this is the start of my companion cube level, its still a proof of concept, need still getting it to work

what got me started on this was wanting to work more with triggers, relays all that crap. So I thought up something that would envolve tons and tons of them, in a very limited space... theres many many triggers and relays to be made...

this is the first puzzle or 'game' of the map, you are given both a Companion cube and a companion sphere, right now the cube is hidden because it doesn't work yet.

in the left corner, with the brightest light, are 2 raised brushes forming a small box, drop the sphere into it to start the game (im going to make it a button, or something later on, it just shows where the trigger is.)

things to note:
-the computer doesn't know how to play yet, you get to play yourself
-there is no victory condition

this map at this stage is mostly show and tell
download-> dload.php?action=file&file_id=81
mirror -> http://www.box.net/shared/ssyp9ra7gr

anyways... try and figure out what it is...

before reading this -> Tic-Tac-Toe

pretty neat, i like the idea of playing a game to go on. different puzzle mindset

Very neat idea; it just shows there is no limit to what you can do with this stuff if you are a Master of Hammer! Just to make sure I understood what was going on (ie controls, what was going to drop, etc), I had a row of each color before I looked at your answer, first try. Its hard to judge the puzzle-hardness since everyone has a different aptitude for this stuff, but it might be a little easy; even if so, it MORE than makes up for it with sheer uniqueness, IMO. Great job!

lol thanks

you will be presented with a cube and a sphere, sphere always goes first

you make your choice by placing the according shape in a bin, the other is destroyed or something

if you chose box, then anytime there is a sphere in the dropper, the computer will choose where to drop it, and you will lose if the computer gets 3 in a row, or if no one gets 3 in a row.

obviously sphere will be the easiest to win, making it hard to win with cube but winning with cube will ease things later in the level

I have a TON of triggers relays and other such entities left to add to have the computer make his move based on what has been done already

EDIT: I'm also having you have to 'win' back your portal gun, as it was taken away during your encarceration. if you win with the ball you get a blue portal gun, win with a box you get orange. later in the level both halves are available through puzzles so you can get the complete gun

sounds awsome. i got the tictacktoe thing after i dropped the second box, but i would warn you against making too many clues or making it to easy. personally, i would like to see some myst type portal maps, i think that would be really cool, and i see your map taking a first step down that path. with more mystery puzzles out there maybe i wont burn through hard to make maps so fast.

Very neat idea!

Maybe tic-tac-toe isn't such a good idea though, seeing as it's unwinnable if played perfectly by both sides... You'll have to make the computer play less than optimal...

connect four might be ideal

I thought about connect four, its a lot more complex than tic-tac-toe

I know that if the computer plays perfectly going first its impossible to win, but if you dont know that you'll be stuck you have to choose to go first or second, if you go first you can win, second you will lose, unless I make the computer less than ideal.

Ive also thought about making a rubik's cube puzzle... might be too hard for people though... (I can solve them)

A tic-tac-toe computer shouldn't be too hard to create. It would need a lot of triggers, though.

I'm doing a Simon-styled mini game.

Artesia wrote:
I know that if the computer plays perfectly going first its impossible to win, but if you dont know that you'll be stuck you have to choose to go first or second, if you go first you can win, second you will lose, unless I make the computer less than ideal.

It doesn't matter who goes first though. If both sides play perfectly it will always be a draw...

But doing a "less than perfect" computer opponent will probably be a lot easier than doing a perfect one, especially if you're doing it all using just the input/output system.

A rubiks cube should be easier to create to be honest (since you won't need a computer opponent) and imo a lot more fun

Sweeeet. This was fun to play even though you can't actually win and it doesn't go anywhere, which is a really good sign. Nice job on the lighting of the game board; that makes it easy to see the state of the game.

I was thinking that if you do plan to give the player different portal guns depending on if they play Sphere or Cube, you might want to indicate that somewhere in the map itself. Maybe you could change Cube's color in the game to orange rather than red. Then it would be Sphere = blue, Cube = orange. At least a bit of a hint there. Just an idea, take it or leave it.

