Contests: who, what, where, when, why, and how
A Halloween contest? Of course. A unique map contest? Who knows?
Maybe we'll get spooky floating cubes next year. 
Maybe we'll get spooky floating cubes next year.
I see you're new here, so just to let you know, maps like that aren't going to show up here.
Maybe we'll get spooky floating cubes next year.
I see you're new here, so just to let you know, maps like that aren't going to show up here.
Go on... why not? I've played some of the top maps here so I know it's not an issue of quality.
Maybe we'll get spooky floating cubes next year.
I see you're new here, so just to let you know, maps like that aren't going to show up here.
Go on... why not? I've played some of the top maps here so I know it's not an issue of quality.
Good quality maps here consist of creative geometry, difficult puzzles with enough direction for you to figure out relatively quick, and just overall detail. Using dumb gimmicks like floating cubes and the occasional so-called "horror" maps wont land your map in the spotlight.
Also, its kinda late since Halloween is next Monday. This should have been talked about late August/September.
The more you give, the less appreciated it will be received.
Yeah. If anything we're closer to a Xmas theme.
Seriously though, the original idea of a single player map playing like a coop map is pretty solid. I think Hammer could pull off a lot of tricks like that.
Like an npc helping you, that would have alot of scripting or entities. Where to put the portal, where to walk, what to do, how to react to what you do.
A walking NPC in portal 2 would be marginally difficult. I believe that the Valve team cut out the entities used for walking NPC's (the only one left being a generic_actor). Plus there is no human character (other than Chell) that you can use.
I remember that there was a example map of a walking NPC posted somewhere (custom model), but for me it didn't seem to work when it was compiled as it was originally meant for Portal 1.