A Beam Too Far

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FelixGriffin
2,680 Posts
Posted Sep 30, 2012
Replied 3 hours later
Sign? The one saying to make sure that everything...oh. OH!

I never would have thought of that on my own! Thanks!

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FelixGriffin
2,680 Posts
Posted Oct 01, 2012
Replied 1 day later
Gosh darn it HMW you've trapped me again.

I felt so clever having figured out the puzzle after turning on the power...

And then the laser goes straight through the glass!

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Sleter
29 Posts
Posted Oct 02, 2012
Replied 9 hours later
Beautiful map puzzle and very rewarding.
In the first room I was very confused and after 20 minutes it seemed impossible to recreate the cube in the valid position.
I asked for help from Jose that turned me on a little light in the head and after a while, the flash that made ??me say to myself, "Of course! How did I not think of that first ?"
The sense of disorientation between offices abandoned reminded me very much the feeling of the first times in Portal and when I realized how it was really rewarding.
The last test is the gluttonous cherry on the cake.
Here, too, have been there for quite some time before figuring out how to complete.

All in all, it is a large map that like the previous one can not miss in my collection of maps do not miss.
Thank you for creating it.

sorry for my English (use google translator and I hope I have not written the opposite of what I wanted)

@PCdoc : Thanks again for appreciation and for reporting.
@HMW : Thanks for the comment and appreciation of my map.

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sicklebrick
876 Posts
Posted Oct 03, 2012
Replied 1 day later
It's just a big barrel of pwn <3
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FelixGriffin
2,680 Posts
Posted Oct 03, 2012
Replied 4 hours later
Solved! But found a bug...I was playing the prerelease version while my internet is slow, so it might have been fixed.

I brought both cubes into the final room with the sendtor, used one on the button, then brought the last with me. I tried to fizzle it when I saw that it was unneeded, but there was a func_clip_vphysics blocking the doorway. Why? :S

But the puzzle was brilliant! Five stars!

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HMW
806 Posts
Posted Oct 04, 2012
Replied 13 hours later

FelixGriffin wrote:
Solved! But found a bug...

Of course, when I'm on the verge of releasing an update, something like this happens
I used the standard door instance from the game, which has a physics clip. I'll replace it with my own version.

Concrats on finishing it, BTW!

Edit: Update released!

changes:
* reworked the area with the cube platform in the last puzzle;
* fixed an unintended solution for the last puzzle;
* added some portal placement guides near the laser in the second chamber;
* removed unneeded physics barrier from exit door (thanks Felix!);
* minor lighting tweaks to the power-off state of the last chamber.

I must say I was kind of bothered with the half-fizzler situation myself. They were meant to stop cube tossing but it doesn't seem elegant. Instead, I just lowered the floor by 128 units. Not sure if that will make it physically impossible to heave a cube up there, but I think that anyone who manages that now, deserves the shortcut

(Also tried various ways of completely encasing the whole platform with fizzlers, but all of those setups were either cramped, prone to accidental cube fizzling, or generally not "Feng Shui".)

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FelixGriffin
2,680 Posts
Posted Oct 04, 2012
Replied 1 hour later
Wait, in that area I used the laser cube to get a storage cube into the "hallway", then used it to block the laser and bring the laser cube over. But I had to try many times to get it not to fizzle. Was there a better solution?
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HMW
806 Posts
Posted Oct 04, 2012
Replied 24 minutes later
You did it right. The unintended solution I was referring to, was to simply carry the lens cube up to the platform via portals. With the update, I moved the fizzler in the hallway to the other end, so the white floor is no longer available.
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Lpfreaky90
2,842 Posts
Posted Oct 04, 2012
Replied 2 hours later
Moved this map to community spotlight for being absolutely awesome!

ps: you removed the url to the download page from your first post

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HMW
806 Posts
Posted Oct 06, 2012
Replied 1 day later
Whoops... that must have happened when I edited the post to add V2 the list of changes. Thanks for the heads-up!

I love your avatar image BTW

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garbel
8 Posts
Posted Oct 26, 2012
Replied 20 days later
6 out of 5 points!!!!

I got stuck at the powerswitch-part and I had to cheat. The solution was one of the kind I would never get in a 1000 years.. oh man.

The last part took me about 2 hours (I'm not the fastest, but I'm persistent), and I managed it without cheating. This was perfection!!

More of this please!

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HMW
806 Posts
Posted Oct 27, 2012
Replied 10 hours later
Thanks, I'm glad you liked it!

I'm amazed that you stayed with it for 2 hours! Many others would have cheated or looked up a hint by that time, but you finished it all by yourself. That's definitely an accomplishment.

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garbel
8 Posts
Posted Oct 27, 2012
Replied 2 hours later

HMW wrote:
Thanks, I'm glad you liked it!

I'm amazed that you stayed with it for 2 hours! Many others would have cheated or looked up a hint by that time, but you finished it all by yourself. That's definitely an accomplishment.

Your map(s) absolutely deserves it. I have a friend, he is very "fast" in everything he's doing and impatient. He likes playing Portal and Portal 2, but when he's running around in a map and doing and trying for over 10 minutes without a clue, he looks for a hint or stops playing the map at all. He didn't know what he's missing.

