This is my first map created entirely in Hammer. I'm sure the pros will find a million things wrong with it, but for a first map I think it's pretty interesting / ambitious. It starts out in the overgrown style, and as you move through there's a clean section, then it goes underground, and it has a pretty bizarre heavy metal album cover -style ending.

Click here to download Entropy

http://youtu.be/FpNvuT0TWlw
I left some feedback in the video description.

Thanks for the playthrough and the feedback. I appreciate it, and I can't really disagree with any of it. A big problem from the start was that this started from one room and I just tacked on rooms and then tried to figure out what to do with them. A lot of changes got made as it developed, but for sure it suffered from not having an organized design from the start. It's too bad about the lighting. It's all bright enough on my machine / monitor, but I guess that could be about personal settings and next time I'll get playtesters. Cheers.

You also solved some puzzles in ways that were TOTALLY different from what I intended / expected. Again -- the value of playtesters.

A lot of clever features, the atmosphere could use a little more work - kind of a mix of styles. No autosaves? Had to redo a lot if I didn't save frequelntly - could be frustrating and make the player quit. Never saw a fully lethal laser - took a few fling tries before realizing that it needed to be blocked. Why a companion cube - it got fizzled on exit...? Nice first map...

quatrus wrote:
A lot of clever features, the atmosphere could use a little more work - kind of a mix of styles. No autosaves? Had to redo a lot if I didn't save frequelntly - could be frustrating and make the player quit. Never saw a fully lethal laser - took a few fling tries before realizing that it needed to be blocked. Why a companion cube - it got fizzled on exit...? Nice first map...

Oh, that's weird. There are four autosave points, and they've always worked properly for me. You're the first person I've heard say otherwise. Thanks for playing and for the kind words.

Lunch wrote:
quatrus wrote:

A lot of clever features, the atmosphere could use a little more work - kind of a mix of styles. No autosaves? Had to redo a lot if I didn't save frequelntly - could be frustrating and make the player quit. Never saw a fully lethal laser - took a few fling tries before realizing that it needed to be blocked. Why a companion cube - it got fizzled on exit...? Nice first map...

Oh, that's weird. There are four autosave points, and they've always worked properly for me. You're the first person I've heard say otherwise. Thanks for playing and for the kind words.

Nope, the autosaves weren't working for me either.
All in all it's a good first map, with still a lot of things you can improve upon.
1: Did that laser really have to be deadly?
2: The frames around the doors could use a bit of love! Open up the map zoo_mechanics.vmf and try to use that door frame!
3: The cube can be grabbed out of the water, the water doesn't fizzle it.
4: The cube dropper in the room with the fan has a visible top, cut a hole in the ceiling for it, so you don't see the top.
5: I feel indicator lights and/or signage could've used some more love

I loved the projected texture with the fancy moving projected texture!
All in all a good map, can't wait to see more!

Lpfreaky90 wrote:
Lunch wrote:

quatrus wrote:

A lot of clever features, the atmosphere could use a little more work - kind of a mix of styles. No autosaves? Had to redo a lot if I didn't save frequelntly - could be frustrating and make the player quit. Never saw a fully lethal laser - took a few fling tries before realizing that it needed to be blocked. Why a companion cube - it got fizzled on exit...? Nice first map...

Oh, that's weird. There are four autosave points, and they've always worked properly for me. You're the first person I've heard say otherwise. Thanks for playing and for the kind words.

Nope, the autosaves weren't working for me either.
All in all it's a good first map, with still a lot of things you can improve upon.
1: Did that laser really have to be deadly?
2: The frames around the doors could use a bit of love! Open up the map zoo_mechanics.vmf and try to use that door frame!
3: The cube can be grabbed out of the water, the water doesn't fizzle it.
4: The cube dropper in the room with the fan has a visible top, cut a hole in the ceiling for it, so you don't see the top.
5: I feel indicator lights and/or signage could've used some more love

I loved the projected texture with the fancy moving projected texture!
All in all a good map, can't wait to see more!

1. It had to be deadly for the puzzle to work the way I intended it, which is that you can't do the fling to the light bridge until you've blocked the laser with the cube. Players have managed to do the fling beside the laser without blocking it, meaning it's pointless.
2. Yes. I've now learned the RIGHT way to frame doors, so expect it to be done properly in every map I make going forward.
3. Maddening. I feel so dumb for not seeing that that would happen. I knew the cube didn't fizzle until you stepped on the button a second time, and yet it never dawned on me to try to fish it out of the goo. I could have fixed that easily, too. Grr.
4. Yep. I got so used to it as it is that I stopped noticing it / thinking about it. After a while, the exposed part looked right to me.
5. I'm chalking this one up to a lack of playtesters, because I felt like the signage was clear enough, but I made the puzzles so my perception of them is skewed.

I still don't get the autosave issue. The first one is where you drop down to the funnel. There's one at the basement dropper button. There's one on the basement button that opens the laser field, and there's one inside the laser field in case someone falls into the goo trying to make that initial jump off the vertical lift. If I die, I always spawn at whichever save point I last touched. I'd love to know why it's only working for me.

Thanks for the feedback! Get playtesters for your maps, folks.