Reinstalling: Portal! | Design Club

Good time zone test subjects. Hello and welcome to this your testing chamber for the next hour and change. I am your humble test executive will joined as always by my pal Jeff. Say hi to the people Jeff.
Hi the people Jeff. Hey everybody. I am Jeffrey Zacken, studio director of extra credits and extra history and more importantly for this test subject number two joined as always by my friend really excited me will voice of the people who told me right before we went on air that he was really excited for this.
Yes, absolutely. Uh you know
lets me use the dad joke of well hello really excited.
Oh thanks. Yeah uh you know let's let's ask the real questions. Is there cake? Maybe.
Maybe
we were promised
there was going to be cake. Yeah, we were promised delicious cake. So, uh we're we're trying an experiment today. Uh this this is an experiment. Uh make

no mistake about it. But we're we're
I thought this was a triumph.
I am making a note here. Huge success. Uh
man, 20-year-old memes.
Those memes are older than some of our viewing audience, Jeff. like I don't Anyway, uh so what what we're doing today is we're tenatively calling this um reinstalling and what we're doing right uh today is we're reinstalling Portal.
Not Portal 2, not Portal Remastered. Portal.
We probably should have done Portal Remastered. No, I actually I I I would I would submit that we should not um because the whole point of this is we want to
talk about games that have been important, talk about whether or not they still hold up. Talk about how we've improved since then. I've done this on my own with some games. Um, I played um, Final Fantasy 6, a much beloved entry in the franchise, and I can see why it's

beloved, but man, am I glad that we move past some of the design decisions that were made in Final Fantasy 6, right? So, in the same way, we'll be looking at Portal, and we'll be seeing um, what holds up in this 19-year-old game.
Well, can I tell you a funny story about that?
Absolutely. So, in 2006 when this came out, the Xbox had been out for a year.
The PlayStation had just come out. So had the Wii. This was not a game that was on the Wii, but it was on the Xbox and the PlayStation and of course Windows um at the time because this is a um this was released by Valve, which was uh and it was so when I was running, my research firm, we tracked every console game that came out.
Every single one, whether physical or digital only. Yeah.
And we had an entry for that.

And right at the top of every single one was a picture of the game's cover.
Mhm.
And Portal caused some real trouble because it was a very became a very popular game very quickly, but it wasn't released independently. It was part of the Orange Box.
Yeah.
Yeah. It was part of a bundle that just came with the bundle. The Orange Box. The Orange Box was, by the way, a fantastic Vue because the Orange Box, Hold on, let's see, had um HalfLife 2.
Yep. Episodes one and two.
Yeah. Episodes one and two. Um Portal and Team Fortress 2,
which did not used to be free to play.
Yeah.
It used to be a to it was like a pay once kind of deal before hats. I need you all to understand that this was Team Fortress 2 with no hats.
Yeah. But the fact that you got HalfLife

2 episodes 1 and two and Team Fortress 2 and Portal um was just really good value. And Portal was kind of snuck in there.
Yeah.
Like that was not the headlining thing. It was sort of a tech demo in a lot of ways for the things that the source engine could do that it didn't do in other games, right?
Like it does a lot of stuff in Halflife, right? But that's sort of expected. That's sort of like what the Source engine is built to do, right? It's built to give you a gravity gun. It's built to let you shoot things,
right? Um,
but it was also like it was one of the first times I ever saw it was a short contained game. Like back in 2006, there were a lot of sprawling games.
Yep.
Some of which went on way longer than they should have.
Yep.
Portal very much was a couple hour game that was done.
And some people panned it for its shortness, but a lot of people were

like, "Wow, that's really cool." You know, you don't have to have kind of this big, oh, am I roboting?
Yeah, I was I was going to let you finish that thought and then Yes.
Um,
I just saw in chat.
Yeah. Yes, correct. I did. Yeah, I I I promise I know chat. Um, Jeff, can you do a key frame refresh?
Yeah. Let me show stats.
Glattus is trying to get to Jeff. Jeff is a robot.
How do I do this again?
Right click, show stats, send key frame.
Where's my send key frame?
I mean, you're mostly fixed as is.
Test test test.
Yeah, you're good.
I moved send key frame out of here.
Great. I'll find it later. That's all my list of things to do for Thursday. Now, where's my to-do list?

They should just put send key frame on the right click.
I agree. But, you know, uh this will be
Why is send key frame not there?
Don't worry about it.
While I'm looking for this, Will, did you know somebody sniped me on my Twitch? Um,
yeah, I did. I did. I did know that. Yes.
Do you happen to know who it was?
Uh, yes, I do. Yes, Escape Omill, we can read your messages. We're trying to fix this thing first. Uh, it was Dave Techno uh who gifted who gifted you a subscription.
Um,
Dave Techno, thank you very much. Very much appreciated. But people need to stop doing this to me.
Um, I think you're good now. We can just
I can't find the send key frame thing. Yeah. No, it's fine. I I I put on my to-do list for Thursday. I have a long to-do list for Thursday. Um

anyway, getting back to the action.
Um Oh, I still good.
No.
No. Do you want me to drop and come back in?
Yes.
Okay,
chat, I do apologize for this. We tested all of the tech except this. all of it except this because we can't test this because this is not something wrong with Jeff's computer. This is a problem with the internet between us and it will occasionally just do this. This is one of the risks of having a uh crosscontinental stream. I am East Coast, Jeff News West Coast. We're doing this across three time zones and sometimes this happens and I don't I don't know why. Uh yeah, sometimes the Yes, exactly. Grass is completely correct. Sometimes the pipes get clogged. Um, but I have a question for all of you while while we get this uh all set up and and and fixed. Um, which is how many of you got the Orange Box on release? How how many of you

participated in the Orange Box phenomena uh when it first came out? Yeah.
Am I still not good? I am checking
my internet speed test says I'm excellent, but that does not mean the connection between you and me is excellent.
It's better. It may not be perfect, but it's good enough. So, some people did and some people didn't. Uh, yeah, thanks. No,
I I found out where the send key frame is with the change. Should I do another one?
Um, yeah, you can just send key frame. key frame sent.
Okay, cool. Yeah, that helped some.
So, will if I am looking at our joint screen, I don't see it. If I'm looking at just me on my green screen and I click, then I can see it.
Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Yep.
So, because I usually am looking at one

