Portal: Prelude Challenges Ladder

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Posted by Nicolas (permalink)

On our forums, I met a couple of guys that are plain crazy and defy each others to see which one of them will manage to beat the challenges of Portal: Prelude in the least time, steps and portals. These guys are so skilled at Portal that most people can't even understand what they're doing on these videos!
Check this out:

This is why I decided to build them their own little official ladder, where everyone can see who made the best score and how. On this new page, you will find the best scores for each challenge of Portal: Prelude without exploiting bugs. Now, if you think you can beat one of those scores, we urge you to record yourself, to upload the video somewhere and to send us the following informations via our forum or to challenges@portalprelude.com.
In case of draw, the upload date will act as an extra proof (the older, the better).

• Challenge type (least portals, least steps, least time)
• Number of the chamber (3-5, 7-19)
• Score (number of portals, steps, seconds)
• Nickname of the author (displayed on the website)
• URL of the proof (the video you recorded to prove your score)
• URL of the author's website (to advertise a bit)

A last one to conclude this post, it never gets old:

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Radio Silence

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Posted by Nicolas (permalink)

Pfiou... it has been a hell of a month since the release. For the moment, we didn't made a final debriefing yet, because every member of the team (including myself) is taking vacations since the release of the 1.1.0 update. All we can say is that the downloads are still increasing at an incredible speed of 3,000 a day (and that doesn't include all the downloads started from another website than portalprelude.com).

So far so good, I was not posting anymore because I'm taking a huge break. You know, seeing the family, going out, sleeping, playing, and such. And for god's sake, the early demo of Left 4 Dead stole me a dozen of hours during the last days. This game is so freaking genius. The demo only has 2 levels and still, I played it 15 or 20 times on Advanced and Expert mode without even doing the same thing once. And by the way, playing the infected is even more stressful than playing the survivors, as you're soooo weak, alone.

For the moment, no one is working on the mod. I fixed a few bugs since the 1.1.0, I was supposed to release a hotfix two days after its release but that would have definitely been a bad idea (not enough delay between the two patches). So, I'm delaying everything for the moment. I also stopped replying to emails, that's why I may have missed your email lately. And if you didn't see it, Portal: Prelude is "Moddb's Staff Selection for October 08". Great!

That's all for the news. Ah, no, there's something else.
Does anyone wonder why Valve never even sent us an email to share their impressions? Why don't they bother answering our questions when we send some? And why on earth do they keep replying "We are not willing to communicate on Portal: Prelude for the moment" to everyone? We're really sad to see that no one there took 5 minutes to write us something. I'd not say we made this entire mod only to get in touch with someone from Valve, because it's not true. But it would have been definitely kick-ass and most mod had this chance.

14 comment(s)

Portal: Prelude 1.1.0 released!

42 comment(s)

Posted by Nicolas (permalink)

That's it! 145,000 downloads later, Portal: Prelude 1.1.0 is released!
This new version is shipped with more than 80 bug fixes and additions, along with slightly easier/less frustrating first levels. Warning! Savegames are NOT compatible. Your progress with chapters unlocking is saved, but not savegames.

Both the Portal: Prelude 1.1.0 complete installer and the 1.0.0 to 1.1.0 cumulative patch are released! Head up to the download page, and enjoy! For the moment, only a few mirrors are up to date. More of them will appear in the next days/weeks.

Of course, the goal was not to rework whole parts of the game after the release, but we tweaked a lot of chambers, all of them in fact. Especially, the first levels to avoid immediate frustration (that was our primary goal). Then, we used all the criticisms we received to build a better game. All the levels/challenges were slightly modified, that's why the patch is so huge.

The complete change log can be found here:
http://www.portalprelude.com/2008/10/portal-prelude-110-change-log.php

42 comment(s)

Portal: Prelude 1.1.0 (Change Log)

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Posted by Nicolas (permalink)

The 1.1.0 update is coming this week.
We don't really know when yet, because it still needs a bit of work and we also need to contact each mirror to make them update the file. So, we can't really give you a definitive release date for the moment.

When everything will be compiled/ready, I'll make a list of changed files and see if it's a good idea to make a "1.0.0 to 1.1.0 patch". But obviously, if the patch is nearly as huge as the game itself, it would be useless. The only thing I can do for the moment, is to give you the complete change log (a few supplementary translations may be included before the update).

