Congratulations, | \_/ ()! And thanks for everybody else who participated. It ended up being a pretty great final competition :)

*chuckles* It's been fun, don't come back

So as per usual (and for the last time ;-;) I'm still sitting here having trouble deciding what order I should vote these maps in. They all have their own great qualities, and are all a joy to play. That being said, here are my choices:

0. quaternary It's not just a puzzle. It's an experience. Easily the best movie I've seen all year.

(but srsly though)

1. RectorRocks Really enjoyable white gel puzzle. Especially enjoy the fact that there's pretty much no desire to break the map with white gel because of the way it's set up. I had a pretty big "aha" moment in the puzzle which was satisfying and ended up lifting it to first place.

2. nintendo.erk I like the simple set-up to this puzzle, because it gave more impact to the moment where I figured out what to do, since it was less of an "aha" and more of a "dear god, you want me to do THAT?". It's a fairly tricky move, but not as bad as it first looks. Feels quite satisfying because of that particular final move.

3. | \_/ () Another puzzle with well incorporated white gel. The yoyo-ing of the white gel while walking through the portal is a neat part of the puzzle.

(difficult decision to leave this one out, but there's only space for three)

4. libbybapa Design-wise incredibly well thought-out. The careful placement of the portal surfaces and objects so that they're in reach depending mainly on the player's location is always a marvel to see done well. What made it just barely fall short of top 3 for me, was that the map got too close to a grey area where as a solving player I kept questioning: "is this progress or a quick little cheat / exploit?". I sympathize with this problem in puzzles as I'm aware some of my maps have the same feel to some people. It just didn't sit right with me despite my understanding of this inevitability for some of the more complexly designed maps.

All of you who entered did a great job on this final competition! (especially you quaternary! I hope to see a sequel of your masterpiece someday!)
Glad to have been able to be a part of the last one! ^^

My (admittedly rather rushed) entry. It might have states where you're forced to restart and/or might have map-breaking exploits.
I didn't have the time to polish it up to get rid of those potentialities. I only come across those with rigorous time-consuming testing.
I just thought I'd at least submit an entry to the final competition, even if it turns out to be a broken one :)

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=755168133

1. Quantified Observation: Area 4 - by camerson1313 (really well designed and interesting with a final part to it that has a clear satisfying "aha" moment that I love. The only downside to it is the size. Long walks are imminent)

2. Restricted Redirection - by nintendo.erk (has a nice puzzle and I love how it uses its compact space very well)

3. Laser grids - by Talisac (has a creative move in the way it's solved and it looks interesting with the rooms stacked onto each other)

This really was a close race. I especially had a hard time choosing the 3rd place because quarternary, olshi and | \_/ () were all close runner-ups with their own great chambers.

Even though I've been in this group for I dunno how long, I'd like to introduce myself as well.

Hi, I'm Ruben. I'm 17 years old and I'm from the upper Dutch part of Belgium, but I don't live there anymore since a bit more than a year ago. My current location is... complicated... I rather not go into it.

Anyway, my native language is Dutch, but I mainly speak English. I learned French a few years back in school, but the lack of using the language has made me pretty much forget it already.

My main hobbies are building K'nex roller coasters and playing videogames, but I haven't been able to devote any time to K'nex recently. I love puzzles and logic, and Portal 2 has a bottomless pit for that, if you're willing to dig a bit for quality.

Currently, the games that I play are Portal 2 and other puzzle games, games from the indie scene, and games that have been praised but I've missed out on.

A few other things if you'd like to know:
My favourite sport to play is badminton, and I really enjoy doing tricks with my diabolo[en.wikipedia.org].
My favourite movies are How To Train Your Dragon 1 and 2, Inception and The Sixth Sense.
My favourite TV series is Avatar: The Last Airbender.
And finally, my favourite game is actually NOT Portal 2. It's Endless Ocean 2

Also, Maybe some people are having a Portal 2 burnout. I've had it multiple times. They'll probably come back.

I think the main reason there's not a lot of people is because it's September. Summer vacation has ended. A lot of people have to either start going to school again or start focusing on their job again.

For me, It looks like I've been quite inactive with map making in general, having only published 2 new maps the past YEAR. My reason being is that the past year has without a doubt been the most busiest year in my life. Having a job for the first time created quite a mess in my usual schedule, removing a lot of time I was using for Portal.

The past year I've also moved from Belgium to Canada, then to The Netherlands, then to the USA, then back to The Netherlands, then back to the USA, and I'm moving AGAIN in 2-3 weeks.

That being said, I have been going through I dunno how many concepts and ideas I randomly came up with. It's fairly easy to come up with ideas, it doesn't take that much time. The big problem usually becomes creating a working puzzle around it, with the design standards I demand for myself. Usually the map concepts also don't exactly work, let alone work with the running competitions. I have been trying to create maps that had to do with the running competition, but like all the other maps they failed to work out.

I wouldn't end this group. Like Demon Arisen said, forcing creativity is not a good idea. I think doing a competition every 2 weeks is asking a bit too much from people who have a lot of things to do and have a lot on their mind. Maybe the better idea would be to make the competitions last a bit longer. 3 weeks or even a month.

Two great maps as usual :)
1. toncica
2. LPChip

Congrats Toncica, you've earned it! :)

All really good maps this competition!
1. toncica
2. camerson1313
3. Demon Arisen