Quote from satchmo on July 29, 2011, 2:56 pm

Judging from the feedback, I believe quatrus is the only person who figured out the intended solution so far.

Has anyone else done it?

Quote from Techowl on July 30, 2011, 3:04 pm

First let me say that the "follow the bouncing ball" thing gets old really fast. I have played the the chamber for over an hour and I still have not been able the bounce the ball into the first basket. I have managed to take out all of the turrets.

It should be challenging but not impossible. Players will just give up if the test is too angle specific to complete. And the bounce dynamics of the ball are all over the place. Only in portal can a ball gain height while bouncing on a flat surface.

I think the difficulty needs to be pulled back to make it easier to get the ball into the overly protected basket.

You may have noticed that no one has posted a completion comment since your latest update to the map. This may be because no one has been able to finish it.

- TechOwl -

Quote from Techowl on July 30, 2011, 7:18 pm

Yup, I finally gave up trying to bounce the ball onto the switch.

Here's how I finished the level...

[spoiler]I went back through the door and got a new ball after the turrets had been knocked over by all of my attempts to bounce the the thing onto the switch. The new ball was clean so it wouldn't bounce.

I placed the ball on the holder to shut down the field in front of the door, then went through and made a portal on that high spot on the right wall in the room with the "baskets". I went back through the door and made the second portal in the floor.

Then I picked up the ball and dropped through the portal ending up in the room with the "baskets".

At first I made a portal behind the red screen and dropped the ball though the second portal I made on the floor. This shut down the light bridges, but gave no way back to the blue gel. I later discovered that I didn't need the gel, so this test was not necessary to complete.

I made a portal up high on that right wall. This is the wall that goes up above the area were that red curtained room is that had the 2 turrets in it.

I made a second portal low enough to walk into on the first basket column, then walked though it and made the first portal on the way down to fall into, to start the flinging action we have used so many times. Once I got flung to the high point above the lower red curtain, I walked off, picked up the ball that was rolling around the floor, and side stepped back onto the first portal, now on the floor. If you hold the ball straight up, you will fall back into the same hole and get flung over to the side of the wall containing the second switch. The ball will likely fall into the switch when you hit, and you will here the door open.

Just walk off and fall back to the floor and out the door, back into the first room where you started. In a bit you will see the "Thank You For Playing" message ending the test.[/spoiler]

A couple of things I noticed while playing;

1: The ball suddenly disappeared in a portal for some strange reason. I checked to see if a new appeared, but it did not, and I had to go back out and trip the floor switch again to get a new one. Then I had to do everything over again from that point on.

2: The room with 2 turrets in it captured my rolling ball in one of it's corners and although I could drop into the room from it's ceiling, I could not exit without going through the red field and killing myself off. There probably needs to be a portal surface somewhere lower to allow escape from this trap.

All in all, not a bad map, I just got tired of playing follow the bouncing ball.

- TechOwl -

Quote from satchmo on July 30, 2011, 11:48 pm

Thanks for the feedback. I have been waiting to hear someone other than quatrus who can finish the map.

The strange thing is that when I test play this map myself, I can usually get the ball into the first basket in less than 30 seconds. Occasionally, I have gotten the ball in the basket with a single attempt. Maybe I am just extremely good at aiming, but I don't consider myself an expert player. In fact, I think my reflexes are fairly slow compared to most.

I wonder how other players are faring.

When I thought about it some more, I think my trick of getting the ball into the basket is [spoiler]positioning the portal on the backboard somewhat lower (lower than the center of the board)[/spoiler]. This allows the ball to drop into the basket rather than to bounce out.

I don't want to use a info_placement_helper on the [spoiler]backboard[/spoiler] because I figure adjusting the portal position is part of the puzzle/game, just like in real world basketball.

Quote from Adair on July 31, 2011, 5:30 pm

I'm more confused than ever. The intended solution to chamber 2 eludes me.

BTW, what makes you think quatrus finished the map with the intended solution?

Quote from satchmo on July 31, 2011, 6:54 pm

quatrus used several key words in describing the map. Specifically, the fact that he [spoiler]needed to use the cleaner[/spoiler] tells me he figured out the solution.

Quote from satchmo on August 1, 2011, 12:16 pm

Quote:

The room with 2 turrets in it captured my rolling ball in one of it's corners and although I could drop into the room from it's ceiling, I could not exit without going through the red field and killing myself off. There probably needs to be a portal surface somewhere lower to allow escape from this trap.

Well, I designed it as a trap. If the player carefully examined the situation, he would realize that it's not wise to drop into the chamber, because there is no way out.

If the ball rolls into the chamber, the best way to get it out is to coat it with the repulsion gel, and it will promptly bounce out on its own. If it's already coated with the gel, then it won't stay in there for long.

Quote from xdiesp on August 2, 2011, 11:01 am

Is there a graphic setting to adjust to be able and see the shadow of the ball? Because without one, it's ludicrously hard to catch it: took me like 20 minutes to net it. Not really an enthralling experience: imho the "game" should either focus on catching the ball, or shooting it in the right place. Invisible walls to suck it to the target would easen the burden for the former option.

Quote from satchmo on August 2, 2011, 8:07 pm

I guess I overestimated the ability of the players for the gameplay.

Like I said before, I am able to get the ball into the basket in less than 30 seconds whenever I test played the map (I timed myself the other day). I guess I just have a natural talent at this sort of thing.