All right, guys, final piece of content here from Valve. I'm sitting here again with chet Jay and Eric, and we are now going to talk in detail about the plot and some of the various ins and outs of Portal two. Uh, don't don't listen to this spoiler field. Yeah, spoilers are coming up. We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna say, yah know, like you'll your enjoyment of Portal two is gonna be diminished significantly if
you have not already played through the game. Uh so, uh, you know, buy it, be warned, right and they come back pause? Yeah, play it, come back, rewind it, yeah, remake, sit right, and honestly, even not just I'm I'm this is gonna be open spoiler zone for anything. So any if you don't like spoilers in general, let's warm up when you got first. Eric, Yeah, So it turns out that in Shutter Island, Leonardo DiCaprio crazy the whole time. Actually,
mate, I still haven't seen that. It's in my Netflix queue and now you don't have its watch and it's in my Netflix instant watch q the instant watch Quell. You better take it off then dangerous it could be all right, it's a spoilers. Seriously, that's saved. That saved you like seven or eight hours. Tell me it's not a very good film, all right, let's not valve. Valve doesn't like Martin Scorsese. People Valve like Shutter Island a whole lot. A few people have a tattooed on them.
Tell me about the animal King? What inspired the Animal King? Getting back to portal two, everyone's should be looking at jay. Uh, what inspired the animal King? I think it was just the idea of picking something as Atlantish as possible. What was then it was a sentient gas cloud or something in cloud, very star trek. I love the idea of just a corporation essentially covering its butt with even the most outlandish possibility of what happened to the
earth. You know, it was the idea that they didn't know, like they had this plan in place so they could keep testing for whatever reason, even you know, if something really awful happened, and then they're just kind of listing it like maybe this, maybe this happened, Maybe this happened. Averature science is not bound by governments or you know, religions or ethics. They they're science samon sense nothing. But if there should be an animal king
thousands of years from now, they've got to cover. Yeah, they got a cover. Then Richard Lord, who's kind of the mastermind behind those little infographic videos, kind of came up with the idea of the giant leopard print turret in the un It was funny, I don't know where. And then, uh, well, now as super spoiler, you imagine, did you notice that the animal King is there at the end? I did. I did notice. It's not just fake, there's real. Yeah, the Animal
King is real. We can spoil that here. Look look for that. If you didn't see it the first time, pause, rewind it, play the whole game again. That's that's right. So this game, you know, you really dig into a lot of the backstory and of aperture science. You know, we see the Cave Johnson stuff, we see something you know kind of uh at least you know the the the aperture aesthetic over the years. Like, how much like unseen backstory do you guys have for this or
is it is most of it kind of out there in the game. You want to talk about the six page Bible, you weren't Yeah, no, no, there. Uh, there's some stuff. I mean, we tried to work it out in our head kind of what might make sense. But you know, honestly, uh, we like, if we thought of it, it was good. We were trying to it's really good. Let's not put it in the game. So you guys are the native Americans of video game writing, Yes, we use it well, yes, uh. Having
said that, we cut a lot of stuff as well. Yeah, No, a lot of stuff didn't make it on the cutting room floor. I guess the aperture that we just felt rather than just regurgitate more of the same, why not? What was what were they like in the fifties? What were they like in the seventies? Right? It just gave us more. I guess I'm more a complex vision of the company where we kind of got
to check out. I don't know what would it be like under the regime of this different guy who was clearly not Gladys, right, he's the antithesis of Gladys to a point. But there's definitely there's a there's a turning. There's a moment in that game when when Gladys and Cave are suddenly align and in tune with each other. There is I think what mom, we talk, we're talking about the Lemons, the Lemons to Lemonade. Yeah, that
that speech where she gets all pumped up. Yeah. So, and clearly they're both maybe more invested in their own actions and their enthusiasm for what they're doing than they are in your personal safety. I would say that's like the aperture way. So yeah, that's the corporate culture of aperture. But yeah, they definitely are on the same page. At some point, I keep like talking spoiler free, but I forgot we're in the spoiler zones so I
can say whatever I want. I mean, the thing that Kay has been kicking around for years as a character, and we've had various incarnations, but he's just one of those guys just refused to go away. I mean, he's been out of the game so many times, but he just keeps kind of sneaking his way back in. I think actually, the Lemons, the Lemonade speeches, that's the one through age A long time ago. Oh so,
so here's a question if you guys remember this. A few years ago, after Portal two, I believe, had been announced that there was someone had had leaked out that here's the whole story of Portal two that didn't we hadn't announced yet at that point. Oh no, no, oh yeah no, he was a casting agent and posted that up on a forum and then somebody ran with it. You know, I think I pretty deliberately kind of
went around that because I did enjoy the first portal so much. I'm like, I don't want to have this ruined, even if it's fake, because if it's fake, what if I end up liking the fake thing better than the real thing. So those lines are not in the game now, but if you go back and find it, I think they do speak the fact that originally Cave had a much different role and all. That's all I'll say.
