Aperture Tag: The Paint Gun Testing Initiative

Aperture Tag: The Paint Gun Testing Initiative
Based on: Portal 2 Developer: Aperture Tag Team Publisher: Aperture Tag Team Platforms: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux Released internationally: July 14, 2014 This game has unused areas. This game has unused sounds.

This article is a work in progress. ...Well, all the articles here are, in a way. But this one moreso, and the article may contain incomplete information and editor's notes.

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Aperture Tag is an officially licensed, fan-created Portal 2 mod which was commercially released on Steam. You play as a new, unnamed test subject armed with a gun that fires the gels from Portal 2 to solve puzzles in an all-new way.

To do: Upload High Energy Pellet sounds Document other BEEMOD leftovers The BEEMOD itself also has some unused content, such as the Bumbleball and Catapult Cube (which did not become usable until the BEE2). Unused music (Confrontation and Resonance in the soundtrack) Dead Test Subject is longer than what can be heard in-game

Unused Maps

Included within a file labeled "HammerTools.rar" are the maps found throughout the game in an uncompiled state. This lets players open up these files in Valve's Hammer Editor and see the inner-workings of the game's levels. Included are two unused maps which do not appear in the mod.

test_gel_gun

Upon opening this map, it is unable to be compiled due to it using an earlier version of the player's spawn instance which no longer exists (instances/alatag/lp_paintgun_instance_branches.vmf). Replacing it with the newer version allows the map to be compiled, revealing that the map is some sort of test map for testing out the paint fields.

It's a fairly large room with three paint fields of different types. The back wall has a hole in it, allowing the player to see behind the scenes, along with an odd floating "T" shape in the center of the hole.

gg_tools_menupics

Unknown what exactly this was going to be used for. The map contains nothing but a desk covered in prop_statics, using models from Half-Life 2. The models are missing by default, but will appear correctly if the content is mounted onto Portal 2. This map cannot be compiled due to a lack of walls, and would presumably be used as an instance inserted into another map.

BEEMOD Leftovers

To get the Paint Gun and Paint Gun Activation Fields working in Aperture Tag's version of the puzzle maker, the developers turned to the creators of the Portal 2 puzzle maker mod "BEEMOD". As a result of the editor's limited palette space, some of the items from the original mod had to be removed, causing them to go unused. Of note however is that these items were not fully removed - they were only hidden from the palette, and remain fully functional when opening existing Portal 2 maps which include them.

High Energy Pellet

Included in the original BEEMOD were the High Energy Pellets from Portal and Half-Life 2. The effects, sounds, and models for the launcher and catchers are still included in Aperture Tag, but are unused.