To me it certainly sounds like you solved everything!

Damn it. How could I be so stupid. I totally did all of the necessary thinking to solve the map, but I just couldn't connect the dots!!! I knew that you needed a 5 tile momentum , I knew that I would need to bang the head in a 2 tile area and then fall through the 4 tile drop !!! I even got to what is 0:58 in your video completelly on my own! I just didn't think of preserving a 1 tile momentum on that remote area ! Ugh!

That's fair, I do understand that if the area up there is pitch black it feels like everything else should be too. I do think some people are playing on displays that just aren't very good and make do with what they have, relying on the mapmaker to highlight the most important areas. Yes, most of the walls and everything may be pitch dark but what would that matter, most of the time? :P

There's a lot of noob mapmakers on the workshop which will unintentionally leave exploitable spaces up high which is obviously a problem for momentum maps so not highlighting such areas does make it feel more like an oversight and, for experienced players who care about intended solutions, an area to avoid instead of an obscure "hidden path" to pursue, like you were originally going for. It's really hard to balance putting an "outside-the-box" step like this in a map without pushing it too far into the realm of cheesiness, but I think you already walked that line very well with the core mechanic of the map. From what I gather you've already responded to this criticism though and are making brighter maps nowadays so it's not really a criticism relevant to the current-day you, just something to keep in mind as well as for anyone else reading this.

Thanks for a thorough review and a vid! Always love to see people play :)
At this point, I have a new computer and wouldn't be able to brighten up that area if I wanted to 🤷‍♂️ But I still don't understand how one would see anything at all in this game if that place is completely black, wouldn't the rest of the map be pitch black too? Like, at 1:50, getting in that position is one of the first things everyone will do and to me it looks almost black and white obvious from there. Might be easy to "overlook" but not to "not see".
I am trying to make brighter maps tho. Unfortunately, I'm not making that many maps anymore haha

Blindrun
Wow. Don’t think I’ve seen this quirk of the game engine used before. As you said the solution IS a logical one, but holy damn is it ever outside-the-box. This one requires a very advanced knowledge of portal/momentum and nerfing mechanics to fully understand. It’s a miracle I got it as fast as I did.

I knew what the title was referencing right away. How the hell are you supposed to get the Goldilocks zone of 5 blocks momentum??? I knew 4 wasn’t enough and 6 shot me over. But how the fuck is one supposed to get that much momentum with the pits available??? If I’m being completely honest I thought the solution would somehow exploit Portal’s built-in “terminal velocity” - a prior NE map I played used that limitation to nerf the player’s momentum , but this is just as clever, honestly.

Well done. But as Hazellius said, the upper area could have been highlighted more clearly. I don’t really think doing so would take away from the “outside-the-box” feel of the chamber as you think it would, nor make it any less of an accomplishment to reach. It still took me long enough to figure out what needed to be done after I discovered it - and for certain displays it will literally look barely visible without any lights up there, leading to either insane frustration and/or noclipping as Hazellius had to resort to :/ It’s always far too easy to underestimate the difficulty of your own chamber.

Difficulty: 4/10 (for an experienced)
Enjoyed: 8/10

I just double checked and a simple w+space gets you nowhere near the ledge like expected, so you must have been doing something, whatever you choose to call it.

I did neither, as far as I could tell. I simply jumped without touching any walls and landed easily every time — I don't know any speedrunning techniques.

Afaik, to jump that gap you need to either strafe or do the wall run thing, so, you know... But glad you enjoyed!

Very cool concept for how to get 5 blocks of momentum . I didn't use the first angled panel (the one that's not the panel you need to fling to the exit from), because you can jump from the high-up ledge above that panel all the way to the area that that panel would fling you to. Thumbs up.

Blacks don't just have to do with brightness, I'd even guess that pretty much nothing will change in the dark areas when you adjust it. There's contrast and some other things you can tweak depending on what your hardware allows. Googling images for "black calibration" might tell you if there's room for improvement in terms of display settings.
And fun fact, Portal2 does actually have brightness slider, but it only appears in video settings when the game is running in fullscreen! Coincidentally, running in fullscreen used to fix my in-game driver issues all by itself, so could be worth looking into on it's own :)

@SunnyOst it must indeed be a driver issue then, because I had my screen on max brightness at night, and checked the settings in Portal 2 itself when I had this issue in the map. I wish there was a brightness slider like in some other games

It's fair. I wanted that part to be a bit sneaky, for a feeling of "outside the box", as well as, it seemed to be giving away a bit too much if you went there right away - getting on top of the map paints itself as a goal of sorts and you do it on instinct, while finding the one thing it's good for on accident, instead of logically considering this move and looking for a potential place to do it. Maybe I expect too much Tbh I also expected people to get up to that high pretty fast and notice the ledge even if they didn't pay attention from lower levels. I certainly wouldn't call it a black blob, on my screen the contrast between the different walls is noticeable just fine, it simply doesn't look important which is what I was going for.

