I think there was a thread here somewhere already. Anyways, my friend showed me Portal, and I liked it, so I played it with him and waited for the release of Portal 2. I never used to play FPS games before I saw Portal, and when I found out I could make maps for it and Portal 2, I purchased P2 and started making my first map which came out pretty well for a first. Since then, I can say that now I'm skilled in hammer to do things that fit my taste. I haven't released a lot of maps though, because I'm a bit fickle about which map to work on and I have my own problems, so I've got about 5 WIPs (Bumbleball map and tutorial, someone's PTI map recreation, Rotating Portalgun map, a map for FelixGriffin's gel and a Blue Portals map).