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Auraflux

Nice map.

It's pretty simple, but I liked this map, it looks really nice. Agree with ivo's puzzle criticisms though.

Some minor mapping errors: it's not possible to shoot portals through the piston arm area, and in the small put with the staircase, the edge of the glass acts like a ledge and you can just walk across.

There's no visible connection to the fizzler that closes your portals, which is a *very* odd omission.

Make a list of things that are absolutely essential to your core idea, e.g.:
- end bit with an infinite loop of the energy ball to conserve time;
- pressing a pedestal button to fling blue gel;
- assuring portalless passage to the pedestal button by redirecting the energy ball in some way.

Start building from there. Then try to prevent unintended solutions and softlocks not with faith plates and special yellow fizzlers, but with geometry, glass, goo pits and maybe gratings.

Suggestions for smaller changes:
Replace the stairs with a flip panel from which to fling blue gel, on which to bounce to reach the pedestal button. That would emphasize the main test element.
Remove the timer for the angled panels and the deleting of portals. There are other ways to make the puzzle harder that fit better.

I don't really know what to do about what the player is supposed to feel when they're playing this map.

Yeah, I'd understand there are a bunch of strange things here, but they are all really to prevent unintended solutions. The player usually ignores them.

I sound more critical than I wanted to be. I just find the idea of mixing energy balls and blue gel exciting and this puzzle is like a good first step in the right direction, because it seems obvious what an awesome puzzle can come out of this. So I'm giving it a thumbs up.

I love energy ball puzzles but this one felt kinda badly structured. I didn't feel like I'm in control of the elements I have to work with:
* Blue gel: I could paint only a few surfaces blue that eather weren't part of the puzzle, or ones that I inexplicably couldn't bounce from like the yellow floor with the square grid. Not being able to paint where the angled panels are was a minor but pesistant annoyance. At the end painting the needed surfaces felt a bit more tedious than it should've been, because of:
* Energy balls: Juggling them was even less fun, because of my portals getting deleted. I still don't know why that's a feature - it doesn't contribute to the core idea of the puzzle in any way and it felt more like an annoyance I had to deal with, rather than an obsticle to be overcome. On that note:
* timing felt arbitrary;
* fizzlers and laser fields - it felt like they're thrown in just because - not having any real purpose that's meaningful for the core of the puzzle.

Finally fixed it. Thanks guys.

Yeah, I know. The packed files seem to be corrupted somehow.

No flare texture at the very beginning https://i.imgur.com/Cwm2SH5.jpg