Transcript
Speaker: Everyone welcome to another episode of soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm doing but my co -host is always Dave. How's it going? I did I forgot again, but it's going it's gonna right. Yeah No, that's fair. I like just I took I try to surprise you more than anything like I'll look away like I'm like doing something then come back How's it going? I thought I was doing okay, but upon Retrospection retrospective introspection retrospect retrospect. Yeah
Speaker: Anybody listen to the retro episode? That was a good one. It was one of our better episodes, I think. I don't remember the content of the episode. I remember spending like an hour and a half on the intro. Yeah. Yeah. I think we just talked about a bunch of old games, pretty sure. Oh, did we? Speaking of. I just remember the intro. A bunch of old games though. If we were to add one old game to that pile, you could argue it's an old game now. We could talk about Portal 2, specifically the co -op.
Speaker: We could do that. Do you want to? It's probably for the best that we do. I feel like you're forcing the issue here. I don't know what you prepared for, Dave, but I prepared for nothing, so let's talk about Portal 2. Jake, I didn't even prepare for the answer of how I was doing. Well, that's fair. But yeah, it was good to go back and play some Portal 2 co -op because Portal 1
Speaker: We got its whole fucking episode damn yeah great game obviously great idea very fun to play those mechanics mm -hmm then portal to expounded upon that With the different things of like the gels or the launch pads and other things that they had at the co -op mode
Speaker: where you can dick over your friends. Yeah. Everything about portal two was actually like a massive expansion over the first. They're like, the first one was just orange box fodder. I don't even think they sold it individually. I'm pretty sure only, no, it was just an orange box. And it's very simplistic. Yeah. Hey, here's some polygons for walls and shit. I mean, it looks good, but not as good as fucking portal two does. It's true.
Speaker: I had to upgrade my computer to play that shit. It does look way better. Like the first game I think you could beat it in like 30 minutes if you knew all the puzzles. I think my record was 40 without fucking up. I got like 40 minutes.
Speaker: and speedrunning like instantly. I think you launch the game and you're done, but that doesn't really count. It was super abused. Portal 2, I feel like Valve kind of has this, they have to prove themselves. I think more than a lot of other companies, they feel like they have to prove themselves whenever they release a game. I agree with that.
Speaker: It's like after especially after left for dead too, which I think like some people actually criticized for coming out so early and they're like, why isn't this DLC? Like this came out like a year and a half or two years later because we're not dead. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think I actually remember a lot of valve employees kind of like took that to heart. They're like, oh, my criticism, my one weakness. Um, well, I mean, they were kind of like the,
Speaker: It's like Steam and vent. We're like kind of the OG shit back in the day. Hey, I'm going to play some games online with my friends. This is what's cool. Yeah. Cause the ones being that kind of fell off being that event. That's where gamers would congregate. And this is steam is what most people have used and still used to this day. As far as like these are my game libraries and Steven valve are buzz.
Speaker: And then they're making these cool titles. We're like, oh, they're kind of like their first in their field to kind of the best in their field like Half -Life 2 Episode 2. Yeah, everybody talks about yeah to this day. I was like a pioneer of like a good FPS game design. Yeah and
Speaker: Yeah, so they really got their foot in the door in that regard so like everything after that because this is how We operate as people we're like, but what's next exactly? Yeah, that was a really great album of 13 songs you spent two years on But where's the next one right? But I like you now. So where's the album? Right? Yeah, I feel like they definitely
Speaker: To a certain extent sort of suffered from that like, um, their releases dropped off super dramatically after, um, some people were too much hype was building for their games. This isn't the half life three episode, but, uh, definitely out the gate with portal two, it was clear that they spent a lot of time polishing it, putting effort into the content. Like it's a, it's a full single player campaign, which it's a good 12 to 16 hours.
Speaker: Yeah, it's it's very lengthy which is not something I get to say that often So it's it's even that lengthy with Like let's say I went through and I'm like, oh I know most of the puzzles and like how to solve them Yeah, it still takes a lot of time and there's other content in it as well as far as like cutscenes and story and things are happening and
Speaker: Yeah, no, it's, it's really great and it's quotable. It's got like a lot of, uh, all the cave Johnson quotes came from this one. It's like, I'm burning the house down with lemon. Um, no freaking great. Also space, space gotta go to space. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker: Yeah, recommend the game if that's not obvious. But in particular, in preparation for this, we played through the co -op, which is kind of like a microcosm of the mechanics. They introduce it to you more rapid fire because it's a slightly abbreviated experience. It's shorter. I think like about eight hours, probably, if you're going into it first run.
