Map:Portal:Rock

From Lycanth

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File:Rock

This map has a lot of history for me. It started out as part of a mod I was creating for QuakeWorld called The Rock. The Rock was a mod based roughly on the movie with Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage. One team defended Alcatraz; The Rock, while the other team attacked. I believe I had created VX gas rockets that needed to be destroyed by the attacking team.

After Quake 2 came out, I was looking for a TeamFortress style mod using the Quake 2 engine, but there wasn't anything all that great at the time. That spawned a new idea for a Q2 mod that I was calling, "Fields of War." I resurrected my Rock map to use in FoW. It was going to be used in a gameplay style I was going to call "King of the Hill." Basically, both teams would have tried to control a single area for a given time. Eventually, TFC came out for the Half-Life engine, I got swamped with school work at NDSU, and I lost interest in developing it further. However, I did store that code away in my code repository.

When the Orange Box came out, playing TF2 sparked a lot of nostalgia for me. I started looking around in my code repository and found I still had The Rock map. It turns out that the Hammer editor that is now part of the Source SDK is actually a new incarnation of the old editor I used to use called Worldcraft. Since I still had the old Worldcraft map file (as well as the more standard .map format of the time), I loaded it up and put some textures on it. I then started the process of learning how to map for the latest Source engine to turn it into a Portal map. In the process of trying to make the map flow better, I cut around 1/3 of the original map, and re-built about 1/2 of what was still remaining. I learned a lot in the process.

The map itself isn't designed to be too challenging. It was mainly a way for me to revive an old map, and learn a bit of current Source mapping techniques in the process. Most of the puzzles and stuff should be fairly straightforward. There's a couple of places where I don't have much for clues, but I'm hoping it won't be too difficult to figure out where to go next.

Installation

• To install this map, extract the zip file into the portal subdirectory of your portal installation (e.g. c:\Program files\steam\steamapps\<your steam id>\portal\portal).
• Start up Portal with the -console parameter. This will enable access to the console in-game.
  • Bring up your steam games list by right clicking the steam icon in your system tray and selecting Games.
  • Right click on Portal and select properties
  • Click on Set Launch options...
  • If it isn't already there, add the parameter -console
  • Click OK.
  • Close the properties dialog
  • Double click portal to start.
• Launch the map rock.
  • If the console is not already up, hit the tilde(~) key. (Above the Tab, to the left of the 1 key).
  • Type in "map rock" (without the quotes).

TODO

There are a number of things I would like to do with this map that I may or may not actually do depending on if I get the time. :)

• Add GLaDOS-style voice overs that make it more clear that you are trying to rescue the weighted companion cube
• Tweak the soundscapes better
• Adjust textures more
• Model the 3D skybox better, (Maybe even create a model for the Golden Gate Bridge instead of hastily thrown together textured brushes I have now.)
• Figure out how to package it as a Bonus Map back
• Add more indication of what to do once you find the right companion cube.