Please or Register to create posts and topics.

Rainbow Palace by Duffedwaffe

So Rainbow Palace is the newest addition to the light that is a spot. Congratulations Duffedwaffe on an awesome map. It took me hours of windowed Portal, IRC Monkeys and Bagels to complete this thing. But I suck at Portal so don't use that as a time frame for the map that is, Rainbow Palace.

Image

Rainbow Palace, an epic map that stumped EVEN me. That's not hard to believe, but eventually I did complete the map and I was very happy that I did so. By no means do I mean "Woot I finally cleared this peice of Donkey crap." and more along the lines of "Woot I feel relieved like when you do something hard and long and you complete it and you finally finish it and finally..." what ever you get the point.

So this chamber consists of about, well I have no idea really but i'll say about 6 or 7, different puzzles. Probably more. Probably less. The reason i'm not so certain is because the puzzles aren't placed in a "Puzzle One, next room, Puzzle Two, next room." fashion. It's all one big chamber and you are constantly returning to the main room in which you first see, which is where the main door to exit is located. This a good aspect as it reminds the player constantly of their goal.

So I don't usually like putting out spoilers to puzzles in reviews so i'll try not to release any methods but anyway, spoilers follow this peice of text so you've been warned. You start off in an elevator, traditionally, and exit in a fairly large room with some buttons and glass cages. You do about 10% of this chamber without the portal gun, about 20% without orange portal, the rest with both. You first gotta' get this cube down from a ledge then fling the cube by letting it loop in two Portals, they can be swapped positions with two buttons in the room. Once the cube starts looping you stand on a big 15 thousand megawat supercolliding superbutton to disable a forcefield, and change the direction of the orange portal to FLING the cube over to you.

It's now your goal to figure out how to get the Portal gun. Fairly simple elevator mechanic. Showcased well in the middle of the big room. Once you've got the gun you go on to do various other Portal puzzles, from fans and slime to rocket and machinegun turrets.

Did anyone know that machine gun turrets like to ambush you when you least expect it?

With that said about the puzzles, the actual design of the level is pretty awesome, it's nothing MAJOR so that you lose your head and you're all like "WTF" but it's still good looking and it's still allowing you ease of maneuvering around. Which is what you want, right? Let's put it into perspective.

You don't want a huge long hallway with fullbright walls, even if it still directs you in the right way. But you don't exactly want some beautiful scenery which you stand there in awe and gawk at it, mainly because you can't figure out fuck all else to do. Then Rainbow Palace is your ticket outta' what ever other hellhole you're currently in. How ever I did get a bit lost at one point in the map during the fan maneuvering.

I do apologise as I attempted to come in contact with Duffedwaffe before I finished writing this review to find out where the hell Rainbow Palace came from, but I should proceed to Android Hell as I failed.

As far as my eyes see there is no custom content in Rainbow Palace, which makes this creation even more amazing as he created something unique and breath taking with content that was already there. Remarkable peice of work.

The design stays loyal to that of Portal, and it uses music and pre-made GlaDOS voices perfectly well.

Image
The map delivers nothing less than what you'd expect from Duffedwaffe.
The puzzles are challenging to all types of players.
You never get bored of the map and it seems to end just in the right place. It uses GlaDOS voices and music very well.
Innovative puzzles that require mind boggling solutions.
Pretty design with a well executed idea.

Image
Possible to get lost in some of the map.
I didn't find out why it's called Rainbow Palace.

Image
Game play: Very smooth transitions to other parts of the chamber. Flawless here. - 5/5
Design: Very good looking and pleasing to the eye, but a bit like a maze at one point in the level. - 4/5
Puzzles: Challenging and absorbing - 5/5

Image
Unmissable Play

The following images contain potential spoilers. Viewer discretion is advised.

IMAGES

http://i27.tinypic.com/2ewzm0y.jpg
http://i29.tinypic.com/10f28pl.jpg
http://i28.tinypic.com/2i1clso.jpg
http://i32.tinypic.com/1fjxjn.jpg
http://i28.tinypic.com/vdl7qo.jpg
http://i27.tinypic.com/2mrb284.jpg
http://i32.tinypic.com/34q7ggy.jpg
http://i31.tinypic.com/28b4d2v.jpg
http://i30.tinypic.com/w1xste.jpg
http://i27.tinypic.com/24mc9oj.jpg
http://i30.tinypic.com/auujno.jpg
http://i27.tinypic.com/156wt9g.jpg
http://i25.tinypic.com/2rrro0x.jpg
http://i29.tinypic.com/vinqye.jpg
http://i26.tinypic.com/143mbmv.jpg

Hope there's no limit.

Life is like a pipe, it's hard to get through and you're not always guaranteed a happy ending.

Image