There aren't a lot of games that can hold a candle to Portal. This was an outstanding puzzler that was released more than a decade ago but is still being enjoyed to this day by gamers new and old. It take𝔉s place in an underground research facility where you as the player must take on a series of "tests," all the while being guided by a disembodied, robotic voice. Things get tricky when you start to realize that your robotic guide, GLaDOS, may not have purely good intentions.
The development of Portal is an interesting story to tell, seeing as how it all began with a team of university students and their 15-minute-long indie game. In this article, we've rounded up some of the tidbits about the making of Portal that you've probably never heard before.
7 Chell's Real-World Model
Since Portal is a first-person game and Chell is in a testing facility with no mirrors or reflective glass, you don't get a glimpse of her character model very often. T𒆙he best way to get a good look at it is to place two portals beside each other in a wall corner.
If you do that, you'll see that Chell is a woman with an athletic build and black hair, wearing an orange jump suit and strange boots that al✅low her to survive a fall from any height.
Turns out, her in-game model was actually based on Alésia Glidewell, an American produ▨cer and voice actor. You may know her voice from, among other things, when she played Alma Wade i෴n F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin and F.E.A.R 3.
6 ﷽ The Original Plot Of Portal
If you're a fan of the games, you probably already know that Portal began as the indie project of a few university students... but how much do you know about that indie project?
Portal's successor was entitled Narbacular Drop, and it was about a Princess who was kidnapped by a demon. Princess No-Knees (who earned her name because she couldn't jump) used the mechanic that would go on to become portals in an attempt to escape her dungeon. However, for Princess No-Knees, the portals were actually created by the dungeon itself; the dungeon was actually a se🐻ntient being named W꧟ally.
If you're interested,
5 Rattman's Haunted Ramblings
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Doug Rattman was the only scientist to survive when GLaDOS killed everyone in the Aperture Science facility. He managed to escape by traveling through back rooms and maintenance areas where GLaDOS had no way of releasing her deadly neurotoxin. The den𒈔s that he made there to live in can even be found in both Portal game🉐s.
When Portal first came out and people started finding his dens, some players swore that they could hear 'Rat Man' (as they dubbed him, eventually inspiring his real name) talking to himself wh🌌en they were there. At the time, players had heated 𓃲debates about whether or not it was true.
Turns out, Rattman's voice wasn't in the first game, but it was added to his dens in Portal 2. He was voiced by Marc Laidlaw, a Valve writer who didn't work on Portal but did write the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Half-Life games. The full ramblings are on the Portal 2 soundtrack, entitled 'Ghost of Rattman.'
4 The Limitations Of A Small Team 💛
Think back to the world as it was before Portal came out. A small team of developers had made a relatively unknown indie game, which impressed Valve founder Gabe Newell so much that he hired th🐭em on. Valve was a growing game company; Half-Life had been a success and Steam, wh๊ich initially only ran Valve games, began to include third-party games in 2005.
However, despite a lot of optimism about the company's future, they didn't have a lot of resources to spare for the developers of Portal. The game was made by a small team working with a big task: turn a 15-minute indie game into something worthy of sitting on store shelves. Valve and its team didn't want to disrupt the initial design that they had liked so much, but were also trying to connect it to the Half-Life universe which had been such a success.
In the end, having a small team turned out to be a blessing in disguise; it had lots of benefits for the final product. For one thing, the original developers were able to take the humour they'd included in Narbacular Drop and refine it without the interference of too many voices. Another example is how much the developers were able to, with the independence they were given, experiment with the gameplay and mechanics. In a larger game with a larger team, anything unconventional needs to be taught or explained to scores of people, whereas the Portal team was able to try out new things completely unhindered.
3 Chell's Voice Actor
Did you ever notice that Chell makes noises in Portal, but no voice actor is listed for her in the final credits? Granted, she never speaks, but she does have grunts and groans for when the turrets shoot h🧜er.
Turns out, no one is credited because these recordings are actually archived ones Valve already had on hand! They're from the female citizens who appear in Half-Life 2. So, technically, Chell's voice actor is Mary Kae Irvin. Do with this information what you will.
2 The Party Escort Bot's Unfulfilled Role
After you escape from GLaDOS in the first Portal, she tells you to assume the "party escort submission position" (basically, to lie down) and that a "party assoc😼iate" will arrive to take her to the party GLaDOS has been promising her.
In an interview with Game Informer, a writer for Portal, Eric Wolpaw, said that he had wanted to include a Party Escort Bot - a Core with limbs 🌄- in the second half of the game that would creepily follow Chell around as she escaped, waiting ♑for her t🃏o assume the party escort submission position.
Though it didn't make the original game, the Party Escort Bot did eventually make it into two appearances. The first is the finale for Portal. If you're wondering how that can be, since we just noted it was never in the first game, it's because a patch altered the ending slightly. In the original version, Chell makes it outside and falls unconscious as she looks into the bright sunlight. In the patched version, as a prelude for Portal 2, Chell hears the voice of the Party Escort Bot saying: "Thank you for assuming the party escort submission position." Chell still falls unconscious, but she is being slowly moved while that happens. The second appearance is the only time we ever get a look at the Bot: in the webcomic Portal 2: Lab Rat. The comic shows D༒oug Rattman watching the Party Escort Bot drag𒁃 Chell back into the facility.
1 The Meme That Was Neve✅r To Be: Hoopy the Hoop 💃
Hoopy the Hoop is a piece of scrap metal that became a meme because it didn't become a meme. Yup, you read that right.
Despite being a relatively short game, Port🉐al managed to spark a bunch of memes wi🅘thin the gaming community (the phrase 'the cake is a lie' was undoubtedly the most popular and long-lasting). Though they'd definitely been aiming to make a funny game, the developers had no idea it would take off like it did.
In fact, they actually had a prediction for which part of the game would become a meme, if any part was going to: Hoopy the Hoop. It's a circular piece of scrap metal that falls right in front of Chell during the final shots of the game (pre- and post-patch), where you see sunlight and the smouldering wreckage of Aperture Science's Enrichment Centre. The hoop bounces a moment, then falls over in front of GLaDOS' remains. The developers fondly named it Hoopy the Hoop.
The community found it so hilarious that the developers thought this mundane object would become a meme that it became an inside joke among fans of the game.