A demake of Portal aims to successfully run the game on an N64. It’s certainly a creative twist on the “Can It Run Doom” meme.

Unlike some forms of demake which simply try to recreate a game with the graphical style of an earlier console, this is an actual remake of the game on N64 hardware.

Porgrammer James Lambert has been working on the game for some time but has just released a video to show he’s achieved the biggest technical goal: the mindbending display of the in-game portals. He says he wanted to confirm that this was even technically possible before working on other elements of the game such as sound.

As well as working out what Chell would be able to see through the portal, the game can handle the recursive effect when portals placed in front and behind the player, meaning they see their current room repeated in a line. In the video Lambert demonstrates a chain of 14 repetitions (to the point that the “furthest” is barely visible), though he will likely reduce the number to avoid processing demands impacting gameplay.

Chell herself is also missing from the portal view, though that’s another task on the to-do list.

Lambert notes one way he handled memory limitations was to only load textures as and when they are needed for the specific room the player is in. He’s made the code of the project so far available on Github.