[SP] Bridge Over Toxic Water
My single player entry into the mapping contest.
v2:Fixed broken overlay, added water mist particles.
File Name: sp_bridgeovertoxicwater2.zip
File Size: 4.83 MiB
Click here to download Bridge Over Toxic Water
If the bleak brown appearances push you away from this, you're missing on some fun. Puzzle's difficult and satisfying, spanning the entire room. Could just use a visual straighten up: leave the browns, deal with the badly cut props.
Thanks. I agree that the visuals are less than stellar. I'm not terribly experienced at Hammer, and had little time to make the map. If there is a map pack made with entries from this contest I'd gladly spend more time on the map, or even open it up for anyone else willing to help me with it.
I tried to lean from Valve's examples when making the puzzle, combining easy steps with a few hard ones, so the player can progress easily most of the time while still having several "A-ha!" moments.
Also, revisiting older steps of the puzzle several times, each time with a new tool or point of access, to make the chamber fun to explore without getting lost.
It is a difficult puzzle which needs trial and error, as well as a lot of logical thinking. The button which can convert the light bridge from horizontal to vertical is special. At first I don't know what to do and how can I use the double angled portal surface in the middle of the water. Finally I decided to have a try and jumped down from the lightbridge and surprised myself by landing on the other side. Thanks for mapping and keep going!
Quite an underrated map here to be honest. The puzzle kept me consistently interested, and I as well loved the horizontal/vertical bridge switch (though at some point the button didn't work right and I had to go back and mess around with the cube holding it down).
The only problems I had were that the double-angled jump could be unforgiving sometimes when you messed it up, particularly when
This is of small note, but I liked the triggering of music within the chamber; I felt it worked well to complement the player's progress. However towards the end I noticed one track playing over the top of another, which came off weird sounding.
Overall it's challenging and rewarding map, even without the most spectacular visuals.
Thank you both for your feedback.
The entity I/O setup for the bridge rotation is kinda hacked in. You aren't supposed to be able to actually parent the bridge emitter to anything else (Though I think Valve does do it in one of the coop maps). As such it can be fairly buggy, which I hope to eliminate.
If people want I can make a simple .vmf with just the bridge rotater entities in it.
There are flingers on the double-angled jump, so it should theoretically always put you in the right spot. The whole thing is an in-elegant implementation of what I wanted, and I'll probably remove it and replace it with something else entirely in a newer version.
You can probably tell what elements were added at the eleventh hour, the stairs and music being examples.
If someone could link me a guide for how to properly do the "generative" music in Portal 2, that'd be awesome. I wanted to have the music only play in certain areas, or to fade from one song to the next when you progressed, but didn't have time.
For aesthetics, what would people like to see? Keep it clean, make it destroyed, old school Aperture?
I think considering the huge pool of water you have here, you could get away with a destroyed-type theme, making out that test elements have sunk into the result of leaks/floods over time (similar to Wavelet's design).
I like your use of the old Portal 1 panel textures, but overall you'd probably want to get away from the brownish hues.
Very nice, complex use of light bridges and FPs. Everything worked fine for me. Thanks for mapping.
Finally got around to isolating the rotating bridge part.
You can download it here.