[HN Gopher] Portal 64 - A demake of Portal for the Nintendo 64
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Portal 64 - A demake of Portal for the Nintendo 64
Author : skibz
Score : 223 points
Date : 2023-09-04 15:27 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| etaioinshrdlu wrote:
| Is there any guide to getting this running on a real N64? I have
| an everdrive.
| bhaney wrote:
| I went ahead and built the newest version of the ROM into a
| .z64 (happened to have a copy of Portal on hand). Here's a
| magnet link for it if you just want to use it:
|
| magnet:?xt=urn:btih:5FAD6DBBF02D39AA40062D7F0F498F3F341F8DB3&tr
| =udp://tracker.opentrackr.org:1337/announce
| bluescrn wrote:
| Looks like you need a PC copy of Portal:
|
| https://github.com/lambertjamesd/portal64/releases
|
| (There's some older releases below as a ready-to-go .z64 rom
| image, though, which should be ready to run on an Everdrive)
| danbolt wrote:
| Lambert has also created new homebrew works that run on
| original hardware with the N64 SDK. His team has always been a
| finalist in the yearly jams.
|
| [1] https://teamultrarare.itch.io/telocation-gemini
|
| [2] https://teamultrarare.itch.io/mission-lost-control
|
| [3] https://teamultrarare.itch.io/styx
| andrepd wrote:
| By far my favourite demake of Portal is this one:
| https://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/451/45101.htm...
| bluescrn wrote:
| There's also a 2D demake for the C64:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK140z-ZX4Q
| derrasterpunkt wrote:
| Mine is Mari0: https://stabyourself.net/mari0/
| sillywalk wrote:
| Cool.
|
| Here's one for the Apple II [
| http://www.deater.net/weave/vmwprod/portal/ ]
|
| and the C64:
|
| https://tasvideos.org/2122G
| CaesarA wrote:
| I think this Apple II version of Portal is the best thing I
| have ever seen. Is this the same guy who did the Apple II
| version of Myst?
| djmips wrote:
| yes
| 0xC0ncord wrote:
| It's worth mentioning that the author has a YouTube channel[1]
| where he periodically posts videos showcasing updates he's made
| to the game over time. I'm surprised there isn't a link or even
| any kind of screenshots of the game on the Github repo, even if
| it is still very early in development.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/@happycoder1989/videos
| frfl wrote:
| Was wondering the same thing. If you search "screenshot" in the
| issues, there are a few screenshots people have uploaded,
| primarily in regards to demonstrating bugs.
|
| https://github.com/lambertjamesd/portal64/issues?q=screensho...
| beebeepka wrote:
| Looks much better than I expected. Hard to believe people are
| complaining about things this cool.
| driscoll42 wrote:
| Agreed, this repo is in desperate need of a few
| screenshots/video on the ReadMe to showcase what it looks like.
| pard68 wrote:
| I personally have found there is something of an art to a
| good readme. So folks can make one that is informative and
| visual, others can't. I have a project or two that suffered
| because my readme designing skills suck, then talented friend
| PR'd a great readme with screenshots and such.
| andai wrote:
| It may be an art, but I wouldn't say it takes much talent
| to include a screenshot, GIF or YouTube link! Most likely
| he just didn't give it much thought.
| Nition wrote:
| Weirdly even commercial software websites seem to do this
| a lot. Pages of text and some mostly-unrelated images
| with no screenshots at all. Sometimes you can learn more
| about a program from screenshots of it in Google Images
| than from the official website.
| Retr0id wrote:
| Speaking only for myself, often a project is in a half-
| finished state, and any provided screenshot would quickly
| become out of date.
| beezlewax wrote:
| You could probably automate a tool to take screenshot for
| you.
| yowzadave wrote:
| This sounds like a slippery slope into yak-shaving...next
| thing you'll open source your automated screen-shorting
| tool, and it will require a readme of its own!
| pard68 wrote:
| Should I write a new screenshot tool for the screenshot
| tool's readme?
| dharmab wrote:
| Your audiences imagination is probably even worse!
