Portal 2's most powerful untaught mechanic

Portal 2 maps often make use of a mechanic that was never taught in the single player campaign. Understanding it is crucial for anyone looking to solve or fully appreciate many of the great puzzles hiding in the Portal 2 workshop. In this short documentary you will learn all about it.

Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.
Links to the maps that I discuss in the video in order:

Are you a new player looking to start playing and making some good maps? Consider checking out the following links.

RedSilencer's ''Introduction to the Workshop'' collection:
My ''Reliquiae'' collection:
''No elements'' connection to learn about momentum and portal preservation:

Looking for more help and info?

Thumbnail made by theCCguy. Huge thanks to them!

Music: made by me.
I often upload my music on my second channel.

Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
03:04 - Why respawns are so powerful
08:55 - Examples of cube respawns
16:08 - Outro

[teamspen]

Cube respawns are a critical technique indeed. The funny thing is that Valve actually did teach the move once - in Portal 1's Still Alive bonus set of levels (only on console, or ported via mods). It's in chambers 3 and 4 there. Interestingly they chose to highlight the requirement by putting a red skull on the cube and the pedestal button.

[ldidok]

I guess that after couple hundred hours playing maps from experienced authors you simply get used to the move, but I've never really thought about the importance of it. Very cool video!

[CommentCritic]

Watched this video some time ago but now it popped up again and I'm rewatching it. Just finished Portal Revolution and THIS was something that got me strung up in a few test chambers. Very lovely use of cube respawn. Completely threw me off guard and had me confused. A very powerful mechanic that valve either didn't think about or wanted to make the puzzles more casual friendly.

[craftboy]

I remember once I made a multi-room test chamber where the gimmick was you'd be using the same cube spawner for multiple rooms. After you finished the first room the door closes behind you, so if you lose the cube, it would respawn back in the first room and be inaccessible, right?

Except I had set it up so after you leave the first room, the floor beneath the cube spawner opens, and the cube will fall into a complicated setup of faith plates and emerge from an opening in the second room, which closes after the cube goes through.

It's an entirely pointless design since the player can't see any of this but I was quite proud of it.

[MelodySweetheart]

As a new portal player, when starting to delve into full games from modded Portal 2, this was something I struggled to learn at times. Portal Reloaded DRILLED this into my head because it was more apparent to me since there was a future cube that would disappear if I moved its present counterpart. Not only that, but there were specific puzzles in that game where I needed to have cubes disappear which I could do by using what I suppose is an extension of the cube respawn mechanic.

[steam-powereddolphin]

As a few other commenters can attest, the community mod _Portal Stories: Mel_ has a few puzzles that utilize cube respawns in their solutions (especially in the original mode, which is called Advanced Mode nowadays).

[BitBlush]

Cube tubes became one of the first things I look at when entering community maps, because that tells me how many cubes I should have to work with at the end, and lets me work backwards to find where each wants to go.

[NoNameAtAll]

I wish you named it "Intentional Cubekill"

base game, especially coop, use cube respawn all the time - in catch timing. But it is used as "try again" option

it's the intentional-ity of the kill, to make it teleport _from_ where it was _to_ the start, that puzzle creators abuse

[portalchambers]

The Enrichment Center reminds you that the Weighted Companion Cube will never threaten to stab you and, in fact, cannot respawn after being incinerated.

[konf]

This not only introduced me to cube respawning but also sliding cubes with gel, thanks mate and great job!

[daxaroodles]

This trick is partially used in the mod ‘Portal Reloaded’.

[solutionchanneliguess]

Great stuff! In a game all about teleportation, the ability to teleport a cube without even having to use portals is potent indeed. If I remember right, somebody left a comment on Reliquiae #0 calling it something along the lines of a "funny little niche mechanic, " but you've illustrated that that map is just an introduction to almost every puzzle that uses even a single cube. (And there are even more "spooky" interactions for players to discover on their own.)

Also, awesome guest appearance of No Elements.

[omegahaxors-]

If you take the original portal logo and reverse it on itself, it makes the word PooP.
This fact has been living in my head rent free for over a year now.

[misharatkevich]

TBH, if the game ever taught you that cube respawns _happen_ (I don't know if Portal 1 ever did, but I recall somehow knowing it), the fact that they can be _exploited_ is fair to leave to the player to figure out by themselves in a map that's otherwise not uber-hard.

I remember the first time I played Portal Pro (and avoided peeks and trickery to play "in good faith", because I could sense this mod was worth such an approach), and when I figured out the level that uses cube respawning, it was a true revelation, since I never saw it before. I'm now on the lookout for cube respawns in other maps whenever I play them, simply because figuring it out back then in Portal Pro was a shining moment that etched the idea into my mind, strongly enough that I still remember my excitement so many years later. One of the mod's best levels.

(The other best level was "Ride", what an ingenious trick!)

Does Portal 1 or 2 teach you that cube respawns happen? I don't remember such a moment, yet I also remember knowing that they happen (but not realizing how useful they can be) before playing Portal Pro.

EDIT: I just remembered that out of the two maps I've ever made (I love the process, but got away from it because it takes so much time, and then my Win box went kaput and setting it up on a weak Linux laptop is painful), the first rather amateurishly made one was an attempt to exploit upward flings (that's from before I've seen No Element doing this sort of stuff better), and the second map... yep, the second map ("Two Cubes to Win") is a cube respawn map. Just by that you can tell I fell in love with the mechanic the moment I _really_ found out about it in Portal Pro. ;)

[martybanks]

Someone didn’t have their companion cube disintegrated enough times

[vinnisvidya]

"Who knew a fizzler could be useful?"
foreshadowing

[Darklingfissure]

I remember I was able to solve a test in Portal 2 with a cube respawn. I don't think it was intentional, but I'm glad to know this is a viable mechanic and not brute forcing a puzzle.

[Jackson-ubuv]

I’m currently working on a map, and this video has actually helped me with designing the puzzle, so thank you :)

[SDKK]

I should keep this in mind when I play more community maps. Thank you.

[nerdlington]

Really digging the video essay format of things. I remember the first time I ran into a cube respawn was in the tiny laser puzzle in Portal Stories: Mel. The solution took me like half an hour to spot.