with both of us.
Yes. Yeah. You need to be looking at just you. Um, your video quality sucks, but we can hear you, and that's the important part. Just don't move too much.
Okay. Well, we could Will, why don't you make me small and put Portal up?
Yeah. And then and then it won't matter that you're that you're blurry. Yeah,
exactly.
Yeah. Okay, great. Excellent. So, let's without without any further ado, let's get into Portal. Uh,
okay. So,
so my voice is okay though.
Yeah. Yeah, you sound fine.
Okay. So, yeah, Portal was part of the Orange Box. It came out. It shocked everybody on how good it was. It was self-contained. It was a small game. And for a lot of people it was the sleeper hit and then for a bit it felt like everybody was talking about it.
Yeah. Absolutely. Now to give you to I think a lot of people a lot of people will say oh 19 years that I remember 19 years ago and you might do you remember

when menus look like this?
Do you remember when menus look like this chat? When these were the the source menu the source engine menus? way back in.
That's just what they look like.
Yeah, this is just what they looked like. Um, so that's that's amazing. I'm honestly truly shocked that Portal recognizes 4K. Like, it recognizes 4K, which is incredible. Um, also, uh, yeah. So,
that is a triumph.
It is indeed a triumph. Let's Let's go ahead and slap new game. Uh oh, we can start from any chapter. Oh, that's interesting. I remember when chapters existed. Oh, did you see that loading screen or bloating bar

graphics look fairly okay for the time? So, will take a look at the room real quick.
So, it's giving big prison vibe. Like you got a toilet, you got a desk, and you got a sleeper pod.
Your specimen has been processed, and we are now ready to begin the test proper. Before we start, however, keep in mind that although fun and learning are the primary goals of all enrichment center activities, serious injuries may occur. For your own safety and the safety of others, please refrain from Stand back. The portal will open in 3 2 1. Okay. So, I I need to do a thing over

here real quick. Um, which is I need to make it so that while while we do love Glattis's voice, um, she does Oh, interesting. Interesting. Huh? Did I not do that?
What are we interested in?
Oh, I uh I didn't I didn't do the the It's fine. It's fine. We'll worry about it later. Um I didn't do the side chain that makes it quieter when we talk. Um so,
so yeah,
I say couple things really quick right here. A the portal appearing. This is also serving like a mirror will.
Yeah. Like you're getting a look at your charact. This is the first time you've seen your avatar.
Yeah.
Actually, if you look down, can you see your feet? I can't remember.
No, you can't. You can't see any part of you in any way other than looking through a portal.
I mean, I guess you kind of see I think you might see some of your hands when you're holding the portal gun later, but

Mhm.
And I also think it's really important to note that like this moment
Mhm.
was mindboggling, right? like we might take that like there have been there have been things like Splitgate um if you play Deadlock um Valve's latest decision with Portal technology is hey what if we made a competitive Boba shooter and there was a character who could put portals down. No one else is out of their gourds enough to try that but Valve did and is. And there have never been any problems with Door Man whatsoever except for all the problems with Doorman because he can create portals. Yeah,
they're all of the problems, right? But like this moment is like was really cool.
One of the things they're doing that once you think about it in an engine isn't that hard, but it's kind of mindblowing when you don't know how it's done.
Yeah.
Is so we're looking from our character's eyes. There's the portal opening here.

We are seeing a different place in real time in the game.
Yes. And so, you know, equivalently that's you could have just made this a doorway.
Yes.
And Oh, yep. See the Yeah. the turning and the jumping. And like if you were looking through a doorway and the doorway opened up into a bigger space than like was supposed to be there. We've seen games do that.
Mhm.
You can do kind of wacky things on how you build your engine to display in engine.
Yeah. But the fact that they're doing this, as we'll shortly see, in real time with the ability to slap it anywhere, technically not that hard once you figure it out. But it's just one of those like intu those aha moments.
Yeah.
Where you're like, "Oh, wait. We could do this." And then the team saying, "Now, cool. What could we do based on that?"
Right. Cuz I think one of the really important things to note, I'm going to I'm going to advance this. Yeah. um is

uh in lots of cases when you have a reflection
like see right there like looking through this doorway.
Yeah.
The fact that it connects to another room is just a con is a conceit of the game engine.
Yes. It doesn't. Yes. This doorway could lead anywhere.
Yeah.
Right. It's just the ability to uh set up a doorway anywhere is weird.
Yeah.
Right. Um I I think one of the one of the really cool things um
Oh
cube uh is that
excellent. Please proceed into the chamber lock after completing each test first. However, note the incandescent particle field across the exit. This Aperture Science material grid will vaporize any unauthorized equipment that passes through it. for instance, the Aperture Science weighted storage cube.
Um, one of the uh like for a really long

time um the way to do a reflection is to just do another room, right? it it's been to like so like if you have a if you have a room and it's reflection or a mirror the instead of doing real time reflection it's easier to just have the player looking into another room with a copy of their model that mirrors their movements. That's easier than figuring out what the reflection should look like, right? And so when you realize that we're going from something like that to something like this, it's really cool as well that like you're actually seeing real time from like a looped perspective, I think is really interesting. Um,
yeah, there's a lot going on that was novel. Yes, I think that's a very good way of putting it that like
please science heavy duty super colliding super button.

Whoa. I got the I got the cube through. Forgot this is on a uh this is on a timer. So, it's going to rotate through and then I'll get out. Um, yeah, April 14th. Uh, yeah, April 14th of 2011.
April 14th of 2011.
Uh, Portal 2.
It came out when I was a college senior.
Perfect. But yeah, like I remember how novel it was basically.
And you're not even making your own portals yet right now. It's just like doorway appearing and disappearing
and like you kind of going through tesseract style.
Yeah. Also, do you remember elevators, chat? Do do you remember elevators? Do you remember this loading screen?

