Heres what I did (hopefully this is still possible in the final version; I downloaded it a day or two before release:
[spoiler] Put cube on button to keep door open. Stand on other button (or use cube befor putting it on the other button) and wait for the moving platform to get to just the RIGHT spot; take cube off/jump off. Fling to land on platform, and then hop over to ledge. The nice thing is, since its mud down below, you dont die if you slide off the platform, etc. Just portal back and try again; tether ball not needed. [/spoiler]


Doh! Didnt spot that; gotta try it that way. I did this:
[spoiler] Place portal on vertical plate near slanted surface; place other portal on low platform directly across goo. JUMP IN portal. In the split second you are over there and before you fall back in, you can pop a portal on the upper wall while over there, and you'll be thrown back out when you return. Very difficult without slo-mo, but possible. I did it both ways. . . .eventually. Then move the 1st portal to the slant, hop through, and the rest is easy after that. [/spoiler]

That sounds like "tunneling" to me. Let me get it straight: (I'll use portal colors for clarity.) [spoiler]You put the blue portal on the vertical surface near the stacked pallets, and the orange portal on the low platform across the goo. You jump into the blue portal and while you're popping up out of the floor from the orange portal, you shoot an orange portal high on the wall in the room with the unused hydraulic poles. Since you're still partly in the first orange portal on the floor, this "pops" you back out the blue end, near the stacked pallets, but now you have the orange portal where you need it high on the wall in the other room.[/spoiler] Is that right?

Yep; "tunneling", "portal-thru-portal", I've seen a few names for it. Tunnelling sounds good to me.

Definitely one of the most advanced and well done maps I've played so far. However, the ball and chain thing got me. I spent maybe 30 minutes playing around with it but I just couldn't figure it out. I finally gave up and read spoilers to find out how it works. Perhaps you need to make it more obvious or give us a tutorial on how to use it. Other than that, I tried the second jump puzzle a variety of different ways that almost worked.

I can't wait for the next series ;0

Here's what I did: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0FD_xCoYR4

I didn't get the tetherball either

one thing I would like to suggest, to everyone actually but I noticed it in this map...

When making stairs, or anything you step up on, make an angular player clip brush. it makes it feel a lot smoother.

Shmitz, were those the intended solutions for those puzzles in that youtube video? (Except the tether ball, of course)[spoiler] for the piston part i failed to think with portals and just ran through them, and for the flinging I used tunneling, didn't even notice that grate there [/spoiler] just curious.

Essentially, yeah, the first two were more or less "correct". There's a quicker way to do the first one, if a little riskier, but if you're not going for any of the challenges, his way is just fine.


Also, I must really suck at jumping, because he pulled off some jumps I always failed at. -_-

Other than the tetherball room?

Same with me both ways with not portal, died once or twice but it seems more fun than using portals there...

I thought the ball thing is just to not allow the ball to leave a certin distance so I tried to use portals to keep it in the distance but still push the button. but
everytime I tried it killed me

After using god mod to not get killed I tried some more till I gave up :O

Anyway, really awsome map.

Made a small update to the map, mainly to get it compiled with the updated SDK, but also a few other minor additions/changes.

personally i found it to be easier once i got to the energy ball to just run straight through the pipes than to use portal tunneling

I actually did the second challenge a different and possibly quicker way than I have seen described in this thread...maybe its somewhere else, I haven't really looked.

[spoiler] I spent a long time in that area and couldn't figure anything out until I happened to look down into the green goo and noticed that the floor under the goo could hold a portal. At first I thought "NO WAY", but I tried putting portal1 on the slanted tile and portal2 in the goo and then took the plunge...I almost made it. Quickload, look around, and find that there are 2 vertical platforms with wheels attached that you can jump onto from the slanted tiles. So I got that extra little height, replaced the portals, and flung myself up to the ledge...only to find the last room to be even more difficult!

So given the "under maintainance" theme of the level I just thought maybe that room normally had a walkable floor, but a pipe got busted and it flooded. Basically, once I figured out how to fling through the goo I thought, "Hey good puzzle, it totally fits the theme." [/spoiler]

So, Shmitz, did you mean to make that a possible way of getting through that challenge?

Meh you ruined my shortcuts!

Anyways, I had to spend some more time in the big fling room to figure out what was needed. In the end it made a lot of sense (since I had to use more of the geometry) and [spoiler]it sorta introduced the concept of a flying portal-in-portal if you will[/spoiler] which I hadn't tried before.

I don't like the tetherball room though. I hadn't actually solved it using the tetherball before so now that I had to it was just kinda annoying since the bounce was pretty unpredictable. I mean I could still just reset and try again, but it was timeconsuming and ultimately unsatisfying :S

No, I think you found a good example of why we can't entirely abandon our noportal_volumes that we had to use before the SDK update. After removing them from the map, I didn't think to [spoiler]recheck the floor of the goo-pit[/spoiler].

Still, pretty neat idea, and you were able to pull it off. I might leave it in there for now, until I make a sequel and have to update this map to include a changelevel.