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Sounds like a good opportunity for a pull request!
| driscoll42 wrote:
| I opened an Issue on the Repo for it!
| dark_urges wrote:
| [flagged]
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Yes and yes. It's a hobby.
| 0xC0ncord wrote:
| A lot of times a demake is a challenge. Video game technology
| has evolved significantly, and being able to take a
| (relatively) modern video game and remake it on much older
| hardware while still having most of the game's original
| features is an impressive feat.
| dark_urges wrote:
| [flagged]
| theodric wrote:
| Pressure relief valve. People can't run at a 100% duty
| cycle for very long or they burn out. ASK ME HOW I KNOW
| fb03 wrote:
| How do you know?
| andrepd wrote:
| Do you think it's a waste for a chef to make scrambled eggs
| to enjoy with his family?
| Karunamon wrote:
| Openly opining on the (harmless) ways other people choose
| to spend their free time is generally seen as gauche.
| danjoredd wrote:
| Life isn't exclusively about being useful. Challenges like
| these are great for people, as it gives people a goal to
| reach that isn't work related.
| junon wrote:
| Woof, glad we have you around to tell us what to do with
| our lives. We'd be lost otherwise!
| psychphysic wrote:
| Sounds like you want to hire them?
|
| Or not pay them, and tell them what they can work on?
| slikrick wrote:
| and here you are commenting on HN. Nobody asked for your
| input on how others spend their time
| sqeaky wrote:
| This person thinks this is a good use of their time.
|
| Why do we care what you think? You clearly don't care what
| person putting in the hard work thinks.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| Is the purpose of life to only work on "useful" things? I
| ask that genuinely.
| 533474 wrote:
| The developer wouldn't be as talented if he didn't take on
| such challenging projects
| NobodyNada wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| I've spent many thousands of hours since my early teens
| messing around with retro games and gaming systems. I
| haven't accomplished anything as "big" as this person,
| but I've gotten to work on some cool things, and through
| that process I learn _so much more_ about computer
| architecture and low-level programming than I ever could
| through school or work. The time I've invested into that
| has paid off in job and educational opportunities that
| would not have been available to me otherwise.
|
| A hobby project that is both fun and hard is in my
| experience the best way to gain experience and develop my
| skills, regardless of whether it's "useful".
| pests wrote:
| CTRL+T, "demake", Enter
|
| That was a quicker solution to your question than posting on
| here.
| kristianp wrote:
| From [1]. " A demake is a video game remake on an older platform,
| or one which converts the game to an older graphical or gameplay
| style."
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Video_game_demakes
| psychphysic wrote:
| How long before versions are distributed ready to play?
| crtasm wrote:
| https://github.com/lambertjamesd/portal64/releases
|
| You need a file from the official Portal game, then it's an
| easy single step with an online tool to generate the demake
| ROM.
|
| edit: or see bhaney's download link on this thread.
| autoexec wrote:
| Hopefully before the project is taken down due to a DMCA
| notice!
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| By what party? Valve is famously community-friendly.
| ralferoo wrote:
| I'm sure GlaDOS would give it a try... You are trying to
| kill it after all.
| tczMUFlmoNk wrote:
| Nah, she's made her views clear on the matter.
| I'm not even angry I'm being so sincere right now
| Even though you broke my heart and killed me And
| tore me to pieces And threw every piece into a
| fire As they burned, it hurt because I was so
| happy for you Now these points of data make
| a beautiful line And we're out of beta, we're
| releasing on time So *I'm GLaD I got burned*;
| think of all the things we learned For the people
| who are still alive
|
| (emph. mine)
| hinkley wrote:
| > demake
|
| Maybe the author will explain what a "demake" is.
|
| Nope, he doesn't. No introduction section, just straight into
| compiler instructions. You have to make people care about your
| project, and right now I don't.
| atom-morgan wrote:
| I mean, I've never heard of the term either but the context of
| the title alone was enough for me to figure it out.
| floydnoel wrote:
| just curious, who made you the boss of what other people "have
| to" do with their hobby projects? seems like a big
| responsibility
| 0xC0ncord wrote:
| A "demake" is just a spin on "remake". Instead of remaking a
| game to be newer and "better", you remake it to be "older".
