The past week here at ThinkingWithPortals.com has been really busy. In the last 7 days, we have had nearly 100 new maps uploaded and over 100,000 total downloads with each map averaging around 1,500 downloads. I punch those numbers into my calculator and it says that my bandwidth overage this month is going to be through the roof.

But what it also means is that the Portal 2 mapping community is alive and well! I have been told that we seem to be favoring Coop maps here since the Portal 2 release, but it looks like the singleplayer mappers are fighting back. We had three times more Singleplayer maps uploaded this week than Coop! Let's take a look and see what the most downloaded, highest rated, and most talked about maps are.

Singleplayer
Old Faithful by Lobster
Hot on the trail of his last stellar release, Spheres of Roundness, Lobster released the second on the series of 1940's themed maps and once again hits the nail right on the head. Old Faithful takes a "what if?" stance on Aerial Faith Plates, and how they may have looked and been used in the heyday of Aperture. Some players have said the map is quite a bit easier than Spheres was, but one thing is for certain - Lobster isn't banging rocks together over here. Old Faithful is both one of the most downloaded Singleplayer maps, and most frequently downloaded singleplayer maps of last week.

Motanum's Test 01 by Motanum
The first Portal 2 map coming from the second place winner of our final Portal 1 contest, you would expect nothing but the best - and that's exactly what this map delivers. Motanum throws light bridges and gel into the mix on top of some absolutely killer visuals and the entire map just works. You definitely don't want to miss this one!

Stylus01 by Stylus
A map that feels more like some of the custom Portal 1 maps than probably any other Portal 2 map so far, this map relies on lots of fling techniques combined with some of the newer elements; a couple gel puzzles in the first half, and a fling puzzle centered around the need for an excursion funnel in the second. Some people seem to love the flinging, other are hating it, but the question remains - What do you think?

diportals, One by Hurricaaane
The first Portal 2 map by long time community member Hurricaaane, this map is a perfect laser-and-catcher puzzle morsel. Short, sweet and great looking as well, it would be hard to say much more without giving it all away. Check it out and see for yourself!

Cooperative
Colours Two, Three and Four by IanB
If there's one thing to be said about last week, it's that rising community star IanB has been busy working on a phenomenal Coop map pack, Colours. The first map made our Community Spotlight the first week of Portal 2's release, and the following three parts have come out in the past week. IanB uses a load of custom materials, sounds and music (viewers with slow internet connections, be warned!) and each map has it's own distinct visual look and puzzle element. Colours Two features light bridges, Colours Three focuses on faith flates, and Colours Four rounds it out with gels and lasers. Best of all, all four maps are designed to be played sequentially. Download them all and play them in order like intended!

Catapults and Buttons by Pjuvigny
Speaking of being busy working on maps, this map is the second by Pjuvigny this week as well. To steal what Hober said during our playtest, "a map called Catapults and Buttons is a lot like Snakes on a Plane; I know exactly what I'm getting, and it's going to be hard to disappoint me." How true, Hober. Catapults is split into two distinct puzzles, both of which requiring a lot of timing coordination with your partner. Hober and I had a difficult time with the last puzzle because we played it at 4 in the morning after drinking beers. Is this map really that hard, or do we just pick the worst time to play games? Play it with a friend and decide!

Paint Mess by Macgta
A map that has gotten surprisingly few replies about it despite having nearly 1,000 downloads, Paint Mess tells you all you need to know in the title - two robots and lots of gels! Give it a try and tell us what you thought!

This is only the tip of the iceberg from last week, and with nearly 100 new files there is no way we could round up them all. Think we missed something? Is there another map that we should have mentioned that we didn't? Post and tell us!

Today we are shining the Community Spotlight on simple yet quite enjoyable Portal 2 Coop map, Surprise. Visually this map is quite excellent, and solving the deceptively simple puzzle requires quite a bit of team work.

Download Surprise

I just made some minor changes to the map release system. Nothing is really going to be different for map uploaders, but if you browse over to the Community Releases forum you will see a few changes.

First of all, every new release will be automatically given a Post Icon with the appropriate game type. Portal 1 maps get the Portal 1 icon , Portal 2 maps get the Portal 2 icon . The actual image icons we are using right now might not be finalized, they are pretty dark against the mostly-white forum background.

Think you can make some better at-a-glance Portal 1 vs. Portal 2 icons? Post them up and let us see!

Secondly, Portal 2 uploads will now automatically be "tagged" with their map type. Coop maps will get the [Coop] tag, Singleplayer maps will get the [SP] tag and so on. I did not bother doing this for Portal 1 maps since I doubt we will be getting to many releases from there, but if anyone would especially like to see it done then let me know and I can add it in pretty fast.

Special thanks to Nacimota for giving me some ideas and beating me to the punch writing some code.

That's it for now. Thanks to all of our mappers who have really exploded with some great content the past couple of weeks. Keep up the good work, guys!

This past week saw a full crop of maps released, the last batch to be produced with the Alien Swarm SDK now that the Portal 2 Authoring Tools are available in beta, which has solved problems for some and created new ones for others.

So, here's a roundup of some of the most popular, most downloaded, or most innovative maps released in the last week, starting with the:

Singleplayer
Sphere of Roundness by Lobster
This 1940s map really explores the wide-open spaces of those old testing spheres. Considered simple and small by Lobster, but if this is him warming up, I can't wait to see what he has in store.

Cassata Chamber 1 by CassataGames
The first Portal 2 map out of Cassata, who you may remember from his days making Portal 1 maps. This very much modern-era test chamber runs you around a relatively small room, solving puzzles all over before finally earning the right to leave.

The Unknown by KLJF22
One of the first maps that really tries to put a strong narrative flavor in to single player, this is a heaping helping of map that'll have you puzzling and backtracking.

Multiplayer
Lots of Faith by ljdp
Our first Portal 2 Community Spotlight went to this map, a one-room co-op romp of faith plates, buttons, and robots going splat when the timing doesn't quite work out.

Halls of Menoetius by magicrat
One of the more divisive releases we've had so far, this "rubiks cube"-style puzzle doesn't require you to use the portal gun and instead needs only patience, and maybe a quickly-drawn diagram or two.

Co-op Alternative #1 by r1corix
A co-op map that has gotten somewhat mixed reviews from the community. Depending on who you ask, it is either a short-and-sweet co-op experience, or just too easy and boring. Give it a shot and let r1corix know where you stand!

Surprise by DrummerB
A co-op map that's been getting good reviews. From the forum chatter, it sounds like you and your partner have to escape from cages before you can really solve the puzzle.

And finally, our honorable mention:

Portal 1 Singleplayer
Take-Off by Sword of Apollo
This sweeping Portal 1 map is worth firing up the first game for. As though the core map itself, with its own difficulty curve and bonus-size length wasn't enough, the map includes challenges. This map almost certainly has more time invested in it than all the others here combined, and you should definitely take a look.

Tools
For all you Mac players out there, just this morning, zbakes figured out that CyCroniCa's Custom Maps to Extra utility will run on OSX, assuming you have Java installed.

This is hardly an exhaustive list of all the maps released this week, but if you're looking for somewhere to start in catching up, these are excellent choices. Did I miss something? Reply and let me know what maps you think are the best from the past week.

We are shining our Community Spotlight on a phenomenal Portal 2 Coop map, Lots of Faith. A map that obviously uses the Aerial Faith Plates, it's the perfect mix of challenging and intelligent that we look for in top-quality custom maps.

Download Lots of Faith