Gameplay note:
This map plays best with the instructor hints activated (Wheatley telling you to "Say apple" in the beginning). If you turned them off, type "gameinstructor_enable 1" into the console to activate them again.

Brought to you by: Lpfreaky90, Mevious and Zivi7

Click here to download Aperture Halloween

Click here to download [Coop] Aperture Halloween

There are some people we must thank for playtesting, instances, models and generally being a great help:

Azorae, Brainstone, Chickenmobile, Miss Stabby, Motanum, Mothalius, Mumbles, no00dylan, Ross Friedberg and Skotty.

Without you, this map would be nowhere near the final result, thanks a lot!

The first part with the flashlight was nice, it moved quite okay and contributed to the search and find aspect, it felt awesomely thought trough and executed! There was some issues with not that great texturing and lighting at some places but it didn't bring down the overall feel for me. Other than that the lighting was overall nice, diverse and logically placed. I was happily surprised to find puzzles towards the end of the map, which I first thought were only aimed at telling a story. The puzzles were really nice, felt fresh and with original puzzle ideas.

The puzzle with the four rooms that were divided with fizzler sorta bugged out for me I guess or maybe I missed something. The cube button in the middle square room didn't turn the fizzler back on when I removed the cube so I could just jump to the exit with the cube without loosing my portals. Last puzzle was really neat, straightforward and well designed. Difficulty was in figuring how to do stuff rather than figuring out what had to be done and that's what makes a great puzzle, also the solution was really neat.

Overall a great example of a map that focuses on really capturing and entertaining the player rather then just stacking one puzzle after the other and with a difficulty that most people should enjoy!

Happy Halloween!:)

version 2 is now uploading:

• Fixed pti sounds playing at the start of the map.
• Fixed clipping textures in the end corridor.
• Fixed a way to get stuck in the candle introduction.
• Fixed missing autosave.
• Fixed missing ceiling models.
• Fixed some clipping models.
• Fixed some water that was not rendered.
• Fixed some signage acting up weird.

• Fixed music continuing for too long.

• Put a floating button back to earth

• Added a few hints in the final puzzle.
• Moved a candle that almost lit a wall on fire.
• Re-connected an indicator light.
• Changed the behavior of the turret production unit.

• Changed some triggers to prevent weird behaviour in the final room.

• Added clips to the plants in the corridor again.

• Added new decorative candles; in orange, blue and pink with better lighting.
• Added a small brush to hide a floating turret production unit.
• Added more coffee cups. You can never have enough of them.
• Removed unused clip textures.

Replacing the relays with candles is a nice touch too. Great job on the model design!
Just remember to put them out before going to bed, or your whole enrichment center might burn down.

From a technical point of view, one thing I like in particular, is the portal-enabled wall panel you can carry around. I think this has lots of potential for making interesting puzzles.

I have only one small bit of criticism: near the beginning of the map, you pass through an area where you have to fling up a hole to get past a nest of turrets. The design of that lower room is of a much lower quality than the rest of the map. Did you guys run out of time before finishing that part?
(It's not horrible, it's just that it stands out from the rest, because the other parts look great and this one area looks a bit less great.)

HMW wrote:
From a technical point of view, one thing I like in particular, is the portal-enabled wall panel you can carry around. I think this has lots of potential for making interesting puzzles.

We have to thank Brainstone for coming up with a nice way to make this possible at all: mapping-help/carryable-wall-piece-physbox-not-working-solved-t6679.html
We modified that instance slightly: A noportalvolume on the back prevents that the wall starts jumping around when shot with a portal from the back. And moving the actual wall a few units into the not-rendered base prevents that it sinks into the floor when tipped over.

edit: Forget the noportalvolume. It turns out that it was the reason for the problem PCDoc and others ran into. Make it an invisible func_brush instead.

HMW wrote:
I have only one small bit of criticism: near the beginning of the map, you pass through an area where you have to fling up a hole to get past a nest of turrets. The design of that lower room is of a much lower quality than the rest of the map. Did you guys run out of time before finishing that part?

Oh, that room is meant to be a kind of test chamber that's observed from within the office area there. Originally there were a few test elements in there to reinforce this, but they could easily mislead players to think they would need to use them.

edit: But there is still something to see in that area for the exact observer.

Admittedly I got stumped in the Turret test chamber. I simply did not realize that the wall holding the dummy was portable, and I simply did not realize that Turret bullets could break Glass. They never have before - so why would they now ? So I could not get through the glass into the viewing room. I went all the way back into the previous office below all the Turrets . . looking for any CHAIR THAT WOULD ALLOW ITSELF TO BE PICKED UP !!! The idea was to use a chair to break the glass. But alas - no - all chairs were glued to the floor it seemed. Finally it just suddenly occurred to me that the test turret bullets could break the glass.
The next part that stumped me was HMW's fav - the wall panel that fell down and was to be a "portable surface". I tried for 30 minutes to shoot a portal into it and all attempts failed. That part needs work. As it turns out - the surface has to be set on the floor in a VERY EXACTING position before it will allow a portal to be shot into it. WHY ?? I really was fruatrated about that, but finally got it.

The 4-room fizzler puzzle was next. It was challenging but not super hard, so I got through it.

Finally, the coolest part, was saved for last. That puzzle was ingenious !!!!!!!!!!!! It took me the longest time to figure it out. So many fizzlers and so many options to try. After what seemed like an eternity I finally managed to pin the cube up high on the far wall, and it was a done deal once I stood on the button to draw it back over and dropped it into the center exit room.

At the exit part - it had a scary feeling and reminded me that this was a Halloween map. When I saw that giant shadow, I assumed I was in for some sort of Halloween "Boss Battle from Hell" - then the game ended. I am sure you would have liked to have had a Boss battle, but I can sympathize with you for not doing one. All in all this was a 10 but I can only give it a 5. So I did. Major kudos to all involved.