Cuz that's what this is. The elevator is a different length depending on how long it takes your hardware to load the thing.
Right. wild. Um,
thanks Glattus.
By the way, one interesting thing about the development for this will the writing in the story actually came in fairly late
that the team had kind of made this cool set of things, but um brought in a writer who like helped string together a narrative around it.
Yeah.
Um, yeah. Uh, everything in video games is smoke and mirrors except for smoke and mirrors which require a whole different system. Yes, absolutely.
Oh, the portal gun.
Let's see. Can you see your hand?
No, you just see the portal gun.
So, for those unfamiliar, the portal gun can shoot two separate things. It can shoot an entit

we only get blue for the beginning.
Oh, okay.
There's a fully functional portal gun. operational end of the device. Do not submerge the device in liquid, even partially. Most importantly, under no circumstances should
Yeah, I I think Dog's totally right that one of the one of the important things, too, is that this was a really good example of how to do an interesting tutorial,
right? like uh lots of people now talk about Hollow Knight.
There's also in some cases
There we go.
Back when there was less collective knowledge about games, more games needed tutorials.
Yeah, that's very true. the the average um
well done
like the average exposure level.
Um I had forgotten some of these Glattus lines. Uh the average skill level of the

average gamer is going up significantly and has gone up very significantly since this. Right? If you want an example of that, look at um what is regarded as human possible in speedrunning for things like Portal, right? Or uh Super Mario, right? There are plenty of things that people are like, "Oh, no human could ever do that." And then a human did that
and a Clover does this chat. If I end up screwing up big time, Clover stepped on my keyboard.
You're doing quite well. I also like like you never have a health bar in this game.
Yeah. Which is I I think very cool.

Me that also can we talk about this real quick?
As part of a required test protocol, we will not
What part exactly? this entirely where we
Good luck.
So, we preserve camera orientation
and gravity, but Chelle is in a Chelle is Chelle's character model is in a different spot now. Right now, we're standing on our feet, right? Whereas here, we're like standing straight up and now she's like a little bent over. Yeah,
I think that's one of the reasons you don't see your feet in your hands.
Yeah. The shift in gravity though, like the ability uh for it to do this is wild, right? That you can just like step through a plane that's at right angles to
Thank you, Kitty. Um
yeah,
at right angles to it and like that you go through this corrective thing, right?

Is I I think this is like the first chance you really get to play around with it, right? like that happens and it just writes you, right? It doesn't like flip out. You don't like Yeah. It's
Yeah. No weird camera spins or like jerks of the gun or
Right. It just it just it it compensates. It adjusts so well. Um in a way that I think is really notable cuz like god
or not notable cuz most people never notice it.
True. Um, this is one of the examples of like a thing that you don't notice is working until it stops working. For instance, um, the latest character in Deadlock has the ability to put free form terrain objects in the world. She's a painter. She can paint things and you're like, "Oh, that's cool. That's fine." Until you realize that if she puts something small enough, it's collision box still exists even though its texture does not. which means you can put a series of

invisible blockers in the world, which is wild, right? So, like it works fine until it doesn't. And you don't notice that it's weird until it very much is weird. Um, what am I doing here? Doing this. Give me this. Oh, that's right. I have to dang. Just going to try and be clever with it. Uh, I think we have to switch these cuz there is a cube on the other side. I just have to see it. Nope, no cube.

Oh, it's over here. That's right. Forgot there's a pit behind me. As as I've said, it's been a very long time since I've played this. Uh, yeah, we'll definitely do the infinite fall.
Part of a required test protocol. Our previous statement suggesting that we would not monitor this chamber was an outright fabrication. Good job. As part of a required test protocol, we will stop enhancing the truth in three, two.
Yeah. Like gravity manipulation is one of those things that it's very easy to screw up and very hard to get so right that it's not noticeable, right? It's like UI, right? Like the
the HUD here consists entirely
of the crosshair and the portal, the portal indicators. That's it. That's that's the entire HUD for the entire

game. You never get anything else.
There's no shots. There's no health. There's no Yeah,
please. Unbelievable. You
subject here
must be the pride of
subject.
I also think that like Glattis as an omniresent like narrator figure like narrator antagonist.
Yeah.
Is it was such an interesting thing, right? like um we talked a little bit about uh if we did this while we were on YouTube or not. Those tech problems scrambled my brain. However, agitate the high energy.
While you're thinking about it, like at the time too, this is off um
a bit before, but like System Shock in System Shock 2 before had like crazy AI.

So did Marathon, the Bungee game before Halo. But this is kind of a different version of the crazy AI. This isn't I've gone crazy and I've taken over a ship and I'm attempting to like murder everything inside. This is like slightly crazy in a facility. Um like she's Glattus is supposed to be there. It's not like she's taken over this facility. So this is kind of the
kind of working as intended thing. Consequence for failure. Any contact with the chamber floor will result in an unsatisfactory mark on your official testing record. Followed by death. Good luck.
Followed by death.
Yeah, that's the best part of it.
Um, do this also. very interesting that um like the dotted lines and such uh that represent

like circuits. I guess now I would think that like this is actually a circuit, but it's not, right? It's just a series of triggers that light this up so you can have this portal interrupt this connectivity without actually doing anything. Um yeah, working as intended, but the intention was messed up. Yes, exactly. Very impressive. Please note that any appearance of danger is merely a device to enhance your testing experience.
Um, I was I was thinking about Bastion earlier and RX as a narrator, right? And so like the idea of having narrators or like third party voice over um as part of the game experience that is both the narrator and part of the experience is just cool. is impossible.
Narrator and antagonist in some games.
Yeah. Hey. Hey. Okay. Still not perfect. Can still get hung up on stuff. Good to know.

