I’m sure there are many reasons, design-wise, why it wouldn’t work. This all began when I wondered about the “closing a portal while a character is going through it”, and how demanding for hardware would be that kind of collision detection… yet gaming should’ve already advanced in that direction. (Consider this the first in a series of comics about “What Gaming Should Already Do, But Doesn’t, Because Graphics Became the Focus at Some Point”.)

As how such a game would proceed, I was inspired mostly by pro-wrestling ladder matches. I was thinking how their psychology sometimes dictate not for the wrestler to climb the ladder, but to take out the opponents instead in order to have a clear path. For PortalVS., a time limit would ensure constant movement, but you’d have to choose to make a run for the exit or block the path of your opponents… or try to do both. The maps would have to be complex, perhaps with moving parts, and, obviously, danger zoooneeeeees.

This moves away from the simplicity of Portal‘s concept, and I’m the first to acknowledge that, even if something like this could be put together, it would be confusing and probably not fun to play… but hey, Portal always sort of reminded me of the movie Cube, only more forgiving. I had fun imagining a more hectic, desperate and bloody variation of this classic game.

–Pedro Arizpe

PS. Valve please don’t sue.