Smooth Jazz
- File name sp_a1_intro1
- Appearance Courtesy Call
- Native to Challenge Mode Yes
- World record: loading...
- Least portals: loading...
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 button from the cube dropper, to the button is different depending on if you want a competitive Challenge Mode time, or a Consistent Single Segment time. Check below based on what strategy you need.
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, and 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, then place a portal near the door to your right.
Pushing the Cube Through the Door (Item Edge Glitch)
Top Right Portal Placement for Item Edge Glitch
The game designers at Valve accounted for the possibility that players would place on cube on a button, and while holding the other cube, stand on the button to open the door. This would open the door, and allow the player to throw the cube into the room, and trap themselves into the chamber. To avoid soft-locking the player, they had the announcer tell they player that they have trapped themselves, and then open to door for the test to continue.
We use this information together with a glitch, where the cube will pass through otherwise solid objects in an effort to make it through a portal, to push our cube through the door, triggering the "You have trapped yourself" dialogue, and allowing us to get into the room quickly, without needing the second cube. All variations of the speedrun route for this chamber use this trick.
There are a few places you can place the portal to get this glitch to work. Some runner place it to the left of the portal, right beside it. Some shoot near the top right, slightly to the left of the x on the wall. The shot to the top right is the most common, and is slightly easier to shoot, so it's recommended for most runners.
Pushing the cube itself through the door is fairly easy once you get a feel for it. There are slower and faster ways to do this. The faster way will be covered in the Challenge Mode section, and the slower way in the single segment section.
Bottom Left Portal Placement for Item Edge Glitch
Once you're through to the door, you want to either keep the portal you've already shot, or shoot a portal as you come in, and walk to then other side of it. This is so that when you come out of the portal, you're moving in the correct direction. If you move to the back side of the room, then re-shoot the portal, you will come out of the orange portal at the top moving away from the exit. Assuming you enter the room quickly, a good indicator on when to start your jump through the floor portal is during the announcers "now" in "You have trapped yourself. Congratulations. The exit door is now open."
Get a feel for the timing, and practice jumping at different angles, with different speeds. You can jump so that your character doesn't trigger the glass to break if you get good speed through the portal. After this, it's a simple matter of hopping to the exit door.
Challenge Mode Specific
General Portal Placement for Challenge Mode
Cube Toss
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 into it's 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 iVerb Challenge Mode Leaderboards is a good way to get a since 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 single segment 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 iVerb 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.
It is important to note, the speed at which the cube fizzles, is dependent on how quickly it hits the floor. Flicking in a way that ensures the cube is released near the floor will lead to faster cube fizzles, and it 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.
Single Segment Specific
Example of Smooth Jazz during a Single Segment Run by Can't Even
Consistent Cube Drop
The challenge mode strategy of tossing the cube in the first room is certainly faster, it's much less consistent, and not nearly fast enough to trade certainty in a full game run. The tried and true method for many CM players, and all Single Segment Runners is to place a portal on the floor, and have the cube fall through.
There are a number of setups that will work with near 100% consistency, but the most common is to place a portal on the top left of the 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 choose to go with, just make sure to be pressed up against the door, so that even if the cube doesn't stay on the button, you can still make it through the door.
Simple Cube Glitch
Single Segment runner typically stick to coming out of the portal they shoot for the cube glitch, and 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 immediately after the door opens, and hop to the other side before the orange portal opens and they 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 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.
Single Segment Dialogue
There is no ending dialogue you need to pay attention to on this map, enter the elevator as quickly as possible.