For this critical play, I played the beloved classic Portal. Portal is a game for everyone, was created by gaming powerhouse Valve, and runs on PC and consoles. There is a reason Portal is a classic. Valve created the perfect puzzle game because in Portal, the puzzle gameplay is seamlessly integrated within the game. There is no puzzle screen, minigame, or mode that you switch to before returning to the usual gameplay loop. There is no abstraction. In Portal, the puzzle is in physical space: when you enter a new experiment room your goal is simply to reach the exit of the room. The exit, however, is always in some unreachable place. Fortunately, you are able to create portals on certain surfaces that you can use to navigate to unreachable places, redirect lasers, transfer momentum, and more.
The mechanics of the puzzle in Portal are supported by the narrative and level design in the game. The setting is a science lab, populated by a sarcastic robot, Glados, who is ‘guiding’ you through a series of experiments for science. The mechanics of navigating 3D space could have made for a cool game even if it was completely abstract, with no story or characters, choosing to focus on fun through challenge. Despite that, the puzzle gameplay shines because of how grounded it feels within the context of this game world, and how the game is able to create fun through narrative. The puzzle mechanics feel natural because of their grounding in 3D space, but are able to create great complexity through the portal gun mechanic. Its a ton of fun discovering what you are able to accomplish with the portal gun, like creating an infinite loop of falling by placing two portals on top of each other, and using it to build momentum before shooting halfway across the room
Despite making a game whose mechanics feel natural to many due to its grounding in the navigation of 3D space, it is not a game for everyone. There are cultural barriers to the enjoyment of video games, down to the inherent barrier to gaming that exists if you are simply not already a gamer. This reminds me of a video I enjoyed, What Games Are Like For Someone Who Doesn’t Play Games by game design channel Razbuten, that explores this very topic. There are design tropes in games, like ‘red barrels explode’ which game designers might assume are self-explanatory, and not make clear for new gamers. In Portal, the game differentiates between surfaces that can have portals placed and those that cannot through implicit visual cues. The portal-able surfaces are often clean, white, smooth tiles, fitting of the lab setting. The non-portal-able surfaces tend to be darker, dirty, and visually noisy. This is a visual cue that is obvious to me and many experienced gamers, but that I’ve witnessed new gamers struggle with in portal.
I think that game designers could benefit by taking a moment to reflect on their games as if they were the context-less player, to determine whether they are making any assumptions based on game tropes/patterns that new players might struggle with. A simple pop up or tooltip to explain the different surface types in Portal, could go a long way. You don’t want to go too far with explaining things though. There should be options to select your experience as a gamer, and get a more or less verbose tutorial based on that. Also, I believe it’s fun to have plenty of secrets for players to discover on their own. In Minecraft shooting arrows through fire or lava creates a fire arrow. This is never explicitly mentioned by the game, and though it may sound obvious, it is a cool interaction to discover in the game firsthand, or even through word of mouth. I think explicitly mentioning this interaction would have taken away from the experience of the game in that case.
