Project Summary
My Senior Project is creating a new game called Portal Chess. It’s a board game inspired by the hit video games Portal and Portal 2 by Valve (the same people who run Steam). I originally started this project back in 2018, but for this semester I decided to finish it and added an additional version too, making two games.
Inspiration, Goals, and Drafting Process
The first step in any project is setting expecations and getting a feel for what you’re doing. I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to do, but I remembered my goal initially in 2018 was to create a new, fun version of chess that sucessfully implemented the concept of portals from the valve games. The only reason I stopped working on it was because I couldn’t get the portal mechanics into the game quick enough during playtime.
With this run of the project, I took my original portal chess set from 2018 and reconsidered what I could add to it to make it work better. I started by reconsidering how portals were shot and how they landed, as well as basic mechanics like un-portal-able tiles and how the player could die. I did a mock up of the pieces based off the look of the original game. Once I had played around with that long enough, I switched gears and started implementing new mechanics based off of the game.
As I started making the new mechanics, I also started making my own tiles and designs. This was really hard for me however, because around this time I was showing my roommate my old 2018 (now known as “Classic”) version of Portal Chess, and he figured out a solution to make it work which I hadn’t tried before.
At this point, I really wanted to go back to my original version, but my mentor (Brother Eric Lybbert) and I decided it would be better to focus on the new version (now called the 2026 edition).
Tiles
I started working on tiles with matching textures, taking inspiration from early pixelated game design. Initially, I planned for there to be no grid lines so that it would be seamless, but later I re-added them because it was easier for the player to use.
After creating this first tileset, my mentor wanted me to pivot for some reason. In retrospect it was likely a misunderstanding or miscommunication, but this brought me back to the grid system as I made whole new textures with more detail. Below you will see the different stages of each map as my style evolved and grew.
I also planned to make multiple tilesets, and here’s one of the new maps, as well as a preview of other unused tiles:
The Box and 3D Printing
I ended up later designing a box to hold both versions, but unfortunately that box was not finished in time for the senior showcase. But this was why I ended up making both games simultaneously. Here are some mockups of the final box- the front cover would be able to come off and the box could be used as a chessboard for the classic verion of Portal Chess. The above maps would be printed on laminated cardstock and included within the box for the 2026 version to use (I even designed a little lip in the inner bottom of the box so it’d be easier to take them out).
I did have plans to custom-print Portal Chess pieces, but time was slipping away, and there were many tweaks I had to do to the tiles and such, so I decided to give up that aspect for now. It’s something I can do later, and it’s not something I took a class here for, so it shouldn’t be wasting my valuable project time. Here are some screenshots however (By the way, I did make the cubes, and they did make it into the final 2026 version of the game for button-based puzzles).
I was able to 3D print the standard chess pieces in orange and blue (the color scheme of both Portal and Portal Chess) and the portal tiles needed for both versions of the game.
The Instructions
Of course I made instructions for both games! It would be ridiculous if I hadn’t! Below are the instructions for Portal Chess, both the 2018 and 2026 versions! If you want to try it out, the 2018 version is simple enough- just use matching coins instead of the portal tiles with any regular chess set.
Thank you Brother Lybbert for believing in me, being so very patient with me, and for helping me get this project done.
(Below are other screenshots of the process)