But yeah, so, I mean, even just seeing that, you can see the various attempts we've had with Cave and the various roles at given points in time he's had in this game. Yeah, so, if you didn't read the casting sheet, it turns out that most of the stuff that's in the casting sheet isn't actually in the game. Game kind of went in a different direction ultimately. I mean, it did make it sound like the little bit that I did see made it sound like, oh, this is
going to be like complete throwback. You're not going to see any of like
the modern stuff. It's going to be set in you know, in the sixties or whatever, which you know, you it's it's I there's there's something very satisfying of the you know, the the physicals, the vertical physical space, also representing the timeline of of aperture, as though you're just like they just they start at the bottom and then they just kept building each decade on top of the next aperture, essentially much like New York City built on New
York City. Just they just and that was one of the things. Again, we've always had this view of aperture that if they screw something up, they just literally cement in the building, break it up literally, speak of it again, just break it over and then build some new stuff on top.
And so I mean that speaks a lot in the fifties areas in the seven you can kind of see these bricked in walls, and that's something again we one of other things you don't really like explicitly state, you want to kind of just suggest, and it's there for people if you want to kind of poke around. You can see all these ideas of experiments gone wrong.
But it's all like in the corners and the shadows kind of thing. This is, though much more traditional narrative than the original part like the original Portal Is is very much it's it's almost exclusively implied and minimalists. Yeah, and and very very minimalist. This there's there's there's more exposition. You know,
there's more characters there. You know that well, there there are characters beyond just you know, glad us in that you're kind of you know, voice a scope I guess right, I mean, you just can't maintain this many hours of game. We have scope and pacing, you know, the minimalist vibe or aesthetic. We kind of believe me if we could have written fifteen lines of dialogue, yeah, I don't think we didn't. We didn't go down that path. But yeah, there's no way in Portal To you're gonna
start off and like, oh is there a story or not? What's going on? And you gotta jump in? I mean you could you know, we were able to leverage the sort of minimalist thing, uh to sort of launch into a surprise story that you didn't even think there was going to be a story that cat is out of the bag in portal too. So I
think there's also a sense of why why repeat yourself? Right? I mean, this isn't just this isn't just fast or harder, more challenging portals this, I mean just to have the opportunity of, like, let's have some alm with some new characters, let's throw let's mix it up a bit and
see what happened. So I have a question early on Wheeley is uh is talking about it where Glass can't remember talking about how you know there was there is the event where where Chell kills Gladys, and then there's a period in which nothing happens and then yeah, yeah, that's that's sweetly, Uh, what's going on there? Like obviously like I don't I don't feel like there was necessarily ever a payoff for that line in the game, or are you
guys seating stuff there? Well? So one, it's from his perspective, so we're getting this idea. He doesn't know that you are, in fact the person who overthrew Gladys, So the idea there yet kind of have to listen, there's a lot going on, but he's talking about, Uh, there was this guy who came and beat up Gladys. There's one line that uh yeah, the uh you know, then then this person escaped and no
one's seen him. Since it was a nice little throwaway line. It was just this idea that he's talking to you about this supposed male hero who came and overthrew everything, not knowing that you are in fact the hero. And then I think it is if you haven't played the first game, it kind of gives you a really quick little recap kind of thing, and then obviously you you know, he figures it out and it gets rack, and if you have played it, it's this cool moment of like, oh, you're
dumb, ask you're talking about me. So so I kind of I read it as being like so obviously like not like leaving out information so deliberately that clearly there has to be something in that in that period so well, I mean we do cover that in the comic that's out now of what happens between one and two? Are you talking about that? Yeah? Yeah, I'm talking about like this the space that we says like that period when nothing happens.
