Hello Test Subjects!

Today a brand new mod called "Thinking with Time machine" has been released on steam, through steam greenlight!

In this mod you will find yourself using a time machine to be able to solve the puzzle together with your past self! This past self will accurately repeat all your actions, creating a unique twist on the well known portal mechanics!

I hope you all enjoy it, let us know in the thread below what you think of the mod!

Store page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/286080/

Ooh, I love the concept of this. I'll have to play it to get an idea of what it's like but I can see it being pretty awesome!

EDIT: My expectations were not fulfilled in the slightest. Admittedly, the idea was good and pretty well executed, but everything else was a blunder. The maps were an eyesore to say the least and utterly disgraceful to say the most. "A good concept gone wrong" sums it up pretty well.

Would try it but Portal 2 randomly crashes. So, will try when Portal 2 gets fixed.

So i tried this mod. And in my opinion, -> The Mod should get released later. Much later.
- Sometimes i can look in the void (bts).
- Some incorrect placed textures,
- Some textures rendered outside the chambers.
- At the Ship scene i can just go on the ground between the too rooms and nothing happens. Im stuck.
- For some reason my antialising isnt working in this mod.
- I can fastly walk out the elevator before the doors are closing.
- Some rooms are just looking weird,
- Too many render bugs, (mostly reflections)
- Also: In some chamber, there was a hole, with a block in it, textured with the emancipation grid texture. Nothing more. I falled in, i got hurted by nothing. And i stucked, because i did not died.
- The end was.. I dont really understood the story at the end..
- When i quited the game, it crashed.

I cant remember more things who arent right now..

• New textures are impressiv
• New models are impressiv
• I really like the new cube dropper
• Puzzles arent too hard/easy
• impressive loading screen and logo
• The ship scene was impressive.

So, the mod is cool, but could be MUCH better, but there are just too many bugs and weird things, they should get fixed and tested before the mod gets released, just saying..

I downloaded it and tried to pull it up. But it crashed at the loading screen before the main menu. I tried verifying game cache and restarting my computer. Neither fixed it. Is anybody else experiencing this problem? Does anybody know how to fix it?

Here are the official `it crashes, how do I fix it?' instructions. I got the mod to run by validating the mod's cache, then Portal 2's cache, then finally running portal 2---loading up the menu seemed to be enough.

I don't think the mod's perfect, and there are lots of things I could nitpick about, perhaps unfairly. (Maybe I should write them up?) About halfway through I felt I had a decent sense for how the time machine device worked, and the feeling of progression was satisfying.

Edit: Something I just remembered. I got a bit stuck in the room with the Borealis. I thought I was supposed to record an image of myself using one of the faith plates, then replay it and collide into myself to land on the ship. But for some reason I didn't have the recording device in that map.

P.S. Here's part of how the time machine was implemented. I thought it was amusing!

BEARD! wrote:
P.S. Here's part of how the time machine was implemented. I thought it was amusing!

It's...genius! I never would've guessed that. Wow.

This mod is greatly unpolished, seemed like it was rushed for a release date, which no developers should do.

The mechanic was impressive, much of the models were great, but the mapping and details some maps were just plain lazy. Some of the puzzles were smart and required thinking.
The story of the mod was a little weird, it seemed like the developers tried to add a story to it, abandoned it halfway through the game, then picked it up again at the end.

This mod could be much better if there were more emphasis on the story line and that they payed more attention to the details in the maps.

This was an interesting idea gone horribly wrong. I was intrigued during the training levels, but most of the time you end up just recording your clone standing on buttons. The portal gun is rarely used (this may be because the light surfaces and the portable surfaces are almost indistinguishable); in fact, there are very few Portal 2 elements that are used in this mod. If your idea of fun is to jump on Chell's back so she can raise you up high enough to press a button, then this mod is for you. The puzzles were just bad. Hint: if you enter a room with fizzlers covering the floor and a button connected to a timer, noclip your way to the end. It's just not worth it.

This was a creative concept. I liked the part with The ship, and Atlas and PBody, but it didn't really lead up to anything (at least to me). So -- A great concept, with a not-so-good "storyline".

RogerL wrote:
Hint: if you enter a room with fizzlers covering the floor and a button connected to a timer, noclip your way to the end. It's just not worth it.

Ugh, yeah, hated that puzzle, it was really annoying. I agree with you on most everything else though; the puzzles were just horrible.

RogerL wrote:
Hint: if you enter a room with fizzlers covering the floor and a button connected to a timer, noclip your way to the end. It's just not worth it.

Damm, that was frustrating as hell, i also hated that one...

I also agree it should be have been released a lot later... Besides all the glitches which span everywhere in the game, the game design should have been worked on a lot more. For instance, the white surfaces are the exact size, shape, and color of the giant wall lights. There are ways to trap yourself, and the tests seem kind of blocky, kind of like the Portal 2 Editor puzzles put into hammer. There are few times where the player is lead to go somewhere, and even fewer parts where the map exhibits beauty, detail, or visual flow. If I may be so bold, the whole thing seemed kind of half-assed. Probably in a rush to be the first Portal mod available on the steam page. Loved the concept and custom content, I just wished the game could have been executed better. Perhaps with a larger team...

