A Little Higher is a small mappack containing 5 short, and simple puzzles using a new element, The Repulsion Cube. With this new element, players can control the Repulsion Gel at their will to solve puzzles.

Download the main file for a complete experience. Or if you rather install it via the workshop, that's fine too..

Click here to download [SP] A Little Higher

Click here to download [SP] A Little Higher

Really nice set of maps, I only saw your video for this yesterday, and thought the way you implemented that was excellent, now if only I could my idea of gel redirection cubes to work the same way. XD

Anyways about the maps, overall they were all good, short and simple just like you said but very official feeling. The use of the env_projectedtextures was great i loved the way light looked on the walls and models they shown upon. The Repulsion Gel cubes worked near flawlessly, I say "near flawlessly" because the cubes were able to coat themselves in gel which made it difficult sometimes for me to finish the test chamber, and I only realized that I could click the right mouse button to activate water toward the end, maybe a description of how the cube works would help.

In the "Bounce baby, bounce" map I was able to Cover the floor in front of the door the player arrives at after the Ariel Faith Plate with Repulsion Gel and it became quite simple for me to bounce around the door with a cube and exiting without the use of the second button. I may not have explained that to clearly so if a picture is needed I could upload one.

Overall I'd give these maps a 4.8/5 so by this site ratings it would be 5/5.

does not work 100% the cube paints its self blue and cant be cleaned with right mouse. so you have to take a second one.

Great! I really liked the mechanic of having a "gel gun". Having it come out of a cube was a bit weird but I guess it was tricky to do any other way.

The maps were very well made but the puzzles weren't very puzzling.

RubyCarbuncIe wrote:
Anyways about the maps, overall they were all good, short and simple just like you said but very official feeling. The use of the env_projectedtextures was great i loved the way light looked on the walls and models they shown upon. The Repulsion Gel cubes worked near flawlessly, I say "near flawlessly" because the cubes were able to coat themselves in gel which made it difficult sometimes for me to finish the test chamber, and I only realized that I could click the right mouse button to activate water toward the end, maybe a description of how the cube works would help.

In the "Bounce baby, bounce" map I was able to Cover the floor in front of the door the player arrives at after the Ariel Faith Plate with Repulsion Gel and it became quite simple for me to bounce around the door with a cube and exiting without the use of the second button. I may not have explained that to clearly so if a picture is needed I could upload one.

Thanks.

I'm glad you got it that I was not really trying to make challenging puzzles, since there is much you can do with the Repulsion Cube, but not too much. I tried everything to make sure that the cube can not get painted and I could not do anything. Also, the first map should have activated the game instructor, telling you how to fire paint, water and a little warning about getting gel on the cube. Unless people can not read English, its right there.

Yeah people told me a lot about the exploits in the second map. But its funny, because the exploits that I saw look harder then the intended solution.I'm not sure if I should go back and fix it, or let the ninjas have their fun.

Reswitch wrote:
The maps were very well made but the puzzles weren't very puzzling.

Well, I'm just happy I made 5 maps. Its very hard to think of ideas when you've been mapping for nothing but Portal for the last 3 years. I'm not trying to fire back at you, I'm just saying that its harder for me to think of puzzles now a days.

EDIT: I made a slip error in packaging. Make sure sp_lightboard_icons goes under scripts/vscripts/ transitions.

Very nice maps and good implementation of the gel cube. Probably a bit too easy, but a good introduction for the concept.

I only had the gel cube covering itself with blue paint problem once and you can always get a new one by dropping the cube into the acid. Would be great if you could make it impossible to paint the cube, but don't know whether that's possible.

I think the exploit in the second level should be fixed. I simply painted the area below the exit door blue and jumped up. Nothing else needed. Imo the most obvious solution and 'solving' the map takes about 5 seconds that way.

EDIT: And on a 2nd playthrough I managed to grab the gel cube in the third level without triggering the event that makes the bridge to the pressure plate go down. Not a biggie, but maybe make sure you can't grab the cube without triggering the event (not making portal maps, but I guess it's some kind of trigger zone, maybe move it a bit farther away from the platform the cube lands on).

Chamber 2 - blue gel at the right and then up over the front of the fence with the cube to the exit - maybe make the fence to the end
Last chamber - I just could not get the jump to the "blue cube" painted the floors and walls orange but so frustrating - had to noclip...sorry. Nice to see you're mapping for P2 - the blue portals P1 maps were all outstanding...

Nice little map pack, thanks for this. The gel cubes are simple but ingenious. But is there any way to keep the cubes from painting themselves? That got a little annoying.

BOB74j wrote:
Nice little map pack, thanks for this. The gel cubes are simple but ingenious. But is there any way to keep the cubes from painting themselves? That got a little annoying.

Sadly no. Maybe with vscripts, but I don't see myself as a programmer.Just throw it in the goo, or cover it with propulsion gel to remove the effect. (As the propulsion effect is less annoying)

Also, updated the maps. Fixed exploits, bugs, etc...