Speaker: Yeah, it took us some time. Yeah, we didn't we nowhere near eight hours though. No, we're freaking out. Yeah, there were a lot of ones early on was like easy peasy Jake and I were like high -fiving with one hand the other one other hand was like shooting portals and we're just jumping through right dimensions
Speaker: But it still feels good when you know the mechanic and then applying it. Yeah, which felt all the more Brutal later on where same mechanics were in play, but we got stumped on some puzzles. Yes. Yeah But even then finding the aha moment or god, I'm dumb moments Super solid throughout everything
Speaker: Yeah, we've we've covered a couple different puzzle games I think and Like it's it's no secret that i'm not usually a huge fan of like palace being the main example. I tell us Um Did we ever do we didn't do the witness? No, other people have done the nobody's gonna Listen to us play the witness. No
Speaker: Have you ever looked at things? Cool. Yeah. But I mean, my first pass through the tallest principal, I didn't, I hadn't beat it because I played it. I enjoyed it a bit. I got stuck and then like had to take a break, come back, solved it when I thought of the solution. I was just like, this is awesome. Then I got stuck on the next puzzle and I'm like, I'm done. I'm done. I don't have time to step away for two hours. It becomes an emotional investment on top of a time investment.
Speaker: Yeah. Whereas like nothing in Portal, it could be because of the way it's spatially set up, but it feels like it's less frustrating for me, even when we were stuck on a puzzle, because there were still a lot of things I could try. Like I could sit down and kind of plan things out in a way that.
Speaker: functionally it's using pieces similar to like what you would in another puzzle game like talos, but um I don't know there's something kind of liberating about feeling or playing portal that feels less constraining than other puzzle games to me I think partially is because they give you a lot of
Speaker: I mean, it's design flexibility, but being able to navigate essentially anywhere with the portal guns and then using the portals to connect other things, like maybe you need to pass an object through because you can't pass through another way. Or maybe you need to connect something like a laser from point A to point B. And just having those options really opens it up. Now it's always, for the most part, I'd say 90 % of the time, one solution, but it never feels like
Speaker: Super linear Hey Go down this hallway do this thing. Yeah Come back with the key put the key here. Yeah It was really nice to go through these levels, especially in the later ones. Mm -hmm And we just look around we're like, all right, there's a lot of things going on Yeah, and then we figure out like we got to go there which means we probably have to do something here And then you kind of work backwards with here are the tools. I have my toolbox and here are the things and
Speaker: Fuck I'm stuck. Yeah, I think I think you touched on like what I actually appreciate about portal compared to other games like in The ability to work backwards using simple pieces like all of the pieces with very few exceptions and portal to you that you get for puzzles are Simple in nature. It's just like oh, it's a laser. You're pointing at something cool
Speaker: or like oh it's a jump pad if fling something somewhere awesome it's like oh you know all of this it's just using that in conjunction with the portals to formulate a solution that um well is the objective but no individual piece is like really complicated you're not trying to juggle a bunch of things at once you're not controlling time or doing anything
Speaker: that's cool and can be fun in its own right and like in another game but in portal the the difference between not having the puzzle solved and having the puzzle solved is very quick usually like as soon as you know what the solution is you're like got it and then you implement it and it's done
Speaker: Yeah, and it's definitely had more in the way of Certain timing constraints happening later on where maybe something gets launched you need to catch it before it goes in acid becomes more common Which wasn't really an element in the first one right? there's also the that in particular the the player in the spike machine One where someone else's cries had to had to get them through So some of the co -op things are just
Speaker: It kind of opens up like, Hey, we have two portal guns you have access to. Yeah. And maybe one person needs to be able to push a button while the other person goes and does a thing. Uh, but the one that really exemplifies the teamwork aspect, which shake is referring to is.
Speaker: I kind of put Jake into an area, yeah, kind of behind a class box so I can see him. I can also hold tab to see what he's seeing, which is awesome. Actually is a feature. Yeah. I really appreciate that. You can also kind of like make calls for like, Hey, something here do this thing. Yeah. Um, but Jake was going through the spike trap and we had portals to control a
Speaker: kind of antique gravity. It's like a vortex thing. Yeah. Yeah. So it'll either like push you slowly in one direction or pull you back. So in one direction or as we've referred to it as 13 year olds blowing suck. Yeah. Blowing suck. All giggling. But whether I stepped on this button or not would change it between blow and suck T he right.