Portal: Prelude 1.1.0

    * Added: dutch translation (subtitles only)
    * Added: finnish translation (subtitles only)
    * Added: hungarian translation (subtitles only)
    * Added: italian translation (subtitles only)
    * Added: korean translation (subtitles only)
    * Added: portuguese translation (subtitles only)
    * Added: russian translation (subtitles only)
    * Added: spanish translation (subtitles only)
    * Fixed: portals not fizzled when you handed back your portalgun
    * Fixed: installer problems (mostly with Windows Vista)
    * Fixed: huge freezes and lags when GlaDOS is started
    * Fixed: morality core going through a grate in the last level
    * Added: a toggle mode to the BTS button in test chamber 19
    * Fixed: camera won't fall in test chamber 15
    * Fixed: ability to go inside observation rooms using an engine glitch
    * Fixed: finishing test chamber 6 could lead to Mike saying you failed
    * Fixed: Erik saying "euros" instead of "dollars"
    * Fixed: ability to go inside the box dispensers using an engine glitch
    * Fixed: advanced chambers/challenges still locked when finishing the game
    * Fixed: autosaves not correctly activated
    * Added: autosaves on challenge start
    * Added: autosaves after long speeches
    * Fixed: player could get stuck under elevators
    * Fixed: challenge 15 won't record scores
    * Fixed: challenge 17 won't record scores
    * Fixed: box dispensers can drop more than one cube
    * Fixed: typos in french subtitles
    * Fixed: typos in english subtitles
    * Fixed: portal fizzler in test chamber 17 gives a cube for a camera
    * Fixed: missing faces resulting in visible outside of the level
    * Fixed: non-solid door in test chamber 3
    * Fixed: non-solid door in test chamber 4
    * Fixed: cubes can get blocked in the dispensers tube
    * Added: an escape path in test chamber 9
    * Fixed: glass panel can be broken with a chair in the aperture laboratories
    * Fixed: cube can be lost in the orbs room in test chamber 19
    * Fixed: cube can be lost before the pit in test chamber 19
    * Added: a cube dispenser in test chamber 14
    * Added: an alternative path in test chamber 15 (for the challenges)
    * Added: a delay when turrets appear in test chamber 8
    * Fixed: bogus elevator in test chamber 10
    * Added: a distraction in the turrets room in test chamber 11
    * Fixed: radio song does not stop when the radio is destoyed
    * Fixed: moving a few autosaves and areaportals to prevent the game from crashing
    * Fixed: improving lipsyncing but it's still random as faceposer keeps corrupting our sounds
    * Fixed: ballcatchers can be activated with any thrown object
    * Fixed: scorpions' song replaced by four variations of still alive
    * Fixed: door won't open in the corridor at the beginning of test chamber 18
    * Added: hints at the end of test chamber 18
    * Added: a disclaimer when the game starts
    * Added: a ledge for the first jump in test chamber 2
    * Fixed: turrets fire too quickly in test chamber 1
    * Added: a ledge for the fling in test chamber 3
    * Fixed: lunch bag model sounds like metal
    * Added: english part to the commentary, to point out that there's subtitles
    * Added: new "directional sign" textures for test chamber 19 BTS area
    * Added: hints under the stairs in test chamber 19
    * Added: another path to get to the BTS area in test chamber 19
    * Fixed: particles and light color of disintegrators
    * Fixed: particles color of "only-portals" fizzlers
    * Fixed: rework a few textures for the BTS/maintenance areas to look less old
    * Fixed: clean and optimize level geometry
    * Added: missing challenge records for test chamber 15
    * Added: missing challenge records for test chamber 18
    * Added: missing challenge records for test chamber 19
    * Fixed: GlaDOS force field insta-kills too randomly and too often
    * Fixed: bogus NPC animations
    * Removed: alternative solution for test chamber 4
    * Added: space between "only-portal" fizzlers and disintegrators in test chamber 15
    * Fixed: snoozing man is not snoozing
    * Added: NPCs in some empty observation rooms
    * Fixed: fizzler in test chamber 15 is destroying the energy orb
    * Fixed: too many letal turrets in test chamber 15
    * Added: hints in the 4-turrets room in test chamber 17
    * Added: a glass panel to see the rotating wall in test chamber 17
    * Added: missing tubes in box dispensers
    * Added: crosses on wedge shaped platforms in test chamber 19
    * Fixed: GlaDOS stops attacking after her second attack in the second round
    * Added: restored stairs in the BTS/maintenance area in test chamber 15
    * Added: clipping in most of the stairs to avoid view shaking
    * Fixed: in a rare case, the cube isn't respawned in test chamber 17
    * Fixed: in a rare case, the cube isn't respawned in test chamber 18
    * Fixed: overlapping blocks in test chamber 19
    * Fixed: at the end, the new menu doesn't show up if the console if visible

41 comment(s)

A matter of music rights

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Posted by Nicolas (permalink)

Some people asked us why we decided to use two commercial tracks in Portal: Prelude. They claimed it was a wrong idea and that was right, we missed a few opportunities because of this choice (mainly press coverage). Even if we tried to shorten them up and degrade their quality as bad as we could (Scorpions' extract is only 50 seconds long and degraded a lot) a few people still claimed it wasn't fair.

In the next release, we decided to replace the 4 occurences of Rock You Like a Hurricane by the Scorpions with 4 different variations of the Still Alive song (R'n'B, rock, techno and classical). We don't really know if it will change anything special but, well... At least we took care of one of the two commercial tracks.

During the last week, we searched for a replacement song for Believe by The Chemical Brothers (the song during the GlaDOS fight), but to be honest, nothing came out of this research. We are totally unable to find a free song that matches quite correctly the feeling of Believe. And as you may not know it already, we chose this song because of its rythm and also because of its video clip, as you can see:

Yesterday, I wondered if I could directly get in touch with their label, to try to get their permission to keep this 3 minutes degraded extract in our free project. But it could just bring us even more problems. So, if you know any free-of-use (free or creative commons licensed) track we could use to replace it, we'd be willing to know about it. It should be long enough and "repetitive" enough to be looped over and over without beeing annoying (Looks like we love to ask your help).

32 comment(s)