http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198002380422/screenshot/938126179228238355

Fuck me, this was a bastard of a test, and clearly I still haven't done everything... A few things I did felt unintended; will give descriptions below.

Lots of Spoilers in the comments
||Already covered the red room, so straight onto the blue:

The way I got into the funnel room seemed a bit ninja - I rode the funnel up to the top, fired a portal through the laser field at the far edge and quickly strafed to land back on the starting platform. Then I carefully stepped through and landed on the thin ledge below. The rest of what I did in there seemed pretty legit, though.

Green:

Actually found this the easiest part, probably because I played sicklebrick's previous map with the double bridge mechanic. Seeing where you're supposed to go was the hardest part, and to be honest the lighting and glass everywhere didn't really help matters. Still, relatively pain-free.

Central puzzle:

After a shiteload of trial and error, I decided that getting all of the cubes out was a good way to start. I eventually found what I think is the intended way to get a first cube into the central area - funneling it under the bridge with the portal surface lowered - though I managed to just carefully carry one out round the sides before doing that. The way I got the cubes out:

• Took the other two cubes to the red room with the funnel.
• Stacked them on the upper level so a connection could made with the upper receptor through portals.
• Funneled myself and the red cube up to the ledge.
• Connected the receptor, walked back and funneled myself over the partition to the blue room.
• Dropped the cube there, went back and fizzled the other two cubes.
• Back to the green room, reacquired the cube and took it outside using the method described above.
• Back to the blue room to pick up the final cube.

Then it was a matter of actually doing the central puzzle. From here on in was my favourite part of the map, as aside from a few fiddly cube placements it was almost pure logic. I'm pretty sure everything I did was as intended, as nothing felt forced or tricky. The only part of my solution I thought might be a little dodgy was the very end:

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/7656 ... 9228237318
Had to actually use the portal itself as a lever to tip the cube, but I thought that was rather clever.

By the way, I absolutely loved this bit when it clicked:

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/7656 ... 9228234420

Overall I was very impressed with how the elements of the previous puzzles were re-used in the central one.||

In a more general tone, I can honestly say I've not been this satisfied with myself for completing something since The Ledge, which is high praise indeed (that remains my all-time favourite map/mappack). The map is not without its frustrations; sometimes its quite difficult to see what's glass and what's not, and the fact that you don't actually need all of the elements at any one time adds some unwelcome complication to an already pretty-damn-tricky map. Still, that all seems like small potatoes compared with the intense smugness I feel with myself for having finished it, and indeed for the countless 'aha' moments over the course of my playthrough. So in short, I applaud you, good sir, for wasting my time in a most excellent fashion.

I also noticed this, by the way - some protruding models in the centre bit:

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/7656 ... 9228236077

@RogerL Just don't go there. I will close that route off before the rooms are solved to avoid confusion in the next update. It's for later. Other than that it sounds you are doing good.

@El Farmerino I think you were the first to solve it
My responce:

-I actually posted the solution to the blue room earlier on this post. Check that out if you did something wrong.
-The biggest problem in the green room is lighting and I will try to release a fixed version late this night if I can.
-Only thing that seems unintended is the way you got the cube from the red room. I don't get how did you manage to connect the laser to the upper catcher and then use the funnel. Laser requires both portals which causes you not to have a portal on the blue room. Maybe there is something I overlooked.
-Moving the cube under the bridge is intended. It was actually the very first thing I came up with when I started planning the map.
-That is not the only way to do the very end. You can actually use the floor portal provided up there to get the cube on top of the other. Place both portals on the surfaces on that level and the normal cube next to the floor portal. Reach with the ref cube through the wall portal and place it over the normal cube. Then push the cube stack to the right spot. Your solution works too but I find this one easier to execute.
-One more thing. I'm interested on how did you get the reflective cube pointing up on the lower lightbridge. My way is to place it on the higher one and then quickly reportal so it falls. Just curious.
You still have the advanced solution to find. I think I'll add more clues to the new version to make the realisation easier. The fact is that realising what needs to be done is hard but the move required to do it is even harder. Wait till I release the new version to make things little bit easier.