PCdoc wrote:
Just 2 Votes ?? Come on people - give all these hard working folks a Vote !!
This was Terrific - incredible - the group of you have really created something that no single person could. And what a creation it was. I sincerely hope that this same group goes on to create more of these. We need MORE !!!!

Very glad you enjoyed it! Who knows; maybe we'll create a new map in the future

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Admittedly I got stumped in the Turret test chamber. I simply did not realize that the wall holding the dummy was portable, and I simply did not realize that Turret bullets could break Glass

Would it have been better if the door would've shut behind you?

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The next part that stumped me was HMW's fav - the wall panel that fell down and was to be a "portable surface". I tried for 30 minutes to shoot a portal into it and all attempts failed. That part needs work. As it turns out - the surface has to be set on the floor in a VERY EXACTING position before it will allow a portal to be shot into it. WHY ?? I really was fruatrated about that, but finally got it.

We've heard this before; but whilst testing we never got this problem. We're still looking for a solution! If you have any suggestions; we'll love to hear them

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The 4-room fizzler puzzle was next. It was challenging but not super hard, so I got through it.

Quote:

Finally, the coolest part, was saved for last. That puzzle was ingenious !!!!!!!!!!!! It took me the longest time to figure it out. So many fizzlers and so many options to try. After what seemed like an eternity I finally managed to pin the cube up high on the far wall, and it was a done deal once I stood on the button to draw it back over and dropped it into the center exit room.

Quote:

At the exit part - it had a scary feeling and reminded me that this was a Halloween map. When I saw that giant shadow, I assumed I was in for some sort of Halloween "Boss Battle from Hell" - then the game ended. I am sure you would have liked to have had a Boss battle, but I can sympathize with you for not doing one. All in all this was a 10 but I can only give it a 5. So I did. Major kudos to all involved.

We would've loved to add a bossfight; but there were two issues:
1) We ran out of time. about 2/3rd of the map has been done in the last week and we simply wouldn't have had time to make a proper boss fight.
2) We ran into engine limits. In fact we had to cut out some details here and there in order to actually get the map to work. Even the most simple boss would've exceeded that limit again.

Once again, thanks for the kind words

PCdoc wrote:
The next part that stumped me was HMW's fav - the wall panel that fell down and was to be a "portable surface".

We will fix this in the new version. It turned out that an earlier fix for another problem caused this new bug.

If you are interested in the details: The func_noportal_volume behind the wall panel caused this new behaviour. Luckily, an invisible func_brush works just as good - without making the panel unportalable when not in the correct spot.

But transporting that painting was a real problem.
It took me forever because of its large, clunky size . . . but I finally got it to the other room.

So there I sat - like an idiot - with a huge, useless painting.

HAHAHA - sad but true !!!!!

PCdoc wrote:
HAHAHA - sad but true !!!!!

It should work much better now. Thanks for pointing out the issue!

Feedback below, separated by sections of the map.
Feedback
||Opening (Scene with Wheatley telling robot ghost stories to the other cores around a fireplace)
-Really liked it, it was kinda 'cute' too.

Opening hallway
-Music and the door closing on its own was kinda creepy.
-Liked the idea of using a flashlight to carry around with you to lit up dark areas.
-It was not obvious that the lit-up ceiling was portalable. I thought it was just a light.

Flinging to get past turrets
-I found a room with Mevious' picture on the wall. Was that like a secret room?
-I didn't know you need to fling over to the other side to get past those turrets. I thought you need to rush past those turrets xD

Post-flinging area
-Where did the turret come from?! O_O

Turret practice room and lobby
-I don't really know why players get stucked in this room. It was pretty straightforward to get the turret to shoot the glass of the lobby.
-The falling picture scared me :/

Test 1 (The one that the player needs to carry a portalable wall)
-I'm curious, does the shallow Goo kill?
-Wasn't really obvious that you need to portal the area behind the laser emitter.
-The portalable wall that can be carried is really creative. Its a little bit hard to position the wall correctly for the laser to be redirected into its receptacle.
-Liked carrying those little white tiles

Test 2 (The one with the laser relay candles)
-Really straightforward.
-Creative to substitute laser relays as candles!
-Really liked those colorful candles along the hallways

Test 3 (The one with lasers and fizzlers)
-Took me a while to realise the solution, really good puzzle

Elevator area
-I was kinda depressed when I saw the elevator, because I thought the map has ended. But then I realised that the departure elevator wasn't arriving, so my mood went back to up

Path to Test 4
-I don't really know what I picked up but it disintegrated. I guess its a Frankenturret?
-Straightforward

Test 4 (The one with the funnel and fizzlers)
-Really creative puzzle, took me a long time to figure out the solution. Good job on the puzzle!
-What was the point of the light bridge?
-Those guys in the observatory rooms appeared out of nowhere, creepy. O_O

Final area
-Too dark.
-Don't really know whats with the huge turret silhouette. From the silhouette, it looks like the Animal King Turret.
-I thought there was gonna be a boss fight or something. But then the map ended ||

Overall, a really awesome Halloween map! 5/5 definitely.

As for the lightbridge question: one of the fizzlers broke (I really need to look into that!) which made your solution unintended. For the intended solution the lightbridge is totally vital!

Lpfreaky90 wrote:
Thanks for your video reactorrocks RectorRocks*! Very helpful!

As for the lightbridge question: one of the fizzlers broke (I really need to look into that!) which made your solution unintended. For the intended solution the lightbridge is totally vital!

No problem! Heh, Sorry!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xODwgg65Pmg