So I would argue, from Wheatley's perspective, really nothing of importance happen yeah, again, this is all this I mean from his perspective, he's been sitting down there, Yeah, pretty much afraid to jump off the broken end for for a long time. But again, a lot of that is just I mean, it's boring just to spell it out right. I mean, there is that sense of it. He could have prattled on for every
single, you know, little minuscule thing that happened. And the nice thing is the plot of Portal one is fairly easy to summarize in a couple of sentences. But yeah, so I think just exactly what Chet said. It hopefully lets old players or new players, gives them a recap of what happened, and then old players, returning players get this added benefit of realizing that
Wheatley doesn't know that you're the person who took GLaDOS down. And I would argue that there is a payoff when you wait GLaDOS up and she acknowledges you. The payoff is Wheatley's like, holy shit, that's you. Uh. Obviously did not work for Ryan, but I was I would know, I well, I was so caught up in in watching the Resurrection of Gladis is a pretty great intense moment early on in the game. Yeah, we argued with the animators, toned down the awesomeness and the animation so people could focus
on the dialogue. Yeah, did not listen, did not Uh So, speaking of kind of this this, you know, the the implication of the inference. Uh, one of the things I noticed early on, having like literally just the day before, played through uh the original portal first time you hear glad to speak clearly much more human sounding voice. Well like the filtering
or whatever. The effects are much much lighter, not not as heavily modulated, And I was wondering, like, I wonder if this is you know, if this is a kind of a very deliberate move to to humanizer, and then you get to that payoff when you start realizing, oh, you know, she she actually does have this human character or at least some piece
of her inside of her. Yeah. So, I mean, obviously that was deliberate, partly because she's obviously closer towards a more human sounding voice at the end of Portal one than she is at the beginning of Portal one. She already kind of moving towards this human voice, and we just wanted to push it a little bit farther to start her from a place that was close to where she ended in Portal one, but we moved a little bit forward and then she gets more human as the game progresses is and then uh weight
we're in spoilers something, and then resets herself at the end. But yeah, the idea, I mean, just to take it right off the bat from Portal one. I mean she did go undergo an arc, so just we didn't want to nerf that arc and take a rape back to swear one. Let's talk about potatoes. Well, how did you know what she was called potatoes? What inspired? Uh? Where did you pick that up? The potatoes? Gag? Oh you didn't actually say potatoes, or did you? I said, I said potatoes. Yeah, he didn't know, he
know, he said potatoes. There's a potato, there's a potato. It's pretty calling your potatoes. I don't think we ever actually say that in the game. Always I'm literally talking about potatoes. Oh, just the plural of potatoes, yeah, or of potato. Okay, we so in the when we first thought it up, we refer to her internally as potatoes, which is, uh, potatoes, pause now for laughter. And I could have made that a lot, thank god, we even put that in the game.
Yeah, well so, so even beyond the potato gag, there is actually a some sort of long lost connection to the origins of Gladys with the with the potato gag. No, well, no, we just when she's in potato form, we just call her potatoes. Uh. Well, actually he made you sound a lot smarter than Yeah, Actually were you should just said yes, let me anyway, you're sawing a subconscious level. No, no, I just glasses into potato. It's funny when she's called potatoes.
So so okay, So obviously there's you know, the potatoes create electricity boat, Like, what what line of thought brought you to? We're gonna put Gladys in a potato and stick her on the end of the portal gun for half the game. So we knew we wanted to bring her low. That was a huge point with it. We were like, we have to take this character someplace new and interesting and let's strip her of her power. And so that was cut from you know, from day one, that was it.
