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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Multiplayer zombie shooter Left 4 Dead has been receiving considerable hype from the PC crowd lately, and if you want to see what all this fuss is about a demo is coming soon. Valve super legend Gabe Newell has confirmed both the 360 and PC versions will be getting demos, telling Videogamer.com

“I think it’s going to contain the first part of one of the campaigns. I think it’ll probably be Hospital but I’m not sure. That’s a decision that Doug Lombardi is making”

He also added that you’ll be able to play both online co-op and single player with bots. This will hopefully go someway to making up for the game’s recent delay, and provide a good taster of what is shaping up to be one of this winter’s most excting prospects.

Expect the demo to hit sometime in October and the full release on Nov 21st.