I did a search on this and found absolutely no one has mentioned this game yet.

Portal Prelude is the unofficial prequel to Portal. It was released a couple of days back and is entirely free for those who own a pc copy of portal. I think you might also need a copy of Half life 2 as well as the game uses some of it's assets.

The game is largely very professional, clocking in with a playtime just a little bit shorter than the original portal, but it does have few caveats. The story, which is entirely new, was obviously penned by someone who doesn't use English as their first language and the game features no voice acting, instead the developers opted to use one of those text to speech services so the dialogue, which isn't particularly funny to begin with, sounds particularly stilted (and not in a good way like GladOS) The game also suffers from a few balance issues with some puzzles making bastardly hard solutions more obvious than simpler, more elegant ones. It really highlights how effective Valve's extensive beta testing really is.

That being said the game gives you another five or so hours of portal completely free and while it's not up to Valve's efforts it's still very good. It makes a perfect companion to the 'Portal Flash Map pack' released earlier this year.

Download the install file here

Nice, people are making home brewed portal games now?

Decoy Doctorpus:
clocking in with a playtime just a little bit shorter than the original portal

Decoy Doctorpus:
That being said the game gives you another five or so hours of portal completely free

So it took you more than 5 hours to beat Portal?

GenHellspawn:

Decoy Doctorpus:
clocking in with a playtime just a little bit shorter than the original portal

Decoy Doctorpus:
That being said the game gives you another five or so hours of portal completely free

So it took you more than 5 hours to beat Portal?

So it took you less than 5 hours to beat portal and the bonus missions and challenges. I'm sure you're super hardcore.

TsunamiWombat:
Nice, people are making home brewed portal games now?

Yep, valve knew we would do this kind of thing, thats why they worked so hard on everything.

Because we would test it in ways they didn't think of.

I really really want this game, while I've played and completed portal and all the challenges etc I don't own the game :/ I done it all on a friends pc so yeah :P I'll have to get it sometime.

Decoy Doctorpus:
So it took you less than 5 hours to beat portal and the bonus missions and challenges. I'm sure you're super hardcore.

Ah, that's what you meant. That kinda threw me off, too. That bit aside, I've found Prelude to be kind of unforgiving with several of it's puzzles, most of which seeming to require near perfect execution to get past. It get's pretty aggravating after a while, I'm not going to lie, but if you have the patience, you should give it a look. After all, a mod doesn't cost you anything but your time, so it's still worth a look.

It took me five hours to finish Portal because I didn't want it to be over, and I've gone back and just mucked around with it because Portal is fun.

This is glorious news! I will eat pancakes to celebrate!

Pity i only have tf2

Decoy Doctorpus:

GenHellspawn:

Decoy Doctorpus:
clocking in with a playtime just a little bit shorter than the original portal

Decoy Doctorpus:
That being said the game gives you another five or so hours of portal completely free

So it took you more than 5 hours to beat Portal?

So it took you less than 5 hours to beat portal and the bonus missions and challenges. I'm sure you're super hardcore.

Portal is about 2 - 3 hours long... Not counting the "extra" lvl 18,which I was stuck on for a good while, yeah, I played through the game twice in about 6-7 hours, including extra challenges, and listening to the Developer's commentaries the second time around... I can end the game in about an hour now if I skip listening to GlaDoS... The "pro-speedrunnners" can probably end it in less than half an hour... Some of the speedruns on youtube are mad...

As for the topic, that seems interesting, however, the superior story and characterization were part of the reason I got so hooked to portal. But I might take a look.

Hey thx for the link

Played it already. Not impressed.

Room 1 is simply a rotational trick. Room 2 is a pixel perfect speedy thing comes out. Didn't get any further because I switched it off in frustration.

It's ok I suppose, but no better.

I'm starting to wonder why a prequel (which is supposed to come before the first one) has harder puzzles then the original.

*Double posted, sorry*

Decoy Doctorpus:
So it took you less than 5 hours to beat portal and the bonus missions and challenges. I'm sure you're super hardcore.

I never bothered with the bonus content because the game was too average to make me want to complete it again. Although, I am still super hardcore.

Vanguard1219:

Decoy Doctorpus:
So it took you less than 5 hours to beat portal and the bonus missions and challenges. I'm sure you're super hardcore.

Ah, that's what you meant. That kinda threw me off, too. That bit aside, I've found Prelude to be kind of unforgiving with several of it's puzzles, most of which seeming to require near perfect execution to get past. It get's pretty aggravating after a while, I'm not going to lie, but if you have the patience, you should give it a look. After all, a mod doesn't cost you anything but your time, so it's still worth a look.

