A Year in Review 2011

As 2011, comes to a closure, its time to look back of all the nonsense I have done. I've put together a cheaply made video along with cheaply made royalty free music to summarize this not so cheap year.



I don't go over every Hammer Notepad experiment, nor everything I did in just a day, but mainly things I've worked on (released or not) were I got some knowledge out of it. Life is just one big learning process. We start with Blue Portals: Extended Play.

Blue Portals: Extended Play - March 


After we got done with shipping Blue Portals and the update for it in late 2010, we worked on and released the extension: Blue Portals: Extended Play. This eight map mappack takes you back into the development center, and you now have access to the fully operational portal device along with the ECHO, a gravity gun like puzzle device. If you have the latest version of Blue Portals, it should already be there. If not, click the Download link below!



Portal 2 Stuff - April, May

This year, the sequel to my favorite puzzle game was released after a full year of waiting! The game left many of us speechless, and we could not wait to config the Swarm Authorizing Tools to Portal 2 as soon as possible! I have edited the map a bit from its original form as the original got destroyed along with the myApertureLabs database.




A Little Higher, Infestation, and Project-Alpha 2 - Summer

Summer came and went! But before we go into the summer more and since we are still on Portal 2, A Little Higher was released back in July as well. A Little Higher took something that I was toying with a few months before, and puts it into 5 chambers where the player needs to use it in order to solve puzzles. In the video, I'm playing a slightly different version of A Little Higher that will be released along with Portal: Alive & Kicking. But the download link still exists, (At least for now) so give it a try! 



 I had a inner desire to learn more about the development history of the original Portal and Left 4 Dead. I first started to observe the mapping style of old builds of Left 4 Dead. This lead to the development of Infestation The entire article about that can be found here. This has to be the most complex, and consist most detail in a map I've made yet!


< No Download Link>

Back in 2008, I've worked with several individuals to recreate the elements of the beta version of the original Portal. Of course, we all had our different views on certain aspects, and the mod was diverse in stages in development. (ie you have the hand on the gun, holes in the barrel, and spiral portals although there was not a build shown where all three of these elements co-exist.). So in my spare time, I recreated a few chambers shown from the 2006 era (Spiral portals, Holes in barrel with the sprite at the muzzle, and little Portal particles.) I searched and found a few videos, some of which I already have. I learned much from the videos, and the actual decompiled maps themselves. Not only I learned a lot, it also reminded me how flexible the original Portal tools were, and I was working on you know what at the time...

These are some old screenshots. As you can see, I changed the pink/red back to orange because for the life of not only me, but anyone who has played with Portal models/sprites can't find out how to change the barrel sprite. Its most likely coded.



<Again, no Download Link due to content being everyone else's but mine. (PB team) >

Later on - September - December

From the fall to now, Colossal and I decided to pull the plug on Blue Portals 2, which was a project we have been working on since May. We feel that a Blue Portals 2 is not possible in the Portal 2 engine due to its limits. Also, I took Infestation back to the drawing board and it turned out to be a slightly better system, but I no longer have that desire to work on it anymore. Well at least for now. Also, I've been doing more active work for Portal: Alive and Kicking although I originally only committed to only do Chamber 13, along with its Advance and Elite counter parts. 

So here we are, looking back. We the rHetorical team are working on Portal: Alive & Kicking a lot recently, along with playing with other possibilities. 

Happy New Year, and Best Wishes! 

Comments

  1. How did you get the light in the muzzle of the gun?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He used the Portal 2 Sixense MotionPack and the Razer Hydra. You could also use Sixense's Wireless STEM System.

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