I was poking around for interesting Portal 2 maps to play, and instead found an entire mod that replaces the portal gun with a gun that shoots the blue and orange gel from Portal 2. Even better, it has an entire storyline with a new character.
Aperture Tag is a mod inspired by Tag: The Power Of Paint, the student game which eventually became the gels in Portal 2. If you’re like me, when you played Portal 2, you covered every room in as much bouncy gel as possible. Well now it’s a whole lot easier, and you can colour coordinate the walls with orange gel.
Motanum had already been designing maps for Source games, so when the “Perpetual Testing Initiative” was released, a Valve employee got in touch with him. He asked if they had any interest in making a paint gun. When the answer was no, he decided to do it himself.
The mod itself is 26 levels, which Motanum describes as “like a Portal 2 DLC”. I played through a few of them and I can’t wait to finish them. Thinking with paint is a whole lot different than thinking with portals, and I think I might be too used to just looking for the white panels. But one thing is for sure: covering a level in gels never gets old.
Aperture Tag is up for voting on Greenlight right now so that it can be released on the store as a mod instead of just a map pack. From the FAQ:
Why a mod and not a map pack?
A mod offers me more freedom. I can change the menu, viewmodel, etc. And it makes developing this much more easier.
In case you’re wondering about price, Motanum doesn’t know if he’ll charge for the mod. From what I’ve seen it’s definitely worth a couple bucks, but he’s considering releasing it for free. Either way, he says he’ll be releasing the source files he created so that people can build their own Tag levels.
Go vote on Aperture Tag here on Greenlight here!
Comments
8 responses to “Someone Made A New Portal 2 Campaign… Without Portals”
This is brilliant. Whenever my brother and I make maps, we use LOADS of gel, because it really appeals for some reason. Kind of like making your mark on the level.
I remember that one spot in the main game itself, I think it was in the same spot as the lemon rant where you had to use that white paint…I didn’t leave until it had gotten everywhere.
Heh. I think my only Portal 2 screenshots are of doing that.
My brother put a white paint thing in one of his maps and he was nagging me to test it. “Have you done it yet? Have you done it yet? Fine, I’m going to dinner, tell me when you’re done.”
*LATER*
“Oh hey, so how’d you go with my map?”
“Still workin’ on it.”
“Uh… what?”
“MUST PAINT EVERYTHING.”
“Oh god, I should’ve known… I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
Omg! This is technically the original prototype of Portal 2 haha. That’s exactly how Portal 2 was going to be initially, instead of a portal gun, you would have the paints.
I guess without portals they realised it would need to be renamed.
Actually, paint wasn’t the original mechanic they had in mind for portal 2. Valve worked on a prequel for about a year, using a mechanic called ‘F stop’. They have not said what the mechanic was, although apparently it was pretty awesome and they intend to use it in some future game. After they scraped the prequel idea, that’s when they brought back portals and hired the guys who made ‘Tag: the power of paint’.
Looks great!
Now you’re thinking with port-
Wait….
Looks like Quake III. Which is a good thing.