The problem is quite often the more elegant solution to the problem is pretty obsure so players end up doing things the 'wrong' way which is bastardly hard. Like the room with the four turrets in the corners. I never did figure that one out. I just reloaded until i managed to knock them all over with a camera.

I'd hate to be the cynical one here (but I'm going to be) but I think Portal should remain a 'one off' (like most puzzle games, it's only good for one play through) or it may find itself sharing the same fate as Command and Conquer, great and genius with the first game, the next one or two will also be pretty good (a little better or worse, not much variation) but eventually it will get to a point where even the hardcore fans will have to admit fault (seriously, CnC Generals was the worst of them all and we will probably say the same about 'Portal 2: episode 3'...well, everyone except the Valve fanatics of course).

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=7c2QyOnJYWM

i made a video of the ending fight in portal prelude if anyone would like to see, pretty cool fight actually.

GenHellspawn:

Decoy Doctorpus:
clocking in with a playtime just a little bit shorter than the original portal

Decoy Doctorpus:
That being said the game gives you another five or so hours of portal completely free

So it took you more than 5 hours to beat Portal?

Internet tough guy much?

Anyway, what is this? How could have this gone unnoticed?!

Decoy Doctorpus:

The problem is quite often the more elegant solution to the problem is pretty obsure so players end up doing things the 'wrong' way which is bastardly hard. Like the room with the four turrets in the corners. I never did figure that one out. I just reloaded until i managed to knock them all over with a camera.

Took me a while as well, basically line yourself up before you portal then immediately fire an orange over the back of the far left turret and fall back through the blue. Then pick up the turret and knock the others over.

Richard Groovy Pants:
Internet tough guy much?

You wanna come say that to my face, punk?

GenHellspawn:

Richard Groovy Pants:
Internet tough guy much?

You wanna come say that to my face, punk?

Sorry sir :(

(damn it's high school all over again)

Decoy Doctorpus:

Vanguard1219:

Decoy Doctorpus:
So it took you less than 5 hours to beat portal and the bonus missions and challenges. I'm sure you're super hardcore.

Ah, that's what you meant. That kinda threw me off, too. That bit aside, I've found Prelude to be kind of unforgiving with several of it's puzzles, most of which seeming to require near perfect execution to get past. It get's pretty aggravating after a while, I'm not going to lie, but if you have the patience, you should give it a look. After all, a mod doesn't cost you anything but your time, so it's still worth a look.

The problem is quite often the more elegant solution to the problem is pretty obsure so players end up doing things the 'wrong' way which is bastardly hard. Like the room with the four turrets in the corners. I never did figure that one out. I just reloaded until i managed to knock them all over with a camera.

If you mean the "hardcore mode" version. I have no idea. I just did the stupidly easier version and jammed a computer in the door and shot a portal to the other side. Screw getting the cube.

Sorry, this is a little bit off topic, but this just an idea that occuried to me today, and I want to put it somewhere. Not big enough for its own thread.

Valve have been saying they've only scratched the cerface with Portal and Portal 2 could do more. This has really had me racking my brains, as the I really don't know how you could expand apoun the portal gun. I had an idea that maybe Cell could attach a snipe to it with duct tape or something, allowing you to travel hundreds of miles in second by zooming in on the scope, meaning an open world. But that would destroy the whole atmosphere of portal, having the game outside, rather than in the sergically clean halls of AS. Then, this idea came to me.

How about scaling portals? What I mean is, changing there size. This may not seem like much, but what if what traveled though them was scaled. Lets say you have the portal gun. You turn a dial on the side of the gun and lights on your gun become brighter. Then, you fire at the wall, creating a portal twice the size of a normal one. Then, you create a normal sized portal next to it, pick up a cube, and throw it though the portal. It comes out the other side massive! I really think this could add a whole new set of puzzles and dimentions to portal and really open it up.

Another idea I had was using water with portals. Create a portal on the wall, and put another under water, and the water starts to pore though the hole in the wall. You could then use scaling portals and water together, making the water smaller so a jet like stream is shot out.

This would be a bitch to program, I know, probley not this gen. But these are the guys who created the source engine, and its not like there going to bring out portal 2 for...say...the next few decades. I could see this being a reality.

Anyway, you can have your thread back now.

@somebritishdude : On that thread, I always thought a good 'sequel' to Portal would be to have Black Mesa have stolen a copy of the Portal Gun and it was used on board a submarine, space-ship or aircraft. That would mean you could take on terrorists (with the usual double-cross) but you really couldn't shoot the walls....

GenHellspawn:
I'm starting to wonder why a prequel (which is supposed to come before the first one) has harder puzzles then the original.