It was just what were we gonna do with it? And originally were gonna put her in a core like Wheatley was in. Originally and I think we were all just walking one day and just stumbled on the idea of a potato battery, and it just felt so right. It seems like the most demeaning thing that you could possibly do to gladdoms, and we put her in a you know, one point two volt the potato battery. The more we talked about it, just the visual was there in all our heads and we're
like, oh, we have to try this. We have to try and convince the rest of the team this is the way to go. Yeah. And also we wanted her to be with you but not have to move on a rail like wheat leaks, and we knew that in the underground it was gonna be tough to get a rail going. We didn't want you to have to carry her around. We wanted something also small enough that it could be
visible to you at all times, but you know, not obtrusive. So it's there's this thing where when we're trying to solve you know, you have the broad strokes of the story. Then you're trying to solve like the moment to moment problems, and you'll come up with solution and it starts clicking off boxes like it solves this problem solves this problem. It's funny, you know, and that's when you generally know that it's the right, right solution.
So did you always know that that she was going to end up becoming kind of a at least for a time, a sympathetic character. She's she is still kind of sympathetic by the end, like she she has gone from or you know, maybe it's just it's it's it's coldly calculating, but you know it's it's it's easier for her to not kill you than to kill you.
I mean, certainly not from square one, but there was a point where it struck us like, wouldn't it be great if we could do kind of a buddy cop where we actually have you and Gladys kind of team up against a new enemy. And so it was. It wasn't always the potato, but it was there was a certainly a sense, I think probably at least a year or two back, where we're like, we gotta we gotta try
this. It's too good at too good an idea not to try. The one thing too is you know you're writing character, you're writing Wheatley, and you know, if I had my way, you know, every everything we ever do every character gets their chance to be the villain because it's so awesome to see a character, you know, when their villainous. It's it. You know, how is a particular character villainous when they become villainous? You know Wheatley, uh, just an idiot? Yeah, bad at villainy.
Yeah, as the hill name is just terrible at it. And that was that was another interesting because Gladys is this super smart, you know, conniving person. So the idea of of as Eric just said, it's a different kind of daydre because this guy has no idea what he's doing. And that gave us a lot more opportunities in the last act to have some fun with
that. And we I don't know if we did. I like the idea we did, probably the idea of you know, it's a puzzle game and it's about being smart, so it'd be kind of interesting to have you know, the boss monster, for lack of a better term, be the world's greatest moron, you know, right, Yeah, I put you in the death trap, death trap after death trap, Yeah, constantly thwarted. Let's talk about the moon. Let think of that. When when did we get to the how did we get to the moon. So we got to the
moon. I believe it was an Easter Egg at some point. Yeah, well I think it might have been. Josh Wire, who's project lead, was like, oh, you know, would be cool Easter egg. Uh, well, back up one more step. We had discussed at some point were like, well, how far can the portal gun fire? I'm oh,
I guess it's far. We've never really said I guess it fires as far as you know it fired anything that you pointed at, and Josh was saying, well, oh, it would be great if we had an Easter egg where at some point you can see the moon and uh, you know, off some beaten paths somewhere, and you shoot a portal on it, and if you shoot a portal on the wall, it sucks you out and kills you. And we'll do a fake ending, like we'll have a fake
song. And we love the idea because it was like, I think the idea was three minutes, literally three minutes into the game, you could do this. Yeah, that credits roll and we have a sag about the three minutes of the game when they're showing you all the things you did. Yeah, yeah, oh, we're we have a retrospective of the first three minutes of the game, and remember the time you got sucked out into the moon.