|
| Edit: adding that most demakes specifically involve remaking a
| game on much older hardware.
| [deleted]
| jrajav wrote:
| If there are many Wikipedia articles, and Youtube videos with
| millions of views on a given concept, at what point is the
| burden on you the reader to already know the concept or be able
| to look it up and learn it quickly?
| binarymax wrote:
| Latest demo video by the creator, mobile friendly:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OCBHdgbickE
| Ideenfindung wrote:
| I did not know this concept existed, Wonderful Idea, no doubt
| demakes would be a lot more frequent if we valued ecology and
| actually tried to curb digital obsolescence as much as possible,
| in a permacomputing way.
|
| I imagine it would be much more straightforward to port pretty
| much any indie games to consoles like Xbox original onwards, PS3
| onwards, Wii onwards, maybe Windows 7 average desktop and
| notebooks (lots of indies already use older direct x and are
| compatible with windows 7 , another win for the pc master race).
| The AAA Games would need to be done with less scale and no 4k
| dlss ray tracing whatever.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| This demake is an additional game. Seems like it will just add
| to the energy load required to run a computer programs. Which I
| think is fine, frankly. Perhaps some people will play it
| instead of portal but even still there is the overhead of
| developing it. I guess if we cared about ecology we'd shut down
| more game servers faster.
| bluescrn wrote:
| To 'save the planet' you want as many people playing video
| games, watching TV, or arguing on social media as possible.
|
| If they're doing those things, consuming digital
| entertainment (eventually powered by renewables), then
| they're not out in the real world, travelling around using
| fossil fuels, consuming physical products, using up physical
| resources and emitting CO2.
|
| Pretty bleak future though.
| sgu999 wrote:
| Or simply less people, busy doing what machine can't, with
| a bit less free time to spare. It's as bleak if we put
| ourselves in the shoes of the humans who wouldn't exist,
| but not that bleak for the ones who would...
| indolering wrote:
| > I imagine it would be much more straightforward to port
| pretty much any indie games to consoles like Xbox original
| onwards, PS3 onwards, Wii onwards, maybe Windows 7 average
| desktop and notebooks (lots of indies already use older direct
| x and are compatible with windows 7 ,
|
| Not a game developer, but given the lack of ports between
| current gen gaming systems I would assume that it is not
| straightforward. Sure, a game engine will magically pump out
| your game for different backends but even supporting Vulkan and
| Metal results in much gnawing and mashing of teeth (and a lack
| of games on Apple hardware).
|
| Then there is the developer ergonomics. I know that I hate
| having to write code to maintain compatibility for even 5 year
| old standards. Each GPU and game engine is also a unique
| clusterfuck of incompatibility and subtle bugs that crash the
| shit out of games. If you want to support that old hardware,
| you will need to test on the actual hardware. Why bother with
| all that when there is no money in it and your team just wants
| to move on from a project that already took 5 years of their
| lives to develop?
|
| Forward compatibility is something I strongly agree with but
| backwards compatibility is a logistical nightmare.
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| I was thinking the same - ecology. People need to have 3d
| Tetris with raytracing while there are millions of hours of old
| games to be played through. There are few titles that are
| avant-garde and IMO better in 3d, like GTA VC/SA, Minecraft is
| revelation of a sandbox game. But otherwise we don't need such
| good graphics and DLC, when we want story and playability.
| Recently we played with kids Pokemon fire Red - the world is
| huge and full of secrets. But I guess this only applies to me
| and my kids, because other kids I know (my brother's e.g.)
| don't like pixel games at all
| MayeulC wrote:
| While I agree with the sentiment, and it's awesome that a
| lower-specced version of the game exists...
|
| > port [...] to consoles like Xbox original
|
| Uuh, in the name of energy efficiency, let's not. My smartphone
| is much more powerful and has a much lower power consumption
| than these systems. My Steam Deck even more so, though it's
| higher-power than a phone.
|
| Targeting energy-efficient, low power hardware should be the
| goal, not porting to inneficient obsolete HW, IMO (though it's
| pretty cool, and demonstrates that you can do a lot with little
| computing power).
