Simile Thoughts is a singleplayer mappack designed for vanilla Mari0 1.6 (not Mari0 SE, or Mari0 CE, or Alesan's Entities). The mappack contains 16 carefully-designed, hand-drawn levels featuring a plethora of Portal-based elements and mechanics, all taking place in a single screen each. Navigate through 4 uniquely themed worlds with challenging logical puzzles, with a gradual but steady difficulty curve to keep you entertained all throughout!
Simile Thoughts is a spiritual successor to my previous mappack, Hollow Purpose, and works under the same premise: each level is contained within a single screen (meaning no side-scrolling or vertical scrolling). This allows for the background to take on the role of tiles in the foreground and, in turn, allows for infinitely-customizable level designs with no tileset restrictions! It has been in the makings since April of 2018, a year after Hollow Purpose's release, and has been worked on and off ever since. A few teasers and a few livestreams later, it's finally finished!
Because this mappack was designed for Mari0 1.6, I had to work with all of its features - and their many limitations - to make it fun to play both for veteran Mari0 players and to newcomers, without compromising the puzzle design or aesthetics. In the spirit of Portal, it is suggested that you play this mappack without making use of the portal reset key (by pressing "R"). But, to keep it fair to the spirit of Mari0, resetting your portals will not hinder your ability to play the mappack, and will not lead to any trapping situation. As this mappack was designed with a Portal-centered gameplay in mind, each puzzle has a unique solution that requires inventive use and reuse of the puzzle elements at your disposal. Advanced platforming skills or dexterity are not required to complete this mappack, though familiarity with Mari0's moveset is highly advised. Because of the limitations from the game, there are certain behaviors I cannot prevent. I've streamlined and trimmed off most exploits I could find, but for the sake of clarity: grabbing cubes or pressing buttons through blocks/bridges is not intended. Portal peeking is not intended, nor is abusing the portal shots' delay. Glitching cubes through fizzlers is also not intended. All lasers are deadly, so be wary of puzzles where you are required to redirect them.
New to Mari0? You can sprint using the "Left Shift" key. It's especially useful in conjunction with propulsion gel. You can stop bouncing on repulsion gel by using the down ("S") key. Repulsion gel does not give you extra height, nor can it be used to gain momentum in conjunction with propulsion gel. Repulsion gel also doesn't work on the ceiling. Lasers kill you instantly, regardless of the setup, so always be wary of that.
Locking the mouse while in-game (by pressing "F12") is highly advised, as it will make firing at certain portal surfaces easier, and will reduce the risk of accidentally clicking outside the game window. Using the bullet time cheat is also highly advised for ease of maneuvering, as no puzzle in this mappack requires precise timing or dexterity in any meaningful way (to unlock the cheats menu, press the following keys, in order, on the main menu: ↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A). In the future, I could revisit this project by making a dedicated, standalone mod featuring only this mappack, as well as a graphics/sound overhaul, updating the game to the latest version of LÖVE, and implementing a number of quality of life features to make the gameplay more accessible and intuitive. Let me know if that type of update would interest you! Last, but not least, you might be wondering: "Why is this mappack called Simile Thoughts?" Well, it started out as a placeholder name that was more or less meaningless (and, at the time, I was for some reason infatuated with the word "simile"). But over the years, it grew on me, and it suddenly made no sense to name it anything else.
Images
The following are a couple of screenshots from each world, to give you an idea of what to expect, but without spoiling all the puzzles or their respective solutions:
Hints & Solutions
The following are the lists of all the levels in this mappack, sorted by world. Each tag contains two vaguely cryptic hints, in case you just need that extra push, and the solution video at the end:
Hint 1: A portal left in the right place is everything.
Hint 2: A cube has many lives.
Hint 1: Momentum, a function of mass and velocity, is conserved between portals.
Hint 2: A portal on a ceiling can store momentum.
Hint 1: Dodging fizzlers requires a leap of faith.
Hint 2: The right portal in the right place bridges the gap.
Hint 1: An infinite runway gives you extra speed.
Hint 2: Propulsion gel can add speed to your existing momentum.
Hint 1: The bouncing from gel can be achieved through portals.
Hint 2: Sometimes, the same bounce requires a different source.
Hint 1: The infinite runway makes a return.
Hint 2: The final leap takes some altitude.
Hint 1: Momentum conservation and the right portal in the right place make a return.