Speaker: So I had to try and make sure Jake was balanced in between spikes because anytime he would hit them he would die right exactly and he would kind of navigate like hey, I'm next I'm at this next section of this Spike tunnel I can redirect the portal to change. I'm not going horizontally and now going vertically. Yeah
Speaker: Somehow we went through this without Jake dying. I didn't die at all. But damn did we get close. I almost killed Jake towards the end of it and every other point during that.
Speaker: Yeah, no, it was, there were some harrowing experiences, but I really feel like Portal 2 is trustful, the game. Like, if you're playing this game, for the most part we work together. Because I think on average, I could be wrong, but I think on average when people play Portal 2 is like a co -op experience. There's like, these are the deaths, I will inflict upon the other person.
Speaker: Just messing around but then douchebags go beyond that So I played this before with a drunk AJ and you know how AJ is sober So drunk AJ thought it was hysterical that I would be I would die So he would just remove light bridges and other things you'd be like Dave I'm not gonna do it this time to jump down It's like when somebody's in their car like listen knock him drive away. Just get in. Yeah, get in we'll go to talk about come on
Speaker: Yeah. No, it's, it's a hundred percent that, but we had like, uh, absurd amount of focus, I think for this. Oh yeah. And I don't, it's, it's beneficial to us that we grew up together. Uh, went to school together, worked together, have a podcast together and have like kind of understanding and dynamic. Cause we, I feel like we're good at communicating like, Hey, here's some tools over here. Uh, how can we use this portal here?
Speaker: Anytime I killed you in that, it was involuntary. I did it on accident. That's true. I also killed myself many times accidentally as well, so I can't really judge you too much.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a good it's a good team building experience though. Like you play as these um The robots basically get assembled for every level atlas and p -body Um, and atlas is mike wasowski. He's curious. He really is He is though. He really is And p -body is tall a long a longer egg. Yeah um
Speaker: But I don't know these robots that was really good at taking characters that wouldn't naturally have personality and injecting a lot of personality into them. Um, it's mannerisms. It's all mannerisms. Yeah. So it's essentially like a, trying to remember the exact phrase, like the personality cores. Yeah.
Speaker: but they have arms and legs and portal guns. Um, but it's essentially like one giant eye. So having the machines kind of like move around the eye to be like, Oh, they're emoting for like concern or like anger or excitement. And just like the little words that they do in like dances, it just adds a lot of character to them and makes you more invested in the game itself.
Speaker: Yeah, and I think that's got to be Valve's pastime basically at this point. Let's pick something that is intrinsically not very emotive and make people enjoy their character. There was this, GLaDOS, obviously. It's like, how far can you go with literally just a robot attached to the ceiling?
Speaker: Well, the thing is, throughout Portal 1, for the most part, you didn't see GLaDOS. So it's just her personality coming through on the speaker. True, that's true. So it's just like good writing. And even Portal 2, where, spoilers, GLaDOS gets put in a fucking potato, she still has like that dialogue to go off of. Yeah. Because you as a character can't really say anything.
Speaker: But yeah, they do a great job of that and just adding like a little bit of color to it. Whereas I feel pretty hard tangent. Yeah. Left turn into like overwatch. All those characters are very unique and expressive and have their own type of.
Speaker: Genre almost, you know like like tropes and yeah, yeah tropes would have been the ideal word right for that whole sentence Liet motifs is what I'm supposed to say here We haven't haven't heard that in ages
Speaker: But yeah, they do a lot more with a little, which I always appreciate. Again, stop talking about my dick. Because again, to reiterate another thing I would say, it really sucks when you have a game or a story or something and you want to convey something to...
Speaker: If you want to convey something to the person who's getting the user experience, it sucks to force it down their throat and treat them like idiots. Yeah. Hi, I'm the such and such character. And this is my way. Exactly. Cool. I'll pick up on it. Just let the character live and be themselves, and you'll gain it over time. Awesome.
Speaker: Yeah, it's kind of like the old filmmaker added show, don't tell. Yes. It's like sometimes, yeah, you have to tell. But anytime that you can show instead, because it's intrinsically more interesting for people to feel that they figured something out or picked up on something instead of having to explain to them like they were a child.
