I spent 1 week working on this map for the Thinking With Portals (http://www.thinking.withportals.com) mapping competition. This is a medium difficulty map set in the reconstructing style. It contains custom voice files and textures. Have fun in this new Aperture adventure with the man known as Al Johnson!

Special thanks to BEARD for providing the solution to one pesky voice file that only wanted to play half of itself.

supercontest2012 Vordwann

Click here to download [SP] Alternate

Click here to download [SP] Alternate

&

Nice little puzzle that requires punctuality. Great custom voice work.

I liked the spinning TWP logo in the entrance chamber. DEY DONT STOP.

Thanks wstrika! I'm glad you enjoyed my map. And yeah, I worked a lot mastering the voice lines. (It is in fact me speaking)

Here is my playthrough:

zLAJPMDswqc

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

EVxDJf40Elg
(Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVxDJf40Elg)

Cheers, that was really satisfying for a small map .. well, short map!
I had a good laugh at the new dialogue too

My feedback:
Do not read if you are judge!

||This was a very nice and clever test chamber. I could really imagine this kind of test chamber being in the official game.

The voice acting was a very personal touch and I thought it was absolutely hilarious. (Though I doubt that Cave Johnson could put his fathers brain in a computer before his.)

The details however were very average and didn't stand out to me because it was a mix between destroyed textures and clean. If you had more panel animations perhaps it would have been more convincing for a fixing chamber.

One thing you could have done better puzzle wise was allow a better position for the player to portal up to the button and angled panel.||

Aestheics
A mix of clean and destoryed that works quite well - the chamber looks as though it lost the ability to repair itself in mid-repair. The ceiling was one of the best looking parts of the map (a shame, as players never look up, right?). There was the gaping hole from which panel supports and ropes dangle down to grab your attention, but I quite liked how the roof tiles were slipping and sliding, sitting at different heights within the roof. All the destruction details are in place.

I think a warm light here and there would have helped the chamber feel decayed. With that said I loved the projected texture casting the broken glass pane's shadows across the room. I'd have stuck a pipe or two in the ceiling hole as well. It's a bit obvious that it's a box on top of the hole - wouldn't it make more sense if the metal was surrounding the whole chamber's ceiling rather than that particular section? One final piece of nitpicking - it would have been nice if the TWP logos were rotating in front of a screen or something rather than just floating in space.

Gameplay and Difficulty
The puzzle was short and figuring out what to do is pretty easy. The execution for me was a little more difficult but not frustratingly so. I was confused about the angled panel: the robotic arms glowed red as if to say 'this is broken and should be flush with the wall' but if that was the case the cube wouldn't bounce into the room behind the fizzler. After I found the first cube I spent a couple of minutes pondering what to do, and then the answer struck me. I enjoyed the race against time to portal up to the ledge, redirect the bridge out of the angled panel and rush to the floor button. It took me a few times to get the hang of it though, which meant getting the cube to spawn again which was a bit frustrating. Maybe you could make panels rise out of the slime the first time the cube button is pressed?

No bugs or niggly mapping details stood out to me. I should probably mention Al: he got a laugh or two out of me; it's just a shame there wasn't another test for him to narrate. Thanks for mapping.

BEARD! wrote:
No bugs or niggly mapping details stood out to me. I should probably mention Al: he got a laugh or two out of me; it's just a shame there wasn't another test for him to narrate. Thanks for mapping.

I guess you'll have to wait for Alternate 2 then I'll have more than 1 week to make it and there should be multiple test chambers with lots of Al Johnson.

Nice short map you have there, puzzles were good and loved the AI Johnson.
Here's my blindrun:
Blindrun
3lmcm9w0Dkg
Below is my feedback:
Feedback
-Some parts of AI Johnson's speech was unclear, maybe add subtitles or game_texts?
-Maybe move the angled panel so that the player can still see it when the player is on the bottom level?
-Puzzles were creative, good job!
Overall, I loved it as it was fun and enjoyable.
I'll give it a 4/5. Good map, still can be improved, though.
I hope you make more maps in the future!

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: 4
Very nice reconstructing theme. There's plenty of debris strewn around, ceiling panels falling down, things like that. One thing that especially stood out to me, was the use of clean textures in some places. Just like the place was actually in progress of being rebuilt.

I like the Al Johnson character. The voice acting is not bad for what I assume is a non-professional voice actor, and the lines fit well with the rest of the Portal story. The only minor criticism I have, is that his opening speech was a little bit too long. I wanna get on with the puzzle!

Gameplay / Difficulty: 5;5
Speaking of which, the puzzle is very enjoyable. It's not too hard, but it requires some planning ahead. Also, requiring the vertical bridge to be used in two ways (one traditional and one new) is a smart move. It makes the cube-deflection trick less obvious.

Both in terms of design and gameplay, this is one of the better ones in this contest IMO. Go get your 60 bucks!

Personal score: 5||
Love to hear more of Al Johnson!

I liked this, despite I dislike timed puzzles. It was pretty easy once you get your head around it...