If Portal interests you, then you might want to look up a game known as Narbacular Drop. Same basic concept, and-wouldn't you know it-the dev team responsible for that game is now working on Portal.
Also, can you imagine how many "TIME PARADOX! OH SHI-" image macros you can create with this game?
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Anonymous2006-07-20 17:03
i went and got Narbacular drop after the thread in /v/, and i have to say, it really sucks. the only times i died were when the character slid (she slides for s few seconds after you stop) into the lava, or when the pusher imp pushed her into a boulder.
even then, the game has serious performance issues, as i got maybe 15-20 fps on my med-high end machine (the game basically has DOOM level graphics with a few small particle effects for flames).
oh, and you never get to fight the demon. you come out in a room with a turtle and steel floors, and get a message that "Congratulations, You Won". still, it got me excited for Portal.
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Anonymous2006-07-21 6:28
saw this on joystik and was just awed.
Wonder how much processor power it takes to render the portals, like the 'infinite mirror' ones especially.
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Anonymous2006-07-22 10:15
Not much, it's just a copy-paste render procedure, they use something similar on the TV screens in HL2.
It's not processor intensive, they it just requires new render code. A render is say, a screen in the game that where the specific bits are mapped into the memory of the Videocard, then you take three or four of these screens and compile them together on one big screen and add the 3D perspective to it and voila.
That's how I think the rough mechanics of the stuff works.
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Anonymous2006-07-22 14:44
I tried that narbacular drop, hardly noticed a difference on speed with a portal, although it's fairly light anyway.