Speaker: Yeah, so like Let's say the early days of silent movies. Mm -hmm You didn't always necessarily need the text in between ever like what was going on Oh, yeah, you see people doing actions you can fucking connect the dots. Yeah, like I was watching a not Charlie Chaplin who's um charlie's angels Now I feel like shit this person's dead anyway doesn't matter I
Speaker: Only his grandchildren can come after the episode. But it was a lot of physical comedy. Um, and you just see these things happen and you are on board because you understand that part of human experience of like a lot of humor is in failure or narrow escapes from situations. You're like, I can see that happening to me. Yeah. And you don't need somebody being like, watch out for that thing that you're about to hit.
Speaker: We get it. Yeah. Not fucking blind. Yeah. It's kind of impressive that for Portal 2, they kind of, uh, they have entirely disparate accomplishments. They take a character who is only a voice for most of the game, GLaDOS, and make her exceptionally interesting. And then they take characters who literally have no voices, the robots, and they make them exceptionally interesting. Um, I think that's, I don't know, that's cool. It's cool that completely opposite sides and it still works. Um,
Speaker: But yeah, it's there's kind of a cool down period. This is another right hook turn, which is made even less, even more jarring by announcing the segue. But between levels, they disassemble the robots. They just like take off the arms and the legs and there's just the cores in the center. They send you down a shoot. You get a loading screen and then you go into the next level. And it's this kind of cool decompression.
Speaker: Time where you can just kind of sit back and appreciate. You're just like, I am so smart before like reality hits you to get to the next puzzle. And you're like, God, why have you done this to me? And I don't know. I really appreciate the pacing of Portal even more now. I've gone back and played it. And we, the last time we didn't do the optional puzzles at the end, I had, I don't think I'd ever done them.
Speaker: I don't remember them being there or I remember there was a good period of time where I was trying to get people to do portal to co -op But by the time I was actually doing that everyone had already played it with everybody else Yeah, so nobody really wanted to so I'd find somebody and play with him for a little bit, but never through the whole thing. Yeah so yeah the
Speaker: I feel like we should jump back to talk about some of the other levels before we get to the awesome bonus shit. Yeah, you'll know when we get back to the bonus stuff. But they do introduce all of the mechanics that the single player game introduced. But there's kind of in the creative space, there's a lot more they can do when they know you have two puzzles.
Speaker: In single -player game, you know you can only manipulate a light bridge because Chell always only had two portals, right, in single -player? Yeah. Yeah. So you can only manipulate a light bridge, change the opening like one time. In multiplayer, it's like, oh, no, you're going to chain this stuff for a while to kind of like build a path across.
Speaker: Um, which is probably one of the most trolly, like if you are playing with someone who wants to kill you, like dropping, you mentioned dropping the light bridge. That's one of the easiest. It's really easy to, or just not realize where the other person is and replace something or not realize that you have the source. Let me move the source. Um, because a lot of times you'll need to, like Jake was saying, chain things together. Cause maybe Jake, we need to set up a light bridge across certain area, have to go through a portal.
Speaker: Not a portal sailing wall. Yeah, especially a wall that stops everything So if you had portals they're now gone, right if you're carrying an item that item is now destroyed the disintegration Yeah walls, so you can walk through as a player, but that's about it right at ease companion cubes
Speaker: Yes. Um, so a lot of times I'd have to go through on the other side and then do some action and you kind of have to do things separately and then connect back together. Or a lot of times maybe Jake would help me get to the end of the puzzle and then I'd have to do some action to be able to get him back up to where I was as well. Yeah. And I also realize, uh, kind of as a, as a meta point, um, that like with other puzzle games, uh, it's really hard for
Speaker: And that sound means it's time for an intermission where we talk about whatever we want to talk about. What do you want to talk about? I would like to talk about a few news items that have come up in the news recently.
Speaker: I'm gonna Link you purred happily be like this is you Which which news items that came up in the news so yeah and in gaming news We've got a couple things going on recently. There's been some game announcements and some some things that came out Jedi fallen order came out and I'm gonna pick that up at some point Someone said it was like
Speaker: Someone equated it to Dark Souls in some way. I have no idea how that's true for all footage that I have seen I believe that to be a blatant lie Yeah, I'm not seeing it. It looks Better than other Star Wars games. I've seen from footage. Yeah, but it does not look
Speaker: Like I would get enjoyment out of it and it definitely does not feel like a souls like yeah from what I've seen Yeah, I I don't think it's a souls like I'm probably gonna pick it up at some point because I play Most of the Star Wars games that aren't Lego and I have a lot of fun with them enjoyed force unleashed things like that, but
Speaker: I'll do that on my own time. I'll circle around. It's not top of my list. As far as other things that have been announced recently, we had an official announcement for Path of Exile 2.