Oh, that's right. I can't actually uh
do it through the roof. Apologizes for this clearly broken test chamber. Fantastic.
It's funny when you're watching and not playing how much it breaks your brain in some cases because will like your logic train is happening in your brain.
Yep.
Like for me watching you I'm like and then you do something I'm like oh wait that isn't quite how I would have done it but it works.
Yeah. I think
and that's one of the interesting things is that there this isn't a strict must do X to Y to Z puzzle.
Yeah. I also think that one of the very interesting things about this is there are intended answers but not right answers
right any solution that gets you to the exit is like those are your constraints

she Glattis doesn't care right how you do it
to reiterate
I also Like when they let they give you enough of a hint to figure something out like this, the momentum thing, right? Where you're like, what what am I supposed to do? Oh, momentum is conserved. That's cool, right? And that's a big This is like a big moment. This is one of the biggest like
aha moments in the game is the first moment where you like fly,
right? And that's set up very much on purpose. or to be more precise,
we're also far enough in that you've done enough portal tricks that this doesn't like you're like, "Oh, okay."
Yeah. Also, this is a great example of how um of like a protection thing, how you can't put a portal on a moving surface.

Um
momentum, a function of mass and velocity is conserved between portals. In layman's terms, speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out.
I like the layman's terms.
Yeah. I And and and I think it gives you like enough room to feel clever, right? Like it's it we're still very much in the tutorial. In fact, in many ways, the entire game is a tutorial,
right? Uh it really stops being a tutorial tutorial in Portal 2 when you spoilers, I guess, for a game that's 15. Uh, get out of the test chambers. Um,
the enrichment center promises to always provide a safe testing environment. In dangerous testing environments, the enrichment center promises to always provide useful advice. For instance, the floor here will kill you. Try to avoid it.
Thanks. To ensure the safe performance of all

authorized activities, do not destroy vital testing.
The floor is lava.
So, one of the things too when we look at it is this game is very much playing to its strengths and the strengths of the time. Like you're in kind of a, you know, nameless, faceless testing facility. You're not expecting grass and trees blowing in the wind and you know clouds and all this other like they're getting away with a very limited set of kind of like textures and environments based on the fiction of the game.
Yeah.
Did I get the timing wrong? So it doesn't really matter. Portal 2 is 15 makes you feel older than the fact that Portal 1 is 19. You

conceptually think of Portal 2 is a newer game. Well, that's one of the interesting things about like the the the genre divide.
The device has been modified so that it can manufacture two portals at
all. Witness the power of this fully operational portal gun. That's right.
Um, I think the uh the Oh god, my brain went completely off the rails because I was like, PORTAL GUN, PORTAL GUN. um Portal 2 being part of another generation of games, right? We often feel like games are pretty solidly divided into generations, right? So, um this is a 360 game, right? And so was Portal 2, but Portal 2 felt like an old 360 like a like when the 360 was almost

done and this was like when the 360 was new, I guess. like it feels like it's um
also like four years like
is a long time
but it feels different when you're looking at it 15 or 20 years later like I think there weren't four years between Mass Effect 1 and two. Whoa. Now that's what I call portaling, right? Is that is that that the line? Did I get the line right?
Fling yourself into space, Glattus. Yeah.
Yeah. Early and late 360. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One human year is five

computer years. Well, it also like feels dramatically different because they serve different purposes, right? And also, the events leading up to Portal 2's release were a big deal, right? When Portal 2 released, they did the potato pack. Who Who bought the potato pack? Who remembers what the potato pack is?
I don't think I remember what the potato pack is.
Oh man, it was one of like the best examples of Valve doing Valve things.
Feel free to pass out. An intubation associate will be dispatched to revive you with heptic cell and adrenaline.
Um,
for your own safety, do not destroy.
[ __ ] you. Cameras.
No, we are we we're not No. Yeah, we're not talking about uh the spice bagged fries. That that is correct, chat. You're very smart. Um, no. Uh we are talking about the

um the package of indie games which were uh released uh in advance of the so close of uh Portal 2 coming out. So, there was a bunch of indie games, tiny indie games. Um, and in each of them
Oh, that's right. Because, um, Defense Grid 2
had the GLaDOS voice actor in it doing GLaDOS. The Defense Grid also has an AI, but it's a friendly AI helping you.
Yeah. Um, and there were a bunch of indie games like that. And the whole point was that you could um you would have uh like indie games get this. Do I have to do it again? No, it's not projecting anymore. Where do I

Where do I second cube chat? Oh, I don't I just do this
as part of the previously mentioned protocol.
This is a great example of how you don't need to go through the door.
You just need to get past the door. You don't need to go through the door, right? Which is like seems evident if you've played Portal also. Excuse me.
I hate cameras.
That moment of like you don't have to go through. You can just
bypass the door is really cool. Anyway, so the potato pack was a bunch of indie games that all came out that where if you earned achievements, you would have a chance to win a golden potato. And a golden potato got you every Valve game. It got you the Valve Complete Pack, which was every game Valve had released. And every potato achievement you got when you found a potato in one of these indie games sped up the release of Portal 2 by

processor cycles. like not enough to really matter, right? The game was going to come out when the game came out, but like ostensibly every potato that someone earned in an indie game made Portal 2 come out faster, and that was really cool. Um, and I thought that that was like really nifty.
Gamma leaking portal technology must be informed that they may be informed of applicable regulatory compliance issues. No further compliance information is required or will be provided. And you are an excellent test subject. I missed chat. I missed. How could I miss? Definitely. Yeah, the pre-inc capitaliz the precap.

No, now I'm annoyed, chat. Now I'm annoyed.
Thank you. Give me the give me this cube.
So, one of the things I really admire about Portal is that the team who thought up the con, you know, the concept is what if I can make portal, you know, what if there are things I can pass between, they didn't start introducing 14 more mechanics.
Yeah. It took the the one mechanic continued to say, "How can we play with it in different ways to make interesting things happen?" And that's a that's a really like I think that's part of why it's so the story makes it really good, too.
Yeah.
And the environment, but it's also it is a very focused game.
Yes. And I think that that's that is a big deal, right? That like put that there so it can't kill me. Um, I would much rather have an extremely focused game than a game that cannot execute on 10,000

mechanics. Well,
right or some fra some significant fraction of them. Well, right. There are definitely like god in the same in the same era. I remember there was a game called anti idol the game on congregate. Shout outs to my congregate gamers. Rest in peace, Congregate with the death of Flash. Um,
I remember Congate,
right? But it had like 10 billion like different disconnected or barely connected subsystems and it was an absolute mess. I loved it. I loved it to pieces. It was a mess. It was a messy, messy, terrible mess. Right. But, um, I feel like that sort of stands in contrast to this where they did this one thing. You have
five buttons. Five will be
W A S D space uh and then two mouse buttons left and right.
That's it. Right. So you have five buttons on your left hand, two buttons

