a Wheatley monitor)

Too bad I missed that, I like Wheatley

wrathofmobius wrote:
09:58: ...wut? I've never had that happen. I'm assuming you got stuck in the ceiling.

Yes. Also started to have weird mouse reactions here. But I don't assume it to be about your map. Added an annotation to explain my weird mouse shaking though :p (a few seconds after this)

wrathofmobius wrote:
13:40: Again, I've never had that happen, but I'll bet the cube kept entering and leaving the trigger.

Yes, the cube was still in the funnel in the other room, and there on top the cube had a hot time with the trigger

wrathofmobius wrote:
These bugs will be fixed in the next release. Thanks for breaking my map!

Great to hear, but please don't forget that you may not update the map before the judgement is over. Otherwise you may get disqualified for applying updates after the contest ended.

Djinndrache wrote:
Great to hear, but please don't forget that you may not update the map before the judgement is over. Otherwise you may get disqualified for applying updates after the contest ended.

Of course, wouldn't want my map disqualified.

Here's my playthrough:

HO644gCEGvA

Aww, both you and Djin have made my last chamber look bad
Although your solution worked, the one I had in mind was to use the excursion funnel to bring the cube up through the indicators, just like you did. Instead of firing a portal through though, walk through and catch the cube dropped in the side room with the excursion funnel. Then, place it on the gap in the indicator strip and walk over the hard light bridge. Place the cube on the button, then jump down and place the other cube over the gap using the hard light bridge. Your solution was pretty cool though, can't imagine what thought process came up with that

wrathofmobius wrote:
@RogerL: Hmm, there is a func_clip_vphysics over the grate so cubes shouldn't go through. Can you tell me exactly how that happened?

Well, I'm not a mapmaker, so I have no idea what a func_clip_vphysics is, but I can tell you that the cube would pass through the grate in one direction, but not the other, so maybe it needs to be applied to both sides of the grate. For example, place a portal on the floor near the exit and one on the wall where you are. Take a cube and push it through the wall portal. You'll never get it back. The same applies to the grate over the wall where the funnel terminates.

RogerL wrote:
I dont no what func_clip_vphysics is, but I herd it alot.

Sorry, couldn't resist. I'll be posting all my feedbacks after I rate everyone's map. But these were nice chambers

ChickenMobile wrote:
RogerL wrote:

I dont no what func_clip_vphysics is, but I herd it alot.

Sorry, couldn't resist. I'll be posting all my feedbacks after I rate everyone's map. But these were nice chambers

Nooooo. I'm a Mantisman now. I dont no what a Mantisman is, but I nver herd it none.

I am a Mantisman too. We must join forces and take over the world. Just steer clear of the yellow line. Those guys have guns.

Func_clip_vphysics just blocks physics objects. It should be bidirectional... I'll have to look into that.

My feedback:
Do not read if you are judge!

||This was a very enjoyable map. It included a mechanic where you had to place a cube in the spot of missing indicators in order to 'complete the circuit'.

The map was very beautiful, the music and ambience was great and lets not forget Wheatley, he absolutely completed it.

Only downfall was in the last chamber, the second cube didn't spawn when the circuit was completed and therefore I couldn't complete the map. This may have been a bug. Also sometimes the cube went through the grating.

Well done Wrath of Mobius!||

ChickenMobile wrote:
My feedback:
Do not read if you are judge!

||This was a very enjoyable map. It included a mechanic where you had to place a cube in the spot of missing indicators in order to 'complete the circuit'.

The map was very beautiful, the music and ambience was great and lets not forget Wheatley, he absolutely completed it.

Only downfall was in the last chamber, the second cube didn't spawn when the circuit was completed and therefore I couldn't complete the map. This may have been a bug. Also sometimes the cube went through the grating.

Well done Wrath of Mobius!||

Thanks for the feedback. Could you tell me what happened to make the second cube not spawn? Djin had some weird trigger issues but it still spawned.

Great map! the idea is very original and I like the way you "teach" the player in the first chamber how the mechanics work. I did had the help of the description of the map to know cubes should be used to connect dots (not sure if I would have figured it out without the description text). Unfortunately I did not record my first playthrough, I did get the missing cube bug on the last level, it fizzled whist still in the drop chamber, but (also due to a bug?) the blue light bridge started working like out of nowhere. Had a cube go through the grating as well and then spent a good 20 minutes figuring out how to solve this last chamber. In the end I concluded two cubes must be used, so I suicided and then I did get the second cube - finished it in a minute after that.

I really like your map, the style, the sparks and wheatley's dialogue, this map just needs a bit more polishing, get rid of the bugs and agree that you can save yourself in the end with the blue light bridge, put a reward in for that I also noticed the "escape type" doors in the second part both open and close at the same time (you open one, the other opens miraculously)

so scoring... very difficult, your originality needs to be rewarded, difficulty level but the bugs are there, it just needed a bit more play testing... 3.65 - fix the bugs and the ending and I would give 4.65

Thank you very much for the in-depth review The_Butler. All the bugs you mentioned are in the process of being fixed except for the doors - thanks for the heads-up.
Thanks too for the kind words - that's waaay higher of a score than I was expecting.

I'm going through all of the maps that I played for the contest and post my rating and comments.
It may be a bit out of date if you have updated your map since then, but hopefully it's useful feedback nonetheless.

judging comments
||Aesthetics: 3
well detailed overall, nice use of space. Good texturing. Lighting is well balanced, but a bit bland. Room design and texturing look a bit sloppy, especially in the big space with all the test chambers. (One chamber is suspended in the air; the outside of the area is one large box.) Also there is a strange white rectangle on the wall in the office area. (Missing texture?) Some misaligned brushes here and there.

Gameplay: 4
Completing the antline connections with cubes is a good puzzle idea, and it is introduced well. Some small technical problems keep it from getting 5/5: the dropper in the side room became unusable the first time I played, and there is some weirdness with the tractor beam, when the player or cubes get stuck against the fence.

Difficulty: 5
Gradually progresses from easy to medium. Well suited to introducing a new puzzle type.

Other Comments:
Nice use of Wheatley character vs the moving / exploding environment. The ending is surprising and creative, if a bit of a downer

Personal score: 4||
So after reading the others' comments, I now understand that you have to think without portals to get out of the office area and into the last test. In the contest version of the map, you can still place portals on the wall in the office, so perhaps that needs fixing.

Also, I don't know what the deal is with the missing texture, but I've seen that with a lot of contest entries. I'm beginning to think that those Steam workshop problems around the time of the deadline may have played a role in that.