Puzzles

A Piece of Vanilla Crazy Cake

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A sphere in the center of a test chamber. An orange portal is on the wall ahead.

Tonight I finally summoned enough patience to finish all of the advanced test chambers in the original Portal. I only solved two of them back when the game was new, and eventually got distracted by a sea of other games and worlds. Fast forward to today and I finally got both the Fruitcake and Vanilla Crazy Cake Achievements! Huzzah! I did end up having to complete the last test chamber on my Steam Deck. Apparently when Portaling up and down it’s difficult to turn yourself when playing at a higher refresh rate. I suppose I could have forced a lower framerate, but figured I could just whip out my Steam Deck and finish the job.

All that’s left is to beat the challenge maps. I wonder how many decades that’ll take me? 😛

The Things You Find At Aperture…

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Made some progress in Portal Revolution! Currently on one of the Test Chamber 6’s. Just finished my latest climb to the surface after solving a previous Test Chamber 6 the “fun way”. I’ll need to remember to go back and see what the “boring way” is.

The modders behind Portal Revolution have an optional pack you can purchase on Steam that transforms the test cubes we all know and love into a more squeezable looking counterpart. I figured that I’ve been enjoying each session in Portal Revolution enough that I decided to buy it during the more recent Steam Sale. Plus, since it’s a Source Game/Mod I can add the cube model to my growing collection of SFM models and materials! It could make for a good stress ball, or stress cube?

Puzzled

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Played the evening away in Portal Revolution! Had to stop playing juuuuuuust as the story was getting interesting.

I made a new friend (not the mannequin), and am now making my way through old school aperture. Having to turn the power on and off in a couple of the test chambers was an interesting touch. Plus I just started using excursion funnels! I wish they used those more in Portal 2 proper… but at least we have mods brought to us by the creative ingenuity of others. If I had more time tonight I would probably finish it, but alas… work beckons in the morning.

Scratching The Surface Of Portal Revolution

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Played Portal Revolution tonight. Haven’t touched it since May, and I needed to find something to fry my brain. It doesn’t quite make my brain smell like bacon as Portal Reloaded did, but it can still make you think until you can’t.

The earlier test chambers leave you stuck with a portal gun that only fires blue portals, and the test chambers you use them in are slightly more intricate than the beginning levels of the original Portal games. It took me a little while to figure out how to solve a few of these puzzles while others were solvable in just a couple minutes. Either way it was a good fun few hours to kill.

We Portaled To Another World!

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The Companion Cube plays DOOM.

Went venturing on the Portal 2 Steam Workshop tonight for some scientific fun! We played through a few different chambers, but E1M1 from the original DOOM was my highlight of the evening.

Interesting having to play it without any zombies or weapons. The enemies have been swapped out with Turrets, and you can even adjust the difficulty.

We played on nightmare mode on the first try. It was tough, but we made it through after a few thousand turret related deaths. It should make for some fun footage once I get around to looking at it. 🙂

It was a nice game to end the evening on. Tomorrow is my last day of reprieve, and I’ve both enjoyed and appreciated the relaxation, time off and peace that I’ll probably lose within the first couple hours of returning come Tuesday morning. Oh well… I needed the break.

I ALWAYS need the break.

Thinking With Horror, and Maybe Portals

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Tonight I wandered down the realm of Science, you monsters!Made it most of the way through my accumulated collection of Portal 2 Horror Maps! Some involving murderous mannequins, escape rooms, and a PT inspired level!

One of the maps I downloaded is called Chell Comits Tax Fraud aka the Portal equivalent of PT. In fact there wasn’t much in the way of using Portals tonight. Most of the maps I played were basically walking simulators, or if The Stanley Parable had a horror bend to it.

Another fun map that I played was Basement Horrors. When it originally launched the map was able to shuffle itself in such a way to randomize your experience on each run. Though that mechanic is broken now, it is still playable to the end.

Though that mechanic is broken now, it is still playable to the end. It’s still quite easy to die if you’re not careful, but as you die each time it becomes more like a memory game. Kinda like Simon, if Simon was a murderous game.

Now I can properly declare my horror scratch to be officially itched for tonight! Now to rest and contemplate the next adventure…

Making Time For Time Travel

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Started on Test Chamber 19 tonight, ended up Test Chamber 22! Only a few more chambers and I can add this to the completed list! I’m totally giving this a positive review when I finish it! These Chambers have been really fun to fry my brains over! I’m now at a point in the game where I have to combine everything I know to get through the remainder of the game. Now to take another long break until I decide to continue the final leg(s) of my journey. I’m thinking tomorrow’s game time will involve something with more exploration…. possibly in an indie universe? I’m thinking either Lost Ember or Kena: Bridge of Spirits.

Oh Fuck They Gave Me Lasers…

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Made it to Test Chamber 14! I solved one chamber during lunch today on Steam Deck, and another at home! I’m learning about lasers and time, and it’s frying my brains into smoky bacon! Speaking of, if I don’t do the sleep thing soon I’ll wake up to thoroughly smoked bacon brains tomorrow….

Another Day, Another 12th Test Chamber

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Wandering around inside of an imaginary brain made me think that it’s been awhile since I’ve properly teased my brain. I managed to complete a test chamber tonight! Now I have a whole new chamber to ponder over!

I might try this again tomorrow – mayhaps a little sleep will give me time to think about it. It’d be cool if I could solve this in my sleep.

The Longest Journey: My First ScummVM Game!

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Newport, Venice

After playing Dreamfall: The Longest Journey the other night I got to thinking about playing the original before getting any further. If you buy this game it will not run properly out of the box – fortunately ScummVM is a thing. I used the version bundled with RetroArch on my Steam Deck with positive results! I just downloaded the game, located the executable and ran it with the ScummVM core, and bewm… I was pointing and clicking at an old adventure that’s new again, to me at least! 😛

April Ryan paints.

The Longest Journey is an old school point and click puzzle game where you play a young woman named April Ryan; who currently resides in Newport, Venice. She’s studying art, and working at a fancy cafe! At least in the waking world… in the land of dreams it’s a whole other adventure.

Imagine Dragon

Out of the massive collection of games I grew up on as a kid, this one was not among them. It wasn’t until a good friend of mine recommended the series to me years later that I decided to pick it up.

I think I’ll file this under my chill games list, kinda like ending the night with a bit of a bedtime story, y’know?