Companion Cube Chronicles (spoilers inside)
Just making this thread as a quick announcement for now.
I'm new to Hammer/SDK etc. Never touched it before, but Portal has given me a lot of enthusiasm to make more levels for it.
I thought the companion cube didn't get enough screentime. I want him back. So I'm making a collection of levels and puzzles based on Level 17's gameplay.
Companion Cube Chronicles is a working title obviously.
I've been scribbling down ideas since the day Portal was released and the weekend just gone I got myself to grips with the editor. To start with I'm just trying to make a test room with every entity that I'd need, all nice and working.
When it's complete I hope to have it to the same quality (HA HA. FAT CHANCE.) as Portal. With a proper beginning room and hopefully a decent ending sequence.
The whole thing won't just be re-mixes of Test chamber 17, there will be areas where you go without your cube for a while and do some regular portal challenges, aswell as a simple story to tie everything up nicely.
Like I said, at the moment this is nothing more than an announcement. I'll be using this thread for updates, requests for help/testers and others' feedback.
Now, tell me I haven't got a chance in hell and should stick to something small. 
Story: 22.22222% Design: 33.33333%
Levels: 4.44444% Cake: 0.00000%
Voices: 0.0^3% in base 4
New models & Textures: ((e^28/pi*7)/0 - 42)%
Grief counseling: 111.11111%
You haven't got a chance in hell and should stick to something small!
No, definatly not, if you put your mind to it and have enough patience you can do it. But it IS a hell of a task for someone that started mapping just the other day, so it WILL be hard, it WILL take a long time.
but if you stick with it you will have a very satisfying end point
I like how you start off with something hard, too most new mappers a great task like this would be intimidating but to you it seems almost palpable. Gj! I hope to see what you make in the future.
Thanks guys. You could say I'm cheating a bit, since I work at a games company and have experience with other editors and c programming :p.
Like I said, at the moment I'm just making a single test room and using the fine tutorials that have been posted here and elsewhere to make anything that my levels would need. I think if anybody did that, there shouldn't be any reason to feel intimidated.
Surely it's not that big a task though. It'll just be a collection of maps like everyone else is doing. I haven't had a go at the scripting yet, so I don't know how difficult that will be but it's obviously not impossible. Hardest thing so far has been coming up with interesting level designs that won't be too hard/easy
Anyway, thanks for the encouragement. If this test room stuff goes ok I hope to get started on the first level this weekend. (Which won't be as much of a level, but more like an introduction like Portal's first level)
Story: 22.22222% Design: 33.33333%
Levels: 4.44444% Cake: 0.00000%
Voices: 0.0^3% in base 4
New models & Textures: ((e^28/pi*7)/0 - 42)%
Grief counseling: 111.11111%
This is very exciting. I think the Companion Cube level made quite an impression on all of us. That might have been the fastest establishment ever of an internet meme.
More Companion Cube levels would be awesome, and you sound like you have the gumption to do it. Go go go!
Question: do you have any plans to include GLaDOS dialog? That's really what made the Companion Cube experience so delicious in the game, you know? "You euthanized your faithful Companion Cube faster than any test subject on record. Congratulations!"
More Companion Cube levels would be awesome, and you sound like you have the gumption to do it. Go go go!
Question: do you have any plans to include GLaDOS dialog? That's really what made the Companion Cube experience so delicious in the game, you know? "You euthanized your faithful Companion Cube faster than any test subject on record. Congratulations!"
i dont want to destroy my companion cube though D= the levels should have it to where you use the same cube through the whole levels and the "cake" at the end if u know what i mean :3
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after this game is out a few months, how many hundreds of maps will have a cake model sitting at the end?
end it more originally imo
I don't think they're trying to be especially "original" by ending a map with cake. It's not like those mappers all believe they're the only one that's going to think of that.
Rather the opposite, in fact. Anyone who plays through the single-player game will be familiar with GLaDOS's special emphasis and usage of the term. So cake is a symbol of a successful ending. It's a nice shorthand way of communicating that in a map without fading to black and printing text on the screen.
I think it's a charming convention for Portal mappers to adopt, actually.
I'm with Artesia. cake at the end is already clich?.
back on topic, good luck wroth!