on your right, plus a camera. That's it.
Testing apparatus destroyed.
Yep.
You can deal with it. testing apparatus destroy.
I'm actually really curious how the how much the team was just like playing with different things and like how much of the game was discovered through play and how much was like thought out kind of looking at you know literally drawing like maps on grid paper or something and like figuring out different puzzles that way. Uh, does the camera wreck wrecking do anything? Uh, she will comment on it and there is an achievement for it. Uh, and it's just a fun like little thing to do. It's It's kind of cool. It's like one of

the very few pieces of like quote unquote like side content, I guess, in the game. Okay. So, there's a door here and there's that and there's Uh-huh. So, we got to go there and then like there, right? Except that's not right. So, oh, there we go. Um, yeah, the radios also have an achievement. That's true.

I really love the cat-like motion as you go through a portal and you like twist your way down for landing.
Yeah. I also like how if you look in a mirror, you see the um your kind of your mobility enhancements on your legs.
Yeah. Oh, the
explaining like how you're landing off of big falls and other things. And I think um Elero Diablo has a has a really great story about like managing to fling through the grid only to land in the goop due to too much momentum. I think that's the kind of thing that that Portal like

really does for us. Like it's it's such a unique experience that all of this is memorable, right? Like I I am now beginning to remember some portion of this experience that I haven't had in oh you know a long time. Just needs to be over there. Portal one rematch that puts portal one in the portal two engine art style and continuity holes being passed misses the entire point of portal one. Uh, I can see that I
destroyed my point I don't know my thought I guess is always that um

Nightmare. Seeing your silhouette from a distance like right through that portal there.
God dang it.
Um, Port was supposed to be mysterious and much more gritty. Yeah, I I don't know. I feel like a lot of fan projects

reimagine games as the the fans want them to be, which is good. But again, frequently misses the point.
I actually remember there was a so close. There's a liveaction YouTube version of a portal. Um, like a short movie that was made that was pretty good. Like Portal really did capture a lot of popular imagination. Did you know you can donate one or all of your vital organs to the Aperture Science Self-esteem Fund for girls? It's true. Um, I think tone tone is such a weird thing, right? Cuz like

I would argue that Portal 2 is supposed to be is is much grittier and darker, right? This is almost absurd, which I think is one of the reasons that it sticks around is it's so weird, right?
Mhm.
It's it's so it's so bizarre, but well,
especially for the time it's like chamber for this testing sequence is currently available. It has been replaced with a live fire course designed for military androids. The enrichment center apologizes for the inconvenience and wishes you the best of luck.
First introduction to turrets by the way. Um I do
vital testing apparatus destroyed.
Um I do think that like the wellexecuted absurdity is important, right?

Target lost searching. Critical error.
I love them. They're so stupid.
Thank you for playing. target.
And I think the whole like absurdity versus gritty thing is like best encapsulated with the turrets, right? Like these things are so stupid, right? But you
Oh, yeah. That's right. And this is our first opportunity to, you know, do something we're not supposed to do.
Cakes a lie.
Yeah.

I like that we have a a a PC here. I like that. And we have Aperture Coffee. It's very good. And then we get like the outside, right? And I like this, but it still doesn't feel
Well, like this is dirty and used.
Yeah. But it doesn't feel, how do I put this? Grim. It feels weird, right? Like if it was like, "Oh my god, thank God I finally found someone." But it just says, "The cake is a lie. The cake is a lie. The cake is a lie." Right? Um, and I think that that's a a big part of it. acquired.
There you are.

Yeah. No, I think that that's fair, right? She's she's um
she's quote unquote crazy, right? But she's performing her function as intended.
Also, blood spatter on the wall.
Uh-oh.
I love the turrets talking to
Yeah, the the Right. They didn't have to.
Mhm.
Right. But it's it's pretty clearly four tone. I forget. Can we

Okay, this is not one of the ones where you can like wait for it to open and then shoot a portal up into it. Yeah. Okay, great. There we go.
Kidnapped.
Are you saying that because it literally takes a nap?
Sure.
I'd forgotten the blood smears on the walls. Yeah, if you get shot, there's blood on the walls, but like you it takes a bit for you to die from that.
I don't think I ever died in Portal. I don't I don't even remember testing dying.

He said the thing gota got to test it. This is one of the other things I like about Portal and I like about a lot of these games in general is that's the checkpoint and there's no like haha you died. It's just all right, do it again. Do it again but better. Also, this is teaching you that you can get through um wire grids, mesh grids. searching. Deploying. Who are you?
Well done, Android. The enrichment center once again reminds you that Android hell is a real place where you will be sent at the first sign of defiance.
Yeah, the checkpoint isn't Yeah. isn't even at the start of the room, right? There's not a like I don't know. And I

think I think by a lot of people's standards, this game feels stripped down, right? This is exactly what it needs to be and nothing more. There's not a weird message for when you die. It just reloads you, right? It doesn't even ask you. It doesn't It doesn't fade to black. It doesn't go, "Do you want to save and continue? Do you want to try again?" Like, it just No. Get get
keep going. Do more. Right. Like
and I think that's part of one of the reasons that
it never felt punishing.
Yeah.
And I think that's part of what made it uh break containment.
Yes. It's very approachable, right? It's not easy.
Companion cube heart
through the test chamber. Please take care of it. The symptoms most commonly produced by enrichment center testing are superstition, perceiving inanimate objects as alive, and hallucinations.

