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Portal turret animation6/13/2023 They loved the “A-ha!” moment that occurs when the solution finally clicks, but were frustrated when they then had to struggle with the controls to put that solution into practice. J.G.: What impact did fan feedback have on the development of this game?Į.W.: The biggest piece of feedback we received from Portal 1 was that, while people really loved thinking through the puzzles, they generally didn’t enjoy it when the puzzles then required tricky execution skills to finish. There’s never been a better time to be a professional game designer. And because of digital distribution systems like Steam, these boutique developers can actually earn a living making really interesting niche titles. J.G.: What excites you about designing games for the PC gaming landscape today?Į.W.: Because it’s an open platform, the PC lets small teams try out some really innovative games. We also took advantage of the larger team by creating an environment that’s evolving in real time as the player is progressing through the puzzles. Since players have destroyed Aperture Laboratories at the end of Portal 1, we used the premise of GLaDOS reassembling the facility to show players the destruction they’d caused. We always had this idea in our heads that the test chambers were modularly assembled and could be rebuilt. Besides the co-op play, one of the things we really wanted to do in the original game - but didn’t have the manpower to do - was to create a living, breathing facility. With this game, we had over 30 people working on it. J.G.: Can you talk about how improvements in technology and your team size enabled you to innovate with Portal 2?Į.W.: Portal 1 was made with seven or eight employees. We had a lot of ideas that we couldn’t put into the original game and we were able to really explore a lot of those with this game in the co-op. Environment tagging was the key to making co-op work, because it allowed players to visually communicate where to add a portal quickly. It took the designers a little while to really wrap their heads around it. J.G.: What were the challenges of designing this co-op gameplay?Į.W.: We had to design co-op puzzles that one person couldn’t do on his own. For the single-player game, we wanted to expand the number of puzzle elements, introduce some new characters, and tell a surprising new story inside the fun house of science that is Aperture Laboratories. Portal 2 features a complete co-op experience with its own set of puzzles and its own story. Going into Portal 2, we wanted to formalize that co-op style of play and get a controller into the second person’s hand. We had co-workers who’d play the game with their wives or girlfriends or friends. J.G.: What were your goals heading into this sequel?Į.W.: After Portal 1 shipped, we noticed a lot of players were improvising a cooperative mode where two people would think through the puzzles with just one of them working the controller. ![]() You’re the test subject who’s the prisoner of an insane artificial intelligence, GLaDOS, that’s putting you through an increasingly dangerous and complex series of tests. J.G.: For those out there who haven’t played the 2007 Portal, can you explain what this game is all about?Įrik Wolpaw: Portal 2 is a 3D action-adventure puzzle game in which you have a portal gun that shoots two interlinked, inter-dimensional gates that you can use to traverse space. Wolpaw talks about the creation of Valve’s much-anticipated Portal 2, which ships in April, in this exclusive interview. Gabe Newell hired Wolpaw at Valve, where he’s worked on the story and dialogue for games like Portal 1, Left 4 Dead and now Portal 2. That work led to a job at Double Fine Productions for Psychonauts, and in 2006 he was honored with a Game Developers Choice Award for best writing. Wolpaw began his career as a journalist writing for game sites like and founding. And Erik Wolpaw is one of the top writers at the Seattle game studio. Storytelling remains an integral part of all of Valve’s games. When it comes to video games, Valve Software was one of the early game studios to emphasize the importance of interactive narrative in shooters like Half-Life.
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