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Valve's Cancelled Portal Prequel Revealed for the First Time

Komo

Komo

Info Analyst
Verified
Jan 3, 2019
7,110
Valve's cancelled prequel to its hit 2007 puzzle game Portal has been revealed properly for the first time thanks to indie developer LunchHouse Software.

The original code for Aperture Camera, Valve's cancelled prequel to Portal, has been provided to LunchHouse Software in order to help them create a video series about its development. The series, called Exposure, reveals and discusses the core game mechanics of this lost prequel, which was based upon photography.

The first video in the series demonstrates the player using a camera to take pictures of objects and then resize and reposition them in the world. This mechanic is used to solve puzzles and move through a series of rooms.
"The mechanics are not based on speculation or heresay," LunchHouse writes on the Exposure website. "Instead, Exposure uses the original, official code from Valve's own F-STOP, or as it was properly named, Aperture Camera."
RPS reports that the cancelled prequel has been known about since it was mentioned in Geoff Keighley's book The Final Hours of Portal 2. That report explained that the prequel wouldn't include Chell or GLaDOS, but nothing was known publicly about how it played until now.
"We've reached out to Valve, who've given us explicit permission to continue with our project using their original code," LunchHouse says.
Why, exactly, Valve has given LunchHouse permission to do this isn't known. But the studio is using Valve's Source Engine to create its own first-person physics-based puzzler called PUNT which it plans on releasing in 2020.
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lasthope106

lasthope106

Member
Oct 25, 2017
922
Iowa USA
Valve cancelled projects would have been more fun than most games. It is too bad that they scrap things so easily, and they take so long to give it another try.
 
1-D_FE

1-D_FE

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,260
Do we know what Punt is? It has a similar art style to Portal. Is it using the F-Stop mechanics?

lasthope106 said:
Valve cancelled projects would have been more fun than most games. It is too bad that they scrap things so easily, and they take so long to give it another try.
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I mean, it was canned for Portal 2. From what I've seen, they made the right choice and we got the superior game from this decision.
 
Ionic

Ionic

Banned
Oct 31, 2017
2,735
I'm not sure I immediately see how it would be amazing, but I think looking at this and making a final judgement would be like looking at Narbacular Drop and thinking the idea isn't very interesting. We'll never see what that final polished product could've been from Valve. That said, for now I'm happy they stuck with the Portal gun.
 
RROCKMAN

RROCKMAN

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
10,824
Randomly Generated said:
I continue to not understand why everyone at Valve was so in love with this idea.
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I don't get why people don't see the potential shenanigans this concept has? If they took it all the way with incorporating properties of light like reflection, refraction, magnification then this could have exploded


Imagine if you were stuck in a void where a maze is directly in front of you. At the end of the maze is a locked door, and you need a key.
You spy a chest behind you far away and up on a tall tree, behind a moat full of acid. At the base of the tree is some alphabet blocks and and a toy ladder.

You use your handy dandy camera to grab the block and enlarge them so you cross the the moat to get to the tall tree. You use the toy ladder to clime the tree. You get up there nice and snug and open the box, expecting a key. What's in the box is actually a mirror. You're like wth is this and you play with it for a bit, then you look in the direction of the maze and you realize it looks familiar

You position the mirror and take the photo of the reflected maze and shrink it down so you have a nice old fashioned key. Then you use it to leave!

superliminal exists now though so they can easily do the above and make it more complex but had valve not dropped this they could have been there FIRST.
 
Alec

Alec

Hero of Bowerstone
Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,729
Louisville, KY
jediyoshi said:
You say that as if it's a bad thing a developer's employees are able to conceptualize a bajiliion projects to begin with.
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My bad, I did not mean for it to sound like it was a bad thing. -- Just that I'm sure they cancel their games for good reasons.
Randomly Generated said:
It wasn't really "cancelled", it was a mechanic developed for Portal 2 but removed because it didn't involve portals. But Gabe Newell said it was like the greatest thing ever.

I don't get it.
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I think it was probably innovative for the time, but all we have to go by is this trailer and it's pretty underwhelming.

I'll buy it anyway, but I'm not expecting much.
 
Hentz

Hentz

The Fallen
Mar 9, 2018
2,518
after everything they said I expected a lot more, this looks very very very boring
 
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