My First Portal Puzzle

I started playing around with the Portal 2 Puzzle Maker on Wednesday.  At first I was lost and had no idea where to start, but eventually I discovered a design process which worked for me.  I will discuss this process after I explain my awesome level!

Here is the Workshop Chamber link to my puzzle: 
(tweet me @taymanh if it doesn't come up)

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=95968310

As you can see, there are a lot of elements packed into one little deadly-goo filled room.  Here's a quick walkthrough so you get the idea of it.  I will upload a youtube walkthrough when I get the chance.

1) Portal yourself to the centre island using the portal-able ceiling tile.  Place the reflection cube to activate the laser receiver on the left side of the room.  This activates a light bridge connecting the 2nd level platform to the flinger platform near it.

2) Portal the conversion goo so that it covers the 2nd level platform near you (using a portal-able wall panel, and momentum), and your own platform, as it is the only way to get back from your island.

3) Cross the light bridge to the flinger which sends you to the button pedestal.  Activate it to make a cube dispense from the far corner dispenser.  Use the nearby flinger to get back to the starting corner.

4) Portal to the far cube and bring it back to the square cube button near the entrance.  This deactivates the death laser guarding the exit door.

5) Make your way back across the light bridge and drop down, then exit to freedom.

Now it sounds very simple hearing a walkthrough and it also seems very easy to me, my friends that play-tested it told me a different story.  What looks like a very straightforward puzzle actually took others between 5 and 10 minutes to complete.  I believe a large reason for that is the need to use the conversion goo for multiple purposes.  This made the puzzle tricky to figure out but not impossible.  My best advice for the players was to observe their surroundings carefully before asking for help.

As to the design process, I had a lot of trouble trying to make the puzzle from the start by just adding things.  Instead the first part I added was the laser wall blocking the exit.  I then thought of how I wanted players to deactivate it.  From there, I made a puzzle element which blocked the player from getting to the pedestal button, and then made an element to prevent them from reaching it (toggled light bridge) and so on.

Using this reverse process I was able to break down the puzzle chamber into its base challenges and chain them together from there.  Once I felt satisfied about a puzzle element I made sure to playtest it myself and with others to find any loopholes.  At this time I hadn't read the article Dr. Nacke had posted, but now I realize I was going through the same process the Valve team does when creating new puzzles.

The rapid iterations of playtesting and tweaking helped iron out all the problems and boring parts of the puzzle.  A big problem for me was deciding on the proportion of portal-able tiles to regular tiles.  I found that starting with all regular tiles and then adding portal-able ones as I went helped to streamline the process and provide players with visuals clues as to their next step.

With even a few more portal-able tiles a playtester was able to go straight to the pedestal button and skip half of the puzzle.  This was more than just a smart shortcut; it ruined all problem-solving in the first half.  To solve this puzzle you only need to place a few portals, but each one requires careful thought and observation.

With that said, I'm going to begin working on the Puzzle Maker assignment, so happy portaling!