Layers of Cognition

PLEASE READ

Hard map for experienced players, which utilizes the portal gun ON/OFF concept and every BEEmod field once. In order to solve the map, you have to know their properties and how they interact. You can check the overview table in the map pictures.

Difficulty: 8/10 No execution skills required.

Unexpected information:

Angled lasers through wall portals are part of the solution.

List of unintended things:

• cube climbing (usually it's a legit move, but not needed or intended in this map)

• jumping (space bar) is not needed either

List of obviously unintended things:

• glitches

• speedrun techniques (bhop, strafing etc.)

• cube tossing with wild mouse movements

• walking on deactivated field/fizzler emitters

• mid-air shots

Additional item information:

• the white ceiling and floor surface have portal magnets with fixed orientation. Narrow ceiling and floor surfaces have to be shot while standing in-line with them
• the floating platform in the top area has a button which controls the portal gun (similar to a yellow button) and the white field
• the white field remains deactivated for at least one second
• the lift has no connection and oscillates all the time. If you get stuck, wait a few seconds. If your solution requires you or a cube to get jammed between lift and the floor (or a field), you're doing something wrong. EVEN WORSE:

A jammed cube can lose its collision, resulting in undesirable behavior, such as the cube no longer activating buttons properly.

Avoid that by all costs.

• the return path triggers a full reset of your progress
• the bottom relay deactivates the entire death fizzler
• cube shielding (holding a cube in front of you) towards the turret is not intended. The turret is super strong. As long as it is alive, the marked area under the purple field means instant death. Burning it doesn't require a tight angle. Aiming at the legs recommended, but a background mechanic will ensure that it gets killed even if you're aiming between its legs.
• the absolute fizzler's timer is long enough to shoot different portals through and also long enough for the player/cube to pass. It's too short to get the "lift portal" and get back again.
• the timer of the green field's button is long enough to get 1 (!) cube on top by holding it above your head. No ninja stuff.

Known issues:

• when the player stands in front of a portal and looks through, the visuals might be incorrect. Don't worry, it doesn't affect the gameplay.
• in some rare cases a cube can slip through the green field while traversing the room. That's not intended and results from weird collisions of the green field. The best way to prevent it is to look straight up while holding and walking with it. Also make sure that the cube is REALLY over the green field after you pressed its button and put it up. Just let it sit for a moment before you start walking around.
• due to self-inflicted actions (unintended tossing for example) the player can get stuck in the solid fields. If so, use noclip to get free.
• apart from that, too much noclipping isn't recommend. You could accidently hit some invisible triggers or background mechanics that smoothen your experience. Use at your own risk.
• depending on your settings and setup, the visual appearance of fields (especially the absolute fizzler), grating, text boxes etc. can differ. Nothing of it will affects the gameplay. Created and tested with the highest graphic settings, 8x anti-aliasing, 1920 x 1080 resolution, subtitles off and BEEmod installed

Useful things:

• use the command "host_timescale 1.5" (or other values) for reducing walking times

• F6 / F7 recommended

• you can use the mouse wheel for better aiming

• feel free to adjust the music and/or sound effects in the options menu

Huge thanks to Libbybapa for playesting, technical help, advice and incessant support. I also have to thank Nobody No-One and Haru for playtesting the previous iteration, as well as Leo and Mystical Λce for technical help.

Music: Placid by Mevious

Trivia: The map is a remake of my map "Layers of Fatality", which was a remake of my older map "Layers of Consciousness" (2018). In 2020 there was also a third different, non-public iteration of the map. The current overhaul embodies the true final version. Most main ideas from the original map are sill present.

Feedback and playthrough videos are welcome. Feel free to ask for hints. Have fun!