Shakky:
Sorry, tried to condense my account into only the stuff that worked but seems like I missed a bit - after getting the red cube by the surface with the cube blocking field I went back through the blue room to pick it up. As for the cube on the double lightbridge, I just tipped it on the weighted cube...

Oh silly me. That is actually unintended. I left that part of the wall in the red room white to miss direct players but it actually allowed that way of doing it. This one will be fixed in the next update.

EDIT!! Just updated it! Go check it out. The post should list all the improvements made.
V1.2 is out!

Well, now that I got through the blue and green rooms, I took a look at the video you made for the blue room. I guess I got the cube in the blue room in an unintended way: Portal on the funnel and just below the cube chute (it helps to make it as far to the right as possible on that section of the portalable wall). Once the cube is pinned against the grate near you, grab the cube and jump up until you can get it over the gap just above you. That was certainly easier than your method. Playing v1.2 btw.

Oh right I forgot to fix that. Making grates that let lightbridges and funnels through isn't as it seems and I forgot to add the additional block bullets to block that.

I don't feel like making a new version quite yet so that might stay for a while. Atleast if nothing else will be found.

cool map! i'm currently stuck in the middle room after getting past the 3 areas; i am afraid i also followed RogerL's method and that turned out to be unintended

definitely up there with the "hard" ones from the community

I found something else that you might want to prevent: it's pretty easy to carry the cube out of the green room along the lightbridge by just holding the cube to the side and below the bridge.

Just updated. Both of those are now hopefully fixed.

Fixing the blue room one was much harder than I though as I didn't find any way to block grapping a cube through without messing other things up. I just decided to add a little edge there. It should block you from doing that.

Thanks RogerL!

Gah! In the end I couldn't finish this without a noclip. It looked like you needed to get the funnel into the central area, but I couldn't figure out how, so I noclipped past that small part -- I probably just overlooked something easy. I was thrown off by the fact that the exit elevator was labeled with a Star, but I couldn't find a button or catcher with that label anywhere. Finally decided to activate the one above me with the Moon label and see what happens -- and what do you know: success!

This was a pretty hard map, but still doable even for a non-ninja like me, though it has taken me about seven days of about two hours a day. I think it will be somewhat more straightforward now that you have blocked off those other hallways until they are needed. The biggest problem for me in terms of gameplay was that there was such limited visibility in the blue room. Most of my time in there was characterized by the following conversation with myself: What happens if I funnel myself over there? Oh, stuck again.

It had its fun moments, but that fun was tempered by having to go back and forth alot and there was too much trial-and-error for my tastes. Still, I'd recommend it to a certain type of player.

I can't believe that I failed indicating the end that bad. I will fix this tomorrow if I have time. I'm super busy with school right now.

RogerL wrote:
It looked like you needed to get the funnel into the central area, but I couldn't figure out how...

Once you have all the cubes in the centre, you can take the double lightbridge all the way to the blue room and into the funnel cage. Then you simply portal the funnel so it comes out the lightbridge surface and ride on through.

Thanks, El Farmerino, I now feel complete. I knew it had to be something easy like that, but I guess my mind was so full of the complexity of the map, it couldn't see the simple stuff.

Any luck with the advanced solution yet? Has anyone found the hint room in the newest version yet?

Shakky wrote:
Any luck with the advanced solution yet? Has anyone found the hint room in the newest version yet?

I escaped and lived happily ever after.
That is, I made it to the better ending that the advanced solution provides, though I'm certain I didn't do it the intended way.

Advanced Solution discussion
||I only had to make one small change at the very end of the standard solution to get the advanced one to work. It did, however, involve a rather tricky cube-balancing act, shown here:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =102582792
The odd thing about it is that the redirection cube seems to be held up by the laser beam, since interrupting the beam causes the cube to fall. I guess that would be considered a glitch.

