Puzzle games are ten a penny these days, and to get noticed in such a genre you need innovation, something original. Last year the ever popular Valve released Portal, albeit packaged in between two other top-notch games; Half Life 2 Episode 2 and Team Fortress 2 (not to mention the addition of the first two chapters of the Half-Life 2 tale). Despite the inclusion of two hotly anticipated sequels, it was Portal which ended up receiving the most attention.

Hard to believe, I know but Portal implemented an original concept barely seen in gaming before, and that was the portal itself. It’s not that this hadn’t been done before… The team behind Portal are the same people who developed Narbacular Drop, a game nobody’s ever heard of or cares about, which was essentially the spiritual precursor to Portal.

Portal had you solving puzzles through means which would probably baffle even M.C. Escher. You had to learn how to solve puzzles with portals, and that meant learning a whole new set of rules and developing a whole new set of abilities (as well as a lust for cake).

Portal: Prelude is a very promising modification which acts as… well, a prelude to the original game. You only need to look at a few screenshots before it becomes evident that this is a very shiny mod. In fact, it would be hard to distinguish the level design seen so far in Prelude from an original Valve design as it would seem that the level designers are most definitely thinking with portals.

Fortunately for you lucky readers, we have managed to get an interview with the leader, main level-designer, story writer, 2D artist, videomaker, webmaster and tester of the game. Surprisingly enough, it’s one person has undertaken all of those positions. That one person is Nicolas Grevet (also known as NykO18).

Read on for the interview…

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GameOnYou UK (GoY): Portal was widely regarded as a short, but sweet game - remarking that its length was perfectly complimented by it’s pacing. How would you describe the length of Prelude?

Nicolas Grevet (NG): We don’t really know how long Portal: Prelude is. In fact, all we know is that our testers beat it in more hours than the original Portal. I believe it highly depends on the gamer’s ability to think with portals. Some may go completely mad when seeing some of the rooms, and some may finish it without any problem. That’s what we understood during our tests. I’d say between 3 and 6 hours, but I’m not really sure.

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GoY: Going back to the subject of the original’s pacing, how would you describe the learning curve of Prelude? Would you recommend gamers to play the original again before trying out Prelude?

NG: Portal: Prelude has a very steep learning curve. I mean, we assumed that people who hear about this mod and understand what a mod is must have already played Portal. So there’s no need for another couple of ultra-basic maps that ruin the length of the game. We started somewhat fast and I’d recommend players who haven’t played Portal since the first one came out, to play it again a few times to remember the basics.

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GoY: The original game starts you off with nothing but the clothes on your back, and you receive the portal-gun later on - also gaining the ability to create two simultaneous portals further down the line. Are there any new features or gadgets which make an appearance in Prelude, to mix up the formula?

NG: No, and for many reasons. First because it’s in the past, and it would be somewhat strange to have new abilities with the portal-gun, when you had less in the future. And then, because the source code of Portal isn’t available, and we couldn’t modify the basics of the gameplay. Indeed you start with nothing but your clothes, but the portal-gun is the first thing you get when you enter the first room, because we don’t feel that puzzles without the portal-gun are so much fun.

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GoY: Another positive trait of the original was the environment, and the story which surrounds it. Have you got people on the team dedicated to the story? Also, are we likely to see any new environments which add to the Portal world?

NG: We all added a bit of information to the story. I was the lead writer, and I first wrote a few pages for the basic storyline and the important events. Then I asked everyone in my direct environment what he/she though about each part of the story, and asked them to help expending it with more details and humour. That’s a cooperative evolution of my own story.
And for your second question, yes, it’s not really new environments, but it’s a continuation of what we just saw briefly in the original Portal.

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GoY: How would you describe the experience you’ve had in the development of Portal: Prelude? How would you compare it to previous projects you’ve worked on and what do you feel you’ve gained from it?

