Aperture Tag: The Paint Gun Testing Initiative

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

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). Dead Test Subject is longer than what can be heard in-game. Many pre-release screenshots exist in (portal2\puzzles\76561197999979873), which show some early puzzlemaker screenshots, as well as the pre-release paintgun.

Early Paint Gun Model

To do: Create a comparison of this and the final game's gun

The Aperture Tag greenlight trailer features an earlier model of the Paint Gun, looking more like the Portal Gun. Oddly enough, a screenshot left in the files of the full release still features this version.

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 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.

Hidden Maps

Please elaborate. Having more detail is always a good thing.

This page or section needs more images. There's a whole lotta words here, but not enough pictures. Please fix this. Specifically: Gather screenshots

Two unique maps exist in the final game that can only be opened via console commands.

gg_trailer_map

As the name suggests, this map is the one featured in the greenlight trailer for Aperture Tag.

gg_tag_remix

This map is a rather unique map, as it's based on the first speed paint map from Tag: The Power of Paint, but with the Aperture Tag stage level appearance.

Unused Music

Two tracks exist in the Aperture Tag soundtrack directory that don't show up in the final game's files. It is unknown where these would've played.

Confrontation

Resonance

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 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. High Energy Pellet Sounds