Speaker: Yeah, which is the second game in the Path of Exile series as it turns out And it will be better than Diablo 4 which also was announced that you sent me recently at Blizzcon. Yep. They talked about that There wasn't a redshirt guy in this case to interrupt them and be like, oh April fool state. Yes. No but um, I think that's probably probably for the best for them and
Speaker: Well, honestly, like they have what they are doing down. They don't really need to change their formula, but they are expanding a lot upon content in the game. As far as like new campaign, obviously the graphics engine looks better and the reorganizing how gems are being done. Oh, and Path of Exile looks good too.
Speaker: I'm just kidding. It actually does apply to both games though because like they were bringing back the the rune words for Diablo. Holy shit. I'm actually now slightly I Mean it wasn't a bad trailer and the gameplay footage looked decent for Diablo 4 but rune words
Speaker: Again, it just really ties back to nostalgia from Diablo 2 and nothing more. I know, yeah. That's the thing, right? They're just like, how do we move further back in time in order to - We've brought Deckard Kane back to life. The thing is, though, really still upset with how they took him out in Diablo 3. Not gonna talk about it. Well, the thing is, he couldn't continue to be in Diablo 3 because he had another project going on in Heroes of the Storm. Okay, yeah. He couldn't do both projects simultaneously. Right, yeah, Blizzard exclusive.
Speaker: precluding other Blizzard exclusives. Yeah, I know. I mean, dying off screen always sucks. And that's how I hope I go off screen. I'm going to record your death. We got to get content.
Speaker: in where we can really. But yeah Path of Exile 2. I don't know exactly when these games are coming out like when I think it's sometime next year for Path of Exile which will almost definitely be well before Diablo. But I look forward to playing Path of Exile possibly someday maybe playing Diablo and then being like you know fight you know just kind of push push them up against each other and see if they'll like swing their arms. I'll definitely hang around for the drama but I probably will not play both. That's fair.
Speaker: And that's it I feel like there was one other game that was announced that's probably worth mentioning now and it's in the in the pipe space in the valve space of We've already talked a lot about games today. So maybe just confusing. Okay
Speaker: for us to describe things in a way that's gonna make any sense in the podcast. You're like, remember that room where like on the opposite wall there was an opening and then fired the portal through and then the ball came out. Or like when the ball broke out of the building in the center and then we had to chase it down and go through a wall. Like that doesn't mean anything to anyone listening.
Speaker: Yeah, that's going to be a little hard to describe. We can talk about some mechanics, though. That's true. So the basics, portals. What's that? Oh, shit. I wasn't paying attention. I'll be honest, you did most of the work. Jake was blindfold just going on instinct alone.
Speaker: So you start off with two portals for each character. So you can essentially connect two points in space. So if I shoot at the ceiling above me and the floor below me, assuming they are portable surfaces, meaning that they're white, no judgment. Essentially, if I go through one, I come out the other. Right.
Speaker: So in that example I just described, you can technically create an infinite loop and get maximum velocity because you're falling indefinitely. Yeah. So maybe you, Jake will make these portals for me. I'll go through his portals instead of my own, and then he will change the out portal.
Speaker: So that instead of me falling through the ceiling again, I'm being launched out of somewhere at an angle. Yes. Yeah. And then you can use those types of things to navigate around certain gaps that you can't normally jump, or maybe you need to get height on a certain thing. Yeah, that would be like one of, I think two main ways for momentum preservation.
Speaker: Um, the other being the, uh, the orange goop. So you can, so you can essentially fall, but not really fall. Just run really fast on this goop between horizontal portals, um, continuing to maintain momentum.
