By now, most of you have probably played Portal 2, the sequel to the critically acclaimed Valve puzzle game. There are still portals, but there are also plenty of new puzzle elements to keep things fresh. Two of those puzzle elements in Portal 2 are the Repulsion Gel and Propulsion Gel, but this is not the first time gels have been used in a puzzle game.
Back in 2008, a
group of IGF students self-named the Tag Team developed a small, 45 minute
puzzle game titled Tag: The Power of Paint. This game gives the player a paint
gun, and multiple types of paint to cover the environment with. There are three
different types of paint at your disposal. There’s Jump paint, which bounces
you upward when you walk on it, Speed paint, which lets you walk faster while
you’re in contact with it, and Stick paint, which lets you walk on any surface you sprayed it.
While there are some puzzles in the early stages of Tag that
require you to only use one paint, most of them require using two types
of paint in conjunction, gradually introducing the new paints and environmental
tools, such as elevators and billboards with differing paint properties.
Why is this relevant to Portal 2? Well, besides the obvious
connection between the paints and gels, before Portal 2 was announced, Valve
hired Tag Team to work in their studios. Besides Portal 2, perhaps Tag Team
will work on a project of their own with Valve’s resources behind them? One can
hope.
You can download Tag: The Power of Paint from its page at the Digipen website.