The staff at ThinkingWithPortals is proud to announce that we're increasing the number of ways you can follow and interact with the site. We've now got several different channels on popular social networking sites open for business. They're all on display in the sidebar just over there to the left, but I'll detail them in case you don't want to move your eyes from this riveting post. You can like us on Facebook, where news announcements, screenshots of Community Spotlight maps, and other things will be posted and integrated into your news feed. You can subscribe to our channel on YouTube; look for future announcements as to the content that will be posted. In addition, follow our feed on Twitter for, again, news announcements, Community Spotlights, and other updates.

On another note, if you're one of the strong souls who still use RSS feeds, you can add the following feeds to stay updated. Take a look at the news feed, the new downloads feed, and the new topics feed.

Look forward to another Community Roundup in the very near future. We'll be covering the time since the Summer Mapping Initiative ended, so expect more brief descriptions but more highlighted downloads.

Finally, we want to thank the entire community for their continued support and participation. You all keep this site alive and kicking and are helping it grow and improve.

EDIT
There was a minor problem with the "New Downloads Feed". If you subscribed to this feed, please adjust it so that you are using the new feed. The correct feed URL is here. This has been reflected site-wide.

DOUBLE EDIT
**A disclaimer: If you friend us on Facebook, for the time being we will have the same status as any other friends on Facebook. If your privacy settings are set to "Friends of Friends" visibility on something (status, photo, etc.), another person who has friended TWP may be able to see it. They will not be able to find you through our friends list, but on the off chance that person stumbles across your profile in another way the item may very well be visible to them. I'm still looking into whether the 'Friends list visible only to the staff' option removes the "ThinkingWithPortals Mapping is now friends with" status posts.

Also, don't feel it's absolutely necessary to friend us on Facebook. It's not like anything posted there won't be duplicated at least two times through the site itself and Twitter.**

Scratch that, it's fixed now (it's a page instead of profile).

Part 2 of the official Portal 2 Soundtrack was just released on the Portal 2 site/blog. Volume 2 contains 18 tracks of more amazing Portal-y ambience. Download it now while it's still free!*

• It will always be free.

Possibly related to the Daft Punk album by the same name, this week we are putting the Spotlight on a freshly released coop map called Discovery by MrLate. Personally I haven't had a chance to play it yet (though I have a feeling me and Hober are going to soon), but Community Contributor xdiesp had these nice things to say about this lengthy and enjoyable map.

Quote:
Six chambers of goodness, like a Colt 45. Mini campaign arranging 6 short maps in Clean, each virtually flawless and gravitating around Valve accessible difficult. [. . .]

We had a lot of fun on these maps (for a good >20 mins), which might seem banal to state but rare enough to surprise us when it happens.

Click for larger

Download Discovery now and give it a playthrough!

The dust has settled on the Summer Mapping Initiative, it's time to once again start back up with our weekly Community Roundup news posts, highlighting the best maps of the past week. It's been nearly a month since our last Roundup, so the next two weeks are going to work a bit differently.

This week we are going to roundup the top maps from the Summer Mapping Initiative itself. We are still working on coming up with an easily readable format for all of the contest ratings and judgements - there is really just a ton of data. So in the mean time, here are the top 25 rated maps from the contest. Normally we will put a small blurb about these maps, though given the volume I will save on white space and reading time and simply list them out.

Grand Prize Winners
[SP] Patent Pending by ebola
[SP] Infinifling by MrTwoVideoCards
[SP] Edifice by Omnicoder

Runners Up
[SP] Sphere: Delta Bunsen! by Lobster
[SP] Cubes 'n' Funnels by Will T.
[Coop] Redirecting Redirection by MrTwoVideoCards
[Coop] Fast Bridge by Skotty
[SP] Chamber Six by Nezzy
[SP] Discouragement Encouragement by Groxkiller585
[SP] Don't Eat the Paint by CaretCaret
[Coop] Fling Bridge by Kosire
[SP] Variation Susceptibility Test (VST) by no00dylan
[SP] Speed Gel Is Fun by supersandvich
[SP] Cubi by AmnDragon
[Coop] Mp_coop_Versus by Pete
[SP] Lost in Testing by KenJeKenny!?
[Coop] Abandoned Chamber by Hunter-Killer
[SP] Missing Geodome by Kay
[SP] Wall Button and Box Racing by lilBro
[SP] Overgrowth by slowdevelopment
[SP] Motanum's Main Four by Motanum
[SP] Rainbow's Competition Entry by Rainbow
[SP] PMK 6 by mazk1985
[SP] One in the Chamber by KrispyTheKorn
[SP] Laser Funnel by Nicky397

Next week we will be going over the top non-contest maps since our last roundup several weeks ago, so expect another big dump of maps to play.

Did we forget to mention a great map? Have a suggestion of a map that needs to be included? Think a map should be in the Community Spotlight? Tell us! Post here in this thread with a link to the map you think should be highlighted and we'll be sure to give it a test drive!

That's right, you've heard correctly. One of the most popular multiplayer FPS games ever made is now completely free to play for as long as you want. VALVe/the game are now going to be supported completely by in-game purchases, which isn't all that bad a move considering there are probably seven people in the world--one of them being me, but not for long--who have not yet bought/played the game. So if you don't already have it, go ahead and download it!