I played version 1.3 and got stuck in the 3rd map in two different ways. The first time, I sprayed blue gel on the light bridge (not on the ground), bounced up to the button, placed the blue cube, jumped down and then realized that I couldn't get back up after removing the bridge. After this, I used the light bridge to try and go grab the box sitting on the island button. I tossed it into the liquid and then realized I was stuck on the island. These were both admittedly stupid mistakes on my part, but I thought you'd like to know about them.

Mevious wrote:
I played version 1.3 and got stuck in the 3rd map in two different ways. The first time, I sprayed blue gel on the light bridge (not on the ground), bounced up to the button, placed the blue cube, jumped down and then realized that I couldn't get back up after removing the bridge. After this, I used the light bridge to try and go grab the box sitting on the island button. I tossed it into the liquid and then realized I was stuck on the island. These were both admittedly stupid mistakes on my part, but I thought you'd like to know about them.

How to (spoiler):

If you want to get the cube where is in the center button (in the toxic), only use the blue gel cube to make it bounce and fall in the toxic to get it back to the drop box, here it is, you have the two cubes !

Darkylight wrote:
How to (spoiler):

If you want to get the cube where is in the center button (in the toxic), only use the blue gel cube to make it bounce and fall in the toxic to get it back to the drop box, here it is, you have the two cubes !

Thanks for the tip, but you missed the point of my post. I was able to finish the map just fine, but only after killing myself and going to the second to last autosave. Most people consider the ability to get physically stuck (or be forced to kill yourself), to be a major design flaw, and I think that reepblue didn't notice these two issues.

Mevious wrote:
Thanks for the tip, but you missed the point of my post. I was able to finish the map just fine, but only after killing myself and going to the second to last autosave. Most people consider the ability to get physically stuck (or be forced to kill yourself), to be a major design flaw, and I think that reepblue didn't notice these two issues.

Well, you know that if the button is unpressed, the panel bridge is reformed right? All you would have to do is get off the button and Let the panel bridge be made. .

Nevermind, looking at it now and there is no iput from the button, I'll take a look at it. more. Thanks.

Testing grounds for the gelcubes prototyped in Underground Innovation, threads carefully not to leave the maximum accessibility zone at the price of exceeding in sobriety. Project consists of 5 micromaps, ranging from Clean to Decay with nice animation and interesting lightplay. Possibly too essential to leave a mark: some oddity could have helped giving it flavour (since you breeze through nonetheless), like Blue Portal's unique looks.

The few bugs\exploits I've seen, are already being fixed. The only thing I would ask for, is some instruction for the cube: I didn't realize what it was until the 2nd room, having sniped a portal from below the fizzler to pass. If I may, you need not pull any punches here: other concept maps (Antimatter, Delta Bunsen, Angrybombs) aren't half as shy - and imo deep inside, first-timers bashing their face at them do notice that too.

Interesting idea, making the laser cube shoot gell. I like the idea that the cube can get gell on itself if one is not careful. I had to wash it a couple of times with clean gell. Hey wait for me....cube...come back. Anywho, thanks for sharing an interesting idea and for the very simple to solve maps to try it out on.
Eastward

@ReepBlue

Can you please fix the instructions in your read-me file? I'm not sure anything you wrote in there is correct. The directory to the maps folder is ...\common\portal 2\portal2\maps, and your zip file with the scripts leads to the wrong directory (I assume), since the original sp_lightboard_icons.txt is in ...\portal2\scripts\vscripts\transitions**. I also don't have an addons folder like your instructions assume already exists, so I put that in my maps** folder. In any case, I haven't gotten it to work and I don't see how everyone else figured it out. Any help is appreciated.

Edit: Okay so I got it by putting the addons folder under my main portal2 directory. Which makes it even more confusing that your instructions give the location of the maps folder when nothing actually goes in there.

Yeah its a typo, I will fix it with the next update which will also contain new textures, and a fix to "And Over". Also, I fail to see a way to fix the bouncing cube effect. Thanks.

So I finished 3 of the chambers (I think)... I quit in the level with orange paint because after I got the cube I could never make it back no matter how much I painted the walls. The mechanic of shooting paint is very cool, though. Nice job.

This is the P2 mod responsible for most of my deaths and reloads. Still I like it, which speaks a lot of the puzzle quality. Yet I cannot help thinking that sometimes, accuracy and possibly even sheer luck were overrated - particularly in the end chamber when you walljump your way to the exit (get the angle wrong and you hit the glass wall and fall, or rise too high and fall, or just randomly fall by hitting the wall at a too obtuse angle...).

I got this one working quickly and liked it.

The gel cube is fun to use, even if sometimes it's hard to get gel close up. The puzzles were on the easy side.

As for getting gel on the cube, I say just have "drips" of water (if that's possible) to wash it off, like there are leaky pipes of water or something. I used orange gel for this whenever it was around.

Bug: On the last level, the blue gel goes right through the glass.