Current News!
Infoz...I can haz?
The quiet before the storm...
Potential name change?
Make your voice heard!
A Wild Programmer has appeared...
Still Alive 2 (Now with 100% more green-lit University action)
Older news:
*Still Alive....*
News about Pre-Alpha
Currently Looking For
Pre-Alpha!
What? Where are the other survivors?
Zoey is the main focus for this mod for a number of story/design reasons. Your actions within the game determine if she finds and rescues the other survivors along with a variety of other story/gameplay altering decisions.
That seems odd...isnt this a multiplayer game?
At its core, the mod is a single player campaign with a multiplayer version being added later. Its purpose is both as a medium to tell an interesting story with some new mechanics in addition to functioning as a "boot camp" of sorts for the L4D and Portal universes, training the player to be quick on their feet, aim true, and analyze situations and puzzles quickly.
The multiplayer version of this campaign wont be added until it can be made similarly challenging. There is little point to slapping on multiplayer to a game balanced around single player to trivialize content.
So this is supposed to be hard?
Challenging but fair, with a few different paths to increase or decrease difficulty from within the game itself.
Why Zoey?
Better question is: why not?
There are a variety of reasons why Zoey was chosen to be the players avatar in a world gone crazy. Sadly, most of them would bore you.
So why a crossover?
It works on a couple of different levels. From a developing standpoint, it provides new means to keep the player entertained. From a mapper's standpoint, it provides a couple of different types of environments (outdoors, portal gun rooms, damaged sections, "behind the scenes"). From a programming standpoint, it combines two seemingly disjunct game design ideas into a more interesting harmony. And from a personal standpoint, I got a few tricks up my sleeves that I want to set into motion.
Wait....wont combining the two cause issues? A puzzle and the threat of zombies?
You wont always have the portal gun at your disposal....or all your weapons stocked full of ammo. Think of the zombies as a...motivation....to finish puzzles properly or quickly, otherwise you might find yourself in a bit of a pickle. A Survivor who can think before they act is of much greater use than one who fires blindly.
So...how far along is this mod?
At the time of this writing...
The first map is in the process of being redone in higher detail and scale. The majority of the work will be starting up again during the late fall/early winter as per University request. Some of the mapping and recruiting people will occur during some of the down time until then. Hopefully, barring unusual circumstances, there should be some more recent pictures of the maps in the coming weeks.
What are you lacking?
*Artists of the 2d and 3d persuasion.
Please view the news post the most up to date details on what we are currently looking for.
However, I can always be contacted at frgamedev@gmail.com, Steam (acct name: shadow1151) and, of course, here on Moddb via the sites messaging service.
So what does the FR stand for in the email?
It has to do with another game that I've had on the back burner for some time while I work on other things, such as this mod. As that game is still in its infancy/brainstorming stages, it is difficult to talk about in the open at the moment.
Articles
So.....I may have lapsed....a teensy bit... on the info while focusing on my studies.
In the mean time, Ive attended 2 conferences (PAX EAST and CCSCNE) one of which I presented a poster at discussing the mod, how varying game styles can come together in a nice harmony and discussing the concept of combining codebases (and the workarounds within) that are branches of the same derivative work. Honestly, I don't know how I ended up at that second one, poster and all, but it was a fun experience and the people closer to my own age seem genuinely interested (being one of 2 people presenting on anything game related at a Computer Science conference seems to be an oddity that bears only a cursory glance, no questions, and then walking on from most of the older generations, but I digress).
As for PAX East: that was quite the interesting experience. I was able to hobnob with developers for some time, win some awesome prizes and got to record audio for some of the IGDA panels (sadly time and technical constraints prevented me from recording all of them) FOR the IGDA.
You can find those Here
Aaron ( a good friend of mine and future Community manager, when we get to that point) managed to clean up the original files. Sadly, I was not originally anticipating anyone (outside of my professors) wanting or needing to hear the panels so I only had my personal digital voice recorder with me rather than something capable of a higher bit quality. None the less, they are worth a listen to if you didn't get to attend PAX or those panels specifically.
In regards to L4D:AI specifically: Ive made some headway in learning some of the more basic techniques for modelling and animating, although the class itself didn't quite cover character modeling as I was hoping it would. You can view a copy of the final reel in the Video's section.
Portal 2 has also come out (if you haven't given it a whirl, I would highly recommend it, especially Coop with a person who hasn't done the puzzles in it yet). Along with the Authoring tools. I'm not entirely opposed to certain things gameplay element wise being a part of the mod....in obvious compartmentalized puzzle areas. The catch, as always, is seeing which parts I can add and detract. Which brings me to my final point: Chances are the mod would be done in the Portal/Portal2 version of the Source engine.
Reason being?
Valve broke a few molds when they made Portal/Portal 2 and how they handle portals from a technical end. Implementing a pseudo-AI director (if the original cant be coaxed) within that derivation of the Source engine is a far simpler task based on how it was made. Getting it fine tuned to a level near the level of perfection that the L4D series holds will require more testing rather than more logic/physics equations.
If you are interested in how the two branches of the engine differ I recommend going through the commentary on each one and then try making a simple test map. It really is quite interesting.
Alas, Ive taken up too much of your time with my ramblings and must bid you all adieu.
You stay classy, ModDb.
The quiet before the storm....
News 1 commentWhat could be going on? Tech-Imp hasn't posted in a while...
Community Poll: Mod name change?
News 4 commentsLack of sleep and a plucky attitude for a day (or three) can change some perspectives or force some thoughts from the back-burner of the mind to the foreground...
Community Poll: What do you want out of L4D:tPI?
News 6 commentsObviously I cant solve world hunger with a mod....but what do you want/expect/wish for in The Portal Incident?
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keep working on it!
Aye the intent is to after I finish up some loose ends. Life has many curveballs its tossed my way and I have the bruises to prove it >_<
So, is this mod dead?
Was hoping to see this be created.
Not dead. Its just taking a lot longer than I expected. Working essentially solo doing all manners of tasks (modeler, animator, designer, tester, media manager, sound manager, scripter, coder, and more) when the rest of stuff in my life doesn't come with a pause button tends to be a bit more intensive than I anticipated.
No matter....I like a good challenge.
Keep popping back in from time to time. I'm trying to make incremental updates, no matter how small.
Damn dude, I mean no offense, or to be insulting, but if you're doing this solo, you might just be in over your head.
Great to see that it's not dead, though!
Good luck!
There are quite a few corners I can cut if time were to suddenly become a major concern. Thankfully those cut corners are mainly only graphical in nature and can be later patched in with little issue for "breaking the game". I do have a few friends that have offered to help at key points (whether for testing or coding)...
But yea....it would be nice to have some other dependable people around.
Is this going to have Headcrabs and their zombies?. Because the Left 4 Dead infected don't make sense for the Half Life universe unless Left 4 dead has it's own reality's version of Aperture Science.
Also note: Headcrabs (and the zombies created by them) are due to Inter-dimensional means (the events of HL1), not an outbreak of sorts.
No. Though keep in mind that they do not necessarily need to exist in different realities. There was no strong indication that Aperture (or this locale) is anywhere near Black Mesa. Thankfully Valve is vague enough to allow sufficient leeway. However if it caused a continuity error, it could be easily justified as a parallel reality, which would work well as a segue into my next project.
Why is this called "The Portal Incident?" Do you go into Apeture Science?
Yes. You venture into one of the Aperture Science buildings. We'll just refer to it as "Test Site B" for simplicity's sake.