Speaker: Yeah, it's like a frictionless. I mean, obviously there's some friction because you're able to move forward on it, but it starts acceleration, but acceleration doesn't stop. It doesn't, it doesn't work. I don't think it's possible. I haven't done the physics, but I don't think that's how anything works. The Kraft macaroni and cheese sauce is easily my favorite. Um,
Speaker: Cause like you said, it gives you a momentum option without having to have portable services everywhere. Um, and a lot of times they'll restrict that too. Maybe say like, Hey, um, we're going to give you like a portable wall here, but that's about it. See ya. You're like, Oh shit. So you have to figure out other ways to, maybe you have to interact with the button. Maybe you need to set up some goop. Maybe you have to move a box somewhere.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's also, that's part of the, one of the things I really like about Portal is the, the constraints that they put on you, especially in the early game, where it's just like, Hey, there's only so many portable surfaces, which grants you immediate recognition. Oh, I can, I can and probably should put a portal over there. Um, and the mechanics I'm playing with, I'll need to direct, if I needed to direct them to a portal, it's going to be like that one.
Speaker: Contrasted to something like Talos principle where? If you're like moving the crystals around it's just like I know exactly which one you're talk tools to like direct a laser is it the one where it's like a square I? Like five doors
Speaker: I know what you're talking about, too. Yeah, basically one of those. I appreciate the way Portal does it because it's not a figure it out puzzle. It can be, and we might have solved one or two like that, but for the most part, it's an identification puzzle. It's something you do truly figure out. You don't stumble into the solution as much.
Speaker: No, definitely not. Another thing they introduced pretty early, actually the first really they introduced, I mentioned it, was the launch plates, which are one of the few real timing components to the game.
Speaker: Usually it's pretty simple. It's just like, Oh, a cube is going to fall on a plate. It'll launch. Maybe somebody has to catch it in the air. Um, my favorite puzzle solution that requires the launch plates is, um, the intuitive discovery that things, uh, can collide in the air. Um, so I think, you know, like the solution I'm thinking of, but there's one point where you have to both land on launch plates at the same time you're launched toward each other.
Speaker: If the other person's not there, if you don't collide, the person would fall to their death. They'll go over a platform in the center and they'll die. But if both people are there, they hit each other in the air, there's like some sparks, these robots collide, and then they both drop on the escape platform and you can walk out. I love that.
Speaker: Yeah, that was one of those things where I was looking at him like, if we launch out here, that overshoots. Yeah. If we launch out here, that overshoots. There's no portable surfaces in the other side where we need to get to. Then you have that realization where you literally smack bodies together and you high five while you do it because you're like, fuck yeah, we got it. Oh yeah. Like certain solutions that they have for puzzles are obviously aha, but also like really fucking cool.
Speaker: Yeah, so one that I really enjoyed It incorporates the blow suck tube. Yeah where if you You can put other objects in beside yourself So there's another cube that will Transmit a laser if a laser is shot into it, right? There's also a light bridge which you can walk on if it's Horizontal or it's vertical it would act as a wall
Speaker: Yeah, so we set that up And we rearrange the blow suck thing in a way. There's a laser also so I put up the cube and Essentially got pushed into the wall. The laser was into it. So it was stuck in place in midair Yeah shooting at where the receptacle needed to to raise an elevator for Jake and I Yeah, so it's really cool to kind of like set things in motion and then like go to the end. You're like wait
Speaker: Yeah, it's just a Rube Goldberg machine that generates the solution. You're just like putting everything in. This goes here, and this goes here, and we'll slowly drop this up into the vortex, and we run to the exit. It feels great. I love it when a plan comes together. It's basically the takeaway.
Speaker: Yeah, I know exactly which one you're talking about. Some of the puzzles, it just feels so good to reach that solution and be like, oh, right. I can straight up block this thing, like the cube, or use puzzle pieces in a way that you haven't really thought about before. But it was always available to you. You just never really thought about it. I don't know. I just really appreciate it.
Speaker: I also like, which is definitely more so, or maybe only in the co -op is the ability to short circuit things. So maybe initially you're like to get from point A to point B, I need four portals, but it then allows you to have a piece or access to a better vantage point.
Speaker: So you can essentially reduce the amount of resources or tools that you're using to facilitate you getting forward. So you're like, man, if I had like just one extra portal or one extra item, this would be so easy. And then you find something else is actually redundant based on your actions or where you are. So you remove that and you're like, nice. And you keep progressing forward.
Speaker: You improve your, your resource efficiency. Yeah. But I feel like that's pretty common in most puzzle games. You give them a limited set of things that they can do. And they're like, well, if I do this, it's impossible. Yeah. Then you're like, wait for it. They're like, but if I do this, I think it's like the.
Speaker: I don't know if it's a full trope or not, but going back for the puzzle piece thing, like Braid does this sometimes too, where it's like, I have literally no resources for the next part of this puzzle, but now that you've progressed down this path, you can actually backtrack, grab the solution to the previous phase of the puzzle that you already figured out, and use like a shortcut or something to bring the solution to the next phase and use it again. It's the reuse kind of mechanic.