It was said on the moon. And then we realized, like, we're putting all this burning, all these calories, put all this effort into it for something that well, there was two things going up. The other one was much like Portal one until you know, relatively laying the project, We're like, what are we gonna do? What's going to happen at the end, And again there's a series of problems. We didn't want to roy Wheatley because people still kind of liked Wheatly, and so we didn't want to
destroy Wheatly, but we needed to get him out of the chassis. We needed GLaDOS. We wanted GLaDOS to save you, which leads into the you know, the surge of emotion, which he does that let's her locate Carolyn. And we wanted it to be spectacular, but in a fairly ridiculous, over the top way, and uh so we're you know, we're talking about it, talking about it, and the easter egg actually made it into the game, and play testers who found it it was a consistent high'd be like,
list your highs of the game when the moon thing was hilarious. So at some point we're in a meeting trying to hash this out. Yeah, and it's just like, why didn't we think of this six months ago. Let's move it from the easter egg and make it something. This solves all the problems. Wheatly get shot out into space. Oh. There was also we had one of the spheres who we knew wanted to be. Uh. We just had this thing where we wanted it to be like kind of rain
manish, just wanting something desperately and that's all it wants. And then we were like, oh, it wants to go to space because then it gets to go to spin again. That spear, it was another one that's been around for just ages ages space. You didn't originally say space, but the idea it was just this kind of monosyllabic spear, I want to go I want to go here, I want to do this, I want to do
that. And we're like, oh, what if he said space? Yeah, and he gets to go to space and he gets a genuine he's I think he's the one character in my mind who gets the genuinely happy ending and that voice that is Nolan North. He's the voice of all the games. Yeah, every game, every character, he's all this, he's all the Corrupt Cords at the end, and he's the Defective Turrets as well. Yeah,
it's a lot of fun working with him. Yeah. Jay had worked with him on a game Jay had worked on earlier called This is Vegas, and uh, yeah, he impressed the hecking of us just with how many voices you could do. So the idea was just let's bring him in and have him you know, you have to point that microphone at him. There I go, yeah, pointing at my chest. Yeah, no, your chest has nothing to add. Well, I was laughing at off camera.
You can't. You can't say it's no camera that you were just openly laughing at Jay forever I played This is Vegas. So oh nice, probably one of the few in Vegas. In fact, the final midway trip. I'm made sure I was working there at that point. Defensive j Nolan North was able to recite when he came in to do the recording two years later.
Uh, lines of dialogue verbatim from This is Vegas. Yeah, I mean when I was on there, they let me get pretty NC seventeen I have no idea what eventually made it into the game though, But but either way, yes, that this is Vegas. I think he ended up by the end of it, he was doing like half the voices on it. So he just really you guys, like the mel Blanc of a video game voiceover. So we Eric, what do you think blank or blank? I think it's blank. Canada might be set. What do you think? Was blanch
blanche? Alright? So alright, alright, alright, So back to the moon here. So so we established earlier in the game that at least some sort of portal technology is using uh moon or it is involving moon srushup moon, crush upon rocks. So I was thinking about this while I was playing the game in fiction, and this is the kind of thing that that that I was more more talking about as far as kind of backstory in fiction, what determines a portable surface? Uh? Portaable? Yeah, portalable surface huge
seven? Is portallable a word? Or is there a better word for portable? I think we ended up with portable, uh, but portallic port portallic? That came up anyway, what were we saying? So? In fiction, I guess there's some coding that. So the implication is that there was some other surface that didn't involve ground up moon rocks, but that wasn't as reliable as ground up moon rocks. So we could say but that the surface property is something that is painted with this. Uh. You know, something
that's portable has to be made portable by putting sub substance on it. Okay. For instance, the moon, the Moon's all portable because it's all made out of moon rocks. Okay. Should also be noted that we are all science expidence. No, it doesn't have to make actual science sense as long as there is some sort of internal logic though. That's that's the key.
It's it's similarly like we see these these new elevator rooms and we see stuff that looks more advanced than the testing facilities that we saw in the first game. Uh, that one. There is no fictional explanation for it. That's kind of like just the upresing, slight reimagining of you know that you did in half half Life one to half Life too. It's just a matter of kind of rethinking some of that stuff. But but then I wonder, like, you know, how how long has it been since there were any people
at Aperture Science or at this particular facility. We kind of purposely played fast and loose with the lin line, Yeah, just in case he because we didn't think it was absolutely that important at the end of the day, it's been a long time. But having said that, you shouldn't read too much into the redesigned elevators like that specifically, is just something that we did to make portal. It's just make it look cooler. To make it look cooler.