Did not enjoy this mod at all, about the only positives I have are the cool cube assemblers and the concept itself.

!!!WARNING RANT INCOMING!!!

It feels like it could have been such a cool mod but the concept is ruined by terrible level design, you barely use the portal gun at all and it would almost have been better to distance itself from portal by making it purely time puzzle focused.

So many puzzles are ruined by just pure tedium added to them, a puzzle where you drop 3 cubes to yourself, why not just 1 or 2, you are proving you can do it, why do you have to waste extra time? Similarly the first fizzler floor level, get the cube across slowly passing it to yourself, just to get a different cube and have to do it all again in reverse, nothing changed, it isnt harder the second time around, it could easily have been fixed but there just seems to be a degree of tedious repetition added to the levels after the intro tutorials.
As mentioned above the fizzler floor levels where just torture, punishing and boring.

There are so many terrible and frankly bizarre design choices that left me wondering had it been playtested at all, like the ridiculous part where you have to press use on a gramaphone, I know a lot of people got stuck and gave up there, I just spam use on stuff and was lucky, which leads to the totally random Borealis???
There is a room with sphere buttons etc on the roof, I spent ages figuring out how to get them up there, turns out, you just bring the cube near it and it sort of just gets sucked to the roof cause who cares about gravity and consistency.
The new square buttons also look far too similar to the cube buttons which meant I pretty much had to try them to see if standing worked for them.

The "Story" might as well not have been added it was so half done.

Detailing, overall it was passable and just average in the main chambers, again, a wild decision as mentioned above to have portal surfaces that are actually lights is weird. They used the same awful Behind the Scenes skybox over and over, so it was easy to spot the nodraw in the ceiling, missing sides to metal columns and the huge magnified catwalks and vactubes 16 times their size looked pathetic, it was also incredibly lazy to do so.
In some areas like the random Borealis room the detailing was atrocious, misaligned textures everywhere and barely a prop in the place, just big blocky rooms.

Then it just sort of ends, and to be honest, you feel glad its brief runtime is over.

TL:DR Great Concept, used terribly, do not recommend

I agree with lonewolf's TL:DR.

To add, some maps where beautifull, but other where super bad. I was puzzled by such consistency.

the only positive was the re-designed buttons and other models, which remind me of what i would expect portal 3 to look like. and the borealis. (kindof counter intuitive to spoiler tag something if the mod is too terrible to play, right?) the rest, though...i can and have done better. the team size of 1 person doesnt matter, because i have a team size of ME. not including feedback by lp, which adds 1 more.

basically portal:unity and aperture:ireland's sequal.

EDIT: load. of. crap.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/04/27/mod-o ... 0ns_fee=0

&&&&&

I just dont like it how this mod get celebrated to the sky.

http://www.wired.com/2014/04/thinking-w ... =social_fb

There are hundred mapper who are making 100% perfect maps, and of course this "crappy" mod gets the most attention. Thats just not fair, i know so much maps who should get more attention..

TheTobbell wrote:
I just dont like it how this mod get celebrated to the sky.

http://www.wired.com/2014/04/thinking-w ... =social_fb

There are hundred mapper who are making 100% perfect maps, and of course this "crappy" mod gets the most attention. Thats just not fair, i know so much maps who should get more attention..

Welcome to the gaming community. I spent the last 6 years trying to understand their logic when it came to what makes a mod great, what makes a mod ok and what makes it bad. but I just ended up with a headache. All I know if you too too much of a good job with something, people have to find something wrong with it so they can complain about it.

Also, the fact that this is a 'mod' makes people celebrate it more when it's nothing but a big mappack. Which gives more of an insensitive of if you make a small map or mappack, no one will care. BUT IF YOU MAKE IT A MOD, OH MY GOD YOU'LL GET A RIBBON, A MEDAL, AND A PARADE IN TIMES SQUARE!

I turned Blue Portals into a mod because I knew that at the end that the package would be too cumbersome to install cause of all the textures, models, etc. And this was before I started to work on 06, when it WAS a mappack and not a mod (or a wannabe at best.) But when people make mods when there are just new maps I'm like "Why?"

I used to love making mappacks for Portal 2, but now because of the flawed workshop system where you can't release a package of maps without some jerk playing the last map of the pack and being all: "I DON'T GET IT THUMBS DOWN, LEARN TO MAP, CHECK OUT MY MAPS!!!" (Meanwhile it's all PTI.)

Sorry for going all out. I saw the boat and I had to jump aboard.

reepblue wrote:
Completely accurate post

portal2tenacious wrote:
reepblue wrote:

Completely accurate post

I Agree