Quote from BEARD! on August 7, 2012, 11:00 am

Aesthetics
It seems that this map started out life as a PTI creation. The mapper has spent a lot of time adding in details in Hammer, but you can sense the PTI origins in some places where the wall panels are in need of more texture variation. There were nice sections of detailing in the last puzzle - I particularly liked the moving pistons, and the power cables and scaffolding around the excursion funnel. Strangely, next to the funnel emitter there was a huge, low resolution triangle texture - what was that about?

The lighting doesn't get in your way but it doesn't make the map look especially beautiful either.

Gameplay and Difficulty
The map was divided into three sections, increasing in difficulty as the players progress. Puzzles were medium difficulty - there's quite a few elements to play with and it's not immediately obvious what you have to do. I thought the map could benefit from some more signage or clever lighting to direct the player's attention: I missed a few hard-to-see passages while playing the map.

When I got to the third puzzle, I managed to turn on the '1 dot' button but then struggled to achieve anything else. I saw that there was a cube I had to aquire but I couldn't get the excursion funnel to take me there. After 45 minutes of playing the map, I became frustrated and gave up. I'll definitely have to revisit the puzzle, because there's a lot going on here - I didn't even get to play with the funnel-direction-choosing machine! I'd still say it was medium difficulty - I think I just struggled because of the number of elements in the chamber.

Bugs and Mapping Details
[spoiler]* I noticed that the rotating fan was slightly off-centre
* The sphere and myself fell through the turret builder, which was missing some robotic arms
* The space skybox was poorly done. It was obvious that I was looking at the inside of a box rather than out into space.
* The star labels confused me - I had no idea what they were for. Towards the end of the map, I realised that the stars corresponded to locks on the final door before the eleveator.
* In the room with the vertical orange fizzler, there was a pedestal button with no indication of what it did
* In the final puzzle, there was a '1 dot' icon next to a button, but I couldn't see a '2 dots' icon leading me onwards. If you wanted to attract the player's attention, using different lighting to highlight the button might be more successful.[/spoiler]

Quote from Mevious on August 8, 2012, 9:16 pm

Was there supposed to be a cube in the caged are of the third puzzle. I see buttons clearly marked for changing the polarity of the funnel, but I don't see any way of getting something in there. Also the button for the box dropper in the same room only works once.

Quote from mironos on August 9, 2012, 12:47 am

Yeah, there should be. It shows up for me -- weird it's not there for you...does it appear if you reload or load a saved game?

Quote from Mevious on August 9, 2012, 1:47 am

I restarted, noclipped to that room, and it's still empty.
image
[spoiler]

cancer_rc20000.jpg

[/spoiler]

Quote from BEARD! on August 9, 2012, 7:14 am

I didn't have a cube in there either; I thought I had go find one else where and put it in the cage. That probably explains why I got so stuck!

Quote from ChickenMobile on August 9, 2012, 8:59 am

I actually completed this map without anything in there.

/me = glitchorific?

Quote from mironos on August 9, 2012, 12:48 pm

EDIT: I can't reproduce this issue. I tried downloading the file from this site and running as well as playing the workshop version -- I always see the cube. Even after recompiling the file, the cube is still there for me.

When you guys first enter the third chamber, before doing anything else, is the cube there at that time? If no, if you noclip directly from the entrance to the chamber, is the cube there?

If after that, you're still missing the cube, I can try deleting it in Hammer and re-inserting it and upload that version to the workshop. Not sure what else to try...

Quote from ChickenMobile on August 10, 2012, 11:41 am

My feedback:
Do not read if you are judge!

[spoiler]I liked this map. The first few puzzles I thought showed intuitive and even though your chamber is clean-themed, it was interesting and I never saw a dull wall / area.

The only drawback I believe would be the last puzzle. It looked like you had designed it in the PTI editor and then brought it into hammer. There was indicators everywhere and a lot of the elements in there did not make much sense (plus there was 2 unused buttons in the middle which did noting and was unreachable). The last puzzle took me most of the time I played through.

This was a good above average map for me. Well done [/spoiler]

Quote from RogerL on August 10, 2012, 2:45 pm

I agree with ChickenMobile's assessment and the only thing I wanted to add was this unintended solution to the last chamber puzzle: [spoiler]above the cube is a ledge with a portalable wall. Get up there, slowly fall off the edge and push the direction key towards the ledge where the cube is located.[/spoiler] Put it on the button, and you're done. No need for the sphere nor the missing cube in the funnel direction changer.