Interview with Erik Johnson - Portal 2 & SP Experiences

[Hectic Glenn]

In an interview by Game Developer Magazine published on Gamasutra, Erik Johnson talks about some of the changes Portal 2 has received in terms of driving along a storyline as well as the importance of single player products to Valve and the industry.

Is the aim, if such could be identified, of Portal to escape? Is it the same? Does it matter if it's the same?[br]
EJ: Yeah, I think it does matter, but I think the implementation matters a lot more. This is getting tricky to talk about, because it's about story stuff a little bit, but I think if you are telling players that the core of the story is "you are going do again what you did last time," for most people that is pretty unappealing. That's not what is going to happen in the game, but there are definitely some things that are similar to the previous game. In implementation, they end up being fun and different. You're still going to have a testing relationship with GLaDOS.

When it comes to longevity of gameplay and long-term monetization of customers, how viable are single-player gaming experiences like this one going to be in the long term?[br]I still think the analysis that every product needs to be a competitor in multiplayer, or an MMO, is incorrect; there are a lot of people who want an experience without the stress, so I don't see that changing.[br]One thing to think about is, when we are building a game like Half-Life 2 or Portal, monetization is a separate thing that, in the context of the game design, doesn't make a huge amount of sense, really.[br]We are trying to exploit the psychology of the people that play our games all the time. We are trying to change their emotional state, and trying to predict what their emotional state will be based on what we are doing in the game world.

You can read the full interview here.

 

[milkteacake]

Talking of story, GLaDOS is back, and the comments have been revealed for her this week make her sound like a jealous ex-girlfriend. Is that the intention?

Wait wait, there were new parts of the script released? Where?

 

[Avoidist]

I imagine there is some print material in addition to this online interview that contains new quotes from the script.

This interview has the remarkable property of being very interesting while telling us absolutely nothing new about the game.

 

[milkteacake]

Hm, I actually had a chance to take a look at the print version of this article, and it's actually shorter than the online version. The print version doesn't even include that question. Also, the interview seems to have happened several months ago, so I guess they're not referring to anything we don't already know. Oh well.

Haha, jealous ex-girlfriend.

 

[macdowell]

I don't have any more hopes for half-life related news

But it's good that Portal 2 is knocking in our door