Of course I have played. It's even more brilliant ;)

Thanks ^.^ Not sure if you've played my Odysseys map, but it's another backtrack map with a larger scale http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=118113879

Brilliant map. Goes to my favorited.

Great map! It was a bit difficult to properly go back and place the gel, so one could travel without using portals, but I managed to!

ive planned a modification to fix that. glad you enjoyed it :)

I wish I had not given up on the map last night and continued today. I had everything worked out except one thing, how to correctly apply the blue gel in the white room. Facepalm for not seeing that... Excellent puzzle, exactly the type I love. I'm mad about not getting the last needed step.
I used the same method as buff00n with the laser cubes, when I later activated the pedestal button I was very disappointed that I only got a useless flip panel out of that action.

Yeah, you did that all as intended, although that flip panel can make setting up the laser easier in theory... though your way actually seems easier. Maybe I'll take that panel out...

No, that was the intended solution. Curious how you managed to set it up without the pedestal button... will watch your demo tomorrow, thanks for posting

Going through it again I realized that I didn't need use use that pedestal button at all. Here's a demo of my final pass through the level, including the laser trick. [www.dropbox.com]

Haha that's hilarious. I didn't even know there was a grating there before.

I thought about it some more, and I may have done something unexpected on my last, portal-less run through the laser room. It involved getting the laser to pass through a third cube sitting on the lowered platform, then moving that cube while standing on the platform to raise it up. If that sounds horribly wrong then I'll send you a demo. .

Glad you enjoyed it. There is no reason for that ledge, except to have the wall where it needs to be. The problem with the cube stacking is that there isn't really any decent way to prevent it without getting elaborate (at which point I hit the fizzler). The grating in the button room was always there; now I just made more of it, and I had no idea you could solve it without the grating, though I see your method now. That's absolutely brilliant, though it may be a bit sadistic to force people to figure that out

I just tried the update. Almost every room has something more difficult about it. If I didn't already know the punchline then I might have given up.

I did the cube stacking trick in the laser room before reading your new description. Maybe you could hollow out a space to the left and move the button there?

The laser room is definitely much tougher. I now realize how many shortcuts I used last time. The final pass through this room took me longer than anything else to figure out. Is there any point to the ledge on the far side just below the fizzer?

The button room was the only one that disappointed a little. It's much easier with the grating there instead of glass. You don't have to think ahead at all. .

The faith plate coaster seems to miss a few of the plates at the end, not that I'm compaining. The sooner those are over the better.

Overall very challenging!

Yeah, you need to rig the map to get through it without portals. That's where the name comes from

Tried that, but there was a fizzler preventing me from connecting the blue gel with the beginning room ... I think. Or, I can't figure out how to go to the blue gel place without using any portals . Anyway, thanks for the explanation.

There aren't any hidden connections anywhere in this one; to solve the puzzle you simply drop blue gel onto the ball, which lowers the stairs without trapping you. The method tp do so involves a fair bit of backtracking and creative problem solving. . As for the cube falling on the button, I ran into that in an older map that used that trick and fixed it with a funnel. In this one, though, you can't get trapped and I haven't actually seen it fall improperly.

Yeah, I realized the cube solution after I stopped playing; thanks for explaining it anyway. As for the solution for the first room: unless there's some spooky action from distance, things that logically have no relationship whatsoever have a connection anyway, i.e. hidden connections, things you aren't telling the player, non-sequiturs, things the player has no way of knowing and/or deducing, the first room appears definitely unsolvable. In the "unless" case... I'm not sure I can ever appreciate such a solution. Oh, and by the way, the physics engine can and will sometimes seriously mess up with solutions hinging on cubes dropped straight onto buttons. The cube can bounce off, etc. You can see that happening a lot when I was solving Warp's Descent : http://youtu.be/7gB7hOK4lMU

Alright, watched your videos. Gotta say, you did some interesting things, and I hadn't realized you and Buff00n were tossing the cube at that stage. The solution to that room is put a portal over the water and another behind the laserfield, drop the cube into the water you did figure out what the solution was, just not the means; keep in mind this puzzle is called Preparation

