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.

Wroth wrote:
Now, tell me I haven't got a chance in hell and should stick to something small.

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)

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!"

Crooked Paul wrote:
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!"

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

Wroth wrote:
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.

Where are you located? Are you hiring?

deathremains wrote:
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

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!

Thanks guys for your support. I've just managed to create a button/door thingy and a ball launcher this evening

msleeper: Think of a fictional games company name and write it down. Now, I can guarantee you that more people have heard of the company on that piece of paper than the one I work for. But if you must know, I work for Atomic Planet. We're located in Middlesbrough (recently declared Britain's worst place to live ) and I honestly haven't a clue whether we're hiring or not.

Crooked Paul: I was thinking of maybe taking all of GLaDOS' dialogue, cutting it up into word bites, and making collage-like sentences out of them. Hopefully this shouldn't sound too terrible due to the computery voice, but if it does, I might try to do a text thing like in MINERVA.

deathremains: I have an ending in mind, that hopefully isn't TOO cliche, but still appeals to cake fans depends if I can work out how to import new models/animations.

Ok first question, and if it's answered tonight, I may be able to treat you all to a juicy spoiler of a screenshot

Is there any reason why a retextured model, which shows up fine both in the model viewer and hammer, won't show up in game? It's a prop_physics entity. (don't want to give away much more as it may ruin the suprise)

edit: doesn't work as a static either.

Check the fade distances.

They're the same as the original object.

Do you think it might be a "needs the SDK update" thing? Since I can only load the model from the mod folder I made, not the actual Portal folder...if that makes sense.

I might just make a screenshot of what it looks like in hammer, because I would like a bit of feedback on this.

edit: Interesting. It just worked fine when I loaded up the map in the mod itself instead of in portal. But obviously a lot of other portal things didn't show up. but at least I now have my screenshots. See below:

Ok I'm going to have to explain this before showing it, and in doing so, I'll be revealing some story spoilers. So, if you want to be a beta tester for this game and give feedback, then by all means, continue. But if you want to enjoy it as intended, then it would be preferred to not look at this until the project is finished. That way it will be nice and fresh.

Ok so here's the explanation:

||Basically, before I introduce the companion cube back into the game, I want to let people get back to grips with:

a) cube based puzzles
b) working without a portal gun
c) what makes the companion cube special

Now, a) and b) will work themselves out as I make the maps, but c) is going to be tricky. I've actually spoken to people who didn't "get" the companion cube and couldn't understand why people loved it/him/her so. Part of my goal for this project is to convert these heretics.

Here's the proper spoiler.

So my idea was this. To create an 'anti-companion cube'. This is the cube that the player will be forced to work with in the first level, and it will be an utter annoyance. I'm not going to reveal how, as I don't need to (But I'll tell you this: He will threaten to stab you). Basically I want the player to feel as much hatred towards this cube as they felt compassion towards the companion cube, so that when the companion cube is introduced, the player feels relieved and overjoyed.

With me so far? Ok. The feedback I would like is as follows:

Is this a good idea? Or is it terrible? There may easily be something big that I've overlooked that could make this feature ruin the whole thing, so if you have a gripe, then please be as harsh as possible. It's not too late to start over.

Is such a thing technically possible? At the moment I can't load it into Portal itself, only when I load it with the mod I created to allow me to do the portal mapping in the first place. I also eventually want it to speak, like the turret, but with a different voice. Can this be done without the SDK update? Or will I have to wait?

Lastly, How does it look? Here are two screenshots:

pic 1

pic 2

This is a first draft so it will inevitably change before final release, and I want it to change for the better? Does it clash with the rest of Portal's style? Is it too obviously evil-looking? could it do with being a different colour?||

I can't wait to hear from you guys. I'm getting more excited by this project every day

sounds like an awesome story, you have my full support.

on the cube itself

It could look a little more, 'evil' the bit you've got in the centre is what I had enterpreted to be an eye (from the GLaDOS shpere?) which, personally I think would only work if the eye followed you all the time.
The dark corner bits lack texture, maybe boost the contrast of those bits?

all that aside it looks like this is going to be awesome!

Thanks ||Yes it is the eye from the angry sphere. I was trying to think of a consistant symbol of evil within the portal story. At first I thought of the skull from the Fratricide achievement, then the broken heart symbol that you see infront of the incinerator (both of which, symbolise an "anti-companion" cube in some way) but then I thought that might not have been obvious enough, because both symbols could be easily missed in the game if one doesn't pay attention. But it's impossible to miss the quite scary looking eye. I agree it does look wierd if it doesn't follow you. Who knows, I might remove the whole "cube" concept altogether and make it a GLaDOS sphere. Although I wouldn't know how to explain that story-wise.

The black corners were done very quickly. I'm definitely re-doing them, so no worries there.||

stick with the cube idea!
personally i think a broken heart in blood red would work best. and could you possibly make the little indented strips bolder? perhaps i'm critisising too much

No, seriously, keep it coming, this is good

Although what exactly do you mean by bolder? do you mean redder? darker? thicker? sorry.

Wroth wrote:
what exactly do you mean by bolder? do you mean redder? darker? thicker? sorry.

a combination of each.

you mentioned the 'moral decision' how big do you intend to make the map branch? this could be a quite exciting gameplay element if you get it right.