Forum | Thinking With Portals

#11 · June 11, 2011, 7:17 pm

Thanks for the comments and feedback everyone! Glad to see people are enjoying the map ^.^ .

I'm aware of the visual glitch concerning the world portals. It can be confusing, but they pretty much happen at random, and i'm not aware of any fix at the moment unfortunately.. That glitch almost caused me to scrap the whole map, but they don't happen TOO often, so I kept mapping. For the record, once you leave one room and enter another, the previous room's world portals shut off, and new ones turn on. This is for optimization, and it works quite well. Noclip around for proof =P.

To address Gadzillar, it's hard to explain world portals without using custom sounds or textures for signs, which were forbidden in this competition. I do plan to make more testchambers like this, because I love the concept of bending rooms mixed with puzzles as well. In the future, i'll add indicators that point out world portals and their functions to make it slightly less confusing. IMO, I think the confusing world portals is what gives this map its charm.

As for infernet89, no that is not how you solve it, but that is VERY clever. I will not fix that in later versions just because it's a sneaky way to solve the chamber. I chuckled when I did it ingame as well. You actually solve it like this

Spoiler

http://i.imgur.com/l8JTR.jpg

iamafractal, I was actually writing this post when you posted that. I seriously had to stand up and take a break, that's how hard I was laughing at that cave bit. Fking hilarious. Thanks for the feedback, I will definitely be making more maps like this. I had a lot of plans for this map, but got slapped by the deadline.

Thanks for playing the map everyone =) Feel free to link it to friends who have Portal 2 also, spread it around!

#12 · June 11, 2011, 8:18 pm

:-) i'm available (to try) and make any cave johnson impersonation recordings if you like...

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#13 · June 11, 2011, 9:31 pm

This was aaaawesome! What I really liked was that it was the first time since the first game that I had a "whoah, what? there are two of me? aaah what the fuck my head hurts" moment. Really! Great job!

#14 · June 11, 2011, 9:37 pm

The use of worldportals in this map is excellent! I first didn't noticed that strangeness but it was a big "Wow" after I found it out. The tests are medium difficult, hat to think a bit, mainly because of the worldportals and their requirement in the test.
Good testchamber design. Some details were not perfect (I'm perfectionist, so I watch at every face of a brush an its texture). Some visual glitches caused by the worldportals in combination with normal portals. Its more a game problem, but its able to avoid them sometimes with another map design.

List of Maps, Models, Textures, Instances.

#15 · June 11, 2011, 11:19 pm

Spoiler

I really do have to say that I'd like to see more use of world portals... it is very strange, I have to admit, that after years of being used to portals with orange and blue oval windows, it is disconcerting to see such quiet little nonchalant portals right there in doorways and open entrances. As a matter of a fact I remember back to 2007, when a friend first played portal and he saw for the first time, a portal leading into "another room" which was really just the room he was already in... he kept going through over and over, without ever quite getting the fact that he was just looping in the same room, until he had done it for at least 15 minutes. For some reason, even though my brain understands portals when i make them, these other ones weren't going to the same spot in the brain at least for a few minutes. it was strange. I bet it can be even more strange... I look forward to it.

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#16 · June 12, 2011, 3:30 am

Also, can you guys count the world portals? There's more than you think!

#17 · June 14, 2011, 7:45 am

Awesome!
In the first chamber it didn't take long for me to realize the geometry was all wacky, but it did take a minute to figure out just how the rooms fit together.

Also got to say,

Spoiler

I didn't like the very first part, climbing the shaft. It seems like I kept getting pulled into the middle of the shaft even if I put the floor portal off center to be closer to the button side of the shaft. Then I'd have to adjust over to be able to hit the buttons. I don't know if the shaft could be narrower, or just remove some invisible force that pulls you to center, but it could be a cool puzzle element with some tweaking.

The second chamber was too quick/easy. I literally solved it before I fully took in the environment just by doing what seemed obvious. I started messing around and before I had decided what my goal was I was hearing the mechanical whir of the exit being revealed.

I agree, the last chamber was a mind-f***. I'm going to have to play that part again just to see what really happened there. Whatever it was, it was great.

Overall, good solid puzzles, and very descent mapping. Hopefully you can work out a way to fix the graphical issues that come with the use of so many world portals.

EDIT: I just replayed the whole map and did that first shaft part much more easily. I think it still needs work, since it was frustrating the first time.

Replaying the second chamber I realized that there seems to be some unused elements. First, maybe I solved it wrong, but I did it without ever reversing the Funnel direction. Also there seems to be no need whatsoever for the world portals in chamber 2. Perhaps they help to tie chamber 2 in with 1 and 3, but they don't have any role in the puzzle or it's solution that I'm aware of.

I still like chamber 3 a lot.

#18 · June 14, 2011, 2:14 pm

very very nice! :thumbup:

#19 · June 14, 2011, 5:14 pm

You could cut down on worldportals significantly. Especially in the final chamber, there were dozens only needed for moving through the chambers in different ways. These inevitably ended up artifacting, and felt almost like "Worldportals everywhere! Arent i clever?"

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#20 · June 14, 2011, 5:32 pm

why cut down when there can be MOAR?

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