Speaker: I really liked when portal one did that with the the actual companion cube. Oh, yeah. Yeah, using it as a step ledge to get the step ledge use it to block death balls. Yeah. As a that's a really that's probably the iconic portal level. There's a lot of really good ones and that's the one I think a lot of people remember.
Speaker: Yeah, the other we mentioned the orange goop, which is the go fast, which is always fun The zoop the zoop. Yeah, like those are both added in this game And I think the first time I encountered you said both what's the other one if not orange? The other one's blue. Ah, yeah, so bloop. Yeah, it's the bloop Or the joupe because it's jump goop. Whoa Hold on now
Speaker: But so those are both added in Portal too. And if you didn't know that they were coming in the game, it's kind of a big revelation because everything else in Portal is very like kind of linear physics -based. You're like, oh, we're moving cubes around. We can redirect like a laser maybe. But you're mostly dealing with lines, essentially, right?
Speaker: And the goop is like, no, we're fluid. We fluid here. And you can get it through portals and like just globs of this stuff will fly and like coat services.
Speaker: Yeah, and a lot of times we've needed to like read code services To do different things like for me to get from here to here in a timely fashion. I needed the orange zoop Mm -hmm, but I also needed some blue at the end a patch down there Yeah, yeah a little little jump pad so I could clear a gap
Speaker: So we'd have to Shoot like an opening portal wherever the goop is dropping trigger that but also have an exit portal at this certain specific angle So it'd go to a certain spot. Yeah, but that was really fun to play with For every level. I think one of the best ones It was a square room like most of the rooms. Yeah
Speaker: Um, but the eventual solution for the puzzle was having a vertical light bridge, which was covered in orange goop and some blue at the top. And then another vertical, Jesus, a horizontal light bridge that was covered in orange goop.
Speaker: And then some blue at the end. So essentially like you ran and then you got bounced twice Yeah back to the platform above you to finish the puzzle like, you know the um And like a lot of platformers or things like that where you have like a jump mechanic You can jump off of a wall for like an accelerated
Speaker: for a little extra height or you have to do like a bit of a climb then jump off like this is uh usually you have to grab on the wall and then jump off which makes sense you could propel yourself up a little bit depending on physics if you do that and this one as a robot you get bounce scoop on two sides of a upward corridor basically and momentum just carries you to the top it makes no sense you get extra like height just bouncing from side to side and i love it it's great
Speaker: It also feels hilarious to bounce to the end of the puzzle after you figured out the solution you're just like here we go I'm just on my hippity -hoppy and Just waiting for death. Yeah, it's it's just it's really great And the goop feels really good to use the Third type so you mentioned there's a third time. Oh my gosh
Speaker: It shouldn't have gotten AFK. Those last puzzles there. I'm sorry, man. I was busy. This is the one that, like, if I was a game designer, I never would have made it. No, I don't hate myself that much. Like, as a game designer and also this goop. But maybe different color. But white goop, which is the concentrated liquid moon dust that all of the white surfaces are painted with, but in liquid form in this case.
Speaker: Makes portable surfaces if you can cover it which is fucking nuts It's really really crazy because everything else in the game is just like here are the operational constraints Go and now it's like now you can just make portal surfaces go
Speaker: It's like you walk into a new house. The painters like I don't know where you want this shit Where do you want us to paint the walls? So like there's a pipe that just leaking white goop and everything else in the room is Some mechanical like brown or yellow. Yeah, it's like metallic and you have to like bridge a gap later on there's some turrets in the distance and you're like
Speaker: What am I supposed to oh? So you essentially like start to paint the fucking level yeah, and maneuver around so that you can Then portal to the other side yeah paint white stuff over yeah Yeah, it's but it feels cool once you have the realization. You're like. Oh, I'm given all this power mm -hmm What you gonna do with all that power?
