Quote from Nacimota on May 10, 2012, 4:03 am

It involves a certain level of creative thought, so I don't think you can just explain how to make hard puzzles. My only advice is think outside the box; experiment with designs that challenge the player's established ideas of how objects (like funnels, plates, buttons, etc) can be used.

Quote from josepezdj on May 10, 2012, 6:41 am

Nacimota wrote:

It involves a certain level of creative thought, so I don't think you can just explain how to make hard puzzles. My only advice is think outside the box; experiment with designs that challenge the player's established ideas of how objects (like funnels, plates, buttons, etc) can be used.

Good reply!

DamnImOnFire wrote:

Just how do you make a hard puzzle??

I'd suggest you to read the following post. It was a reply by MarKiu when another person asked the same you have just asked here. It came up regarding hhis splendid map "Heaven's Gate" (I strongly recommend you to play it if you hanven't already: http://forums.thinking.withportals.com/downloads.php?view=detail&df_id=1629) ...I really liked his reply and and I really appreciated that he had this capability of describing the subject such that good! Seriously:

http://forums.thinking.withportals.com/post67838.html#p67838

Let's see if you can take some advantage of it!

I personally likee mush hard maps... I'm making some challenging puzzles as well for my mappack (I'm trying it not to be sooo hard as I want all kinds of player to have fun though), and I can tell you this: start from an original way of using some element (this is the most important part!), set the number of cubes for example that the player would need, then make them difficult to get! One important point is to play a lot to your own creation and send the maps to ppl: many different ways of solving something should appear; this can make you tweak them even a little bit more for avoiding unintented solutions; also you can think of new ways of doing the same thing but more difficult... or ppl can show you more difficult ways for doing something you thought was easier to do!

...whatever...

Quote from The Irate Pirate on May 10, 2012, 6:48 am

As Nacimota said, it relies on coming up with a creative idea that breaks or subverts established Portal puzzle designs. For example, if you know how people generally use a Funnel to travel between places, changes it purpose into being used for pushing a laser cube along or for dropping cubes onto turrets.

Quote from Lpfreaky90 on May 10, 2012, 6:51 am

Other games can be a great inspiration and sometimes I create a map, decide it's too easy and try to make it impossible. Most of the times I fail at making it impossible, but I am able to solve the map in another way. I then see if it's a fun way, if it is I keep it: if it isn't I ditch it and try another way.

Creating a good map/puzzle takes a lot of time, so be patient and playtest your map a hell of a lot.

Quote from CamBen on May 10, 2012, 11:38 pm

start with a basic concept of cube-button, knock over the turrets, or get past the fizzler, and a basic room you have a basic shape idea for. then, i like to make some lasers and maybe some momentum flings. if you want it too be harder, make some toggles, timers, etc. slowly build up and up to make more of the testing elements inaccessible w/out completing a different part.

tips:

reuse elements
don't make the map paradoxical or have the elements enable eachother, thus making the map impossible.
use ledges and fizzlers
don't use conversion gel

hope that was helpful.

Quote from UsCobra11 on May 10, 2012, 11:47 pm

What I do is start building a basic map, then wait until a really good idea comes into my head. If it's good enough, I continue the map based around it. A really good map would be, say, 3 or 4 of these great ideas that pop into your head.

Quote from DamnImOnFire on May 11, 2012, 3:38 am

Thanks everyone for the great replies- I'll stick around and see what ideas pop into my head

josepezdj wrote:

http://forums.thinking.withportals.com/post67838.html#p67838

Let's see if you can take some advantage of it!

Thanks for that post! I certainly shall.

Alrighty, back to the drawing board.

Quote from Vordwann on May 11, 2012, 6:00 pm

My best tip for making a hard puzzle is to put together something that might not be that difficult, but when you think about the way to complete it, some other problem gets in your way that you ALSO have to solve.

Quote from msleeper on May 11, 2012, 11:05 pm

Don't rely on gimmicks. Don't rely on twitch precision or "ninja" skills. Make the player think, not necessarily act.