GDC: Portal demo, gameplay only four hours long

Are you up for a brain teaser? Or better yet, a brain twister? Enter Portal, Valve’s new puzzle game that ships with Half-Life 2: Episode Two, guaranteed to leave your gray matter looking like a pretzel. The guys at Eurogamer struggled to describe the experience at the Game Developers Conference (GDC).

Kim Swift, level designer from Valve demonstrated and gave them a tutorial. According to Swift, the game is basically around four hours long. The difficulty curve, however, was something else. She adds that if not for the hurried tutorial (at the conference), players would be able to come into terms with gameplay as Portal will “take you very step by step in terms of being able to use your portals”. It’s set in the Half-Life universe and currently only features single player.

While we wait for Half-Life 2 and Portal might as well stay away from reps of the Aperture Science Enrichment Center, unless you want to be one of their test subjects. Apparently, they don’t like living test subjects (at least after the tests are over).

As part of a previously-mentioned required test protocol, we can no longer lie to you. When the testing is over, you will be… missed.

Are you up for a brain teaser? Or better yet, a brain twister? Enter Portal, Valve’s new puzzle game that ships with Half-Life 2: Episode Two, guaranteed to leave your gray matter looking like a pretzel. The guys at Eurogamer struggled to describe the experience at the Game Developers Conference (GDC).

Kim Swift, level designer from Valve demonstrated and gave them a tutorial. According to Swift, the game is basically around four hours long. The difficulty curve, however, was something else. She adds that if not for the hurried tutorial (at the conference), players would be able to come into terms with gameplay as Portal will “take you very step by step in terms of being able to use your portals”. It’s set in the Half-Life universe and currently only features single player.

While we wait for Half-Life 2 and Portal might as well stay away from reps of the Aperture Science Enrichment Center, unless you want to be one of their test subjects. Apparently, they don’t like living test subjects (at least after the tests are over).

As part of a previously-mentioned required test protocol, we can no longer lie to you. When the testing is over, you will be… missed.