The Cake Is A Pie ([CiP]) are proud to announce the beta release of our new website dedicated to reviewing and playing through the latest in custom portal mapping and other gaming endeavours we think could be of interest.

http://www.thecakeisapie.com

We have so far reviewed several maps from previous mapping contests, Kizzycocoa's new Chamber One releases and Marf Aperture - though we intend to go through several more on a biweekly basis when possible.

'We' comprises of myself, MattieTK, an aspiring Journalism student, and Farragar, a Computer Science student and creator of The Beta Complex, The Electric Castle, An Irrational Chamber and When Things Go Wrong. He'll obviously be providing the technical standpoint on the finer aspects of the mapping, whilst with several years of informal game criticism experience between us, we aim to tear the good from the bad, and the bad from the painful-to-play. Our aim has always been to provide honest and unbiased criticism, so I apologise in advance it we may seem at-all harsh; we will not be pulling any punches. Unfortunately Farragar will not be joining me as frequently as he wishes, as I have the technical set-up and he is miles away at University, but his help will always be at hand if there is something to commend or condemn.

We'd love to hear what you think of the site, and our reviews: please check us out, give us a rating and comment on the videos. If you want us to take a look at your map please let me know on the forums or in comment. I'll be updating this thread as we post new content. Please note signing up only takes a few seconds, helps digitise books, and allows you to track comments while the community grows.

Thank you to myApertureLabs and TWP, whom without which this couldn't be possible.

Little late.

Cool idea. Minus points for the style ripoff and the name is kinda... enh.

But this could be cool. We'll see.

Edit: Clearly, a lot of work went in to this. Best of luck, fellas.

Hober wrote:
Cool idea. Minus points for the style ripoff and the name is kinda... enh.

I hadn't even clicked on it, hahaha. This is an exact ripoff of Hulu's style, how sad.

Remmiz wrote:
Little late.

Remmiz wrote:
I hadn't even clicked on it, hahaha. This is an exact ripoff of Hulu's style, how sad.

Yay for encouragement!
Best of luck, MattieTK. It would be great to inject some life into the Portal community...

It seems like it is a good idea. The only thing I missed is download links. I had to look up them in mAL.

Remmiz wrote:
I hadn't even clicked on it, hahaha. This is an exact ripoff of Hulu's style, how sad.

Please design and build a fully functioning video site yourself. You'll find for a site with a small number of select videos it's good to at least take inspiration from something that has proven success.

In regard to a comment made about the download links, I appreciate the idea, it's a simple fix and it will be coming in the next revision.

Edit: Download links have been implemented.

MattieTK wrote:
Please design and build a fully functioning video site yourself. You'll find for a site with a small number of select videos it's good to at least take inspiration from something that has proven success.

There's nothing wrong with getting inspired by another person's work, as long as you don't just simply copy it. One way or another, all FPS games are ripoffs of Doom, and Doom was essentially a ripoff of Wolfenstein 3D. It's what you do with that inspiration, and that is why a shooter like Prey plays so different from a shooter like Half-Life or Bioshock (or Doom, for that matter), even though it's the same basic principle.

Ricotez wrote:
There's nothing wrong with getting inspired by another person's work, as long as you don't just simply copy it. One way or another, all FPS games are ripoffs of Doom, and Doom was essentially a ripoff of Wolfenstein 3D. It's what you do with that inspiration, and that is why a shooter like Prey plays so different from a shooter like Half-Life or Bioshock (or Doom, for that matter), even though it's the same basic principle.

I, myself, am from the UK, so I'm not a hulu user. We bought the theme in a sale and thought that it would be easy to modify and use for a simple video site such as ours built on Wordpress.

Can we focus on the content rather than the site's look which I was unaware of and hereby apologise for? I honestly don't see how it matters: imitation is the best form of flattery, the person who made the theme obviously saw hulu as a well designed site, it's just a jQuery slider and a grid anyway - not exactly proprietary stuff.

I like this idea. It's a great way of discovering more user created content for Portal. I've watched most of the videos and you guys do a nice job of reviewing the maps. It's a shame that there are mostly negative reviews so far, but of course that depends on the maps you've picked (or get sent.)

If you're looking for more maps to review, the best maps on this site are in the Community Releases forum. Generally speaking, the more pages in the thread, the more interesting the map.

My personal favourites are PMK5, Affinity, Boxy Trixy and Hub.
I would also like to add a shameless plug for Manic Mechanic, my first ever released map. (Be warned though, the final puzzle in this map has caused brain overheating for some people )

HMW wrote:
My personal favourites are PMK5, Affinity, Boxy Trixy and Hub.
I would also like to add a shameless plug for Manic Mechanic, my first ever released map. (Be warned though, the final puzzle in this map has caused brain overheating for some people )

Affinity is really good, but it was done by a professional map developer.
The final puzzle in your map didn't overheat my brain, just confused it.
Back on topic, This is a great idea. I hope that you can get better maps to review.

HMW wrote:
Generally speaking, the more pages in the thread, the more interesting the map.

means that my map would be the second most interesting one in the whole 1st page of Community Releases?

Mek wrote:
means that my map would be the second most interesting one in the whole 1st page of Community Releases?

Of course, your map is indeed very good. But perhaps I should have said something like "If a release thread has more than three or four pages, there is probably something in there worth playing." When I first came in here, I used this method to decide what to download and play first, and it worked quite well.

Anyway, is there anyone else I forgot to mention?

HMW wrote:
My personal favourites are PMK5, Affinity, Boxy Trixy and Hub.
I would also like to add a shameless plug for Manic Mechanic, my first ever released map. (Be warned though, the final puzzle in this map has caused brain overheating for some people )

I agree with that list. All of those maps are awesome. I would have to say Mechanic is my favorite though. I'm not sucking up it's simply the truth.

This is a great idea. I've watched a few reviews, and I actually enjoyed it. I would love to see more!

Pi day is on the fourteenth of March.

You get it? 3/14

No really, I am not kidding, there really is gonna be a Pi day on 3/14.

msleeper wrote:
IMG

"Failure is just success rounded down."

Loads of new content up.

Flux - http://www.thecakeisapie.com/2010/03/flux/
Underground Complex - http://www.thecakeisapie.com/2010/03/un ... d-complex/
Autophobia - http://www.thecakeisapie.com/2010/03/autophobia/
Blue Portals - http://www.thecakeisapie.com/2010/02/blue-portals/

I would be doing the maps you guys suggested, but the download links on TWP are broken, if you can find some others I'll get to work.