siuking666 wrote:
Guys, you know that most frustrating thing about all this, is that even if you spent tens of hours building a very nice puzzle, NO ONE WANTS TO PLAY IT, NO ONE APPRECIATES IT...
after releasing 3 puzzles totally (about 14 chambers in total); and seeing all that view rate, I simply DON'T want to continue on my 4th puzzle anymore...
While I spend hours building/constructing brainy stuff, some retarded/idiotic puzzles like a roller coaster (you can build it in 30 mins) simply get thousands of views and a 5-star rating!!!
Maybe as portal2tenacious said, people are idiots...well...
Well, call me an idiot, but I also liked the simple map more than the complicated one. Here's why:
Your simple map isn't much of a puzzle, but having all those balls bouncing around and snatching them out of the air is fun! In the same way that it can be satisfying to try to cover a whole map with portal paint, aimlessly bounce around on faith plates, or take out turrets in amusing ways. It's a kind of fun that has nothing to do with puzzle solving, but it's still fun!
The main problem with your harder map, I think, is that it looks too complicated for most people. First of all, the collage of complex looking screenshots along with the long description text will turn off a lot of potential players, who will assume that this map is way beyond their abilities. The gameplay is actually not that bad, but the first impression ruins it. What I would do, is zoom the editor view in to frame one of the sub-sections of the map before publishing it, so you get that as the main image. Then add some in-game screenshots of interesting sections.
detailed review of harder map
||The main theme of gathering cubes is well implemented. The exit is right at the beginning with it's six cube slots, so the player knows immediately what is expected of them. The quality of the individual tests themselves are a mixed bag IMO.
The small one with the blue and red paint + funnel is pretty okay. The main 'puzzle' here is not the test itself, but realising that after you got the first cube out, you need to get the other one also, which becomes possible after you get access to the portal paint room. This is a clever idea.
The little hallway where you are launched up, deactivate the laser field and then get followed by a cube is a very enjoyable, surprising moment!
The portal paint room is tedious. I know I said earlier that it can be fun to splatter the stuff everywhere, but if you're required to do that just to get to some place high up the wall, that suddenly seems like a lot of work for a relatively small result.
The remaining two rooms have a problem that is common among beginner maps: the lack of direction. Throwing a bunch of random looking stuff in a room and leaving the player to figure out what to do, is more a game of trial and error than a high-quality puzzle. It becomes even more annoying if guessing wrong gets you dunked or shot at repeatedly. Solving these didn't give me a feeling of "Wow, that was a really clever test and I solved it!" but rather "I wonder if I'm supposed to do it this way...". All of the sub-tests have some of this, but it's especially true in those two rooms.
Also, as you note in the map desciption, there are a couple of ways players can get into an unwinnable situation. This is bad game design, and putting a warning in the description is no excuse. A Portal map shouldn't need a manual.||
All in all, for a beginning map maker this is not a bad start, but there's still lots of room for improvement.
One commenter on your thread posted a link to this article with mapping tips. While I definitely don't agree with the snarky tone of that comment, that article is worth checking out!
And lastly, as others have said, don't be disheartened by a lack of attention. The process of creating something that is your own, is a lot of fun by itself. (If that is not the case for you, then you might as well stop doing it.)
The publicity is a nice bonus when it happens. And if you keep learning and keep making better and better maps, you will eventually get that publicity!
(By the way, you could easily turn the principle of that simple map into an actual puzzle! Make some looping path where the player has to make balls go around and pick them up at different places. If implemented correctly, I think it would be a winner.)
), learnt to use PeTI, now trying out Hammer. (ps: can anyone be my instructor on Hammer? my username on Steam is Siu-King**)