Hint 2: The final distance to be crossed must be the shortest possible.
Hint 1: The same gap can be crossed in many ways.
Hint 2: The cube's many lives requires the right portal in the right place.
Hint 1: Approaching the plate from different ways yields different results.
Hint 2: Gel can loop back in on itself.
Hint 1: Different plates take you different places.
Hint 2: The right portal, the right plate.
Hint 1: The direction with which you portal the bridge makes all the difference.
Hint 2: The cube can go places which you cannot.
Hint 1: The bridge can be a tool to traverse as well as a shield to hold back.
Hint 2: Only one position allows for the retrieval of the cube.
Hint 1: Momentum can be achieved through various means.
Hint 2: A well-placed portal can open doors.
Hint 1: Each cube has its own unique respawning position.
Hint 2: The final stretch requires many sacrifices.
Hint 1: Each bridge offers a unique perspective.
Hint 2: The direction with which you portal the bridge makes all the difference.
Hint 1: A memory of doors and lasers from a chamber past.
Hint 2: Each cube's unique respawn leads to the final gate.
Many thanks to IronSmeltery for finding - and helping me fix - some exploits. Special thanks to all my friends and to the Thinking With Portals community for their feedback and support. Extra thanks to MisterLambda and Stract for reference images and visuals feedback.
Thank you for playing Simile Thoughts!
Downloads
Download the mappack here:
Firstly, if you haven't already, download the official vanilla 1.6 version of Mari0 HERE. Mods and/or different versions may not work as intended. To access the mappacks folder, you can run the game, open "Select Mappack" in the main menu, then press the "M" key while in the mappack list. On the folder that opens, locate the subfolder "mappacks". Now extract the .zip contents in the mappacks folder (make sure it won't create a new folder during extraction). The final path to the mappack should look something like this:
[...]/mari0/mappacks/Simile Thoughts/[the many files contained in the mappack]
If you have mari0/mappacks/Simile Thoughts/Simile Thoughts (the same folder twice), it won't work.
Once that is done, you can go back to the game. You can update the mappack list by exiting the list, then reopening it. Locate the mappack there (it should look exactly as the image above), and enjoy the game!
And, as a bonus, here's a tileset for you to use in your own Portal-themed project:
⚠ Important notice about tileset usage! ⚠ If you intend on using this tileset, the conditions are that you must attribute credit to me (HugoBDesigner) clearly within the post of your mappack or project. A simple "tileset by HugoBDesigner" should suffice. You are allowed to edit the tileset and mix it together with other tilesets or assets, but you must still attribute credit to me. You are not allowed to take assets from the mappack, be it background images or derive your own tileset from it. The following tileset is the only* asset from this mappack which you are allowed to use in your own projects:
In case anyone is interested, I just finished writing a postmortem with a bunch of juicy information regarding the development process of Simile Thoughts! If you want to know more, check out my blog post:
Hugo single-handedly keeping Mari0 1.6 mapping alive.
I think was the first mappack I've installed in at least 6 years? After seeing how much work you put into this project I couldn't avoid it. Unfortunately my Mari0 puzzle solving brain is very small so I needed to resort to looking at the solutions for most of the levels.
Sorry I don't have more constructive feedback - the maps are absolutely beautiful. Always a pleasure to see a new Hugo project.
Hugo single-handedly keeping Mari0 1.6 mapping alive.
I think was the first mappack I've installed in at least 6 years? After seeing how much work you put into this project I couldn't avoid it. Unfortunately my Mari0 puzzle solving brain is very small so I needed to resort to looking at the solutions for most of the levels.
Sorry I don't have more constructive feedback - the maps are absolutely beautiful. Always a pleasure to see a new Hugo project.
Thank you very much, Qcode! I'm very glad you enjoyed it :D
It's okay that you had to look some solutions up or can't find constructive feedback. The most important thing was that you had fun playing :)
Table of Contents 
About 
Simile Thoughts is a singleplayer mappack designed for vanilla Mari0 1.6 (not Mari0 SE, or Mari0 CE, or Alesan's Entities). The mappack contains 16 carefully-designed, hand-drawn levels featuring a plethora of Portal-based elements and mechanics, all taking place in a single screen each. Navigate through 4 uniquely themed worlds with challenging logical puzzles, with a gradual but steady difficulty curve to keep you entertained all throughout!
