Re-opening Portal (my favorite custom maps)
A few co-workers recently succumbed to peer pressure and got around to playing Portal. There has been much quoting of GLaDOS and xkcd recently as a result.
I loved playing the game and many user-created maps. So for those who have tackled the Advanced Chambers and still want more, I’ve put together a list of my favorites.
(I won’t link directly; you will probably find them all on both My Aperture Labs and Thinking With Portals but I’m not confident about either site’s permalinks.)
I’ve already previously praised the huge, wonderful conversion Portal: The Flash Version. Others that suit my tastes, in vaguelly descending order:
- *UPDATE2* OK, Try Anything Twice by HMW takes first prize at the Science Fair, it needs its own post
- *UPDATE* Marf Aperture by MasterMarf (may be the best one yet!)
- LoveGLaDos by Graxthal (gated right at the start - see my note on crouching, below)
- Weighted Companion Cube Map by MrCow
- Rainbow Palace by Duffedwaft (has one awkward twitch-turn when falling to the first cube)
- Spheres of Influence by Chris Cummings (take the turrets bowling, take them bowling)
- Portal HPC by Omega Studios
- Infrared by Omnicoder (on-the-edge of needing too skill for me to enjoy it: Omega by the same creator went over that edge)
- Tasty Treats by Duque-Rois
- Conundrum by AmnDragon
You could also check these out (especially the first) for some unusual features:
- Chamber23 by Tefkor17 (features an amazing Rube Goldberg contraption)
- Maybe Black Mesa by Sean M (nice Half-Life decor)
- Companion Cube Rescue by SpikeX (explores really huge distances and big turret fights)
Please note that there’s one principle that the original game never trains you on but that custom maps sometimes assume you know: crouching as you go through a Portal - so that more of you is closer to its center - increases how much momentum you “conserve”.
(So that you know if you’ll like what I like, I should explain in more detail what I want from a game that requires both thinking and acting. Working out a clever solution is fun. Mastering a difficult gameplay sequence is tolerable. But I really don’t like having to do both at once, especially when I’m not sure whether I’ve got the wrong idea altogether, or am just too crap to execute it. I recently enjoyed playing Braid, but I did find it suffered from this quite a lot.
Also there are plenty of maps that simply defeat my meagre skills and patience. For example, I suspect that the Logic Portals series is excellent: it takes training seriously and it made a determined affort to teach me how to step fling, but I just found it too tricky. Anything involving twitch-reflex portal placement is no good for me. And I found Portal: Prelude way too hard.)
