Quote from BEARD! on August 6, 2012, 12:08 pm

Aesthetics
On the whole, an appealing, well-presented puzzle, adhering to the Wheatley style. Some of the detailing was brilliant - peering outside the chamber to see tens of other chambers suspended in the distance was a great moment. Other things like the pipes that wiggle round the corner of the chamber, the chamber rattling and the construction of the level geometry were done really well, giving the feeling that the chamber was built rapidly out of whatever bits and bobs were available to Wheatley. I liked how the lighting was sourced both from glass lights in the chamber, and from flourescent tubes above the gantries.

With that said, the looks weren't perfect. I noticed a bit of texture repetition, particularly on the platform outside the exit door. Shockingly, this Wheatley chamber lacks a Wheatley video screen! Also, the square beams underneath the laser field seemed to be lit improperly.

Gameplay
The entrance from a fairly bland, constricted corridor into a well-detailed, open chamber made for a great 'Wow!' moment. From there things were largely straightforward. There was a clear path of progression: use portals to get to the inacessible parts of the map until you get to the end. Making the turrets 'guard' the timed orange gel was a good move; it forced me to think about where to put it rather than splosh it everywhere. On the other hand, there weren't many portalable surfaces, meaning that I didn't have to think too hard. (You could argue that this fits with the Wheatley style, and that the puzzle limits the amount of portalable surfaces by design.)

I liked that [spoiler]I had to use elements (faith plates and portalable surfaces) from the exterior of neighbouring test chambers, and having to traverse railings to complete the puzzle[/spoiler], which continued the feeling that Wheatley had cobbled together a chamber in desperation. The moments where [spoiler]Wheatley tried to kill me got a genuine laugh - deadly, but not quite deadly enough. Some kind of musical sting would have been a nice touch, rather than Wheatley just talking[/spoiler].

There was excellent [spoiler]re-use of the blue gel; I thought I'd only have to use it once but was pleasantly surprised. Nice touch forcing the player to use the horizontal light bridge again for the final leap[/spoiler].

Now for the not-so-good stuff. I would have enjoyed the map more if I had to think a more about how to achieve each step - it was almost too straightforward. I accidentally killed the cube mid-way through the puzzle, forcing me to re-aquire it. Maybe you could raise up the floor panels under the dropper once the cube is aquired, so that it would roll onto the walkway below. (That's a very nitpicky thing for me to say, admittedly.) Finally, I was a little annoyed by the [spoiler]surprise. I loved the idea of having one, and the exit was the perfect place to put the trap. However, getting us to replay through the Wheatley Boss Fight was irritating - there wasn't much new, and it felt like a copy and paste job.[/spoiler]

Difficulty
I'd rate the map as easy, simply because I didn't have to stop and think for extended periods of time. Thankfully, there were no ninja solutions required (in fact no athletics at all) and I didn't notice any obvious intended solutions.

Bugs and Mapping Details
* I had this error message in the console at the start of the map.
Console Gibberish
[spoiler]AN ERROR HAS OCCURED [the index '-5581' does not exist]

CALLSTACK
*FUNCTION [GladosPlayVcd()] glados.nut line [460]
*FUNCTION [DLC2_PlayEntryVO()] dlc2_vo.nut line [1013]
*FUNCTION [main()] InputRunScript line [1]

LOCALS
[sceneStart] -5581
[fromqueue] false
[inst] NULL
[dingon] false
[caller] NULL
[IgnoreQueue] NULL
[arg] -5581
[this] TABLE
[onID] 81
[mapID] -1
[this] TABLE
[this] TABLE[/spoiler]
Other stuff
[spoiler]* I started with a standard portal gun, but I think you intended for players to be equiped with the potato gun
* This indicator didn't light up!
* A panel model clipped through this brush (a trivial complaint)
* A glass gib got stuck in mid-air
* When the map ended I simply disconnected and returned to the main menu. The workshop vote dialogue did not appear.
* When I reloaded the map, the starting elevator didn't move.
* The map didn't seem to be compiled with 'Static Prop Lighting' on, so there were a few places like this where the prop lighting 'jumped'. You 'got away' with it on the whole, though, as I never actually noticed this when playing.
* The final chamber's visleafs were dodgy. I'd have made the curved, enclosing brushes details in front of a nodraw box. Some of the angled panels on pistons weren't detail.
* Maybe it would have been nice to put a coloured light near the gel pipes in the final chamber, to simulate light reflecting off the gels. (It would have to be named so you could turn if off when the pipes explode.)[/spoiler]

Closing Remarks
While I didn't agree with everything, the map was enjoyable to play throughout. The dialogue was a nice touch, not over-done nor under-used. It would have been nice to have Wheatley speak for longer; at times it felt like he was just splurting out a single line at a time. The attention to detail (especially for what must be your first map?) was impressive - a job well done. Thanks for mapping!

Quote from Idolon on August 6, 2012, 8:20 pm

Is this map supposed to end in a disconnect?

Quote from El Farmerino on August 7, 2012, 10:49 am

I thought this was great. Looked fantastic, and while the puzzle wasn't too difficult it still had me thinking in a couple of places (most notably how to make the final jump to the end). Also had a great moment of humour in there too! I would agree that the boss fight felt a little rushed, but it was still impressively put together and enjoyable. Nice work!

Quote from wstrika on August 7, 2012, 12:27 pm

Here is my playthrough:

B-IQ6WEa_1w

Quote from wrathofmobius on August 8, 2012, 1:56 am

I can't add much onto what has already been said but what I can say is that the aesthetics were great and the end was great. I didn't care as much for the actual puzzle - not much thought was involved, just portalling around. Nevertheless, it was worth playing. Thumbs up from me.

Quote from Vordwann on August 8, 2012, 7:43 am

I noticed you have a lot of PoTATOS voice lines but she is not on the portal gun!! Just a thought.

Quote from co0op on August 9, 2012, 2:08 pm

Looked nice and made me lol at one point. Unfortunately it was very easy and I prefer maps where I have to spend some time to figure it all out. Still I give it 4/5 since it was all very well done!

Quote from ChickenMobile on August 10, 2012, 11:52 am

My feedback:
Do not read if you are judge!

[spoiler]This was a really fun map and all the puzzles and elements were clearly thought out thoroughly. Nowhere I could see where the player could get physically stuck or have difficulty manoeuvring to different areas.

Other than being a little too easy when it came to the boss battle (plus a little tacky that you stole it from Valve's map) I thought most of the puzzle was absolutely brilliant and I had great fun working it out.

The dialogue cuts were excellent, except for the fact you didn't have a potaDOS and at the start Cave Johnson decided to talk over glados and Wheatley as if you had put in the workshop elevators instead of the normal ones.

Visually excellent, I could see you put a lot of work into the background, as I could see fire and a number of test chambers emerging from the fog in the distance. I could imagine something like this being in Valve's game.

This has to be one of my personal favourite maps of the competition.
Well done [/spoiler]

Quote from Kay on August 11, 2012, 9:58 am

Download link is broken? It leads me to a steam page stating

Quote:

That item does not exist. It may have been removed by the author.