Introducing Portal Worlds

Today portal worlds open to everyone on Remix. A portal world is a 3D place you run around in. Each one is full of portals you can see through, and when you walk into one, you are standing in the next world. No menu, no loading screen.

Why worlds

Every game on Remix used to be a thing you open, play and close. That is a great loop for a two-minute game. It is a bad fit for what I kept wanting to build: places. A kitchen counter the size of a city. A rooftop skyline at midnight. A video store where the tapes take you into the movies.

A place is worth more when it connects to other places. So every world on Remix links to other worlds, and the links are the doors themselves. You see the next world through the portal before you step through it, so every portal is a reason to keep walking.

Walk in

Craig's Kitchen shrinks you to toy size on a giant butcher-block counter. Climb the cereal box, pop out of the toaster, race a wind-up kart three laps against your own ghost, then leave through a glazed donut, a hot skillet or the microwave.

Neon Heights is a synthwave city of floating rooftops. Ride the hex pads and neon ferries from tower to tower, or grab the blaster on the plaza and hunt glitches.

Rewind Video is a neighborhood video store on a rainy night. Pick a tape from the Staff Picks shelf, take it to the counter, and step through the screen into the movie.

Paper Grove is a pop-up storybook where a paper crane carries you around the pages, and Blocky Isles is a chain of voxel islands joined by stepping stones and slime blocks. There are 18 worlds live today, and each one leads to more.

Worlds have games inside them too: a kart race on the kitchen counter, glitch hunting on the rooftops. Each world saves your progress, so you can leave and come back.

Bring friends

Worlds are better with people in them. Play Together shows which friends are in a world right now and lets you jump in beside them. Inside, you can send quick chat and form a party.

Play anywhere

Portal worlds play on remix.gg in a computer browser and in Remix Desktop. Use a keyboard and mouse, or pick up a controller: A jumps, X sprints and B talks to people and reads signs. Press Escape any time for the world menu.

They also play in phone browsers. The world plays sideways, with a stick for moving, a Jump button, a button that changes with what you are near, and the rest of the screen for turning the camera. The Remix app on iOS and Android shows a preview of each world for now.

In newer worlds, you play as your own Remix avatar.

Build one

In Remix Desktop, Portal is the third choice in the create flow, next to phone and computer games. Describe the place you want: the time of day, the landmarks, the things to do. Every world starts from the same foundation, so the camera, controls, portals, menus and saves already work. In Studio's Portals tab, you choose which worlds your portals lead to.

Worlds go through the same review as every phone game before they go live.

Start in Craig's Kitchen, walk through the donut, and see where you end up.