Quote from KennKong on January 19, 2012, 1:35 am

Well, another day, another review. Let me be positive this time. First, I enjoyed the map enough to play it 3 more times and give it 4/5. Here's my playthrough:

Part 1 The Red Room
Part 2 The Green Room
Part 3 The Yellow Room
Part 4 The Blue Rooms and Exit

A lot of work must have gone into making this map. The length and variety of the puzzles is up there with the likes of Nystrke.

Additional glitches found:

1. Fell into the drink entering the red room
2. Buttons are too close to the wall in the yellow room
3. The bridge in the blue room is very difficult to coat with gel
4. [spoiler]Don't need the rotating panels at all[/spoiler]

Where this map needs work is almost entirely in the visuals. My biggest complaint is that it is just too dark in most places. The only other real ugliness is in the gels; there really is just too much time spent slathering it around, especially in the red room.

Overall, this is an outstanding effort. Well done! I look forward to more.

Quote from Wanderer2021 on January 19, 2012, 6:03 am

Definitely gonna take the advice to heart. I'll definitely have to rework the blue and red rooms. I'll add some lights to those and the hub room as well, since the green room is supposed to be dark on initial entrance, then illuminate only the platforms once the player reaches the bottom. Those rotating platforms in the blue room were intended to be used, though, as you mentioned, the speed is ridiculous, so I'll probably stop them and re-purpose them another way. I also need to figure out what is causing that nasty lag when a portal is placed in the small room near the grate. That has been frustrating me for a while now.

I'm going to try to make an effort to improve the texture presentation as well, though thats probably my achilles's heel.

Quote from RogerL on January 19, 2012, 6:40 pm

I thought this map was highly imaginative and highly ambitious -- maybe too ambitious. My main problem was that there is very little indication of what anything does. For example, it took me forever to see that a little door had opened in the red room after I powered the laser catcher. At least there's a surprise around every corner.

Wanderer2021 wrote:

Lit white gel = portals. Missing texture gel = reflective.

I'm sorry, but on my monitor I could not see any difference, even when I placed them side-by-side, with graphics settings on high.

I encountered a bug, but it may be the engine and not something you can fix: if I loaded a save made in the second part of the maze (yellow) room, the linked portals in the middle are gone and I'm stuck, and have to go to an even earlier save.

Another possible bug was the mini button in the corner all by itself in the red room. After I pressed it, confirmed by the yellow checkmark, and finally got the lightbridge to the exit, it had turned itself off. Its either on a timer or its state didn't survive a load from a save. This happened twice.

In all, it was easy to see that you put a lot of effort in this, and I highly recommend this map, especially for people who like to explore.

Quote from Wanderer2021 on January 23, 2012, 3:16 am

Update time. Did a lot of testing and adjusting, and fixed some of the issues with the linked portal doors. Increased brightness in the red, green, and blue rooms, and added some indicator decals to help guide the player a bit more. I've also added a bypass system in the room, so the rotating panels can be skipped if the player figures out the system. Also added the proper system so the player can't just mash the buttons to open the final door. Also, remember to put in the custom sounds into the sounds folder.

Quote from RogerL on January 23, 2012, 1:33 pm

I guess I'm unsure of where to place the custom sounds. I have them in "portal2soundscustom", but I get this error message:

Quote:

[Sound] S_StartSound(): Failed to load sound 'custommusic_note_me_tone.wav'. File is missing from disk/repository.

Quote from Wanderer2021 on January 23, 2012, 7:35 pm

the path should be that. My path is Steamsteamappscommonportal 2portal2soundcustom, and its worked fine.

Quote from RogerL on January 23, 2012, 9:04 pm

Ah, okay. I used the folder "sounds" like it is in your zip file, not "sound." But I still get the error message. I also found this earlier in the dev console:
"[Sound] total_channels == 128 - SEND A BUG" Don't know if its related. [spoiler]I take it they are supposed to play when you press one of the six buttons in the main room. If so, it might make it more intelligible what you are supposed to do in there. As it was, I just stumbled on the correct sequence by accident.[/spoiler]

Quote from Wanderer2021 on January 23, 2012, 11:54 pm

yeah, the sounds were supposed to be played throughout the map to hint at the sequence. Added a .vpk to the download in the hopes that it'll pack it in proper, otherwise, drop the sounds where they belong. I'm really not sure why the sounds aren't loading. For those that haven't installed .vpk files (I'm sure someone hasn't at this point), see https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Releasing_A_Portal_2_Map under the installing section.

Quote from RogerL on January 24, 2012, 4:09 pm

Initial comments for ver. 2:
1. The blue room is now quite a bit harder and I can now see your intentions with the rotating platforms. The only thing I noticed was that I saw no purpose for the very top button on the first set of platforms. I know what it does, I just never needed it.
2. Thank you for more room around the buttons in the yellow room!
3. Red room is much better. [spoiler]I like that you got rid of the funnel and made the lightbridge appear with the button that I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what it does in ver. 1.[/spoiler]

Still a problem for me is the sounds, without which it makes solving the button puzzle for the last door impossible since your changes. There is no .vpk file in the ver.2 download, which is just as well, as that functionality got wiped out in the DLC update. Also, your readme has some extraneous material you forgot to delete from the ver. 1 readme.

Still a great map, still quirky and entertaining, but the red and blue rooms make more sense but still require exploration and puzzle-solving. I'm going to see what I can find out about the sounds and finish this map.