Portals of Yesteryear
By Steve on Sunday, October 21st, 2007 at 7:34 PM PST In Videos
So who came up with the idea of Portals in games? That’s a hard question to answer. It really depends on your definition of Portals, its application in a game, and what technology was backing it. I invented some paper game back in 6th grade (that’s the mid-80’s… yes, I’m old) which implemented a very crude implementation of Portals. However, you won’t see me claiming any fame here.
The guys over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun posted a YouTube video of the classic TV program, Infinite MHz (circa 1998), where 3D Realms demonstrate the technology used in early days of Prey. The most fascinating thing about the video is 3D Realms demonstration of their Portal technology. It certainly seems as though Prey would have been the first 3D shooter to implement dynamic linking Portals. Unfortunately, that version of Prey got scrapped well before the Prey we see today. The Prey of the 90’s certainly had many other things going for it. One has to wonder…
There’s no denying that Valve’s recent take on the Portal concept is probably the best use of it to date. Still, it is a rather interesting ride on the Wayback Machine here. Hopefully, we’ll be seeing more games embracing the Portal concept. I’d certainly like to see Valve take their Portal concept to the next level by throwing a time variation to it. Shoot portal. Jump into portal. Exit portal in the nearby past or future. A nice additional layer of challenge to make your head asplode.
you should do an article on Narbacular Drop..
The Original Unreal, which Preys Engine was Originally base off of already had done portals. They were in there and were probably the coolest sight ever. They werent as “Dynamic” as the ones in Prey, but still were portals. I think that if anything the First “3D” portals were in the original Unreal.
i really think it doesn’t matter who did it first.. its who does it best that matters.
In a more raw sense, the game Descent had Portals. It was more an accident though. And you couldn’t shoot a gun and, viola, portal. But you could design a level that basically had an entry and exit point that connected cubes that were were not adjacent (the game’s level design used a connected cube principle).
Basically, some hardcore Descent level makers used it as a slick way to make the levels feel extra dimensional (kinda of like the present day Prey). It was a trip flying into a small hole in a floating rock and enter a chamber that was larger than the rock’s dimensions. It kinda messed with your head.
This version of Prey was the first game to start using portals.
I was the producer on this show. I bribed, threatened, and back stabbed many people to get these two interviews. Only a few people knew about this concept. Ion Storm was completely oblivious to the new trends that were coming out at that time. Activision and EA were harassing me for information about the interview at the E3 98 show.
Gabe Newell asked an Infinite MHz crew member about the interview at the Blizzard suite. The crew member did rat out what he saw earlier. Gabe has a good personality, and he may of got some of the information he needed. Not that I yelled at the crew member later for breaking rules we had.
Gabe was just starting to conceptualize steam, and were talking about code for Internet routers or something to improve online play. I was not impressed with what he had to say at the time, but we all know what happened. I was always impressed with their games.
The game failed back then; partly because there was too much of a performance hit on the CPU. I don’t know if it was poor management, but they tore the game apart and it went into limbo for a while. Much of the concepts went into DN3D (never released) and Max Payne. However the portal part was delayed for many years.