Portal Lead Designer Reveals Her New Game: Quantum Conundrum
- Thread starter The Wooster
- Start date
I'm going to have to disagree on that. In my experience, if there's any design space the students can take ownership of at all, they will. Furthermore, in projects where the specification isn't assigned by an outside force, someone on the team, essentially, wrote the specification, and, if the idea is any good, it will almost certainly end up being that person's baby.NickCaligo42 said:
This is not actually a bad thing, IMO, as long as the person in question recognizes it and nobody finds it objectionable. Where you have problems is when either people's perceptions, and possibly their egos, don't match up with reality. There's still room for humility and highlighting the parts other people played in this, but, honestly, there will be someone leading the charge.
On the other hand, I may have misunderstood what you mean by "auteur-driven", but this is based on my (admittedly limited and anecdotal) experience from school. If there isn't someone who really, truly believes in a student-defined product beyond its value in getting a grade, it really won't be terribly remarkable.
Well, it seems like fun. Kind of reminds me of Time Fcuk though, but then I loved that and this seems to have a better asthetic, so I think I will buy it when it comes out. I'm not expecting it to live up to Portal though, not without Ellen McLain's voice unnerving me every step of the way. The fact that it's being produced by Square Enix is also giving me reason to be cautious, but I think "being developed by Portal creator" will still balance that out on the good side.
Hopefully it doesn't run into the trouble of advertising what puzzle mechanics are needed for each room. The batteries thing seemed to point out that "fluffy" dimension is going to be used this level!
Same issue later levels in portal had. When there's few sections to put portals on, it's fairly easy to figure out the puzzle
Same issue later levels in portal had. When there's few sections to put portals on, it's fairly easy to figure out the puzzle
Assuming the actual switching of dimensions is easy and flows well then color me interested (or fluffy if you wish). Hopefully there is some great humour (probably not going to be as bark as Portal's humour, but you never know)
Looks like it might be pretty good - kind of like a lighter, Neo-Victorian version of Portal. Although the dimension-shifting mechanic seems like it lacks some kind of... elegance that the solutions to the portal puzzles have. There was just something clunky about how she got the safe past the lasers near the end.
I didn't say creatively driven, I said auteur-driven. IE: one student took control as a lead and the majority the game's creative imprint belongs to that student. Yes, students can be self-motivated and directed in their research and development, but my point is that it's almost never attributable to a single student. In fact, taking the "I want to be the sole creative director of this project" attitude more often than not is a great way to alienate the entire classroom, simply because of how presumptuous it is.rickynumber24 said:
After reading the article I was concerned that this would feel too close to the mold of Portal, but I quite enjoyed the video. The formatting is similar but then it's a puzzle game, one rather expects a sequential number of puzzles. (Otherwise it's an Adventure game and you're always running around trying to figure out if the new doohicky you picked up does something in previous areas).
It looked to me like the time-slowing mechanic was permanent, not provided by a battery or that machine thing, so I'd say there's at least three more.Grey Carter said:
Anyway, I'm intrigued. It's really not all that much like Portal, and the mechanics seem like fun. I'll probably grab it when I can, although her presentation was awful.
This looks so much better than Portal. Portal actually bored me. It was piss easy and overhyped. The only reason entire Escapist loves Portal is because Yahtzee said it's awesome. But it really isn't. Yes it's innovative, yes it's funny. But it's easy. It's like a game for retarded people. It takes 3 hours to complete it. Humor was the best part of Portal. It looks like gameplay will the the best part of this game.
Interesting game, love the fluffy dimension and also more science! It's sort of like spiritual successor to the portal games. Let's just hope that the uncle's disappearance had nothing to do with trying to do more testing that a certain homicidal AI 
Puzzles seem reasonably clever, although not quite at the awesome mind bending level of Portal yet. If they go all creative and use 3 'dimenions' at once it could be very interesting.
The puzzles seem pretty clever and i'm sure that just like in Portal, the puzzles will become harder and harder as you progress through the game.
It looks pretty interesting and definitely worth keeping an eye on.
It looks pretty interesting and definitely worth keeping an eye on.
Yea. What's funny to me is that it's what I imagined Portal 2 was going to be. Not that I was disappointed with Portal 2 but I'm glad that this is being done by the originator.DarkRyter said:
FLUFFY! I'm looking foward to this game. It looks great.
Wow, Kim Swift is an awesome person. She was responsible for Portal and now this gem. Also, her "Yaaay" after solving a puzzle is cute.
Wow, Kim Swift is an awesome person. She was responsible for Portal and now this gem. Also, her "Yaaay" after solving a puzzle is cute.
Looks like there could be multiple solutions to puzzles.
When she mentioned the cloner (before I knew about the time slow mechanic) I thought she'd clone the box and stack them ontop of each other to block the laser.
If all/most the puzzles have multiple solutions rather than railroading it'll be a nice touch.
When she mentioned the cloner (before I knew about the time slow mechanic) I thought she'd clone the box and stack them ontop of each other to block the laser.
If all/most the puzzles have multiple solutions rather than railroading it'll be a nice touch.
