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Portal 2 Authoring Tools Beta Released
Valve has announced the beta release of a set of authoring tools for Portal 2, allowing users to create their own puzzles and challenges in the name of science. "The Portal 2 Authoring Tools include versions of the same tools we used to make Portal 2. They'll allow you to create your own singleplayer and co-op maps, new character skins, 3D models, sound effects, and music." The tools are available for free to anyone who owns the PC version of the game.
Can I make a map of a hat shop?
Custom maps was by far my favorite part of Narbacular Drop, giving much more challenging maps than portal or portal 2. With such a comparatively huge user base, it'll be interesting to see what people come up with.
Bin Laden's Hideout should be available in all games.
Many new elements of gameplay they introduced, it really felt like there was a lot more they could have done with them than they did, at least compared to the way the portals were used in the first one. I didn't have much desire to play 3rd party maps on the first portal, since I felt like I had seen every concept that could be done with two portals. Not so with portal 2. I was still thinking of things they could do with, for example the hard light bridges by the time the game was over. There's more in the co-op levels, but it feels like they were trying to make as many new mechanics as they could to encourage the 3rd party maps.
Single player maps without the portal gun, that might be interesting, but there was very little of that in the game, and the parts that were, it was just platforming and exploring, none of those new things like the goo. It wouldn't have worked well with the story. I think it will be interesting to see what people come up with.
I'm not as excited about the inevitable parodies of GLaDOS, or a "the cake is a lie" reference in every map.
Like you, I really enjoyed the more difficult puzzles in Narbacular Drop and Portal.
When I finished the story mode in the original Portal, I immediately went on to some of the packed-in challenge chambers and modes for some more complex puzzle solving with portals.
When I finished the story mode in Portal 2, I looked for the more challenging content and found... nothing. It seemed like quite an oversight at first not to even include a feature like that that was in the original game.
I get the feeling it's more difficult to create a good puzzle in Portal than in most puzzle games. Here's hoping that the community will quickly fill that gap with some high-quality puzzles.
>versions of the same tools
Versions?
As in, versions that don't bring up a message box saying "Assertion 'p != np' failed! Get Dave to fix this!" when you enter an out of range value, or whatever.
Let me guess... you've never had to convert an in-house tool to be used by the outside world?
There is no cake in Portal 2. Sorry, no cake for you!
It could mean that the tools have been updated slightly since they were actually used to create the Portal levels. The last work on the levels involving those tools might have been done a couple of months before the release of the game so there could be some bug fixes and improvements made.
Also if they are tools they use for a range of titles they might have removed features that are not relevant to Portal 2, either because they are not implemented at all in that game or would cause problems specific to it (perhaps some geometry options cause excess hassle for the through-portal rendering, for instance). Internally you can expect people to know (or find out from documentation when they hit a problem) what features are not relevant/useful to a given game engine (or version of that engine), when you hit the real world you will instead get an infinite number of angry entitled idiots posting in forums how crap the editing tools are because feature X doesn't do what that person interprets from what it says on the tin.
They may also have had to remove any in-jokes (that t hey don't want the rest of the world knowing about) and curse words (or other things that may cause offense, which might include in-jokes again!) that somehow got as far as to be present on the interface or in the documentation.
Haha shoulda thought of that before you bought a console instead of a PC!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Portal 2 was made with casual console gamers in mind -- you probably noticed that those tricks in Portal that required good reflexes and precise aim are gone. Now all the challenges really just involve figuring out the order to place portals, with lots of auto-aim to help you hit the right spots. It removed most of the skill from the game and left only the puzzle solving.
Don't get me wrong, the later challenges were for the most part fun and reasonably difficult. I'm just looking forward to seeing some made-for-PC custom maps. There's a lot of room for variety and difficulty.
In one of the early drafts of the game, there were supposed to be tubes that you (or other objects) got sucked through, to land somewhere else. They were removed, although you can see them in action in the added Portal 2 level of The Ball.
Will they be something you can use in your own levels?
Technoli
I was so excited when I started making portal maps for the original but I quickly realized that there wasn't really anything particularly new about my maps, since the Portal team themselves pretty much explored all the possibilities in the base game.
But with Portal 2, there are so many things I thought of when playing that didn't show up. I think custom maps may definitely be something to look forward to this time.
I see that the tools are for your PC (duh), but I don't see any mention if the levels created there will be able to be ported to the console versions of the games. Any word on that?
I'd buy a gaming PC, but its games tend to lack split- or otherwise shared-screen for when friends visit. I'd buy a console, but its games tend to lack level editors. So why isn't it possible to have split-screen play and level editors on the same platform?
If you want the player to get sucked through tubes, you can always go get Lunar Magic and edit Super Mario World.
Steam itself was in the works (and possibly still so,) of being ported to Linux. They focused on the Mac version, however, and wanted to get it out first. I haven't heard anything recently about it though. :(
Does it run on Linux?
What are they supposed to do, push Sony's DDS right off their own platform?
But there are lemons--lemons that will BLOW YOUR GODDAMN HOUSE UP!!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Sony's incompetence isn't Valve's fault. Anyway, it works just fine on the PC and Xbox, if you're that impatient. Sony is supposed to have PSN back up in a few weeks, anyway. Good luck finding anyone on the PC who hasn't already completed the coop section by then. I just finished it on the 360. It was a lot of fun.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Real multiplayer gaming is done over the internet anyway.
This is true in cases of only one gamer in the household, but as video gaming becomes more popular, it becomes fun for the whole family.
When you want someone sitting next to you cussing about the way you play, just play the console version on your PC.
PCs can emulate only discontinued consoles and the Wii. Why don't more PC native games have modes designed for an HDTV and gamepads, especially since PCs can easily use the same gamepads as an Xbox 360?
Assuming you have money for a big enough screen
HDTVs like my Vizio VX32L can accept VGA and DVI signals from PCs. Six months ago, HDTV penetration in the United States was up to 56 percent. So yes, a lot of people do "have money for a big enough screen".
Great! Now I can work on my brilliant map idea where you redirect tub-girl's 'propulsion gel' so that you can accelerate up the ramp to the goatse exit! If I can get the map done in less than half an hour I might be the first person to post it!
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Hopefully they've got the engine to the point where anything users mash together will be workable in their physics engine.
From only playing the story mode so far, I get the feeling there's more work to do on this front. I noticed some glitchiness in the story without looking for it, especially in carrying objects. Some of the fancier (and even not-so-fancy) elements in the game won't let you carry an object onto or past them. I noticed this especially in the later GLaDOS test chambers. In the one with a line of turrets you burn with the laser, the objects from rat man's area won't go through the panel that slides up. They hit an invisible wall. In another, you can't take them onto a lift--again, at the edge, they hit an invisible wall. These are things I'm sure they noticed in testing but weren't worth fixing before release.
Hopefully Valve patches they things in a timely manner as developers start to get creative.