@quatrus, I was able to quick-save in mid-level...

One of the best mods for Portal 2 that I've so far played. Here's my feedback, long and filled with spoilers:

I agree with Tonytony.

1. The gravity/Escher thing was disorientating and confusing, and I did not think that it contributed to the level.

2. Final test chamber:

a) There is no introduction to elements such that the player learns. I don't recall any test chamber in Portal 1 or 2 in which the pools of water were not toxic. In Portal 2 we are taught that >puddles< of water on the ground are >not< toxic because we fall into those puddles and do not die -- there was no way for the player to avoid the puddles.

When I first entered the level, I spent a >lot< of time trying to figure out how to get across what I've been taught is toxic water. When, out of desperation, I tried to jump it and then did >not< die, I was sort of mad. Somewhere you should have a non-toxic pool into which one falls or is pushed into so that one learns that not all pools are toxic.

b) Same thing for the glass ceiling. Nowhere are we taught that we can manipulate the environment in that way; we have been taught that glass can be broken by flinging something through portals but not by simply touching it with an object. I only learned that by reading one of the prior hints in this thread. Again, I was peeved to find out that it was even possible to do that. Maybe placing a glass wall that breaks as the ball is >carried< would provide the learning experience.

c) Maybe this is a glitch... In the final hall at the exit door before the elevator, I put a portal on the wall and another portal on one of the platforms far below. Then, grabbing the ball, I jumped through the portal far below me. I expected to fly across the toxic pool and hit the far door. However, I landed in the pool. This seems like a glitch. At the speed I should have had, I should have flown straight down that hallway and smacked against the exit door. I tried again and it worked, so maybe it's just me.

I did enjoy the mod though. It was good that you didn't rely on split-second timing, pixel-perfect jumps, or things like re-portalling (which Valve removed) or bunny hopping.

||Maybe I should make the glass that you can break by the ball apear already a bit broken. The learning curve was maybe a bit vague. It happens when you portal the sphere trough that one glass with the light source.

In the tunnel, the unbreakable glass has black squares and the rest looks kinda cheap, and then I put a big hint at the end of the tunnel at the door.

Without handing it on a plate I thought this would be making ppl thinkg about "glass".||

About the water/slime dilemma, I'll just remove it in the patch. I just seen it in other levels and I thought it would be cool but yeah it was maybe confusing.

About the exit hatch (before the nightmare escape elevator), You should be able to fling down to that one surface that is aligned for you and the sphere to jump in.

To be honest , too quick ninja portaling, reportalling or using funnel and wallprojector glitches on purpose would be too elitist imo. I started with pretty hard puzzles but as playtesters (friends) were playing my map I releaved the difficulty.

I wanted a campaign that was average difficulty but with some new ideas without forcing it TOO much out of the box.

The patch notes are stacking up and are mainly situated around textures, some obvious noobish things of mine and well.... a new bonus map! I'm taking a small month for this so I can make a final version.

Here's a couple of thoughts, my last words on the subject.

||In the level where you have a deep shaft with the portal surface on the bottom, change it to have a non-toxic pool at the bottom with a hallway thats >just< visible at the bottom leading away from the pool. Make it so one cannot jump "just so" missing the pool and landing on the walkway. At the end of >that< hallway, put another deep shaft.

This way folks will see the passageway at the bottom and try to get there. They will fail and fall into the pool... and learn that it is non-toxic.

Otherwise make a room in a previous level with a collapsing walkway that drops the player into a non-toxic pool.

For the glass, on a previous level make a glass plate that completely blocks the player's progress. Preferably somewhere in the level where they are not typically carrying the ball. The glass would block their progress until they happened to be carrying the ball. Maybe a sign that says "break glass in case of fire" would be too much of a hint... but you could think about that.

Or maybe -- don't know if it's possible -- put a turret behind a big glass window with the area directly in front of the turret opaque so the player cannot see what's behind the glass and the turret does not start talking or shooting. Then have a sign that says "break glass in case of boredom". When the player tries to break the glass and finds that only the ball breaks it, they get a surprise. Either they run, or drop the ball to pick up and fling the turret, or they push the turret over. In any event, they've now broken glass on purpose with the ball so your hints on the last level might ring a bell or make more sense.||

I enjoyed the mod. Good luck.

On the whole I enjoyed this, but here is some constructive criticsm::

||-First off, it lagged. A lot. I had to put all settings on low to even play the thing, despite normally running Portal 2 on full settings.
-I didn't like the gravity changing things. It's just disorientating. It feels like more of a gimmick than anything else.
-The texturing seemed a bit of a mess to me, I think it needs a bit more consistency.
-The arial faith-plate in the laser cube room would fling me straight up before it would fling me forwards. Don't know if this is just a bug or there for some obscure reason, but it annoyed me.
-The last room annoyed me. It wasn't clear that you had to break the glass, or even that you could break the glass with the sphere. It took me a while to even figure out how to get the sphere out the room, because I didn't see the glass in the wall.

