If you've been following the mod's development, you've likely noticed that One Point One has (finally) been released. I've probably said it before, but I originally wanted to build a one month window between the releases of my mod and Portal 2. Three weeks is still good, I guess. The goal was to catch the heightened Portal 2 excitement without becoming eclipsed by what is definitely going to be the greatest game since... well, Portal. I was going to work in a joke about catpennies here.
Anyway, there are four brand new things I'd very much like to draw your attention to. First is the brand new Chamber 21, Gemini.
You'll find it under "Bonus Content" and it'll unlock after you beat Chamber 20. It's the easiest part of the new content to complete. As you can probably tell from the image, it's based off a different kind of force field. It lets players walk through and has no effect on portals in any way, though objects like the Weighted Storage Cube cannot pass. That game mechanic actually comes from the earliest stages of the mod, but it was cut fairly soon after I couldn't get it to look quite right early in development using the textures from the Combine walls from Half Life 2. Observant players will notice the current texture is from the challenge map score display.
Next up is Chamber 25-Advanced. It's under "Advanced Chambers" (of course) and unlocks after completing Chamber 25 (of course!). It's much less a test chamber than an extension of the BTS levels. Most of the clips from the One Point One trailer come from this level. It also includes another new gameplay mechanic: water. You cannot shoot portals under water, and standing in water that's too deep will short out your portal gun and destroy any portals you might have open at the time, though the Device will be fully operational as soon as you get on to dry ground. It's by far the longest level in the mod now, and probably second or third in terms of difficulty (26-Advanced remains first), so if you're one of those people who beat Portal's last test chamber in under 30 seconds, you should have lots of fun with this one.
The new, improved Chamber 29 has been placed in sequence with the others as if it were always there. After beating it, the old one unlocks as 29-Advanced. It's definitely easier than it was before, and won't force you to do anything the engine really doesn't seem to want you to do.
Finally, there's a little treat for those of you who like to really get into the design process: Save the Cube and Forever Faithful.Both unlock after you beat the game. The first is the original inspiration for Gamma Energy:
The maps I made way back in 2008 while first learning Hammer. It contains chambers 10, 20, 22, 23, and 24 in their infancy, along with a few others. It's what happened when I got this little orange box with a hammer inside and started smashing it against the wonderful world of 3D level design, and I really liked some of the ideas that came out around this time. Forever Faithful is a map very close to the original design for Chamber 20 - the first map I remade from Save the Cube back when you still had to not kill the cube. These levels are great for peeking into the evolution of a mod (and a modder!), but not particularly useful as a test of skill or... anything else really.
Now that you've seen what's new in One Point One, I've prepared a slideshow to point out the financial and commercial effect of these changes on Aperture Science's daily operations that is both informative and entertaining. If you'll direct your attention to the projector in front of the room...
Ha Ha. Fat chance. Enjoy the mod!