The enrichment center reminds you that the weighted companion cube will never threaten to stab you and in fact cannot speak. Vital testing apparatus destroyed. vital test in apparatus destroyed.
Um, do up one of those, right? And then we do up one of these. And I'd forgotten before this all about the like energy beams or the little laser bouncies.
Yep. The enrichment center reminds you that the weighted companion cube cannot speak. In the event that the weighted companion cube does speak, the enrichment center urges you to disregard

its advice. Also, for something that is spoilers on screen for as short a time as this one is, uh, it's uh, it's a little wild um, how how much play the weighted companion cube gets. Also, forgot about this. Not never, but now.
So, one of the things about actually will look back a second. So, nowadays there'd be a wall and each of those would be like pictures that they put on top of the wall.
Yeah.
A single texture.
Yeah.
It's just because that's how you did it at the time based on the tech.
Yeah.
I like the girls of Aperture Science Portal Cube or Companion Cube. Oh, what year did it say?

Uh, 1983.
Not in Gray, not in Wrath. The Reaper came today. An angel visited this grave path and took the cube away. Yeah, this is a little cube. This is um because I could not stop for death. Uh he kindly stopped for me. The cube uh had
food and
maybe ammo IV something. Anyway, also like nowadays these would be high texture and like you would be supposed to get this, right? I feel like in a lot of games now this wouldn't be missable, right? The the there are a lot of games now that are just like, "Hey, do you get the point? Do you get the point?" Which is fine, right? because as we've discovered um audiences are not always

necessarily uh the most um media literate. We'll put it that way. Audience is not always the most media literate. Uh and so Come on. Give me the ball. Give me the Give me the ball. Hey, give me the ball. Yeah. And so I I think it would it wouldn't be missable. Why? Ball, please. Do I have to do it to the other one? Cuz you already gave me a ball. that Easter eggs should be uh Easter eggs should absolutely be hidden. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with having hidden Easter eggs. I just also think that it's interesting how much they were will how far they were

willing to let people miss it, right? Like they were very willing to let people miss everything. The point, right? Which is
of older style games too, I think.
Yeah. But and and I think that um there's like a costbenefit ratio. We've talked about this, I think, on a couple of occasions. I don't know if it's been on Design Club, though. Um, where one of the things that's kind of interestingly true is that um, give me my cube. the it is not a coste effective use of your budget time to put something in that you intentionally make it so that some portion of the player base never sees
or a vast majority of the player base

never sees.
Right? It is it is not a coste effective way to do business. that is some of the older games that I was saying, you know, really big or so sprawling that
was just a thing you did for the rest of the test and unfortunately must be euthanized.
Please escort your companion,
especially in a pre everybody has internet. Incinerator.
Oh no. Wonder if there's a way around this. I think there is. I just don't remember what it is and I don't feel like messing around enough to get there. IST has

absolved the enrichment center, Aperture Science employees, and all test subjects of any moral responsibility for the companion cube euthanizing process.
Ye,
you euthanized your faithful companion cube more quickly than any test subject on record. Congratulations.
Euthanized.
Yeah. Um and and I think Tunic is a great example of a game that does content for nobody, right? Tunic has a bunch of levels to it and I haven't seen all of them. I love the levels I have seen, but there's an entire other level of depth beyond the level that I was willing to go to that involves learning to read this ancient language um which you don't actually need to do in order to beat the game uh and get the real ending. So there like there's a there's a bad ending. There's like the first ending that's a bad ending. Then there's a real ending. Great. And then there's there's more information after that. And there's even more information all the way after that. And like

they are spending time not materially making the game better for everyone.
But I like that when that happens.
The enrichment center is required to remind you that you will be baked and then there will be cake.
Cake.
You will be baked and then there will be cake. Oh, sorry. Six buttons control or crouch. Give me this. Yeah. And I think FromSoft is a great example of like, hey, we did this because it was like interesting. Why can we get up here? That's the other thing, too. The idea of why can we get

up here? Um, doesn't feel like it really applies here, right? Like in a lot of other games, we ask I I find myself asking the question like, why can we do this thing? Why can we get up here? What does that what does this gain us? What's the point? Right? And I keep forgetting that sometimes in Portal there is no point. You just can because you can and that's it. That's like all you get, which I think is kind of cool actually. Ow. Is that the starting one? I'm glad you're paying attention, Jeff. That was a test. You passed.

I like how they're using like the dice sides.
Yeah. As a portals. Think I see the solution now. It involves a portal. Chat, I'm so smart. The cleverness of me.

Well, first off, let's get rid of these idiots. Oh, okay. Or not. I put it too low. It's fine. Mind blown. Listen, do you have any idea how hard it is sometimes to do this and to like play the game to play a puzzle game and stream at the same time? Sometimes I'm lucky that I can like walk, talk, and like take a drink and not like uh Oh, that's right. We can use that as a weapon, can't we?
Bonk. Yeah.
By the way, the fact that the bricks or the side panels are gritted

Yeah. helps so much.
Yeah. Like that's a very conscious design choice that doesn't really feel like it, but like it's part of the environment to help you kind of count where things are.
Yeah.
Well, yeah. The getting getting alignment, right? And like the the the strikes here, right? It's all I I think it's all part of that same thing that I was talking about about like helping the player feel clever,
right? cuz I do think that that is a major drive for them is helping the player feel like they're overcoming Glattus, right? Because we don't have a traditional antagonist until the very end, right? We don't have an enemy we can defeat, right? But we're in like this competition with Glattus of sorts about like testing and whatnot. And I think it's interesting that we have this really that missed.

Fine. Um, we have like this competition, right, where we're trying to do the tests, right, and like solve this puzzle. And that that's the real that's the real challenge, right? And I think that that is a Nope. This is orange. This is This is ground control to major. I I will say well mildly surprised that you've left the camera for as long as you have to your right.
Hold on. Get it after this.
I'm not saying you have to.
No, you're right. No, my the camera has to die. That's not

destroyed.
You're right, Jeff. How could I be so careless? I wonder how many people they lost in the last couple levels because the puzzles got just too hard.
I don't know. It's a good question. U always wonder if they added these energy balls to Boral because Halfife 2 happened to have a similar asset mechanic. Um not sure how much they got acid to. Uh, well, it's the same team, right? Valve Valve is not a huge team, contrary to like the how far above their weight class they consistently punch. Uh, okay.

