![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Portal 2: User Generated Rooms
May. 28th, 2012 06:32 pmPortal 2 has a really nifty thing you can do. You can design your own testing rooms and share them with other people! I tried some user-developed rooms today and I found out something about myself that I did not realize when I played the original game.
I only really enjoy certain kinds of puzzles in this game. Elements that I do not like include:
1) Timed anything - timed walls that only move into position for seconds before retreating, timed doors that only open for a few precious seconds, etc. I don't like any of that. Any time you hit a button and it start clicking, I immediately do not like it. Probably because I am not that adept at shooting my portals with precision, and I run out of time every time. It's not fun for me to do that over and over until I get it exactly right.
2) Rooms with very few portal-able surfaces. I really don't like that black crap or the metallic stuff or anything else I cannot shoot a portal through.
3) Shooting portals in mid-air when there is very little time. I find that on really long jumps, I'm okay. When I'm in a back and forth loop so I have plenty of time to orient myself, I'm okay. When it's a split-second "Do it now or lose your chance" type of thing, I don't like it.
4) Those laser grills. Not the individual shocky lasers, but the ones that if you touch them you die. Do not want.
Things I do like:
1) Light bridges
2) Light tunnels
3) Aerial Faith Plates (but in moderation)
4) Stationary portal surfaces (like when you need to jump out from a slanted panel)
5) Repulsion gel and Propulsion gel
6) Emancipation grids (used in moderation)
7) Finding a weighted cube or ball and putting on a button or in a fitted receptacle
8) Lasers that you have to redirect, through a portal, a cube, or both
9) The cubes that redirect lasers
Which is why it broke my heart when someone I know designed a room and I really did not like it. It was made up of timed panels, mostly black walls, and a couple of places where you had to shoot your portal right away or you missed your chance. All things I don't like. And there were some laser grills in there too. Avoidable, but still there. It really brought home to me how different people prefer different things in their game.
I tried another room that had been rated highly by others, and I LOVED it. You had to do a lot of thinking to figure out how to solve it, there were no timers, there were no laser grills, there were lots of portal-able surfaces, and the whole object of the test revolved around finding three cubes and a ball and putting them where they went. Like it was made for me.
It was just interesting to me. Also kind of disappointing that I had to leave my friend a critique that was not that great. I think she designed a good room, for the most part. Just not one that I find fun, mainly because of the timer and the jumps that don't allow (for me) enough time to shoot the required portals.
Maybe eventually I will try my hand at making a room. Probably not, though. I much prefer playing them to trying to create them.
I only really enjoy certain kinds of puzzles in this game. Elements that I do not like include:
1) Timed anything - timed walls that only move into position for seconds before retreating, timed doors that only open for a few precious seconds, etc. I don't like any of that. Any time you hit a button and it start clicking, I immediately do not like it. Probably because I am not that adept at shooting my portals with precision, and I run out of time every time. It's not fun for me to do that over and over until I get it exactly right.
2) Rooms with very few portal-able surfaces. I really don't like that black crap or the metallic stuff or anything else I cannot shoot a portal through.
3) Shooting portals in mid-air when there is very little time. I find that on really long jumps, I'm okay. When I'm in a back and forth loop so I have plenty of time to orient myself, I'm okay. When it's a split-second "Do it now or lose your chance" type of thing, I don't like it.
4) Those laser grills. Not the individual shocky lasers, but the ones that if you touch them you die. Do not want.
Things I do like:
1) Light bridges
2) Light tunnels
3) Aerial Faith Plates (but in moderation)
4) Stationary portal surfaces (like when you need to jump out from a slanted panel)
5) Repulsion gel and Propulsion gel
6) Emancipation grids (used in moderation)
7) Finding a weighted cube or ball and putting on a button or in a fitted receptacle
8) Lasers that you have to redirect, through a portal, a cube, or both
9) The cubes that redirect lasers
Which is why it broke my heart when someone I know designed a room and I really did not like it. It was made up of timed panels, mostly black walls, and a couple of places where you had to shoot your portal right away or you missed your chance. All things I don't like. And there were some laser grills in there too. Avoidable, but still there. It really brought home to me how different people prefer different things in their game.
I tried another room that had been rated highly by others, and I LOVED it. You had to do a lot of thinking to figure out how to solve it, there were no timers, there were no laser grills, there were lots of portal-able surfaces, and the whole object of the test revolved around finding three cubes and a ball and putting them where they went. Like it was made for me.
It was just interesting to me. Also kind of disappointing that I had to leave my friend a critique that was not that great. I think she designed a good room, for the most part. Just not one that I find fun, mainly because of the timer and the jumps that don't allow (for me) enough time to shoot the required portals.
Maybe eventually I will try my hand at making a room. Probably not, though. I much prefer playing them to trying to create them.
