Forum | Thinking With Portals

#1 · December 17, 2007, 6:13 pm

My second Portal map and contains puzzels designed for weighted companion cube use.
The Official Release of the Winning Map of the November Mapping Contest. All Puzzles work 100%.

Thanks to the whole ThinkingWithPortals Community for voting, help and critic!

Official Release Version Changes:

- added an image in the bonus map selection screen
- added new gravity effects and indicators (special thanks to MrTwoVideoCards)
- added one additional autosave
- added proper use of func_portal_bumper where needed
- changed extraction folder (!)
- changed the layout of the 5th test-room a little
- changed some triggers ,so players can (hopefully) not lose their weighted companion cube
- changed the position of some decals
- changed .bns file
- changed readme file
- fixed the invisible door bug in the last test-room
- fixed an error with a model that would appear in the console
- fixed one door getting black on open position
- removed visible nodraw textures

ThinkingWithPortals Mapping Contest - November 2007 Requirements:
1.) Player must be given one, Companion Cube in the map.
2.) Each puzzle must require useage of the Companion Cube to be completed.
3.) At the end of the map, the player must be forced to euthanize her Companion Cube before being able to finish.

Download:
dload.php?action=file&file_id=130

Screenshots:
[img]http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/346/cpmwccmapb20002ht3.th.jpg[/img] [img]http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/8458/cpmwccmapb20005kw6.th.jpg[/img]

#2 · December 17, 2007, 6:49 pm

Community spotlight updated.

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#3 · December 17, 2007, 7:00 pm

Thanks , feel free to add comments, votes and criticism

#4 · December 17, 2007, 8:21 pm

Quote from Cyclone on December 17, 2007, 8:21 pm
Good work, and congratulations on your victory.

As for the map... the [spoiler]WCC fling puzzle[/spoiler] is still my least favorite part. I don't entirely hate it, but it seems to me like the button seems like it's too far away, and unless you place you portals perfectly, with masterful timing, getting everything where it needs to be is borderline luck. Unless I'm completely missing something about the map, this one seems way off the difficulty curve.

Also, I had a problem with the WCC "falling" off of the buttons, i.e., if the cube is on the edge of the button, it will often randomly bounce off, creating general havoc for the player. In the aforementioned puzzle, this was especially annoying - we finally manage to couple cube and button, only to have the door slam closed milliseconds before we fire a portal, forcing us to repeat the process. Definitely not map breaking, but if you plan to update again at some point, this could be something to fix.

Now that I'm done pointing out my problems with this map, the good things: the anti-gravity fields are great, and the new particle effects are a great addition. You made great use of them, to the point where they never felt overused or redundant - every puzzle had a unique way to defy gravity to reach out goals. [spoiler]Using the WCC as an elevator was especially cool. I remember hopping on, wondering if this would actually work, and then slowly rising up through the shaft. Awesome.[/spoiler]

The non-anti-gravity puzzles were good as well. They didn't feel as well thought out as the rest of the map - very standard "get X from A to B" type stuff. Not that it wasn't fun, and given that it wasn't the main feature of the map, it's forgivable, but still, for all the innovation you brought in with anti-gravity fields, I expected more than [spoiler]simply putting a button on the ceiling[/spoiler].

Overall, I loved this map almost as much as I loved my Aperture Science Weighted Companion Cube. Excellent puzzles, great new ideas, and high caliber map design make it a solid map in all respects; being able to make an infinite portal loop where the cube is forever falling up makes it a clear winner.

Good work, and congratulations on your victory.

As for the map... the

Spoiler

WCC fling puzzle

is still my least favorite part. I don't entirely hate it, but it seems to me like the button seems like it's too far away, and unless you place you portals perfectly, with masterful timing, getting everything where it needs to be is borderline luck. Unless I'm completely missing something about the map, this one seems way off the difficulty curve.

Also, I had a problem with the WCC "falling" off of the buttons, i.e., if the cube is on the edge of the button, it will often randomly bounce off, creating general havoc for the player. In the aforementioned puzzle, this was especially annoying - we finally manage to couple cube and button, only to have the door slam closed milliseconds before we fire a portal, forcing us to repeat the process. Definitely not map breaking, but if you plan to update again at some point, this could be something to fix.

Now that I'm done pointing out my problems with this map, the good things: the anti-gravity fields are great, and the new particle effects are a great addition. You made great use of them, to the point where they never felt overused or redundant - every puzzle had a unique way to defy gravity to reach out goals.

Spoiler

Using the WCC as an elevator was especially cool. I remember hopping on, wondering if this would actually work, and then slowly rising up through the shaft. Awesome.

The non-anti-gravity puzzles were good as well. They didn't feel as well thought out as the rest of the map - very standard "get X from A to B" type stuff. Not that it wasn't fun, and given that it wasn't the main feature of the map, it's forgivable, but still, for all the innovation you brought in with anti-gravity fields, I expected more than

Spoiler

simply putting a button on the ceiling

.

Overall, I loved this map almost as much as I loved my Aperture Science Weighted Companion Cube. Excellent puzzles, great new ideas, and high caliber map design make it a solid map in all respects; being able to make an infinite portal loop where the cube is forever falling up makes it a clear winner.

#5 · December 17, 2007, 10:13 pm

I look forward to playing this updated map, but in the contest version I never figured out the fling puzzle. I eventually realized that I could pass that part by:

Spoiler

placing a portal on the ceiling and falling through onto the ledge of the window up there. I could walk along the ledge to where I could just drop the cube and have it float up to the button.

I'd be interested to see a video of the intended solution to that puzzle.

#6 · December 18, 2007, 5:05 am

hm i'd like to do a video of my map , but i have no idea how to make one o.0
any help?

#7 · December 18, 2007, 11:48 am

I loved it! Anti-gravity was great, wcc was lookin' good as usual. I see people had problems with the wcc-fling. I certainly did not, didn't anybody think to get the wcc going at terminal velocity? When done right, that is the coolest part of the level, except maybe the wcc elevator.

Good job, keep mapping!

#8 · December 18, 2007, 2:01 pm

MrCow wrote:

hm i'd like to do a video of my map , but i have no idea how to make one o.0
any help?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Gq4jS4cNnHA

Here ya go

#9 · December 18, 2007, 2:30 pm

hey thanks a lot ^^
funny to see how other people play my map.

here's how i do it:
1. room quite the same
2. room you made a portal to reach the button, i stand on the cube to reach the button
3. room you fling with the ceiling and the floor, i fling with the wall to reach the button
4. room we just hop the cube the same way
5. room you place the portals exactly right to fling the cube, but you make it complicated to get through the door, you can just shoot a portal through the door and don't have to fling up there
last room is the same again ^^ nice

#10 · December 18, 2007, 10:02 pm

That was a fun map to play. Nice job! and grats on winning the November contest. Nice use of anti-gravity and switches.

[RELEASE] cpm_wccmap