Okay, it is there. That's what I thought. Yeah, Valve is a Well, right. But that's also the Steam team and there's 150 employees now, right? It did. It has not always been so. And the team that makes this is also not the team that was chat. When did Dota 2 come out? It was soon after.
Yeah. Okay. So, now we got to go like this. We need one of these. One of these. We got to go down here.

Give me that.
Okay. And then Oh, that's right. This is all to get the cube that we need in the other room.
That's the other interesting thing about the puzzle design here is for some of the moving pieces like the balls in the box.
Yeah. They need to design the failure states in you know what would happen if you accidentally drop the cube
right
down into the muck.
Yeah. And there's like a cube destruction detection uh script that's running to like
if a c if if the cube touches the kill plane uh then um it respawns another one out of the chute. I forgot that I have to push the button and then come back over. Move this out of the way so it doesn't get lost.

I've never heard of anyone actually working at Valve. It's just Gabin. That's why he deserves all of the super yachts, right, chat?
He has yachts so big. His yachts have yachts.
When he wants to check him out, he hires a pretty popular YouTube game commentator. Ha,
that is of course Yachtsy.
Yeah, I got that bit.
Oh, nice.
Um, yeah, the TF2 team was a baby, the janitor, in a potted plant. That's correct. Oh my god, I forgot this one. Oh god. Oh god. First off, die. Second off.

Oh man, I forgot this one, too. This is one of the ones where like the gravity reorientation thing can really screw you up, right? Cuz you have to flip over. Oh boy. Yep. That's fine. Well done. Be advised that the next test requires exposure to uninsulated electrical parts that may be dangerous under certain conditions. For more information, please attend an enrichment center electrical safety seminar.

Yeah, and I think Demon Works is right. It remains interesting how much of Valve's game production was always, hey, good people, solid idea, let them cook. Yeah. Right. And again, we get like this super minimalist thing, right? If you I have a really hard time imagining a full like a studio as big as Valve releasing a game like this in 2026.
I could see it as part of a bundle again,
right? But when was the last time we saw a bundle?
That's cuz there isn't physical media in the same way. But like if digital distribution wasn't a thing, I could see that when Deadlock got released and they're like here's the disc where you buy Deadlock to install it.
Yeah.
That it could have something else the team, you know, a small thing the team had worked on.
Welcome to the final
bundled in with it.
When you are done, you will
but because the medium distribution's changed
recovery enrichment center regulations require

both hands to be empty before any cake. See, is this puzzle 19?
Yeah, this is probably our our a good place to stop once I remember how to do this. First off,
apparatus destroyed.
Uh, we just do it like this, right? Yeah. Okay.

I just left the ball bouncing and you could hear in the background. Hey, there I am.
Vitalar destroyed.
I deserved that. I deserved every bit of that to the vital testing apparatus.
I deserved it. I deserved I deserved every part of that.
Why? Uh cuz I was gloating and then died. Revenge of the camera. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Chad's cheering on the camera.

Vital testing apparatus destroyed. If
you think that's going to stop me from doing it again, you're wrong. But you know that's fine.
Vital testing apparatus destroyed. Congratulations. The test is now over. Technologies remain safely operational up to 4,000°. Rest assured that there is absolutely no chance of a dangerous equipment malfunction. prior to your victory incandesence. Thank you for participating in this Aperture Science computer aided enrichment activity. Goodbye. There's a radio. Oh my god.

Dang it. I missed the jump.
Oh, you got you're fired. Yeah, but I mean again the cost for failure here is so incredibly low.
What are you doing? Stop it.
Oh, you can't. You made it through the final challenge where we pretended we were going to murder you.
Where's my radio?
For your success. We are throwing a party in honor of your success. Place the device on the ground. Then lie on your stomach with your arms at your sides. The party associates to collect you for your party. Make no further attempt to leave the testing area.

The party escort submission position or you will miss the party. I love how dark humor this is and how it's only gotten darker since this was written. I also love this broken stair. I just want to talk about that real quick. How it uses the broken stair to remind you that you are still playing Portal,
right? That like just because you have left the This is one of the moments where like the whole cake escape sequence thing is just like you you're still playing Portal. They still work. They just don't You're not in a test chamber anymore and that's different, right? And then I think this is the first door that we get to open,
right?
And we're And now Oh, yeah. This isn't the same universe as Halflife. What sort of deal, which I like a lot. Oh, there's a locked door. Good thing we don't need doors,

right? But I think this is probably a good a good place for us to to to stop our little exploration. I don't know. I think this is Portal is probably one of the easiest examples of a game that I think has held up really well,
right?
Yeah. Like sure, you could uprest the graphics a little bit, but like that's not really the selling point. I think yeah I think it's a great example of how um companies or studios that have like really always chased highest fidelity graphics as like a must-have have maybe missed the point a bit right how and I think we've seen plenty of examples of that right we've seen plenty of examples in the indie space um of like well done pixel art runs on a toaster still looks great right or how Wind Waker to many people looks better than some of the other

Zelda games because it has like a timeless cell-shaded aesthetic as opposed to some of the more max capacity. Um,
yeah. And I think for a while though, like
when graphics were still a thing that like you were limited by better and better graphics was an actual selling point.
Yeah.
Like going from Doom and Marathon, you know, up to HalfLife.
Yeah.
And then, you know, up to say Halo or the different Call of Duties like the original Counter Strike and you look at it and it's like, oh wow. crunchy
or the original Battlefield or something or
also crunchy
Rainbow 6.
Yeah, I think that
so like there was that time but I think the graphics got good enough
that at that point how you use them became more of a thing than just like ooh really good graphics.