NG: That was the most complex thing I had to handle in my whole life. I’m happy that the team members where all my friends and very mature/independent with their work. I had to take care of the story writing, the gameplay, the story events, the puzzle ideas, the level-design, the artistic direction, the sounds, the voices, the animations, the textures, the website, the communication, the community, the videomaking, the interface, the commentaries, the bonuses, etc. and I also had to give each member enough work to keep them occupied was I was myself working on the hardest parts. Not to mention I have a job in real life and I go to school too.

I don’t think I’ve had any correct sleep since January and I feel reaaaally tired. But that was definitely worth the try. I learnt very important lessons and I had the opportunity to try all the team management skills I gained at school lately.

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GoY: The original game contained a sense of solitude and impending madness not helped by the inclusion of the enigmatic Companion Cube. Have you expanded on this? If so, was it difficult retaining this with the inclusion of NPCs?

NG: We took a 180° turn on this. It’s not about solitude anymore. The complex is alive, there’s people behind the windows, there’s people talking to you, referring to you and even making fun of you sometimes. We tried to build everything as if GLaDOS had never been the inventor of all her gimmicks but like if she stole everything from her former colleagues in a more serious and mad way. That’s a primitive way of surviving, imitate what others did to survive. It was not really difficult to do. We built a classic love/hate triangle between our three main test supervisors. There’s the serious guy, the mad guy and the depressed guy and each of them will learn to accept each others as time passes by and modify their comportment accordingly.

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GoY: Do you think Valve are annoyed that an independent team such as yourself is releasing what may be considered a fully-fledged prequel to their game Portal for free?

NG: We’re not really sure about this. We know they heard about us, because we talked with one of their community managers during a video-game festival in Paris. They didn’t seem to bother at that time. But really, they never said it was good or wrong in any way, we asked them if it was OK, and they mostly never replied. So… I believe it’s OK. “No news, good news” as we say in France.

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GoY: At what point in playing through Portal did you decide that you wanted to make mods for it? And how did this team form?

NG: I started as yet another basic map pack, and as the adventure was growing, I began to thought it would be a waste of time to release this as yet another map pack for Portal. Map packs are great, but they’re lacking the story and the voices, that’s why I finally decided to add a story, and I reworked a part of the levels that were already finished to include them in a whole big test. Then I asked Jérémy for help, because I knew he was good, and I was lacking time to work on some test chambers. He helped me doing four of them. Marc came a bit later, when we needed textures, models and a level-designer point of view on our work. We thought of a few test chambers that would be required by the story, and we stuck them in the adventure. It’s as simple as that.

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GoY: Is there anything in Portal: Prelude which you are particularly proud of, or excited to gauge reactions from?

NG: Well… that’s a good question. There’s a test chamber that I really like, it’s the fourteen one, in advanced mode. It’s damn difficult and the way to solve it is a lot different between the regular story and the advanced mode. That’s my favourite. I’m also proud of the last level, because, basically, we stuck everything the game was able to handle in it. This level is freaking huge and nearly weights 100 MB alone. It’s a new environment, a new vision of the Aperture Science Complex and it’s also the end of the game, with a way more difficult boss than Portal’s one. We also tried to cross Chell’s (Portal’s heroin) path a few times without actually coming from the same door, without going to same way and without doing the same things.

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GoY: I’m incredibly sorry, but we have to ask this… Will cake and grief counselling will be available at the conclusion of the test?

NG: Remember what I said before:
“We tried to build everything as if GLaDOS had never been the inventor of all her gimmicks but like if she stole everything from her former colleagues in a more serious and mad way.”

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Portal Prelude Homepage

3 Comments

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  By Eternal Density, 8 October, 2008 @ 2:34 pm

  I’m eagerly anticipating release!
  Chell is “Portal’s Heroin” LOL.
  Since release day is the birthday of the Orange Box, we should declare it International Talk Like A Turret Day.
• 

  By kPod, 8 October, 2008 @ 4:59 pm

  Are you still there?

Other Links to this Post

1. BEERORKID » OMG OMG OMG portal prelude is out now OMG OMG OMG OMG — 9 October, 2008 @ 6:41 am

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