Portal 2 - Level

Portal 2 Editor - Design Documentation - Playtesting

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My Portal 2 chamber

I have made this Portal 2 map by following most of the level design principles I learned after 3 years of studies at Staffordshire University. I don't believe this is the best piece of work I ever made, but it was fun anyway playing the classic game of "counter how a player might break my level".

In my Portal level, the player to open the exit door will have to find all 3 cubes: Weighted Cube, Reflective Cube & Companion Cube.

Check the full design documentation here: Portal 2 - Design Doc.docx

Since all the 3 main levels are all one above the other, players will eventually have to borrow the main elements from each one to beat the puzzles.

Exploring my map will be gradual, players will start at the bottom, then gradually reach the above floors.

My rewards to players are mostly about giving them a cube, there is one for each level and once obtained all of them the players will have all the tools necessary to open the exit.

Level 0 – Ground:

This is where the player will begin the exploration, in front of them the first thing they will see will be the exit door and all the connected buttons and receivers. In this way, they will have a clear understanding of what is their objective finding enough cubes to unlock the door.

Initially in the main room there won’t be many things to do, players will eventually go into the Reflective Cube room. I used that room also as a tutorial on how Fizzlers work. They destroy objects passing through them and will stop players to open portals through them, a central mechanic in my level.

Level 1:

In the level 1 once players will reach it, the first thing where they will literally jump on is a locked room with the companion cube behind. This will for the final puzzle, because to open that room the light bridge from the level 2 will be necessary. Without it players will only to beat the next puzzle, which consists of activating 4 relays to raise a platform. Once that is done players will unlock the access to the level 2.

Level 2:

As the last main area to explore, this level is not the hardest one, the challenge here is using the light bridge to activate a cube dropper. Once players will get the cube, they will be able to disable the fizzler separating this room from the below levels, this will allow players to use the light bridge in previously explored zones. This level also provides a small hint about what players need to do to solve the next puzzle, using the light bridge to prevent a cube from falling…

Mixed Diadrams About the Puzzles:

Spotting Soft Lock & Fixes

Playtesting was extremely helpful during my development, it helped me to understand how different types of gamers would have seen my challenges and if they would have had game-breaking issues.

Soft Lock 1

I've spotted this one thanks to a play tester not very used to this type of game, as always this reminded me how important is playtesting.

Soft Lock 2

This one was quite tricky to discover, usually while playing my level I tried to use the classic mentality of “Hey what if I destroy this cube?”. Every single time they were simply respawning as expected. For in this scenario, the question I should have thought was “Yo what if I don’t destroy this cube but I leave it up here?”. A moment later I found my last soft lock.