Portal 2 Level Jam Competition: Challenge #10 - Fox Force Five

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What:

Each week we will be engaging in Portal 2 Level Jams. Everyone building levels will be keeping to a specific restriction or idea (e.g., “verticality”). After everyone submits their levels, you get to vote for your three favorites. The winner then chooses the theme for the next challenge.

Rules:

  • Only one map per participant.
  • Maps must be new designs. No submitting ones you've already made.
  • Maps must be made using in-game puzzle creator only.
  • Until the deadline, any change to your submitted map is permissible.
  • Maps are to be your interpretation of the current challenge. You don’t need to ask if your interpretation is permissible- if people don’t like your take on the challenge you’re simply less likely to get votes.
  • You can vote without building, but it's important to note that you will forfeit any chance of winning the novelty paperweight.
  • Votes should be of your top 3 favorites, in order.
  • The winner is tasked with coming up with the next challenge. In case of a tie both parties will mesh their individual ideas into a single challenge.

Current challenge:

Elaborate a puzzle or series of puzzles in your chamber, in which all 5 cubes have to be used. Companion, Franken, Reflect, Sphere, and Standard.Repeats are allowed, as long as all 5 DIFFERENT cubes are present at least once. Also, cubes can be reused several times if you so wish.

Dates for the current challenge:

Submissions open: October 9th
Submission deadline: October 13th
Voting begins: October 13th
Voting ends: October 18th

(All times are 11:59 PM EDT)

Challenge history with links to collections:

Science Challenge #1: Verticality (winner: Jolly Bill)
Science Challenge #2: Purist (winner: Jolly Bill)
Science Challenge #3: 4 Slice Pizza (winner: Dimmerswitch)
Science Challenge #4: You gotta have Faith (winners: Jolly Bill & kexx)
Science Challenge #5: Companion Cube Adventures (Winner: Omaha)
Science Challenge #6: Grate Expectations (Winner: Bellirish)
Science Challenge #7: Song Remains The Same (Winner: googleimage)
Science Challenge #8: Grog: May or May Not Contain Kerosene (Winner: Mantid)
Science Challenge #9: Black & White (Winner: Kexx)
Science Challenge #10: Fox Force Five (Winner: ?)

I haven't had any time to give this a go. One of these days, I will. Hopefully you guys are still working on them by the time I get to it.

Unfortunately, I will not be able to play and/or judge any levels until I get back Sunday afternoon/evening. Hopefully by then we'll have something in place to collect our votes (google docs?)

Wow, this is a cool idea. I might have to re-install Portal 2.

This sounds like a cool idea. I'd love to try making a map or just testing/voting

Workshop collection: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile... - Should probably put that in your post, demon.

Who's "Profile Name Here"?

Based on the Steam profile "other names played as" it's Clarkatello, a coffee grinder who has posted in the main Portal 2 thread as well.

Also based on the level he posted, now that I think about it.

Right you are. Silly me.

Edit: I did a simple spreadsheet here. We'll vote in this thread and I can tally them up in the sheet. Unless someone has a better idea. Which is likely, because I rarely do spreadsheets.

Anybody have links to some tutorials for room building? I'd like to try my hand, but my first nudge into Forge made my eyes bleed.

Whoops. Double post.

We're using the in-game puzzle creator for this competition, Rubb. Or is that what you meant?

I honestly don't think that thing could be simpler. Even I understood it, and I'm terrible at creating levels. Or creating of any kind.

Hyetal: I think there were 4 categories being judged on? I will be *not* lazy and go look them up.

Voting Criteria

1. Fun factor
2. Difficulty factor
3. Frustration factor
4. Map design/layout/architecture/construction

(as suggested by Kexx)

Oh. I completely missed that. How does that play into the ranked top 3 voting? Do we rank 3 maps for each of the 4 categories?

That can't be the easiest way of doing it, right? That seems convoluted.

No idea. Maybe we just add the scores together to make one score. There wasn't exactly a lot of discussion on it.

I feel like keeping it simple is best. Categories are nice, but I enjoy the "like it, like it more, like it the best" principle of the top 3 structure. Then again, I'm not even making a map this week, so whatever you guys want.

We should probably settle on this soon, though.

Hyetal wrote:

We're using the in-game puzzle creator for this competition, Rubb. Or is that what you meant?

