Work on Mari0 SE is progressing. I had a livestream today as a homage to our great Swedish overlord, and it was lots of fun. Here’s some things that I did today. I’ll have a video of another thing up tomorrow that a lot of people are going to like.

Platforms
Blocks that you can pass from any side except above.

Geldispenser with input
Gel dispensers can now be hooked up to any input and dispense gel according to it.

Mirrorblocks
Blocks that bounce off portal shots in the opposite direction.

Grates
These let through portals, lasers, gels and lightbridges but no other objects like the player or boxes.

Amongst all the other great additions (such as more hats, Online Multiplayer, and more hats), Mari0: Special Edition will also have a completely reworked Portal campaign, as I am unhappy with the current one.

One thing that I felt was definitely missing is a proper boss fight at the end. While the puzzles are certainly the main focus of any of the Portal games, the boss fights still held some value in wrapping up the story and giving a sense of accomplishment.

Since the community has been very imaginative in mappack creation, giving everyone a chance to design the ultimate boss battle should end up with some pretty amazing ideas.

Here’s some guidelines

• Design a boss fight for the end of the Mari0 campaign
• It can be Glados, or Bowser, or Glowser, or anyone, I don’t care
• Use visual media to show your idea - a scribble is better than 5 pages of text
• Will have to work in Single and in Multiplayer
• Post your idea in the Stabyourself.net forum over here

Here’s an example of a good design:

Get designing!

This is a community mappack made by Baf which really sets the bar for mappacks. It has awesome custom graphics and music. Also he’s better at making trailers than we are. Check it out:

Unfortunately, this mappack is a little big for the slow DLC system, so you’ll need to download it yourself at the forum thread.

If you have a mappack, it’s a really good idea to create a thread for it at the mapping forum instead of sending us an email, as we are currently way behind on checking them and it’s unlikely we will be featuring any more mappacks as DLC before the update.

We are currently doing our best to get online multiplayer going and then add some other new stuff and release “Mari0: Special Edition” (or Mari0 SE) sometime in the future. Sign up for the mailing list to be informed when it’s done!

The black is just placeholder graphics.

Mari0 has reached 1 million downloads from our servers today!
We’d like to thank you all for your continued support and promise to keep delivering quality games.
Here’s a 1920x1080 wallpaper as celebration (click it):

And this ain’t a joke.

Just in time for today, we have a video of the work in progress online multiplayer!