[deater] readily admits they’re a little behind on what’s new in gaming – only having just gotten around to Valve’s 2007 release of Portal. It’s a popular game, but [deater] didn’t want anyone to miss out on the fun – so set about porting Portal to the Apple II.
The port uses the “hires” mode of the Apple II for the flashy graphics that were state of the art around 1980 or so. It’s not a copy of the full game – only the first and last levels, combined with Jonathan Coulton’s now-classic ending theme, Still Alive. As is to be expected, it’s not a wild, fast paced gaming experience, but a cool use of BASIC to put together a fun tribute to a popular franchise.
It’s a little different to the original – portals can be placed anywhere, for example – but it rings true to the original. Source code and a disk image is provided, so you can try it for yourself – even in this online emulator.
We’re looking forward to the sequel so we can use the post title “Portal 2 Ported To The Apple II, Too”, but until then, check out [deater]’s Apple II web server, also in Applesoft BASIC. Video after the break.
Shall we run a pool on how long to port the port to arduino?
It looks great, but it’s agony watching that cursor move around!
Making it work with a light pen would be amazing.
The people on comp.sys.apple2.programmer have talked me into trying to add Apple II mouse support.
No this message is not some sort of weird flashback to 1987.
And I’ve just committed code that lets you use the joystick (or paddles if you’re really old school) to aim. It hurts the frame rate though :( Rapidly hitting the point where things need to be in assembly language.
Not a port, just a homage to the original.
Seriously. What a clickbait title.
Well to be fair I don’t really have a working time machine either.
Also, I think the 25,000 floppy disks needed to hold a full install of Portal would be a bit unworkable.
I’ll grant that it’s not a port in the most literal sense, but it makes for a way funnier title, and generally the Hackaday audience is educated enough to understand that nobody’s porting the Source engine to the Apple II for real anytime soon. Solid homage though!
Ported as in completely rewritten?
Yes!
No, he wrote an x86 emulator in AppleSoft BASIC, and it runs the original game binaries.
Turing complete is Turing complete, yo.
Cheese everywhere!