GDC: Portal dev discusses "the Nintendo factor"

Wrapping up the Monday sessions at GDC's Independent Games Summit, Valve's lovely Kim Swift has taken to the podium to share a few words on how she went from student developer to working on the head-flipping Half-Life FPS Portal.

Surprisingly, Swift points much of her game's success to "the Nintendo factor", which she says helped her straighten out the gameplay in her original student project Narbacular Drop - on which Portal is based.

"We wanted our game to have the Nintendo factor," she told the GDC audience. "We wanted to create one piece of gameplay that could be used for a whole bunch of different things."

"So for example Mario jumps, but with that jump people can do a whole bunch of other things; he can jump on enemies, he can break blocks, he can collect power ups. We wanted the same thing in Narbacular drop too - we wanted portals to be used not just to run away but to be used for a whole bunch of other things."

Swift also reveals that it took "about the same time" to develop both Narbacular Drop and Portal, with most of the gameplay mechanics up and running in just 8 months. "This was all our work; all seven of us poured our heart and soul into Portal," she says.

Look for more Portal info nuggets in the wee hours of tomorrow morning, when we'll brave jetlag and heavily-salted snacks to go hands-on with the puzzle-FPS.

Via cvg