Smooth Jazz
- Previous Map Portal Gun
- File Name sp_a1_intro4
- Appearance Courtesy Call
- Native to Challenge Mode Yes
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Contents
Overview
Smooth Jazz is the fourth map in The Courtesy Call, based on Portal chambers 04-05.
General Route
First Room
Smooth Jazz has minor differences depending on how consistent you want your times to be. The baseline strategy is pretty simple. After your Circle Jump out of the elevator, you want to stop before you hit the door. Hopping under the door, and hitting your head on the door is the fastest way to get out of the chamber, and if done correctly, should keep you from getting stuck on uneven flooring, or the Rounded Floor Button in between you and the cube dropper.
Getting the cube from the cube dropper to the button is different depending on if you want a competitive Challenge Mode time, or a consistent full game time. Check the relevant section further down for each strategy.
It's important to keep momentum going when getting the cube onto the button. If you're using the portal shot at the bottom method, you can keep hopping while shooting; if you're tossing the cube, you can be moving towards the door while throwing the cube. Either way, it's fairly easy for the cube to fall off the floor button. So it's important that you press your character model up against the door. This activates a trigger that will open the door for you all the way, even if the cube did not stay on the button.
The trigger to drop the cube
The floor portal for the general route
Second Room
Once you're through the door to the second room, place your portal on one of the walls to the right of you, before entering the main area of the chamber. The trigger to open the orange portal can be activated sooner by moving through the center of the hallway before going through a portal. This can be done by entering on the left side, or hopping slightly to the left before going back into the right portal. Once the orange portal opens, you can walk through to the top of the platform on the far side of the chamber. Shoot your portal under the cube on the opposite platform on the other side of the room, which will make the cube fall through the portal behind you (make sure you are not so close to this portal that you block the cube falling at least halfway through). Place your next portal near the exit door to your right, near for the top-right edge of the circular doorframe (more detail in next section).
Pushing the Cube Through the Door (Item Edge Glitch)
Top Right Portal Placement for Item Edge Glitch
Bottom Left Portal Placement for Item Edge Glitch
The game designers at Valve accounted for the possibility that players would place a cube on a button, and while holding the other cube, stand on the second button to open the door. This would open the door, allowing the player to throw the cube into the room beyond and trap themselves in the chamber. To avoid soft-locking the player, they added a check where if this happens the announcer will tell the player that they have trapped themselves, and then open the exit door for the test to continue.
This alternate route can be combined with a glitch, where one of the cubes is pushed through the closed door by the player, to trigger the "You have trapped yourself" dialogue. All variations of the speedrun route for this chamber use this trick.
There are a few places you can shoot the portal near the door to facilitate the glitch. The most straightforward method is to look at the edges of the wall panels around the door, and shoot a portal at the intersecting lines in the top-right corner of this space (note that the portal created is not centered on this spot, as the door "pushes" it away into a portalable space - this is normal for this trick). Some runners instead shoot the portal slightly to the left of the right-side x on the wall, or place it lower down to the left side of the door (see gallery images to the right). Shooting to the top right is the most common method, and is slightly easier to perform, so it's recommended for most runners.
Pushing the cube through the door is fairly easy once you get a feel for it, and there are no time requirements for the glitch itself to work. If you are new to the glitch, one easy but slower method is to hold the cube and press it against the edge of the blue portal nearest to the door. From here, simply slide the cube towards the door, as if painting a line from the edge of the portal to the middle of the door - the cube should start phasing through the shut door once it passes the doorframe. Walk forwards into the door to push the cube all the way through (you will no longer be able to see any part of the cube), and then release the cube to trigger the glitch. If you do not release the cube manually, after a short delay the game will detect the obstacle between you and the cube and force you to release it - this triggers the glitch, but is slower than a manual release.
There are better ways to execute this glitch once a basic understanding is gained. The fastest way is covered in the Challenge Mode section, and the most consistent way in the Full Game section. Also note that you can walk from the top platform to the door, but it is faster to walk into the orange portal to reach the blue portal. Depending on the strategy being used, you can either pass fully through the orangle portal (typical for full game runs), or stand in the portal and phase the cube through the door from the side, then strafe back through the portal and return to the top platform (typical for challenge mode runs).
