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Valve Opens The Portal

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the come-on-in dept.

Via Joystiq, an IGN story giving some background on the Portal project, the interesting FPS/Puzzler that Valve has planned to go out with Half-Life 2: Episode 2. The article interviews the team behind the technology, and gives some insight on what it must be like to have the best senior year of college ever: "Along with the other members of the Portal team, we were students at DigiPen Institute of Technology located in Redmond, WA, next to the Nintendo of America campus. During our senior year, the seven of us created a game called Narbacular Drop, which was an early test of our ideas about portal-based gameplay. Every year, DigiPen puts on an expo for graduating seniors to show their game projects to prospective employers. A couple of Valve people attended, and they asked us to come to the Valve offices and show it to Gabe Newell. Gabe watched our demo and basically hired us on the spot. It was kind of shocking. We stood around in the parking lot afterwards gibbering to ourselves for about 20 minutes."

14 of 61 comments (clear)

  1. You sir know nothing by Brownstar · · Score: 3, Funny

    Having had 3 Senior years at the same college. I can say by far my last one was the best.

    With only 1 four credit class, that I had previously taken but initialy failed. I had a blast.

    I didn't even mind it too much when one of my friends informed a Freshman I was chatting up that when she started middle school, I had been starting college...

  2. Wow! by Threni · · Score: 4, Funny

    Teleport! I wish I'd thought of that! Where do these guys get their original ideas from?

    Oh well - back to my 1950s science fiction books....

    1. Re:Wow! by Sage+Gaspar · · Score: 3, Insightful

      User-created portals with one of the first games to have a pretty good physics engine. It's not the abstract idea of portal, it's the possibilities that this implementation opens up.

    2. Re:Wow! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I've watched the demo video about 12 times now and all I can say is "Frickin Cool". Yeah teleport has existed for a while, but its never been used in this way.

      Even if this game isn't as good as it looks, i'm sure it will spawn a whole generation of FPS titles with new portal weapons/devices.

      How about a FPS multiplayer game, a runner can go ahead to setup the portal to beam his teammates in.
      It would make ambushes and capturing strategic locations cool, especially if your opponents could do it too.

      How about the ability to minaturize/enlarge items, a 'other dimension' storage for carried weapons or vehicles. Open your portal garage and drive out in your T180 Tank etc.

      Science fiction is as much innovation as it is invention. No, reversing the polatity on the main deflector doesnt count. :)

    3. Re:Wow! by SirTalon42 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I have to agree, from the video it looks like it would be pretty fun (hopefully it won't be crippled in multiplayer). It would be interesting to fight someone with only the teleporter gun (it could become very interesting if done right). I'm not sure if this counts as 'innovation', but its definitely going to make things much more interesting, FPS have been growing stale.

    4. Re:Wow! by Rapsey · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Tell me how many innovative companies or products are trully innovative? There were plenty of mp3 players before iPod arrived, there were search companies before google. Very few ideas are truly innovative. Most are just improvements over old ideas or finding new ways to use something.

    5. Re:Wow! by that_xmas · · Score: 2, Informative

      That scene in the demo where the player seems to be chasing someone. He's actually chasing himself.

    6. Re:Wow! by pdbaby · · Score: 2, Informative

      Unreal Tournament has had a teleporter gun since its inception - you throw a beacon and you can right-click to teleport to it. Great fun telefragging people with it :) portals-as-an-offensive-weapon might be tricky, though

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  3. Game Industry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I hope these kids got good contracts and aren't going to be exploited like so many other game developers . . . .

  4. How do I own a copy? by eison · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Ok, so I think this 'portal' game looks neat, and would like to try it.
    But 'episodic gameplay' sounds suspiciously like 'recurring monthly charge' or whatnot.
    Can I walk into a store and buy a copy? How do I get and play just this 'portal' game?

    I don't have half life 2, or valve or steam or whatever. And I'm not willing to sign up for any sort of we'll-give-you-a-new-game-every-month-try-it-you'l l-like-it sort of system. Can I still play?

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    1. Re:How do I own a copy? by labalicious · · Score: 3, Informative

      To answer your question specifically, you can refer to this post http://www.steampowered.com/index.php?area=news&ar chive=yes&id=691. This is part of Valve's Content Delivery system aka Steam. It would appear that you only need to purchase Half Life 2: Episode 2 which comes bundled with Portal and TF2 (Team Fortress 2).
       
      Having said all that, you are not obligated to buy anything by setting up a Steam account. I've had a Steam account for over 4 years (early beta tester was not fun :/ ), I've had my fair share of frustrations with Steam but lately, it's rock solid. Valve has been done some good work with the system. In addition, if you haven't already played Half Life 2, or the original, I'd highly recommend it. I'm a firm believer in the episodic content (if implemented correctly) that Valve is testing out. I finished Episode One in about 5 hours and thoroughly enjoyed it. HTH.

    2. Re:How do I own a copy? by Inverted+Intellect · · Score: 2, Informative

      "I'm not willing to sign up for any sort of we'll-give-you-a-new-game-every-month-try-it-you'l l-like-it sort of system. Can I still play?"

      Yes, yes you can. This "episodic content" is essentially in the form of (small) self-contained games which are published in a serialized manner, to be bought either through stores or through Valve's downloading service.

      Sort of like a series of novels. You don't actually have to buy the former novels to read the new ones, though you might miss out on something if you do. Expansion packs are a bit like extra chapters, you can't read them without the book which they belong to (ok, you technically could in that case, but you shouldn't).

    3. Re:How do I own a copy? by Sage+Gaspar · · Score: 3, Informative

      Portal is three hours of single-player gameplay, you probably wouldn't want it as a standalone game. They use steam to track things like how many people bought it, how many people downloaded it, and how many people actually finished it. If it does well, I'd expect it to get fully fleshed out into a longer single-player game and also several multiplayer components.

  5. YouTube Vid by Drathos · · Score: 2, Informative

    There's a trailer of sorts at YouTube. Looks like it could be really cool.

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