The hints in the secret room have not yet helped me to discover the true advanced solution, but one of them led me to find a significant skip for the last half of the map. After seeing "Middle doesn't move", I investigated what was possible without opening up the central area of the map. From the platform with the button at the completion of the green room (don't press the button!), a portal can be shot into the central area two different ways. Once in the central area, it is possible to get on top of and then inside the elevator since the doors are open at that stage.||
A puzzle this complex deserves to be solved the right way.
I'd be glad to help further, but I'll need another hint first.

Oh that is not the intended advanced solution but nice job catching that one.

||About getting in the middle before lowering it I knew it was possible but I didn't think it would cause any harm. Now I see that it's actually possible to get a portal to the highest point of the middle and then bunny hop to the green button to lower it. That skips most of the middle puzzle. I didn't figure out how did you manage to get inside the elevator though.

The advanced solution is pretty cryptic so here are some hints for you to help you do it.
1.The middle must be lowered first.
2.There is a way to raise the middle back up. Think about what other things that the buttons do other than raise it and open the doors.

If you want little more than hints here is what you will have to do (spoils the objective not how to get it): Destroy the blue laser over the blue button with a laser. This will raise middle back up.

Last word of warning. It requires one pretty annoying move.||

Thanks alot for playing and finding these unintended solutions. I will probably make an updated version in few days.

Thanks for your help, and for keeping me entertained for many hours, but I think I'll quit now before my brain explodes.

Advanced
Cryptic indeed! I would never have thought of that objective.
I was able to ||raise the middle back up, but doing so with the cubes there caused them to collide with invisible walls/floors and eventually get stuck before it had moved all the way. I got past that issue, but then could still not see a different way of getting the elevator doors open. So I used my previous trick to get two cubes in the elevator.

Middle skip (not):
Oops. I tried that part again today and the elevator doors were closed this time. I must have been noclipping around too much the other day and accidentally triggered something that opened them? So without the doors open, even your bunny hopping idea wouldn't help, as we don't have any cubes yet. Nothing to fix after all.||

You previously mentioned an issue with "mobile portals". Are portals supposed to stay active on mobile panels, such as the one in the green room?
I had to do a really quick move to get to the end of the green room. The only way I could see that it could be done in a casual manner was if the redirection cube was set to auto-respawn, or if the portal stayed active when the panel moved. For me, the portal was always destroyed.

Mobile portals are only needed for the last move of green room but they have been really wonky lately. Some of the recent updates kept considering them as cheats and not allowing the map itself to change them without sv_cheats 1. For me the portals are mobile but I hope the same goes for you too. It's really only for that one move.

I'm curious, how did you manage to raise the middle? The intended way requires for example for you to get an orange funnel to the middle.

As for mapping wise, I'm pretty much done with this one. I have other better maps on the way so I think I will post a solution video in few days so you can see how I intended it to be done. I'm trying to get back to mapping but Dota 2 and Guild wars 2 are making it pretty hard

I'm glad you enjoyed the map. Most of the comments I got mainly on the contest version were highly negative but I'm glad that there are people who are willing to spent more than 40min on one map.

The portals were not mobile for me, even with sv_cheats 1. Damn those updates.
Edit: Yes they were, but only if you have sv_cheats 1 BEFORE loading the map.

For your curiosity, here's how I raised the middle.
Edit: I stacked the storage cube and one redirection cube beneath the path of the laser, but slightly to one side, in the middle area. I held the other redirection cube above the top edge of the cube stack, then dropped it so it fell backwards and temporarily directed the laser to its target. Your intended way also provides a temporary laser shot, but I found it less reliable.
That's the risk with creating really complex puzzles - lazy people like me will tend to look for shortcuts.

BTW, I also found the proper way to finish the advanced solution.

Looking forward to your video.

Well the official solution video is up now. Check it out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPxBhaqBmYM

There is an annotation that links to the advanced solution when the 2 solutions part.

I'm aware that there are probably still alot of unintended solutions as I didn't have much time to test this because of the contest time limit. Feel free to point anything you find and I might make an improved version later.

Thanks to everyone who played! Even if you hated it.

New better maps on the way!