It's time to kick some ass!

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Posted by Nicolas (permalink)

Well... first, Happy New Year 2009 to everyone. I was kinda busy during the 31st and the 1st, and I didn't find the time to pass by. I don't know how it works in other countries, but in France we have a deal that says you can wish the new year until the 31st of january. So here it is.

Then, I'm writing here to spread the word about something big that has just started today. The ModDB's Mod of the Year Awards Event! Yes, it's time to try to kick some ass and be one of the best mods of 2008 (or not!). What I'd like our fans to do now, is vote for us on ModDB.com.

You can vote without creating an account, but guest votes only count in the event of a tie. So, if you could create an account and vote for us, it would be great! Remember that you can vote several times for any mods you may like. For example, I voted for D.I.P.R.I.P., Insurgency and Black Mesa (even if I hate the way they teased us for several years without releasing anything). Click on the ModDB's MOTY logo on the left to get started! We know there's some serious competition this year, but hey... we're not trying to win at all cost, we just want to appear in the first 10 or 20, or something like that.

Finally, I'm also here to say that the 1.1.5 update is nearing its completion and that I should make it available soon, most probably during the next week. It will be a full release only, because mostly everything was altered. But you don't need to download it if you already played the game, it's only a bunch of minor fixes and a few additions (no voice remake sorry, I said only if we get our hands on steamworks).

PS: A new "They talked about us" section appeared during the last weeks. We collected every material we could find of people talking about our mod and stuffed it in this section. If you spotted something interesting that we didn't saw, tell us!

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Merry Christmas!

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Posted by Nicolas (permalink)

My team and I would like to wish you a merry Christmas!
During the last weeks, a lot of fans asked for some download link to the new tracks of the 1.1.0 version. I thought I'd give it to you for Christmas, so here it it with an exclusive track/remix made by Valentin Brunn that I just found:

• Exclusive Valentin Brunn - Still Alive Prelude
  You can go and comment on his Vimeo page!
• Jarrett Heather - Still Alive
• Morgani (Snaks) - Still Alive (techno remix)
• Razor Red Noise - Still Alive (rock remix)
• TaVeRiC - Still Alive (r&b remix)

Edit: By the way, we just reached the 300,000 confirmed downloads cap.
There may be more, but we can't possibly count everything and everyone.
Thanks to all the people who supported us!

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Not dead at all

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Posted by Nicolas (permalink)

We are definitely not dead.
In fact, we are more awake than ever. That's right, our little vacations now looks like a whole abandon of the community and the support, but I really needed time to concentrate on my real life a bit. My two friends got their lives back too, Jérémy got back to school and Marc found a job at Ubisoft France, congratz for him.

I know I still need to fix a few things out and include a few more translations in the installation package, but I'm lazy as hell right now, and I've got a million things to think about besides this project. I also need to find and get a copy of all the videos and papers/magazines that talked about us during the last months. You know, we're collecting things and stuffing it in a folder to get this saved somewhere.

Since a few weeks, a lot of people started asking us "what's next?" and well... nothing related to Portal, that's a fact. Marc, a friend and I are now working on something completely different, something related to another Valve game that came out recently. Of course, we're not going to tell anything about it before we have some great visuals and progress to show. And of course, this will not be the purpose of this website, still related to Portal: Prelude after all. We'll see.

Seeya!

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Portal: Prelude Challenges Ladder

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Posted by Nicolas (permalink)

On our forums, I met a couple of guys that are plain crazy and defy each others to see which one of them will manage to beat the challenges of Portal: Prelude in the least time, steps and portals. These guys are so skilled at Portal that most people can't even understand what they're doing on these videos!
Check this out:

This is why I decided to build them their own little official ladder, where everyone can see who made the best score and how. On this new page, you will find the best scores for each challenge of Portal: Prelude without exploiting bugs. Now, if you think you can beat one of those scores, we urge you to record yourself, to upload the video somewhere and to send us the following informations via our forum or to challenges@portalprelude.com.
In case of draw, the upload date will act as an extra proof (the older, the better).

• Challenge type (least portals, least steps, least time)
• Number of the chamber (3-5, 7-19)
• Score (number of portals, steps, seconds)
• Nickname of the author (displayed on the website)
• URL of the proof (the video you recorded to prove your score)
• URL of the author's website (to advertise a bit)

A last one to conclude this post, it never gets old:

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Radio Silence

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Posted by Nicolas (permalink)

Pfiou... it has been a hell of a month since the release. For the moment, we didn't made a final debriefing yet, because every member of the team (including myself) is taking vacations since the release of the 1.1.0 update. All we can say is that the downloads are still increasing at an incredible speed of 3,000 a day (and that doesn't include all the downloads started from another website than portalprelude.com).

So far so good, I was not posting anymore because I'm taking a huge break. You know, seeing the family, going out, sleeping, playing, and such. And for god's sake, the early demo of Left 4 Dead stole me a dozen of hours during the last days. This game is so freaking genius. The demo only has 2 levels and still, I played it 15 or 20 times on Advanced and Expert mode without even doing the same thing once. And by the way, playing the infected is even more stressful than playing the survivors, as you're soooo weak, alone.

For the moment, no one is working on the mod. I fixed a few bugs since the 1.1.0, I was supposed to release a hotfix two days after its release but that would have definitely been a bad idea (not enough delay between the two patches). So, I'm delaying everything for the moment. I also stopped replying to emails, that's why I may have missed your email lately. And if you didn't see it, Portal: Prelude is "Moddb's Staff Selection for October 08". Great!

That's all for the news. Ah, no, there's something else.
Does anyone wonder why Valve never even sent us an email to share their impressions? Why don't they bother answering our questions when we send some? And why on earth do they keep replying "We are not willing to communicate on Portal: Prelude for the moment" to everyone? We're really sad to see that no one there took 5 minutes to write us something. I'd not say we made this entire mod only to get in touch with someone from Valve, because it's not true. But it would have been definitely kick-ass and most mod had this chance.

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