K, now for some good points:
-I loved the custom content. Things like custom sounds, videos and sounds always add a bit of character to a map.
-I liked that it was packaged as a mod rather than as a vpk. It makes it look so much more professional, especially with the custom loading screens and intro.
-On the whole, the puzzles were enjoyable. I especially liked the overhead maze.
-It was great to see a use of diversity vents that wasn't buggy and awkward like so many seem to be.

Overall, I enjoyed this map, but I feel it could do with a bit more work.||

The problem with diversity vents is that when you are timing it like in the final map you're always going to have some deviation due to randomness of the ball slamming against the tube walls and getting stuck or whatnot so I faked it a bit. You can always use these things if they are short, but there's always the risk of the ball getting stuck.

i know about the faithplate, it's because I need to move the fallen catwalk prop out of the way, i put it there for consistency because well it's gone upstairs right ? I'm gonna see if I can move it a bit back while you can still reach the cube AND have a correctly functioning faith plate.

There's already 15 or so fixes noted for the public patch. I might also make the glass appear broken where you can break it so it has more than a visual cue...

I bow down to the genius of all involved in making this mod. The animation at the start was fantastic, loved the way it stopped, then you were at the start of the first level. You have created 2 of my favourite levels in Portal 2, the faithplate level and the end level with the sphere. I have read through most of the comments,totaly disagree about the water and the glass, i got it straight away you just have to learn, that is a new element of gameplay, you cant go putting up signs pointing out everything. Congratultions for mapping a great campaign.

Thanks so much everyone for the round score and the many downloads of this campaign. This is very motivating and honestly I didn't expect this. Now I KNOW as a level designer that I am going trough an evolution still. It was an escapade for me as I'm mainly a musician. I know that there are some noobish oversights in brushwork here and there but despite that, I'm relieved that the puzzles were entertaining for most.

I have now more than 20 fixes that I'm working on for the 1.1 update, all gathered from feedback here, on moddb, youtube and on blogs. I'd like to release that on halloween

I'm well underway on working on patch 1.1

Not only am I fixing 30+ things, I would also take the opportunity to make some parts of the maps a bit nicer.

For example I took the advice that people were confused about the water in the last map and created a more straightforward visual for the small room there. Also the glass that can be broken is visually breakable now.

In 2 weeks I hope to have this patch ready.

I was also perplexed by the last chamber and needed to watch the vid posted here on P2 in order to progress.

Here's a shorter walk-through for those who may be interested:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn4vxRZeodY

Ok, so I m stuck with the very first puzzle : The game doesn't work

I downloaded it three times on different link, installed, reinstalled and restarted steam a bunch of times but it just doesn't want to work

I have the portal 2 : THE CORE in my library on steam, but when I launch it it's just portal 2. When I launch a new game it's the portal 2 standard game, nothing in challenge mode aswell
I tried to launch the first map with the console but it doesn't work. I tried to copy / paste the maps in the map directory but as expected it doesn't work

Very hard first puzzle... What should I do ? copy / paste every single material from the thecore directory in the portal 2 directory ?

Are you playing on a mac? at least it sounds similar to a guy complaining about "it just starts the regular game" and he was playing onmac. Can't think of anything rightnow because I didn't have enough information to mine from.

I wonder if mac even has the same mod support than pc versions and i've been reading a bit on the subject and I found a post on portal prelude. It's for portal but it might be the same for portal 2.

Here's the post if you want to read it all:

http://www.portalprelude.com/forum/view ... p?pid=4818

Basicly in a nutshell it will deal with how you have to make a symbolic dir out of your portal main dir that reads actually from the install dir of your mod. I'm not really a linux guy but I've worked enough with servers on and off to kinda understand what they are trying to do.

What's also interesting is that you seem to have to start the game by the -game <modname> -dev parameter, in this case it would mean that you need to change the portal 2 install options to have -gamme thecore (named after the symbolic link that you gave to the mod install dir)

I don't know if this help and it's really too much of a hassle. Valve should just support mods under mac right ?

Before you try all the symbolic link bs just try to set the launch options first in steam and see if that works

Having trouble getting this to install properly. I followed the instructions, put thecore in source mods, etc. When I restart steam Portal 2: THE CORE shows up in my library. When I launch the core, it just launches regular ol' portal 2.

Really would like to play this, any suggestions?

EDIT: Got it working. Not sure what fixed it. I know restarting steam didn't fix it. After that, I deleted ClientRegistry.blob, updated my graphics driver (Steam was complaining that I hadn't updated... the driver had just been released yesterday), and restarted my computer. When it came back, it worked.

Glad that it works for you now, what video card do you have ? Nvidia ?

It took me more time to make the mod work than to complete it

I had to redownload portal 2 on steam, and this The_Core worked properly (I m on Windows 7)

Very nice campaign congratulation
Especially the beginning that turned my head upside down
The last part didn't pleased me much, it was not hard to complete once you understand ... what we are actually suppose to do x)

We can't hear any timer when the ball go up the coil, so I didn't understand why what she was activating turned off on it's own. I could reach the roof without using the speedy paint, so I it taked me a long time to figure that I could break the glass.