|
| Still, I agree that something that runs well on old commodity
| hardware can run well on most existing hardware, reducing the
| need for hardware upgrades.
|
| But my point is, running ond old HW is probably
| counterproductive if you only value ecology. At best, you could
| emulate old HW with much more efficient modern HW, and
| integrate most of the system on a single low power chip.
| cosarara wrote:
| The typical modern gaming PC uses a lot more power than the
| original xbox. Yes maybe it's more efficient because it's
| doing "more", but in the end it's one person playing a game.
| Whatever13 wrote:
| ''running ond old HW is probably counterproductive if you
| only value ecology'' I could be wrong, but i think the
| opposite than you.
|
| You are being reductionist, and only accounting for the
| factor of direct eletrical consumption during use, and not
| the total energy and natural resources spent during the
| equipments lifetime , specially its manufacturing (which i
| think is the real measure of ecological efficiency we should
| aim).
|
| The old hardware was already produced, resources were spent
| and pollution and emissions were made, so it is a duty that
| we should use it as much as possible until irrepairable
| breakdown happens, and reduce our consumption of new stuff
| that would only replace it. Like your example of a new
| smartphone or new steamdeck replacing the old Xbox Original:
| it is almost certain that the electrical consumption gains
| would not compensate, in terms of total energy and resources
| spent and pollution made, the discarting of the original xbox
| (in fact, it would generate more waste that would need to be
| reprocessed, generating even more pollution).
|
| Remember the 3Rs ? The 1st R is REDUCE, not ''replace stuff
| every 3-5 years to get slightly less eletric consumption''.
| It is kind of the point of the Permacomputing movement the OP
| mentioned: perma comes from perma-nent, make computers that
| last much longer lifespans than the current system. If people
| could repurpose old PS3s and Xbox for playing indies, and
| bigger games we demaked to it, people could keep using the
| stuff and buy less.
|
| A Few texts for inspiration:
| https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/12/how-and-why-i-
| stop... https://www.iltascabile.com/scienze/sostenibilita-
| digitale/
| lmm wrote:
| > Like your example of a new smartphone or new steamdeck
| replacing the old Xbox Original: it is almost certain that
| the electrical consumption gains would not compensate, in
| terms of total energy and resources spent and pollution
| made, the discarting of the original xbox
|
| Citation needed. We're talking about a huge difference in
| electrical efficiency.
| heinrich5991 wrote:
| > But my point is, running ond old HW is probably
| counterproductive if you only value ecology.
|
| Do you have a calculation for that? It's not entirely clear
| that this is the case if you factor in that the old hardware
| already exists and new hardware needs to be produced.
| idonotknowwhy wrote:
| This isn't an issue. A lot of us who mod old hardware, etc...
| Once we get the project working, we'll play the game for like
| 10 minutes a few times a year at most lol.
|
| Can't wait to fire up my 128mb ram modded og xbox today, to
| test the unreleased debug build of the need for speed game
| mvg dumpped yesterday. I'll probably play it for 10 minutes
| before I pack up the console again.
| CaesarA wrote:
| I was just watching a video about this, it's pretty cool and
| honestly impressive that it could be done on N64. They don't even
| have Half-Life 1 on N64, which makes me wonder if recreating
| Portal 1 decently in Goldsrc is possible.
| idonotknowwhy wrote:
| The got tomb raider one demake running on a GBA recently.
| Anything is possible
| mr_sturd wrote:
| Would probably make it liable to DMCA, but I wish they could have
| the rotating 'N cube' passing through two orthogonal portals on
| boot up.
|
| Looks like a great project. I'm going to have to give it a go on
| the emulator.
| StevenXC wrote:
| Maybe an option to provide your own ROM with that asset would
| be a work around?
| Janicc wrote:
| He should publish an emulated version on steam with an option
| to download the rom through it. Valve usually lets others use
| their IP then.
| idonotknowwhy wrote:
| This works on the new N64 FPGA core for the MiSTer
| tmountain wrote:
| Sounds like a really cool project, but I would love to see some
| screenshots or videos.
| dale_glass wrote:
| Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCBHdgbickE
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(page generated 2023-09-04 23:00 UTC)