I honestly don't think that thing could be simpler. Even I understood it, and I'm terrible at creating levels. Or creating of any kind.

I... think that's what I meant. I'll have to fire it up again at home, maybe I'm thinking something different than you are.

Rubb Ed wrote:
Hyetal wrote:

We're using the in-game puzzle creator for this competition, Rubb. Or is that what you meant?

I honestly don't think that thing could be simpler. Even I understood it, and I'm terrible at creating levels. Or creating of any kind.

I... think that's what I meant. I'll have to fire it up again at home, maybe I'm thinking something different than you are.

Maybe you were using Hammer. The only goofy thing about the new editor is initially figuring out how to drag the area around. Once you fiddle with it a bit, it's not hard. Just like playing with legos. You might watch the initial announcement trailer. That showed someone using it and how it works. Might get you started if the intuitiveness didn't click. Also, it looks like there are a ton of YouTube videos up if you search "portal 2 editor".

Oh dear lord... yeah, I was trying to use Hammer and was getting NOWHERE.

Never, ever mind. *is abashed*

Hyetal wrote:

I feel like keeping it simple is best. Categories are nice, but I enjoy the "like it, like it more, like it the best" principle of the top 3 structure.

I think this is best. The other gets complicated.

Agreed on the voting mechanism. Let's just keep it simple, top 3, tally up and done we are. I think that serves best for counting and moving on to the next challenge.

Please take a look at the initial post- edited for content and for less suckiness. Let me know if I missed anything crucial.

I think it's easier if we vote in this thread, that way no one has to go to a spreadsheet to add their numbers. I'll add them in post-haste. Unless we want to do this anonymous?

Also, you should make it clear that it's:

1. Favorite (3 points)
2. Second favorite (2 points)
3. Third favorite (1 point)

Looks awesome.

What should we do with other non-competition maps? Stick back to the regular Portal 2 thread seems proper. I have like 3 or 4 ready for publishing just lying there for the moment. Thoughts?

For a quick humorous look at how to make levels with the perpetual testing initative you can try out this quick look by giant bomb.

Hyetal wrote:

I think it's easier if we vote in this thread, that way no one has to go to a spreadsheet to add their numbers. I'll add them in post-haste. Unless we want to do this anonymous?

Also, you should make it clear that it's:

1. Favorite (3 points)
2. Second favorite (2 points)
3. Third favorite (1 point)

Edited my post, thanks.

kexx wrote:

Looks awesome.

What should we do with other non-competition maps? Stick back to the regular Portal 2 thread seems proper. I have like 3 or 4 ready for publishing just lying there for the moment. Thoughts?

Yeah, I say the other Portal 2 thread is wide open. This way you won't feel restricted as to when you can publish- there's two distinctly delineated threads of discussion.

They're all in the collection, linked in the OP. I subscribed to all maps submitted. Will play through them tomorrow.

I posted my map in the other thread since I didn't see anyone posting them here. I plan to go through and play all the comp maps tomorrow

I'm posting it here anyways, caution be damned!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=74975905

...really, if it's too late (as it's 10 pm Friday night) it's fine, I'll get in the next time around

Hopefully in under the gun. Purposely avoided looking at any other submissions, and look forward to playing everbody's at some point over the weekend.

Leapfrog
IMAGE(http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/596972801527923256/B129DCF5FE5B355F5EEE8B18B690377DB1DA2A6A/600x337.resizedimage)

I'm sure the collection will be updated soon, but for the sake of clarity, here are the entries:

Clarkatello - Vertical Limit
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
Cyranix - Hop & Hope
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
cyrax - Up, Up, and Go Away
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
demonbox - Vertically Challenged
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
Dimmerswitch - Leapfrog
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
Jolly Bill - Controlled Ascent
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
kexx - The Icarus Construct
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
Mantid - Exponential Recursion
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
Omaha - The Vertical Value Vestibule
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...

I'll have played them all by tomorrow, but I'm wondering if this isn't too short a time to get a decent amount of people voting. Maybe we should consider extending the voting period, at least for this cycle?

Or maybe I'm wrong. I know. It's shocking.

I've had a chance to play all of them now. I was not able to beat all of them though. There were a few where I was just completely stuck and couldn't figure out what to do next. But overall, a pretty great batch of maps

I'm pretty sure I already know my nominees, but I'll of course wait to post them.

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