Because a prequel is still something you experience after "the first one"?

What's weird about that?

-- Alex

I just finished Portal: Prelude, and I can some up my thoughts on it in one word.

Eugh.

If you want more than that, okay. It's like the developer decided to take everything that was fun about Portal and chuck it out the window. Or maybe more accurately, they put it under one of those crushing ceilings they seem so fond of. The level design is unintuitive (like nearly every fan-created map) and overall the game's difficulty curve is like a quadruple amputee challenging Godzilla to an arm wrestling competition. The original Portal had levels that required some thinking, but didn't leave you guessing at every turn. You could probably figure out what to do in less than five minutes. In Prelude you'll spend fifteen minutes trying to figure out the one backwards solution the level designer intended and another ten minutes trying to execute it because there's no room for error. This leaves the levels feeling less like test chambers and more like....well, some overzealous fan tried to create the hardest version of the original game they could pull out of their twisted head. The game finally starts to balance out and become interesting in the last level but even it is hampered by a mediocre boss fight.

The dialogue is bad. I don't know if everything good was lost in translation or if it's the writer's fault. Whatever the case may be, I wanted to mute my speakers every time someone opened their mouth. I'm not complaining about the lack of voice acting (although really, how hard is it to find someone to deliver bad dialogue for a mod?). The text to speech program they used does an adequate job in most cases, but the actual dialogue isn't even cringe-worthy, it's just horrible. Also, interestingly enough there is some good music in the game. The music in the post-credits sequence was really appropriate and fit the scene so well. I'm not talking about the licensed music like what played during the boss fight, that made my ears bleed.

The main deal breaker though is the levels. As I said, they're difficult. Beyond difficult. If you had any trouble whatsoever with Portal, there is no way you're going to beat Prelude. That's the problem with the obsessive types who actually go to the trouble of creating their own levels; they're creating them for themselves and people like them, not the average gamer.

I think it's something all of you would-be mod designers should think about. Ask yourselves: "Is my easiest level harder than the hardest level on the highest difficulty of the original game?" If you answer yes, you're clearly not making games for real people, you're making games for us freaks of nature who can beat the original game with our eyes closed while drinking a fifth of vodka and playing Team Fortress 2 on another computer with our toes.

mspencer82:
I just finished Portal: Prelude, and I can some up my thoughts on it in one word.

Eugh.

If you want more than that, okay.

User review section, my man. In the middle of a thread it's tough to go through larger posts like that. (I've made a few myself) It's a pretty smart impression of it, the fact that it is a mod though may earn it some brownie points. The fact it has dialogue at all is impressive.

I have not played it and the suggestion that it could possibly fail without me downloading HL 2 to my computer in order to make it work is not a good marketing point (played console version don't need to clutter up a few more gigs on my drive)

There is so much out there that mods need to be six shades of awesome before I will venture into that good night. It's good to see them being brought up and discussed though.

I highly recomend the Portal flash map pack. It's much truer to the source material and is a far more balanced experience than prelude. It has a wicked end boss as well and some genuinely eerie moments.

Richard Groovy Pants:

Anyway, what is this? How could have this gone unnoticed?!

Because nobody knew about it until about three weeks before the mods release. The guy in question put a site up but didn't really announce it. Took a few people by surprise when he threw it up on ModDB and other high-brow mod areas.

I want to play through it but I am waiting for my new graphics card first. Should be here tomorrow or wednsday. Hopefully.

Edit:

Decoy Doctorpus:
I highly recomend the Portal flash map pack. It's much truer to the source material and is a far more balanced experience than prelude. It has a wicked end boss as well and some genuinely eerie moments.

This pack is actually rather scary =/

Second Edit: I meant scary as in I am used to the 2d flash version...

mark_n_b:

mspencer82:
I just finished Portal: Prelude, and I can some up my thoughts on it in one word.

Eugh.

If you want more than that, okay.

User review section, my man. In the middle of a thread it's tough to go through larger posts like that. (I've made a few myself) It's a pretty smart impression of it, the fact that it is a mod though may earn it some brownie points. The fact it has dialogue at all is impressive.

I have not played it and the suggestion that it could possibly fail without me downloading HL 2 to my computer in order to make it work is not a good marketing point (played console version don't need to clutter up a few more gigs on my drive)

Sorry about that, I didn't intend to rant that long. I've never been one to formally review games, so I didn't even consider posting it in User Reviews.

I was able to play it and the only Valve games I had on my computer were Portal and Garry's Mod. I just uninstalled Garry's Mod and tried running Prelude and it worked. As a matter of fact, some content that's specific to HL2 still showed up. You should be okay.