IMPORTANT FACT! This post was started some months ago and has been sitting in my draft folder ever since waiting to be finished. That is until now…

A fourth post about such a short game!

It has shocked me that I’m writing so much about it.

These posts are certainly interesting for me to write. They are getting me to think more about what I’m playing. Especially in a more critical sense, and applying my limited knowledge of game design.

I hope you are enjoying this deviation from the regular boardgame content.

In the previous post I inelegantly looked at the length of the game. A major critism about it. In this post I’m just as clumsily going to look at the story and audio side of Portal.

Portal has you playing Chell. You wake up from your relaxation chamber at the Aperture Labs, ready to participate in a series of tests. We even get a little warning that there may be a risk of injury. Followed by a bit of equipment breaking. A foreshadowing that all may not be right. We seem to alone. No one else present, except for the metallic voice of GLaDOS.

We have no other option but to go forward taking part in the tests…

As we progress through the tests the facade starts to crumble. The tests start to get more deadly, we stumble across graffiti containing warnings, GLaDOS finds it harder to appear helpful, and comes across more insincere, less interested in your safety.

One stand out moment that shows GLaDOS has a dark side is when you are forced to euthanise a companion cube to complete a test.

I don’t think there can be any debate that the story in Portal follows the Three act structure. The debate if any is over where one act finishes and the next begins.

For me the second act starts around test chamber 9. Until now we are still being introduced to new game mechanics. From now on we start to get less subtle hints that things ain’t right.

The third act, the resolution of the story, is obviously our confrontation with GLaDOS and our escape, which starts at test chamber 19. Which sees GLaDOS try to incinerate us before we escape into the maintenance areas, and ultimately take on GLaDOS.

In the previous posts I’ve harped on about the use of the environment to help tell the story. It’s a standard part of the first person developers toolkit.

Between using the environment and bits of audio via GLaDOS we start to build up a picture all is not as it seems.

Through the use of Easter eggs in the environment Portal is linked to the world setup in the Half-Life series of games.

The majority of the time when I’m mobile gaming (which is basically what I call playing on my handheld consoles) I have the sound turned off. Mainly because in the past that gaming was on public transport such as my daily commute to work, or lunch breaks. Yes I could have used headphones but I was usually also listening to a podcast on my iPod (remember them?)

That habit of playing with no sound has continued now onto the Switch. Or it’s evolved as I have the sound on low sometimes as to not distract from the show on in the background.

However I do use headphones with the Switch when I particularly want to get fully immersed in the game. For this I use VANKYO C750 Bluetooth active noise cancelling headphones. Which are over ear, Hi-Fi Stereo, and apparently deep bass.

It’s this evolved usage and use of headphones is how I’ve experienced the sound whilst playing Portal.

Throughout the game radios play an instrumental version, even faster tempo version of Still Alive.

Otherwise the sound we get are the sound effects of the test lab, and whatever equipment/devices are in the room, and the voice of GLaDOS.

For me apart from the Jonathan Coulton Still Alive none of the other music in the game seems memorable or stands out. In fact when it came to remembering the other tunes I couldn’t. Maybe that says more about me than the music, and what I’m focused on as I play the game.

I think this is the last post I’ll write looking at the video game. It’s been a blast revisiting an old favourite. The final post in this series will be about the board game. Then once the Doom project is complete I’ll look at coming back to Portal 2.

See you in the next one.