We did a lot of things at E3, but we made a point to check out some specific cool games coming out. One of these games is Valve's Portal 2.
We met with Valve to check out Portal 2. Our journey began a few weeks ago when they
announced the cancelation of the official Portal 2 event, which was to be replaced by a 'surprise'. I contacted the Special Envoy to Surprises, Doug Lombardi, and we set up a private meeting to see Portal 2.
We got there in time but their schedule was backed up and running late (
Valve Time, am I right?). So we rescheduled and came back the next day, which was running more smoothly. We got some cool shirts and they led us into a small room with a group of about eight people.
The first Portal game was largely experimental, our host explained. They had hired the student team from Digipen that was behind the class project
Narbacular Drop, to create the short game Portal, as part of the
Orange Box, a bundle already filled with four hugely anticipated games. Portal became immensely popular, and now they have decided to create Portal 2 as a full-fledged title.
The host started off with a general trailer, followed by some footage of the new visual style. They also showed their new approach to the story and characters with a personality orb named Wheatley.
A few trailers, showing the game’s visual style and personality.
After these videos, they got to the awesome part: the gameplay. There were some new elements, including a giant vacuum tube, a ‘Thermal Discouragement Beam’, and paint. The paint is what caught my attention: the different colors had different properties; red would make you slide faster, blue would make you bounce, and green paint was sticky. I immediately thought of
Tag: the Power of Paint, another Digipen student project. In fact, I later found out that Valve indeed hired the Tag team to work on Portal 2.
The Excursion Funnel, Aerial Faith Plate, and Thermal Discouragement Beam.
The vacuum tube and paint!
The student teams behind Portal and Portal 2 started out only with limited resources but with big dreams. Their unique designs and hard work led them to join one of the best team of professional developers right out of college. Anyone with good ideas, and more importantly, the ability to implement them, can go far in this industry. We hope to see some of you make it big!