Yeah, yeah, there isn't There isn't some other other other thing that's working on facilities or the implication is just isn't that someone came in and built these in the interim of nothing has happened in the interim. So if you had a good explanation, yeah, that would be the time to share it with us. Uh yeah, like to hear it. What do you what do you guys think of the you know, the old cloning theory as far
as Chell is concerned. What are your thoughts on that stuff? What didn't hear about the oh so the so one of the theories that I had heard was that at least this is this is regard to the original portal. Uh, the the Ratman dens as as you call them, the notion that that was actually a previous version of you that Gladys had been running. Did this Did this theory come out after Moon? No, it's pre move Uh nothing,
okay. I was just wondering if we had a lawsuit on our hands because we could now say, yes, that was our intention all along. That wasn't the intention was? It was not. There's no cloning as far as I know, And in fact, your answers lie in the comic book, which is now out early explicitly. I don't know if you've reread the comic. I didn't know. I didn't know there was a comic there. It came out a couple of days ago. It's up on the website,
and it ties together. Ratman is the start. It shows the Roman. So yeah, that that'll that's gonna blow that theory out of the water. And also we're in the spoiler zone the ending of co Op, which you haven't seen yet. Oh, I'm actually spoiling it for you. All right. Uh, there's anyway no cloning? Okay, none? Well yet? Yeah, I mean there could do. Do you think we need more cloning? Would that make it? Would you guys, like some cloning ideas,
we'll take them. Uh, we're running out of time here, guys. But I'm just curious, like what what elements or maybe even just kind of specific moments, uh, that that you felt really, uh, we're nailed, and really that you find personally satisfying in portal too, that you know, moments that that you helped you know, create, or even just that that we're very satisfying to see if in the finished game. For me, real quick, uh, end of the first Stephen Merchant session was my high.
That was when I knew we'd gotten something, or even just just just doing it in the studio, just because up to that point you got the character in your head, you got the voice in your head of what you
think he sounds like. But it's always different the first time you were an actor of body and I remember the first four hour session and there was Steve Merchant and just walking out going like this is going to be great Erica and anything game that that is the same for me, I mean that was the most the scariest moment, the one Jay just to going in to record Steven Merchant, not knowing if this is gonna work, if it's gonna be good, and you know, we went all the way to London and you know
it was a big deal. Uh. And then knowing I'm not even saying after the first session, I'm saying, fifteen minutes in, it was pretty obvious that he was super invested in and it was great personally in game, I mean, there's a bunch of moments that I like. I really like the uh the wheatly uh cladows switch over. I thought it tread a Tread's a kind of nice line between being dramatic and funny at the same time. So, I mean, I guess that would be a personal high for me.
I think that's a part where just lots of stuff came together, the animation, the music, the acting. Uh. For me, I think my favorite beat is one of the ones that came on absolutely at the end. It's just the idea that Gladys has this immensely emotional, satisfying character arc and then just deletes at wholesale, learns a lesson, and then learn a valuable lesson here today and now it's gone. I also like that she learns
a lesson from deleting the lesson recursive lessons chetting anything for for you. I just really like when you go back to Wheatley and he's taking control and you're with GLaDOS, and I mean, he's just the moron running the place and it's kind of like guess, kind of hell, yeah, I probably wouldn't do much better. I don't know. JM chetted valve our heads surrounded by he's seen this before. Yea, I will do that. I'll do that. Oh god, that's horrible. That's really put the two of them together.
Wait can we just do that test again? Yeah, that'll do it. No, No, that won't do it. So I'm gonna name Can I name two more things? Or keep naming them? So there are two things closer to the end as well. There's a moment when Wheatley's dangling out there and he's like, you know, let let go let I can still fix this. There's this actual I just like the idea that he still thinks that. I mean, it's it's it's sincere on his part, like I can still fix this, I can make this right, and he wants to
get back in there and do it. And then I also I like just the very final beat where the boss Monster offers you a sincere apology for all the trouble he's caused. I've never seen that in a game before, just like because you kill him a lot and they scream, But I've never had a boss monster come on and be like you know what, Yeah, you are right. I am super sorry and actually really legitimately contrite about it. Yeah, I am so sorry for all the trouble life. If I had
to do well again, would have done it differently. I apologize. Well, yeah, I think that's that's going to do it for a time here, gentlemen, thank you so much, both for your time here and for for Portal two available now. But you already know that because you played it. If you're listening to this man, if I haven't played it, uh, we were kidding about the spoilers and buch other stuff in there. You should still probably describing another gay Yeah, yeah, the next call of duty.
That's what I've just been talking the game, actually laying down the gun, like call of duty is gonna have to go like to the sun or something to top going to the mood. Well, it turns out this whole podcast was just a tree all right, and scene