I do hear about darkness on my maps a lot though, they are a good way to test the calibration of your screen and the game. In fact, I used my maps to find out I had a driver issue on my previous laptop! First underground level of the campaign is a good indicator too, jfyi. And don't even attempt my map Fabulous Blue without double checking :P
Thanks for playing and detailed feedback! I'll keep it in my mind in the future!

I feel like this is a map so close to being great, but ended up being hampered by deliberate obfuscation. It poses an interesting question: How does one get a 5-block high amount of momentum when all the places where one can get momentum are even-number-block high jumps ?
I figured out fairly quickly that the answer to that had to be bumping my head against the ceiling. I just couldn't figure out where or how to make that all work . The eventual answer on where and how to get that final move to work is nothing short of genius.

Where I think this map just flat-out drops in quality is the middle part where I have to get to the highest point. It absolutely ruins the flow for me. I couldn't even see that there was a place to stand on top of the whole construction until I started no-clipping to see if I missed anything, because it was too dark to see on my screen without guiding ledge lights. Not only that, even after I saw that there was a place there, I thought for the longest time that it was unintended to be able to get up there, because it's such a dead and dark looking area.
I'm a firm believer that a good puzzle has everything in plain sight, and the only thing making it seem impossible is the inability for the player to think think outside the box or to put 2 and 2 together. How is one meant to solve a puzzle if they're missing one of the pieces, or thinks one of the pieces simply just cannot fit?

Personally I'd recommend more light so that area up there is visible. It doesn't even have to be blatantly obvious, but I do think it needs something up there, even if it is a single small light so one can see the lines of shapes instead of a blob of darkness when looking up and/or a single small light on the floor once you're up there to indicate the creator has thought of the fact you can get up there, like how Mario has invisible coins on very hard to reach spots . It makes the player think "oh, the developer has thought of that!"

Very fun. I don't think I solved it intentionally cuz I didn't need the angled panels at all

Well, I had to fix a couple of things you found, so at least you're smartr than me

I feel soooo dumb for getting stuck on this no elements maps.

I see. Then it made the right impression, it's left there to discredit all the strafing solutions. If someone wants to use strafes in their solution, they are either overcomplicating by not doing this one, or they do this "baby's first strafe" and cannot be proud of it. Hopefully, this makes more sense.
Thanks for trying to help, sorry I went off a bit

You're right, nothing is stopping me from going around the big glass, and I know the whole of these arguments. Therefore, I usually refrain from such comments. But this strafing seems way too easy to execute, and this is the only reason.

Duh, since when strafing is a legitimate move? And if I consider it as one, I'd have to make the whole map into a big cage. What's stopping you from going around the big glass? Skipping the little angled fling by strafing from the top? Getting on top of the glass by the 2-tile infinifling? Etc etc.
In fact, allowing this particular move makes it such an extremely unimpressive feat, that - I hoped - it would shut down the topic before it even started. I was wrong, ig.
I'm not sure if it has to do with me being the author, where I usually experiment with weird stuff while also trying to block these kind of solutions... But I'm confused why two people I thought of as legit players even considered this way like they discovered strafing a week ago. What's next, cube hopping on Mevious maps?

Hm.. I guess there won't be additional grates.

Now do that with W key

https://youtu.be/wE-xASHkHgI

Well, that's a new one on me Also, thanks @Narkodes for explaining the 'trick'

I did the 5 second way, but it took me 5 mins

I also confuse the height of the tile you are at and the height of the tile you'd have to jump off of to be at this tile. It's like having a ground floor in a building, gets me every time. And since a player never jumps off any fives, Six could have been a more fitting name for the map, but then you see all the even heights around and it's even more confusing :P
Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed!

Fun map. Everything was quite easy for me, except the final step in the solution. Somehow I misinterpret that crashing with the ceiling would still give me ~2 voxel high momentum, because Chell still has that height after colliding. I didn't know I could count that as "1" and add it to the other 4. Nonetheless a cool test!

When unintended solution is harder than the intended one, I'd say there's no need in fixing it. And if someone can pull that off, BIG kudos to them haha
Glad to hear you had fun!

Fun no-elements puzzle - I enjoyed that the solution involved a bonk!

Though it's ridiculous, it's maybe worth noting that because the final angled panel is visible from the 4-voxel floor-ceiling pair, it is sufficient to place a portal on the ceiling of the 2-voxel floor-ceiling pair, enter the floor of the 4-voxel floor-ceiling pair, perform the bonk, and then do some crazy fast shooting. Maybe not worth fixing, haha.

solved it (without solution video) probably unintended but i won't tell you how so you don't fix it :) my head hurts now (hint for those who are stuck) awesome no elements map and i think a no elements map never took me that long to solve great work have some cake :///