Yesterday Valve updated Portal 2 to add the Perpetual Testing Initiative. As the video above suggests, the PeTI is an easy-to-use level editor and a place to share the levels you create and play, rate and comment on levels by others. IGN has a great video tutorial that’ll get you started.

Portal 2 has been reduced to £5.09 on Steam until May 11.

The editor is a lot of fun to use. All the ingredients that make up a typical Portal level are there to place and combine in whatever clever combinations you can dream up.

I called my first level Bouncy Bridge (a big hint in the title there). I’d love to get some feedback on the design, either here or on the Steam page. By all means subscribe to my workshop, as I’ll probably create a few more puzzles using different elements.

Portal 2 is one of my favourite games, but it’s fair criticism to say that the puzzles weren’t as challenging or numerous as they could have been. Already though Steam claim there are over 4,000 maps in PeTI, with undoubtably many more to come. The quality wil vary considerably, but of the dozen that I have played so far, half have been satisfyingly head-scratching and rewarding. I expect to spend many more hours in test chambers… for science.

Handy links

• What makes a good Portal 2 map?
• Game Mechanics (Portal 2)