The Door

Objective : The designer must create a puzzle that will allow the player to get through the door.
Time : 5hrs to complete the Dev map and My map
Extra : Female voice work done by Natalie Van Sistine
Download : Development map
Download : My map

For my door puzzle I wanted to do something that didn't fall on a physics puzzle or a battery style puzzle.

I got the idea while thinking about different geometry changes a designer could make to the dev map.

I was thinking about putting in some windows and a thought crossed my mind of "what if " the player needed

something from the other side of the door to open the door? I began to think about the different combinations

of objects when finally an AI popped into my head.

I began to think of different events that could occur between the player and an AI that would eventually

lead to the door opening. One of the first things that came to mind was getting a combine soldier angry at you

somehow and having him run out the door to kill you.That didn't make much sense to me because the

player didn't have a weapon and as soon as the door opens you would be killed :P..... thus

you would never finish the puzzle :D!

So I took the combine soldier out of the equation and put a citizen npc in the mix.

While I was browsing through npc voice sounds in Hl2 I came across one of Alex humming. This inspired

me to have an npc listening to music that wouldn't be able to hear you until you shut off the power. She would

then go to the power box across the room to switch the circuit breaker back on, this is where the player

could hit her with an object to get her attention.

There were a lot of issues that could occur in this puzzle that I had to solve along the way. The first one

was making a believable situation that the npc couldn't hear you trying to open the door. Which was solved

by having her listening to music and humming aloud. Then there was getting the player to realize they

could throw objects through the open window. I solved this by having a can resting on the window that

fell into the building as you got close to it. I also helped remind the player they could pick up small

objects by pressing "E" on the keyboard when they got close to the dumpster.

Some of the final issues that came up where having enough objects to throw at the npc if the player missed

her a bunch. A quick script was put in place so that she would notice you if you threw more then five

cans in the room while she was at the power box.

Now! I leave you with a couple of scripting shots that went in behind the scenes to make this puzzle work!

Also below is some in-game footage of the puzzle in action! So check that out!

Hope you enjoyed the puzzle! - vivi