DGC Ep 444: Portal (part two)

Dev Game Club

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we complete our series on Portal. We talk about the ending part of the game, the increasing difficulty, the cake, and the boss and declare ourselves Still Alive. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played: Finished the game!

Issues covered: puzzle hockey stick, having puzzles cross through multiple rooms, mechanical additions to the sequel, limiting the additional portal mechanics, having to think about getting across rooms, timing puzzles, how the portals line up, not supporting the twitch elements well, is Chell an android? (she is not -B), the feeling of escape, test subjects getting behind the walls, tactical freedom vs strategic freedom, the importance of context, the meta aspect of these narratives, the subtlety of the cake (until it isn't), "now I'm in Half-Life," competing with Black Mesa, the boss fight, thinking in portals, the final exam and having all the tools, timers as a crutch, the perfectly balanced end point, seeing the outside and being in the Half-Life world, the cake room, the character of GLaDOS as an amalgam of personality modules, triumphant GLaDOS, "the cake is a lie," the game hitting in a different way, the Weighted Companion Cube, having to be interactive, using games as a substrate for "non-interactive" entertainment, the grungy environment vs what's going on, a better show than a game (except maybe a couple of scenes), freeing your mind, the limits of new mechanics, being just one idea with some small sub-ideas, lean/no fat, really great onboarding, a light touch with narrative, everything coming together and artistic cohesion, a meta moment about the SteamDeck, portals!, safety in the portals, portal-based renderers, the one game that brought you in, another very kind review that we sometimes live up to.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: The Stanley Parable, BioShock, Half-Life, President Obama, Claire Danes, Chris and Susan McKinley Ross, Jonathan Coulton, Ellen McLain, The Office, Office Space, Fallout, Saw, Ex Machina, Alex Garland, The Last of Us, Giovanni Giorgio Morodor, Diana Ross, Daft Punk, Fez, Fumito Uedo, Keita Takahashi, J. K. Simmons, Stephen Merchant, Jacques Rivette, Valve, Aperture Desk Job, Erik Wolpaw, Calamity Nolan, BioStats, Endofunctor, Morrowind, Halo CE, Paolo, Outer Wilds, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time: TBA!

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