Quote from El Farmerino on August 15, 2012, 10:33 pm

RogerL wrote:

It looked like you needed to get the funnel into the central area, but I couldn't figure out how...

[spoiler]Once you have all the cubes in the centre, you can take the double lightbridge all the way to the blue room and into the funnel cage. Then you simply portal the funnel so it comes out the lightbridge surface and ride on through.[/spoiler]

Quote from RogerL on August 16, 2012, 11:37 am

Thanks, El Farmerino, I now feel complete. I knew it had to be something easy like that, but I guess my mind was so full of the complexity of the map, it couldn't see the simple stuff.

Quote from Shakky on August 16, 2012, 4:30 pm

Any luck with the advanced solution yet? Has anyone found the hint room in the newest version yet?

Quote from Calmly Frenetic on October 14, 2012, 1:39 am

Shakky wrote:

Any luck with the advanced solution yet? Has anyone found the hint room in the newest version yet?

I escaped and lived happily ever after.
That is, I made it to the better ending that the advanced solution provides, though I'm certain I didn't do it the intended way.

Advanced Solution discussion
[spoiler]I only had to make one small change at the very end of the standard solution to get the advanced one to work. It did, however, involve a rather tricky cube-balancing act, shown here:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =102582792
The odd thing about it is that the redirection cube seems to be held up by the laser beam, since interrupting the beam causes the cube to fall. I guess that would be considered a glitch.

The hints in the secret room have not yet helped me to discover the true advanced solution, but one of them led me to find a significant skip for the last half of the map. After seeing [spoiler]"Middle doesn't move"[/spoiler], I investigated what was possible without opening up the central area of the map. From the platform with the button at the completion of the green room (don't press the button!), a portal can be shot into the central area two different ways. Once in the central area, it is possible to get on top of and then inside the elevator since the doors are open at that stage.[/spoiler]
A puzzle this complex deserves to be solved the right way.
I'd be glad to help further, but I'll need another hint first.

Quote from Shakky on October 14, 2012, 8:56 am

Oh that is not the intended advanced solution but nice job catching that one.

[spoiler]About getting in the middle before lowering it I knew it was possible but I didn't think it would cause any harm. Now I see that it's actually possible to get a portal to the highest point of the middle and then bunny hop to the green button to lower it. That skips most of the middle puzzle. I didn't figure out how did you manage to get inside the elevator though.

The advanced solution is pretty cryptic so here are some hints for you to help you do it.
1.[spoiler]The middle must be lowered first.[/spoiler]
2.[spoiler]There is a way to raise the middle back up. Think about what other things that the buttons do other than raise it and open the doors.[/spoiler]

If you want little more than hints here is what you will have to do (spoils the objective not how to get it): [spoiler]Destroy the blue laser over the blue button with a laser. This will raise middle back up.[/spoiler]

Last word of warning. It requires one pretty annoying move.[/spoiler]

Thanks alot for playing and finding these unintended solutions. I will probably make an updated version in few days.

Quote from Calmly Frenetic on October 15, 2012, 3:47 am

Thanks for your help, and for keeping me entertained for many hours, but I think I'll quit now before my brain explodes.

Advanced
[spoiler]Cryptic indeed! I would never have thought of that objective.
I was able to [spoiler]raise the middle back up[/spoiler], but doing so with the cubes there caused them to collide with invisible walls/floors and eventually get stuck before it had moved all the way. I got past that issue, but then could still not see a different way of getting the elevator doors open. So I used my previous trick to get two cubes in the elevator.

Middle skip (not):
Oops. I tried that part again today and the elevator doors were closed this time. I must have been noclipping around too much the other day and accidentally triggered something that opened them? So without the doors open, even your bunny hopping idea wouldn't help, as we don't have any cubes yet. Nothing to fix after all.[/spoiler]

You previously mentioned an issue with "mobile portals". Are portals supposed to stay active on mobile panels, such as the one in the green room?
[spoiler]I had to do a really quick move to get to the end of the green room. The only way I could see that it could be done in a casual manner was if the redirection cube was set to auto-respawn, or if the portal stayed active when the panel moved. For me, the portal was always destroyed.[/spoiler]

Quote from Shakky on October 15, 2012, 9:04 am

Mobile portals are only needed for the last move of green room but they have been really wonky lately. Some of the recent updates kept considering them as cheats and not allowing the map itself to change them without sv_cheats 1. For me the portals are mobile but I hope the same goes for you too. It's really only for that one move.

I'm curious, how did you manage to [spoiler]raise the middle[/spoiler]? The intended way requires for example for you to get [spoiler]an orange funnel to the middle[/spoiler].

As for mapping wise, I'm pretty much done with this one. I have other better maps on the way so I think I will post a solution video in few days so you can see how I intended it to be done. I'm trying to get back to mapping but Dota 2 and Guild wars 2 are making it pretty hard

I'm glad you enjoyed the map. Most of the comments I got mainly on the contest version were highly negative but I'm glad that there are people who are willing to spent more than 40min on one map.

Quote from Calmly Frenetic on October 15, 2012, 5:41 pm

The portals were not mobile for me, even with sv_cheats 1. Damn those updates.
Edit: Yes they were, but only if you have sv_cheats 1 BEFORE loading the map.

For your curiosity, here's how I [spoiler]raised the middle[/spoiler].
[spoiler]Edit: I stacked the storage cube and one redirection cube beneath the path of the laser, but slightly to one side, in the middle area. I held the other redirection cube above the top edge of the cube stack, then dropped it so it fell backwards and temporarily directed the laser to its target. Your intended way also provides a temporary laser shot, but I found it less reliable.[/spoiler]
That's the risk with creating really complex puzzles - lazy people like me will tend to look for shortcuts.

BTW, I also found the proper way to finish the advanced solution.

Looking forward to your video.

Quote from Shakky on October 16, 2012, 7:21 pm

Well the official solution video is up now. Check it out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPxBhaqBmYM

There is an annotation that links to the advanced solution when the 2 solutions part.

I'm aware that there are probably still alot of unintended solutions as I didn't have much time to test this because of the contest time limit. Feel free to point anything you find and I might make an improved version later.

Thanks to everyone who played! Even if you hated it.

New better maps on the way!