It can certainly be solved, I've done so several times. As for the hugeness factor, this sort of map, the kind that can only be solved once the player is very familiar with it, is my speciality. I see nothing fundamentally wrong with these sorts of puzzles, but you don't seem to prefer them and that's fine. Since that's the case, thanks for looking this over anyway. I'll watch your video in a bit

Thanks for updating it. While you didn't really address the hugeness of the map, you did make the second part (with the lasers) slightly more obvious. I still didn't complete the map, but this time I did get past that one door with almost the correct solution (which incidentally is the same as buff00n's; I did not read any comments before playing). I completed the blue gel room, did a complete route back to the beginning, and I'm literally as close to the solution as I was in the beginning, except, as you may see in my demo, perhaps even less. Hour of work for absolutely nothing. I'm not entirely convinced that this map even can be solved. http://bisqwit.iki.fi/kala/preparation12-ravoria-blind-by-bisqwit.zip

Yes, it is certainly long lol.

Well if the solution is what I think it is, it's a soooo long test X) Puzzles are really good anyway, but I died stupidly after spreading some blue gel everywhere in the map, so I gave up >_<

@bisqwit: thank you so much for that video. this level is incredibly broken, i now see

Glad you enjoyed it :D I do have plans to redesign the laser room to be smaller, and the white room will get some minor tweaks so it works better, as for the glass covered white squares, that was an experiment and in retrospect it's probably better reserved for a puzzle that has no gel. As for the cube room, there is a simpler solution that's similar to the usual method when the ball is on the button, a fizzler covers the white square. simply drop the cube into it through a portal

I'm not sure I agree with everyone else on the "stylish" aspects. The first room is appropriately intimidating. The second one hides its true purpose very well. The glass-covered portal surfaces in the gel room threw me for a loop; I got fixated on those and it took me a while to find the comparatively simple solution. I'm not a fan of faith-plate coasters, so I could take or leave that part.

(Stupid 1000 character limit.)

I only used three out of the four reflection cubes. Once I had the room "prepared" I considered building a staircase out of the surplus cubes, but it turned out not to be necessary.

The only one I'm not sure I got right was the small room with the button, goo pit, and door. I "prepared" the floor, tossed the cube so it bounced towards the goo pit and ran through the door before it respawned. It was more of a skills test than a logic test.

I also thought a lot of this map was pointless at first, but then I arrived back at the beginning having made no progress and I remembered this was a Ravoria map. I probably would have been stuck for a lot longer if the Odysseys Initiative hadn't prepared me for the general idea.

Once I figured out what I had to do it was just a matter of "preparing" each room so I could do it. The seemingly superfluous giant portalable room was particularly fun to "prepare".

Watch the demo, there you see it.

yeah, that seems to be the general consensus. I will make the rooms smaller and simpler. did you at least realize how to get the exit open (as in, get the stairs down)?

Here's my blind play... It's about 45 minutes. I won't say "playthrough", because I did not complete it. http://bisqwit.iki.fi/kala/preparation-ravoria-blind-by-bisqwit.zip
I spent a good time being stuck with no idea where to go, until ultimately using the noclip cheat to scout around to see if there is anything I missed. It did not help. It convinced me of the idea that this map is way too huge, though. The density of meaningful testing elements was very small, and there was lack of clear connection between them. I tell you, when the vast majority of player's time goes into trying to figure out "what was the author thinking when they made this map" rather than actual puzzle solving, you have failed at making the map. I am sorry but I give this a honest thumbs-down.

funny that you say that. i was going for style this time (and the while room was meant like a playground at the beginning). perhaps I will cut down on the extra space then

I couldn't even bother to finish it. It was so huge. Nothing wrong with large maps, but it was so much wasted space for nothing. It really looked promising on the entrance and then went into the first room and had no idea where to start. Just so many things everywhere. No way to tell what does what and what is even there until you get there. I finally trek through that and hope that the next area is more concise, but it's even bigger and just nothing but a huge room of portalable areas. Maze-like for no reason. Then, what felt like should have been the end where the cube is on the button that opens one door and closes the other... it isn't. Another huge area with a ton of portalable surfaces and most covered with glass. No offense, but I couldn't take anymore at this point. I really appreciate the amount of time and effort that went into this, but it was just too much. Just my humble opinion.