GALLERY

WALKTHROUGH

SUMMARY

One of the first maps I publicly made available on the Steam Workshop. It is a fairly small and compact puzzle featuring fizzlers, a laser, a redirection cube, and a lift. Momentum and explicit portal placement is valued here.

After a bit of time to reflect, I’ve decided to pull this level off of the Workshop as it had many flaws and the puzzle itself was not of the greatest design. While it was available, some skips related to momentum were brought to my attention and at that point I had actually lost the original source file for the level. I worked on the puzzle on my laptop and after I published it I had reformatted the laptop for unrelated reasons. After that, I deemed it a lost cause and wasn’t worth to keep it on the Workshop. However, the look and feel of the puzzle is still something I am happy with.

Something to note, since the level is no longer available, it may be difficult to follow along with this write-up considering you won’t be able to look around yourself and get familiar with the layout. You can watch the walkthrough video, but that’s about it. Apologies for that.

THE PROCESS

In total, the project took around three to four days to complete. The puzzle itself was thought up of fairly quickly. It was built on top of the concept of vertically “extending” a laser using portals that slightly overlapped. Focusing on that idea, the prototype was quickly built in Hammer very crudely as I searched for a puzzle to build. When that became solid (or so I thought), I started building the map around it and put in the basic stuff, like starting and ending points as well as fitting in necessary elements. As the map continued to be built, many design issues came up which were mostly mechanically patched out with fizzlers which should have been a bit of a flag that the puzzle itself is on rocky ground.

Once the basic geometry was complete, I did a quick lighting pass on the entire level and then accelerated towards detailing with extra geometry outside of the main chamber (most notably the vista above the main chamber). After that, I started polishing the main chamber itself by cutting up the walls for some character and flair and placed the signage and indicator lights. At this point I decided to add the extra chamberlocks to the entrance and exit instead of directly cutting it to the elevator shafts.

For the most part, time was spent on the look and aesthetic of the level, leaning heavily into exposed “Behind the Scenes” vistas. It is arguably my favorite theme in the Portal 2 aesthetic to both visually appreciate and create. I would also pick it as my strongest theme for me to decorate levels with.

A POST-MORTEM

At first, I was pretty happy with how the level turned out. The idea of “vertically extending” a laser with portals seemed like a cool concept, but I didn’t execute it correctly. I never really excelled at making great puzzles. As much as I’d love to, it wasn’t and probably won’t be the forefront of my levels. So y’know, if you’re looking at this, focus more on how cool it looks rather than the puzzle itself. I’m not so much a fan of thinking up puzzles. Just let me decorate and make the environment. But of course, since this was a solo project, I had to do both, design the puzzle and create the environment. With that, there’s a few points to make…

PUZZLE DESIGN

The center wall dividing the chamber is integral to the puzzle, but unfortunately it leads to hiding the laser catcher behind the wall from the viewpoint of the player when they first enter the room. In an ideal puzzle scenario, I would’ve preferred all elements being easily visible at a glance right when you enter the chamber. Obviously this isn’t going to be possible for all puzzle types, so this is just a bit of a smaller nitpick point.

I’m not a fan of the fact that I chose not to attach an indicator line from the back laser catcher to the cube dropper. While there is a sign that clearly indicates its purpose, it does not lead to the dropper which I’ve seen a few people miss pretty easily. Seriously, is it that hard to look up?

There is a large amount of fizzlers in this quite small chamber and most of them came out of mechanically patching out solution methods that weren’t intended to be used. The biggest and most painfully obvious patch is the horizontal fizzler resting above the laser to prevent the player from simply looking up with the redirection cube so they could place it on top of the platform (rather than the intended method of using player momentum to send themselves against the back wall with the cube in hand). The height of the wall could not be changed as it is also part of the solution, where the cube needs to rest on top and portals needed to be used to “extend” the laser vertically to hit the cube and then redirect into a laser catcher. In hindsight, I probably could’ve just used a glass panel. Which is my mistake.

THE VISUALS

I think the visual look of the entire level was pretty good. My one real gripe with it is that the main puzzle chamber is a little too compact for my liking and may feel a little cramped to the player. I am particularly fond of the large vista above the main chamber area. I like Aperture’s vacuum tubes a lot, so if I had made more space you know I’d have put some of those in.

CONCLUSION

Yeah. It’s a level. In summary, I really like how the final look of it came out. The puzzle design, not so much, but it wasn’t my priority. I could see myself cranking out a bunch more levels if I could ever think up of more puzzles that aren’t too linear or simple. Or if I don’t have to worry about making puzzles at all! But then it wouldn’t be very interesting, would it?