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Portaball - portals based puzzle game running on Chipmunk

Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2010 5:28 pm
by Ciechan
Hi guys!

First of all I'd like to thank Scott for his amazing job on Chipmunk. It's so hard to express my astonishment for his project, Chipmunk is simply great. When I've started iPhone development this summer, I've decided it would be nice to begin my 'career' with a game. Back then I was replaying Valve's Portal for the 10th time, loving every single minute of it once again. It was quite obvious that I would love to make a game inspired by portals orientated environment and having very little skills in programming in general, I went for a 2D version. I quickly realized I had absolutely no idea how to implement even basic collision detection system, but I've somehow came across Chipmunk and I was saved! ;)

So what is Portaball all about? It's unique, portals based puzzle game. In Portaball your only goal is to guide ball throughout a level. The thing is, you can only do this by spawning portals, they allow ball to get teleported.

Let's have a look at the first level of Portaball, just to grasp the idea:

Image

As you can see, it doesn't seem that complicated. In fact it's really simple. However, should one find it troubling, great tutorial system is implemented, guiding player through game concept and different new elements.

## Awesome game fact: First version of Portaball was developed in 49 days

Main features of Portaball are:
- 80 Amazing Levels
- 23 Achievements
- Exciting Challenges
- Game Center Integration
- Retina Display Support

Portaball is all about thinking. Player can pause the game anytime, maintaining ability to spawn portals. This will often be quite handy, this game is not trivial. Take note, that finishing level fulfills player with this amazing feeling of "Damn, I'm really clever!". ;)

Image

Portaball was featured in AppStore a couple of times:

- New and Noteworthy in Germany and Austria
- Game Center Game in Australia, New Zealand, France, Ireland and United Kingdom

## Awesome game fact: Portaball is entirely one man job

Useful links:
iTunesPreview: http://itunes.apple.com/app/portaball/id392543691?mt=8#
iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/app/portaball
official blog: http://portaball.blogspot.com/

There is also lite version available, it contains 20 levels from full version and, obviously, is free of charge:
Portaball Lite on iTunesPreview : http://itunes.apple.com/app/portaball-l ... 84658?mt=8

If you guys are interested, I can write a little bit more about which features of Chipmunk Portaball is using.

Re: Portaball - portals based puzzle game running on Chipmunk

Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2010 6:19 pm
by slembcke
Just beat the first 15 or so levels. The sounds and little animations are great. Definitely a very clever game.