Well, I'm the other extreme

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El Farmerino
393 Posts
Posted Nov 19, 2012
Replied 22 days later
Absolutely stunning. Offered a bit more challenge than the first instalment, was filled with beautiful 'aha' moments and the puzzles were the type to keep me thinking but never frustrated. I especially liked the BTS section and its solution, which I thought was really creative and original. Thanks!
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BEARD!
169 Posts
Posted Nov 30, 2012
Replied 11 days later
I might be a little late to the party, but here are my thoughts.

I still have fond memories of the first sendificator map, and I was excited to see what developements had been made for the second installment; I wasn't disappointed. I noticed a couple of new effects: new ring indicators helpfully explained where the linked laser emitter was, and I noticed the sendificator itself firing a portal gun particle. Just like the box-teleporting effect, the chambers looked great; they were clearly rotting and decaying, but there was never any detailing in the puzzle rooms which caught my eye and distracted me, leaving me free to ponder the puzzle.

While I got a little stuck in some sections, I can't complain about the map at all. Every element was placed for a reason, meaning the map felt solidly constructed throughout. It's well worth a playthrough, and a worthy successor to Part Zero.

I've written up my actions and thoughts while playing the map; hopefully they're still relevant and/or useful to you.
My Playthrough - Spoilerific
||The first puzzle made a nice introduction. A short bit of light bridge naviagation made it clear what the objective was: put the two cubes on the two buttons and walk through the door; to do that, I had to get the cubes inside the upper, completely sealed room. Every glass window was opposite another of the exact size and shape, so there was no wall inside the sealed room for the laser to hit.

After a few minutes of doing nothing, I tried sendificating a cube onto itself (i.e. pointing the laser at the cube on the sendificator, and I noticed that the cube was 'pushed', so that it teleported next to where it had just sat. After some experimentation with light bridges, I extended a bridge so that it was parallel to one of the sealed room's windows. "Surely that's not it" I thought - but indeed, blocking the laser just as it exited the glass caused it to teleport behind the glass. From there, the rest of the puzzle was straightforward.

This mechanic was a genuine surprise. While I didn't expect it (and it wasn't intuitive to me), I did feel clever having thought of it! I was rewarded with the sight of a destroyed test chamber - I thought that I might have to use the puzzle elements somehow, but I was proven wrong when I was flung into a vacuum pipe.

Afterwards I ended up in a dark, harsh monotone environment. Peering into the adjacent chamber, I hoped that it would come alive - sadly this didn't happen - yet. I liked how players were guided by hints of colour, first the cool blue lights along a corridor, then to the green lush environment at the end (which was outstanding). I thought this door was a nice touch!

I solved the next section by accident - but I still had an 'aha!' moment. I was expecting a timing puzzle involving portal state, but the actual solution of turning off the power while the doors was open was much simpler! It was nice to have a break puzzle that didn't involve the sendificator, and the reward (of seeing the chamber come alive) was great. Maybe when backtracking through the waterfall area you could add some vaccuum pipes which start to transport material, to show that this part of acility is alive once again.

In the final puzzle, there was plenty to do. I felt a little uncertain getting a cube onto the raised platform (this is how I did it). A few minutes later I managed to [url=http://i.imgur.com/UUbJP.jpg]sendificate the laser cube over there too|| after one failed attempt involving the light bridge. Following the sign, I managed to sendificate a cube through glass pane. "Bugger! That's not a solid wall!" I thought. Then it dawned on me that you spent a whole puzzle training me up to deal with this! From there the chamber was virtually complete, and I left it feeling very satisfied.[/spoiler]

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HMW
806 Posts
Posted Dec 02, 2012
Replied 1 day later
Thanks for the comments everyone! It's nice to hear that most people like the BTS trip. Some players complained that the map is a bit too long (mostly because they didn't know you can quick-save), but general feedback has been very positive.

Very nice review, Beard! You did the second part completely as intended. (Originally there was another way to get the first cube over there, which involved using the bridge. But that was way too clumsy so I simplified it.)

I've not been in here as often as I would like lately, because I'm a bit under the weather. Hopefully this will clear up soon, but right now all the coughing and sneezing makes it hard to concentrate on anything.

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keithjgrant
4 Posts
Posted Dec 04, 2012
Replied 1 day later
Incredible level. Everything from the atmosphere to the puzzles is excellent. Keep the sendificator puzzles coming!

I did find a different solution to one thing Beard mentioned in his spoiler:

To get the cube on the raised platform in the final puzzle, I directed the light bridge through the fizzler underneath the laser, then put the reflection cube on the bridge, near the fizzler, and aimed the beam to the right.

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HMW
806 Posts
Posted Dec 07, 2012
Replied 3 days later
Yep, that's the original solution
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Lpfreaky90
2,842 Posts
Posted Dec 09, 2012
Replied 1 day later
HMW; why isn't this map in your signature?:P
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HMW
806 Posts
Posted Dec 10, 2012
Replied 1 day later
Because I forgot to update it
Thanks for the reminder!