I didn't really like the push button control of the cube dropper.

It just seemed very...slow.

Idealy, It would be great if portals could be involved somehow.
when I first thought about how portals could make a difference, i thought of this:

Give the player the blue portal only gun.
Create a glass chamber in a corner, that it is impossible for the player to get into (but can still see into). At the top of the chamber, there would be a cube/sphere dispenser. When the player activates the puzzle (however you choose to do that), an orange portal appears below the dispencer.
Then the player places the blue portal on where he wants his cube/sphere to drop. A button would control when the dispencer releases it's cube/sphere.
though some way of making it so the player can't retrieve the cube/sphere would need to be devised. And there would need to be some sort of way to prevent the player from putting a portal where there has already been one. AND you'd need a way to prevent the player from screwing with the computer's choices.

There are a lot of problems with using portals for this kind of puzzle. So I understand why you did what you did. Still, it would be nice to not have to rely on so many buttons.

It's a wonderful concept, and I commend your efforts on it.
And also, A rubriks cube would be an amazing feat. However, it would be something i'd never be able to solve. ...Stupid rubriks cubes.

Coming from a programmers perspective... making a computer play optimally isn't that hard. Making an opponent appear somewhat intelligent, while still having flaws is actually harder, imo. Easy is 100% perfect or 100% random. But yeah, tic-tac-to can definitely end up as a draw, no matter who goes first. With perfect play of connect-4 I believe whoever goes first wins, I don't remember what the outcomes were of my Computer Science 4 project, but the project was to write a game solver that could solve various games, including connect-4.

On another note: Awesome.

originally there were 3 buttons, one left to right for each direction, and a drop button... but so many lights started causing problems... Originally all the partitions were glass, I decided to add metal panes to block the light and solve those problems... which caused the problem that the player had to run around the game board, having to run around to get back to the button remembering where to move the dropper was annoying, so I added copies of the buttons around the rest of the game board.

on a side note, the other day when I made the post about bouncelight, I realized that hammer makes me forget my 3d knowledge, although easily regained... I need to work in max a bit more

so im not gonna worry about this map for a bit, after all it started as a "I wonder if I could" lol

It may be more helpful ifthe walls inside the gameboard are more transparent so you can see where everything is instead having to walk all the way around the board.

it was originally like that actually, problem is with so many different lights, it gives errors... errors even as how you guys are playing it, but when they are all glass then the errors are noticable, where certain cells wont light up because the light was disabled due to too many lights...

I want to have them all glass, sadly they didn't write the engine for things like this so I had to figure something out to make the lights show :s

Artesia wrote:
originally there were 3 buttons, one left to right for each direction, and a drop button... but so many lights started causing problems... Originally all the partitions were glass, I decided to add metal panes to block the light and solve those problems... which caused the problem that the player had to run around the game board, having to run around to get back to the button remembering where to move the dropper was annoying, so I added copies of the buttons around the rest of the game board.

I think it would be better if you simply made 9 ceiling tiles above the game board where you could then place a portal to drop your box as you please. When a tile is occupied you would retract the corresponding ceiling tile to make that place unportable.

It would make it feel more Portal-like, but of course might ruin your plan to make this game the deciding factor between whether you get the blue or orange portal gun afterwards... Unless you can take the gun away from the player again?

I thought about that, but it would involve taking away the cool moving box dropper in lew of a boring tiled ceiling... also I would need a bunch of portal detectors and fizzlers to make it so once you choose only one drops and you cant choose there again... and that portal gun would have to be able to fire only one portal as the other one would have to be in a hidden room for the objects to drop into...

all in all, I wanted it to be more like... "cool a portal level... wait... what? tic-tac-toe wtf?!" and I rather like the system I have for moving the box dropper back and forth

as it is now, im not really working on this or anything really, kinda lost motivation for the time being...

Artesia wrote:
as it is now, im not really working on this or anything really, kinda lost motivation for the time being...

What a slacker. You make such good stuff though