Oxygen Station - Part I: The Adventure

Description

This is the first part out of 2 of a mappack made in a personal style and with a subtle little story that I hope someone will appreciate. There is one common element through the pack, the bounce gel. I've intentionally splitted the mappack in two mainly because of workshop limitations, but also in order to make a distinction between two difficulty levels.

This first part is called "The Adventure" because it contains the beginning and the end of the story. These are challenging puzzles across 2 maps where I've tried to be innovative and to use not very common mechanics to move the gel around and use it to reach the exit. I've focussed this time into making clear & clean chambers, showing the elements straightly and avoiding distractions; I really hope I eventually achieved it. I've tried my best to design these puzzles for the average player, meaning that no ninja acrobatics are involved in any of the solutions or high-skilled maneuvers. Despite that, some flings and quick moves will be needed... and LOTS of thinking with portals and logic are required all the way through.

A solution video will be available, but not for a while... I'd like to leave a time before posting the solution in order to allow players to solve it by themselves. Don't hesitate to ask for hints though, please.

Personal Note

I know my maps are more difficult than the average, but I would like to ask everyone to don't underrate the map only because you cannot solve it, I think there are more variables to take into account than just the difficulty level before rating, and also I encourage everyone to ask for hints before giving up ;) ...Anyways, I beg anyone who is willing to give a negative rate to the map to at least post his/her reasons, because comments are immensely helpful for a mapper to help us to improve our work from map to map, and I DO take comments very seriously to improve and develop better stuff each time... and please think that we only map for fun, we're not paid at all for this, so comments are our only real reward :D

Credits & Thanks

• First of all, as always, big and special thanks to my dear friend Vane... for being there every single time I come up with a new project leaving our mod aside temporaly, to help me out on the design of many custom elements, and for believing in me unconditionally. And also for a detailed and valuable feedback after testing all the chambers while she is still a portal player beginner. You're just too awesome!
• Thanks to Greykarel, Headshot and Srs Bsnss for beta-testing and supporting this project offering me useful advices to improve the puzzles.
• Thanks to Sickle for helping me out with my poor vscripting!
• Thanks to Komaock for the Skybox texture.
• Thanks to Rimando Nillo, Jr. for the awesome "Dancing juice" font!
• Thanks to Fluppy and Requiemsoul for the last minute pre-release check!
• Soundtrack by josepezdj (made in Reason 5.0)

Saving

There are a few checkpoints already in the map that will save your progress and a pop-up message will let you know. I made it so the progress is always saved in a file called * oxygen01 *. This way you can reload it by typing on the console load oxygen01 without erasing any other previous savegame.

Of course you can still use F6 to quicksave the game... but that would erase previously saved files, as you know.

TWP map discussion thread

ChangeLog

• 2014/06/14 - v1.0: First release
• 2014/06/18 - v1.1: Increased map-1 gel dropper allowing more time to perform the required tasks / Added a system in map-1-dot1 to break the gel blob if it gets stick to a bridge without breaking / Added grate to the water pool in map-2 / Added some glass floor in map-2 to cut some unintended moves / Added escape routes in map-2 to avoid possible entrapment / Made all the soundscapes softer and lower.