Another thing, I don't like invisible wall (first room : hey I can jump on that thing !? Nope. invisible wall say you can't.) and passing through texture (Through the roof or through structures .. leading into the deadly water )

Anyway, it was great. Need more of that fist room concept, very very nice

Good Job !

It's an NVIDIA 425M.

Very enjoyable map, a lot of very creative design elements. I giggled with joy when I realized I had to go turret bowling.

The only thing I recall distinctly not liking was in the last level where you had to use the ball to break the glass. Had no idea that I could do that (and in other parts of the game, you specifically can't break the glass like that). Some better indication of what to do there, or perhaps a revamped way to accomplish that maybe some rockets? would be appreciated.

the glass will now appear broken in these area's (in the halloween patch)

Here are the details for the halloween patch 1.1 update

General:

Generally improved the maps with some depth details
custom signs are now self illuminated
updated essential mod file to support directx 8
fixed exit doors not closing behind the player in some maps (except for the nightmare elevator)
Installer package now fetches for sourcemod dir in the windows registry
Chapters now also show their titles in-game

Map 1: (chapter 1: Angular Reality)

replaced bts arms in sky-box with decoration lights to optimize performance on low memory bandwidth video cards
More "ratman den" decoration to make it look less dull

Map 2: (Chapter 2: A New Companion)

moved back the catwalk which is sometimes blocking start catapult movement direction
fixed further texture misalignments
BTS decoration arm lights were pointing the wrong way

Map 3: (Chapter 3: The Shrine)

prevented placement of portals outside the shrine until THE CORE is removed from the altar
redesigned the top of the shrine room
fixed misaligned ceiling texture near gel and excursion funnel area
jump panels of the second room now activate when the player enters
fixed some Z-fighting props in the jump room BTS area
fixed unfinished look of blobulator spawn area above the gel dropper
made the pneumatic diversity exit vent more responsive to THE CORE
puzzle indicators for tractor beam will now match it's direction color

Map 4: (Chapter 4: Deadly Intermezzo)

extruded glass near "bowling turret" to reduce the chance of blockages when it's tippled over
removed placeholder brushwork for a light model in the maze section

Map 5: (Chapter 5: Euthanazation Vault)

decorated the jump hall with extra brushwork and models
fixed env_projectedtexture
core goodbye line should be a triggered once only
texturized laser power control room interior in case that players portal in there
prevented players from going trough the tractor beam generator prop
sanitized the puzzle around the tractor beam alcove with an escape platform and emancipation grill

Map 6:: (Chapter 6: CatapultClysm)

added bonus map

Map 7: (Chapter 7: Round Tangent)

added extra models and brushwork to prevent players spotting the ceiling of the right side entry bts area when crouched.
prevented "cutting the race" glitch by replacing core receptacle tube piece with an iris
overhauled design of the small test room for a less dull look and removed shallow water areas
fixed small room exploit where players could jump & hop the core inside the glass window without having to fling it
fixed ability to place a portal on the second fling platform for the CORE race puzzle
changed main test room acid texture to the correct deadly slime look
corrected misaligned light spots on the exit hatch area
removed map prototype GLaDOS power off event in exit area
placed exit hatch override in case the player manages to "forget" THE CORE and left it being on the race exit socket
gave breakable glass a visually broken style so it seems more obvious that you can break it.
fixed succeeded wallprojector puzzle indicators showing unsolved state for the sphere when it is put into the socket for a second time

Nice mod Cosmic. I really enjoyed the middle puzzles (2 3 4) and had some very intuitive puzzles, the GLaDOS lines were pretty awesome and whoever did the Core's voice was cute :3.

It was a hard campaign but the hardest puzzle had to be the first one. Took me a long time to realise I can go back through my own portal. DOH! Not to mention it confused me greatly.

The only part of the campaign I didn't like was the bit with the world portals and the bit where you had to break the glass with the ball. I literally was walking around there for 20 minutes before I had to look up a video on how to continue.

Some bugs: I had gotten myself stuck in the chamber with the orange paint as there was no ball in the holder any more (accidentally fizzled it) and both of my portals where in the last room. GLaDOS just said "Who turned off the lights" and I had to noclip out of there (plus it autosaved so I had no noclip).
In the first chamber where when I tried to fling myself into the exit, there was clip blocking it. Previously I had strafed jumped and landed on the edge of it (realised it was clipped as I wasn't meant to be there yet) and strafed back. Had no noclip past the clip to finish even though I did fling myself correctly.

lol i'm kinda confused as to how you were trying to solve the last puzzle with flinging. If you loose the ball somewhere you can always get a new one from the first chamber even if it's underway in the tube.

Maybe I can disable the emancipation grill when the race part of the puzzle succeeds. So if you drop the sphere by accident after that part, you can just take a new one without having to fling it past the first chamber's exit into the launch tunnel.

It would be harder if you were in the reversed situation. (namely the ball is below and you are at the exit). For that I've created an exit override button that will open that hatch for 5 seconds.

chickenmobile wrote:
In the first chamber where when I tried to fling...

2 bugs I found. Different chambers.

there's a playerclip there yes to avoid ppl to try to reach the middle just by jumping. It's maybe a bit odd I admit. I can maybe build a glass sepparator there. I'll see.