Once you're through the door, place a portal on the floor, walk to the opposite side of it and turn to face it (you can simply walk across the blue portal if moving quickly, as there is a delay in the next orange portal being created). Note that your orientation to the blue portal is all that matters, not your orientation to the room. Once the orange portal is created, jump towards and through the blue portal to fall out of the orange portal at an angle moving towards the exit. Assuming you enter the room quickly after triggering the cube glitch, a good signal to start your jump through the blue portal is at "NOW" when the announcer says: "You have trapped yourself. Congratulations. The exit door is NOW open."
With practice you can jump so that you don't trigger the glass breaking after falling through the portal; avoiding breaking the glass saves a small amount of time. After this, simply hop the rest of the way to the exit door.
Challenge Mode Specific
Cube Toss
General Portal Placement for Challenge Mode
The fastest way of getting the cube onto the button in the first room is to shoot your blue portal on the top left of the pit. Shooting this early helps, and gives you time to grab the cube from the dropper early in its drop animation. Once you have the cube, you want to give the cube a relatively light toss through the portal while moving towards the door. Practice doing this, and make sure that you make an effort to keep the cube moving in a single direction. Watching demos or videos from challenge mode runs on the Challenge Mode Leaderboards is a good way to get a sense of how exactly you want to be throwing the cube.
It's important to note that, while this is the faster method, it isn't necessary for a good challenge mode time, and the full game method can still net you a good time if the rest of your chamber is fast.
Fast Cube Glitch
The fastest route for pushing the cube through the door is less dependent on where you shoot the portal, and more dependent on how you push the cube through. With some practice, a quick flick of your mouse and a release of the cube can get the cube through the door, without you even needing to move outside your orange portal. All top 10 times on the Challenge Mode Leaderboards use a variation of this strategy, and the best way to get a feel for this is to watch other runs, then try it on your own. It can be a little tricky, but is fairly consistent and is considerably faster than the alternative method.
Note that the speed at which the cube fizzles depends on how quickly it hits the floor on the other side of the door. Flicking in a way that ensures the cube is released near the floor will lead to faster cube fizzles, and is a considerable time save in challenge mode.
If you've done this correctly, and the cube has made it through the door, make sure to be back at the top platform, right outside the orange portal. As soon as that door opens up, shoot a portal into the room and go through the orange portal. This is a substantial time-save compared to walking through the door, as you activate the dialogue quicker, and don't need to wait for the door to open entirely.
Full Game Specific
Example in a Single Segment run by Can't Even
Consistent Cube Drop
While the challenge mode strategy of tossing the cube in the first room is certainly faster, it is much less consistent, and not nearly fast enough to trade for reliability in a full game run. The tried and true method for many challenge mode players, and all full game runners, is to shoot a portal on the floor of the pit underneath the cube and let the cube fall through it.
There are a number of setups that will work with near 100% consistency, but the most common is to place a portal in the top-left / back-left corner of the pit's floor. This is the most common because it's very easy to hit while jumping, and can be shot without moving much, if at all. There are other methods, such as shooting a portal near the center left, perpendicular to the aforementioned shot, but it isn't noticeably more consistent, and involves having to turn 90° to the right while hopping.
Regardless of which setup you use, make sure to be actively walking against the door as soon as possible, so that even if the cube doesn't stay on the button, you can still make it through the door.
Simple Cube Glitch
Full game runners typically stick to coming through the portal they shoot near the door for the cube glitch, then pressing the cube up against the side of the door the portal is on, to glitch it through the door. They shoot their portal on the floor as soon as the door opens, and hop to the other side of it before the orange portal opens, then make their jump through it.
This is much easier to do than the quick strategy of flicking and hoping for the best, but you can do an alternative version of the challenge mode strategy. You would stay standing inside the orange portal, not falling down, and spend a bit more time making sure that your cube makes it through the door, before going back through the orange portal, and shooting into the room as soon as the door opens, like in the challenge mode strategy above.
Full Game Dialogue
There are no dialogue cues or Elevator Cues for this map.