I agree. And like the they also learned how to Velvet is Valva is definitely a company who's like okay working within their limitations. Like if I get real close these textures kind of suck. They're not great. But I'm never going to put my face in the wall. Like most players are not going to get this close to be like, "Oh yeah, I'm playing on a 4K monitor. I can see all the pixels in this wall texture." Yeah, right. No, you're playing from back here. You're going to run past the fan, right? Into into the other thing,
right? And like and that's enough, right? You don't need the the goo to be the highest quality or the wall to be the highest quality or whatever cuz that's not the point. And I think this might have been before a lot of the automatic LOD uh
Yeah.
like four or five different variants where you have the really up close texture, you know, to the far away one.
Yeah.
Doing this.
And chat's being quite defensive. You're

right. They don't suck that bad, but I can see all the pixels in this diamond plating, right? Like, but again, I'm not going to get like, yeah, the texture of the wall is very important for reorienting after waking up from a nap. True. Um, but yeah, I don't know. I think I think this is probably one of our best case examples of like a game that has is memorable, is still fun, is still interesting, still looks good. Um,
and because of the stripped down nature, like when they redid Final Fantasy 7, you know, it's a conversation with its older self, but it's also, you know, they updated some of the UI and um the way the leveling works and the inventory and like some of the other things. This doesn't need that because it doesn't have it.
Yes. I think that's
the stripped down nature.
Yeah. of it and then focusing really on that means that this, you know, it that

part of it holds up because that was the whole game.
Yes, I think that that's exactly it. The fact that the game is so precise about what it cares about. It cares about telling this story and puzzles that involve this portal gun as the primary means of finishing the puzzle.
Mhm.
That's it. If it's not those three things, the game does not care.
Which I think is one of the reasons absolutely that it's held up so well is that it has ditched all of the extraneous ephemera that needs to go with something that has a heavier lift than
is it a puzzle? Does it involve the portal gun? Is it this story? No. Ye. Right. That's actually one of the things, by the way, will if you think about the um puzzles they did. Whoa, chobby for a second for me.
Okay.
Um they did a thing that almost every other

game, Act, they didn't do a thing that almost every other game does that I think really keeps the fiction. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of puzzle games where like you'll be on the 12th puzzle and they're like, "Oh, the secret was you actually just turn around and walk back through the door." Like you don't use kind of the mechanics of it. This is the one you don't because the fiction is you're testing for GLaDOS.
Yes.
There never is one of those where it's like, oh, you know, the puzzle of this one is thinking out of the box on not using the puzzle mechanics,
right? And it's also um the lack of a hint system, the lack of any acknowledgment of the player as an entity other than Chell, right? Chelle is the player. That's it, right? And Valve is pretty good with that with Gordon Freeman, right? But
the game doesn't acknowledge itself as a puzzle game at all. The game says,

"You're playing as Chelle. Enjoy." which I think is another big selling point to kind of Jeff's point, right? It's the it's the other way of phrasing that is right. You are this character. You are testing. That's it. That's all there is.
Man, those menus are crunchy. I love it. Oh, friends. Uh I have a request for all of you as we as we go back to our as we go back to our coffee shop. If you've enjoyed this, and obviously this is our first attempt at this. This is a little rougher than I think uh I thought it was going to be. Mostly because I forgot how much I enjoy playing Portal and Portal cooks my brain sometimes when I'm busy over here looking like this
trying to solve a Portal puzzle. Um if you have other games from like the classic era, right? I think we're saying at least a decade old to start with. they need to be at least a decade old that you think it would be cool to like take a look at and see how well it holds up and what it does and how it like interfaced with the industry at the time

and is it still relevant today and all of those questions leave them in the comments. Leave them in the comments. We'll be checking
or come over to our Discord. We'll
comment there. But yeah, like it's really interesting to me to see this almost two decades later. Yeah,
because in some cases Portal still feels relevant
like it still is influencing the industry,
right? And it's the original Portal even not even its sequel, right? Yeah.
Like both of them are, but the fact that Portal itself is still a like relevant like I don't know Jeff, if you were teaching a class on game design, would you put Portal on the list of games every game designer should probably play? Yeah. But also like my nephew is in his mid- teens at this point. I remember buying him Portal a couple years ago.
Yeah.
Like I buy him games for his birthday and for Christmas.
Yeah.
Of you know like fun games to play. And like it's a game I bought him. It was

still on sale. It's still or you know it's still in the store. It's still selling.
Yeah. like there aren't a lot of almost 20-year-old games that you know
stay in the store and are still regularly sold and promoted and everything.
One of the advantages of PC gaming is that our games don't have to worry about console hops. Um that is that is
I think I actually bought it for him and might have even been on to a Nintendo of something at this point.
Yeah.
Wait, did they sell it on the Switch? Hold on. I got to look it up as we're talking. I I don't even know. Yeah. Um and lots of people are talking about this and Portal 2. So yeah, um we'd love to do this. Not all the time obviously. We've got other uh topics to discuss and
Yeah, it is on the Switch. Okay.
Yeah. And we've got some um we've got uh guests that we're thinking about bringing on in the future and we've got some other topics. So, we will still be doing all of those things, but
all the Yeah. Mishmash normal stuff we do. But
it's funny. Will and I were talking and like just kind of the word installing

came up as I was fiddling with the thumbnail and we were like, "Oh, wait. That might be a series that we try and do every once in a while."
Yeah. So, like and and and we won't always have played them. I have a deep confession, chat. I have never played Chrono Trigger.
And at some point that might be worth doing as like an exercise. Um because I one of the things that I I think that we could also do with this is using these classic games as ways to talk about playing games like a designer. Um we've done that in some of the lives before where Jeff has like
um live reacted. Um but I think having him coach me in more analytical playing and like
will you're forgetting to check all the buttons kind of thing is like very important.
So yeah. Um until by the way just suggested one that I think we should put on our list. Will um

Oh yeah,
the original Halo and then maybe a a year later ODST.
You mean the best Halo game?
I I I know your thoughts on it. Will
the best Halo game? ODST is the best Halo game without exception. I will fight you in the comments. It's great. All right. Uh, we will be back on Friday. Uh, I'm going to do this very infrequently. So, uh, enjoy this. It's my birthday on Friday. If you've never been to a Games for Breakfast and you're seeing this, you should come hang out for my birthday on stream on Friday. Come hang out with me and Matt as we talk about the gaming news of the week um, and everything that's going on in the world of gaming. Uh, we'll have a whole bunch of stories to talk about, so please come join us for that. We will be back next week with another design club topic TBD, but it'll be posted later this week. Um, so please look forward to both of those things. All that having been said, all that remains is for Jeff

to say bye to the people.
Bye to the people. Have a great week everybody. Thanks for joining us.
See y'all.