Message to Valve: "Hire This Team!"

those guys should really help, developing hl3 or on an other valve project. i really hated the underwater stuff in the first half life and hl2 they hadn't any.
or imagine this: using the portal-gun to suck out water from one point and spill it from an other. goddamn, that would be rad!!!

Brad, I'm going to have to 100% agree. The water physics above the water are one thing in a closed enviroment. But think of the possibilities they can have with underwater and open world water physics. Fighting dudes on boats and all of a sudden a wave knocks everyone down. Holy poop someone needs to just hire these geniouses before I have a fit.

The main character in this game could be an archrival/sidekick for Infamous, or just the star of another sequel entirely. Either way, these guys need to be hired by someone.

Oh God Brad Captain Planet? Nostalgia time!
But ya Valve hiring them could be a major aquisition

Is water still a tech problem though? Its my understanding that water is extremely hard to implement in a game...or at least implement it well. It eats up a ton of resources and doesnt leave much room for the rest of the game. Bioshock implemented it well but was just a small portion of the world.

A water manipulator gun actually sounds incredibly kick ass. It'd be awesome if Valve picked up this team to do work for them. Valve seems like it's always open to new ideas.

Beast of a team...

I agree that it would be interesting to see Valve do something with this team.. If they ever did hire them.. Which I doubt, but I can just imagine them implementing the water physics into something like portal e.g. shooting one portal into a flooded room and the other into a room full of guards and just watching waves of water flood in and take out the guards.. it would be great to see something like that.

I’m probably going to end up being the only cynic in these comments, but the water manipulation gameplay didn’t impress me as much as I was hoping it would. The biggest reason for this was because throughout that whole video all I could think of is,”Ok, so once you take away the water effect, it’s basically telekinesis.” Rewatch it again, only imagining no water and someone like Nick Scryer or Starkiller as the playable character. See? So ultimately the water isn’t so much a gameplay innovation as it is a cosmetic effect that justifies how you manipulate the environment and enemies, which in itself is still not a bad idea. But even then I don’t think it looks as good as it’s made out to be. The water physics in Hydrophobia (Hell, in any game really) doesn’t behave like how I picture real water would. The viscosity seems like it’s always high and it ends up looking like a liquid layer instead of a natural free flowing substance. Maybe the reason for this though is because of the actual game. It’s a downloadable title so they’re obviously not able to have all the super flashy particle splash effects and what not that bigger companies can afford to do to make the effect look more dramatic and believable.
So yeah, having them join Valves team could make this tech more amazing, maybe even help them develop it to the point where it becomes extremely realistic. However, I still think we haven’t gotten to that point. I’d go so far as to say that Fracture and it’s terraforming tech had more new and potentially unique gameplay properties (Not saying the game didn’t suck ass beans though. In fact, Fractures a great example of a game where immensely promising technology can’t save a mediocre as all hell package).
Hmm, retrofitting the properties of the Gravity Gun with the ability to trap large substances of water though sounds like an amazing idea. Aim at water, pull out a sphere of water. Pass said water through open power generator, create ball of electric water. Pass through leaking liquid nitrogen, create a ball of ice. Shoot ball of water at extremely hot area/ huge fire, create a cloud of steam blinding your enemies. And who says it needs to be water? And where the fuck is my Episode 3? Fffffffffffff.

I agree, could you imagine what Valve could do with this tech?

HAH. I would love to see a realistic-water physics manipulation game on machines that are made from 2005 era!

Oh wait.

Really though, while Hydrophobia uses a sliver of this technology and is able to perform well, what platform can they develop a full, water manipulative game? Or WHEN?

The scenarios in this game are very limited (10 guys in the room, kill them with water! rinse lather repeat) but I feel with current technology that's as far as we can get!

Different objects with varying weight and density, currents, momentum, force feedback on character... Thats alot of CPU power. PS3 and 360 just won't power it, and the audience would be too small to constitute it on PC.

Imagine an Avatar Airbender Action-RPG where you can be a water bender and control oceans and streams. Nice, isn't it?

yes, I agree

Cosmic and Manulito have great examples of why this should happen. I'm 100% in agreement.

Valve really outdid themselves by making a game way ahead of it's time(Portal). It amazes me every time I play it that this game that was made so long ago outshines a lot of games in this generation. As you said Brad: if there's one developer that could take water physics and game play to the next level, it would be valve...without a doubt!

I never knew of the origins of Portal, and the new paint features of Portal 2. Anyways, I do agree with you that from what I've seen this developer did with water effects for an arcade game, Valve picking them up would be amazing.

Valve also hired the team that made the Unreal Tournament 2004 Alien Swarm mod. The team then recreated Alien Swarm with the Source game engine and are now handing it out for free on Steam