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Sticky Bridges

Hello and, again, welcome to the Aperture Science Computer Aided Enrichment Center.
Today you will be testing with a partner.

A two chamber cooperative map built for the Thinking With Portals Heavy-duty Super-mapping Super-contest. Enjoy, and I'm always happy to receive feedback!

Thank you to all the testers who helped me polish the map through its various iterations.

Version 1.02 now uploaded as of August 27th. Includes a number of fixes/changes to the original release.

Workshop: steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=92262076

Click here to download Sticky Bridges

Me and my partner enjoyed this map very much. Although the first puzzle was a bit tight, and it was hard to maneuver it was enjoyable, and finding both chambers' solution was a blast. Very well built, although it needs some debugging and another lighting pass.

Great work!

ImageImageImage
Instance: Co-Op Tube Ride

Aesthetics
Lovely job of creating a destroyed chamber, the atmosphere you created was great. The projected textures were really well positioned - having the gels cast shadows was a great idea. With that said I think the second room was too reliant on the projected texture for light - maybe brighten the room a touch and tone down the strength of the projection. The metal grates you used that bend outwards were a lovely bit of detail - we liked how you attached one of them to a ceiling so it made structure sense. While there were pipes and other props scattered bind missing wall panels, I felt like a few more would have convinced us that the chamber was destoryed and not just abandoned. Maybe you could have thrown in some pipes winding around the chamber? To be honest, I'm just nitpicking now and you shouldn't be worried - the map looked great.

Gameplay and Difficulty
I'd put the difficulty as easy to medium. We were constantly thinking on our feet, but weren't too stuck - most of our problems were in our (mostly my own!) sloppy execution. The puzzles were fun - I liked that you included turrets as a parts of the puzzle (obstacles to overcome) rather than just as a distraction.

Spoiler
Detecting alternate solutions and then punishing the bots for cheating was a great idea, even if we didn't know we were cheating!
And the build up to the solution was fantastic.

I didn't notice any bugs or small mapping details - hurrah! Thanks for making a coop map - TWP is always in need of them - and well done on making a well-rounded, enjoyable couple of puzzles.

Some excellent feedback here, thank you so much for taking the time to play through the level and write your thoughts! Although I did have to hurry the release to meet the contest deadline, I do hope to smooth things out a little more with a future version of the map.

Mr. P. Kiwi wrote:
Although the first puzzle was a bit tight, and it was hard to maneuver it was enjoyable, and finding both chambers' solution was a blast. Very well built, although it needs some debugging and another lighting pass.

Did you find the area to be too cramped, or were there difficulties crossing the sludge? I'll be looking into tweaking the lighting further as well.

BEARD! wrote:
Spoiler
Detecting alternate solutions and then punishing the bots for cheating was a great idea, even if we didn't know we were cheating!

I never quite settled on a best choice with that part.

Spoiler
There are a few ways to the top of the chamber, including using the light bridge, but as it still requires a fair bit of work on the players parts I left the option in. (Though the first attempt is hindered by the cheating message with intention to hint that it is not the puzzles proper solution.)

In the version prior to release, the message only triggered if a player bounced off the light bridge. Would it be less confusing if this was changed back?

Once again, thanks for checking the map out, and hope you enjoyed it. :)

Amran wrote:
Did you find the area to be too cramped, or were there difficulties crossing the sludge? I'll be looking into tweaking the lighting further as well.

Yep. we felt it was too cramped. Coop maps should be wide, two players need to simultaneously move around the chamber to find the solution, that is without constantly bumping into each other while looking desperately for a solution on the ceiling...

ImageImageImage
Instance: Co-Op Tube Ride

My feedback:
Do not read if you are judge!

Spoiler
Visually this map was good but the puzzle was great. This map got us both thinking and gave us the 'aha' moments which level designers want.
The first chamber was a little bit fiddly and required a 'correct angled' jump at the lightbridge, but it still took us a little while to figure it out and was a good puzzle.
The second chamber we enjoyed the most. Each element placed in had multiple uses, especially for the funnel and gel and I thought the put gel on the lb and jump up to the button personally was a brilliant idea.

Not sure if it was just the way you built the chambers, but they felt just a little cramped. Also your map didn't look like it had 1 func_detail in it, giving Nacimota a bit of lag / performance issues.

I say this was a map well done.

?????????????????????????????TWP Releases | My Workshop
ChickenMobile wrote:
My feedback:
Do not read if you are judge!

Spoiler
Visually this map was good but the puzzle was great. This map got us both thinking and gave us the 'aha' moments which level designers want.
The first chamber was a little bit fiddly and required a 'correct angled' jump at the lightbridge, but it still took us a little while to figure it out and was a good puzzle.
The second chamber we enjoyed the most. Each element placed in had multiple uses, especially for the funnel and gel and I thought the put gel on the lb and jump up to the button personally was a brilliant idea.

Not sure if it was just the way you built the chambers, but they felt just a little cramped. Also your map didn't look like it had 1 func_detail in it, giving Nacimota a bit of lag / performance issues.

I say this was a map well done.

Thank you for the feedback, some more good information on what worked and what didn't in the level. Definitely happy that it's succeeding in the aha moment department though. :)

Just about everything non structural should be a func_detail, and the map is portaled. Maybe I could make better use of hint brushes to help speed things up a bit more.

Uploaded a new version of the map with a number of fixes and changes to the original release.

[Edit] Another few changes made it into the workshop release. I've both added these to the download version (1.02) and provided a link to the workshop page.