Speaker: Yeah, no, it's it's also nice to chain into like I have the source portal and the exit portal But then jake could continue that chain by putting his portals through as well Yeah, and the whole time because it's not actually hitting the ground the momentum is uh
Speaker: persistent yeah exactly because it's like if you were to like like rearrange the portals you're basically making a tunnel for the goop to fall through in the air um until it actually reaches its uh final destination whoa right don't kill the goop
Speaker: So you can keep building up height by moving it through all of these portals to reach newfound destination I don't know. It's just great. I really like the That goop. Like I said, I wouldn't have made it and I give valve a lot of props for actually introducing it to the game Yeah, it's kind of a I assume a little bit of intense okay, I have to be like, all right, this is the game world and Let's add this property to possibly everything. Yeah, but conditionally so
Speaker: you
Speaker: Speaking of adding the property to possibly everything, we have the bonus missions at the end, which I started to talk about and then Dave wisely steered me away from it as it is the end of the co -op experience. So maybe, maybe you covered that at the end of the episode, but this is really where the difficulty ramps up. And I think the first thing that probably ramped up the difficulty for me is usually the robots Peabody and Atlas have color associations.
Speaker: blue and orange, much like the portals. The intro tubes for the final area are color agnostic. You can put either robot on either spot before they get sucked into the final area. And I'm not sure how to deal with that.
Speaker: I don't actually remember that portion. It was in the main lobby area when you're entering area six, I guess. It's not numbered, but I think it's six. But also just the difficulty starts to spike and it turns into a series of thinkers kind of instead of.
Speaker: We got it Also, it's less like you're doing things together as much as you're doing things separately So like I would need to do something on my side because at least for some of the levels things were segregated
Speaker: Yeah. So I might need to do something to help Jake get past an obstacle on his side so that he could send the laser over to my side to kill the turrets that were in the way. Yeah. So I could then like send the portal over, send the box back so he could jump on that type of thing.
Speaker: Yeah. It was a lot of like assisting each other's side of the play field, manipulating each other's variables, but physically you're separated like with a glass wall or something like that. Um, it's an interesting take on it. Cause it again is like, how do we take a constraint and design puzzles around that instead of offering people freedom, just give them a constraint and it makes the puzzle more processable processable for me. I don't know.
Speaker: easier to process. I agree. And then you meet back up. Once you actually get through those puzzles, you can do a high five or a hug or rip the robe out of part or whatever. You can do these cute little emotes. You can play rock, paper, scissors. You can dance. Yeah. You can hug. And the one awkwardly pats the other like, yeah, thanks. Well, you can dance if you want to.
Speaker: All right. Yeah. All right. Thank you guys for listening. Um, yeah, no, it's the, the emotes are actually really great. Um, and necessary at the, the very end. Cause I don't know why, but you have to email it to, uh, Tobin the final door to open the vault. Yeah. Which is, um, I guess it's not the very end. It's, it's like the fake end. It's the end I got the first time, but it happens before the bonus levels. Um, yeah. So it's the natural end, but it's just not the, the bonus end.
Speaker: Yeah. Um, but yeah, the rest of these levels, like they kind of turn standard, like the, the, the ways you've been trained on your head, like are always worked together. You know, if there's a puzzle, how do we use two portal, like two sets of portals to solve it? And one of the things that screwed us up the most, like early. And I think I asked you, I was like, Hey, do you want to like, look up anything for this? We didn't look up any fuck. No way.
Speaker: i refuse to look well for most things i refuse to look up solutions yeah because then once i have the solution i'm like cool yeah you didn't get anything out of it yeah it just because then i burned all that time for nothing right i could have just looked it up from the start yeah so i'd feel better banging my head against the wall but then actually figuring it out and saying when i was your age we
Speaker: right it's inherently unsatisfying to bang your head against the wall and then hire a contractor to tear down the wall for you this wall my head's bleeding please just let me let me do this um but the puzzle we encountered was uh we basically had an idea of what we needed to do we knew of all of the locations ultimately we needed portals to be and we just could not get there
Speaker: like could not resolve that state and the thing that was holding us up actually was the first piece of the puzzle you needed one part one person to just do on their own um which we figured out and i'm convinced that's probably like the hard part
Speaker: You say we always stumped the entire fuck at that level destroyed me I mean you had the solution to more puzzles than not so like I I'm glad I had one I could fall back on and be like, all right, you got the one I completely stumped my ass
Speaker: And then it was a combination of that, having one person do a more complicated series of tasks, and then also using both portals together to get one person with their portal set up with an input and an output. Yes. And once you had both of those things basically done, problem essentially solved. But man, we just sat there and could not figure it out.
Speaker: Well, the hard part is like you go into it and you're working backwards like, okay, we have to do this, which means we have to go here and place this here. I'll be thinking under the constraints a lot of times of, but how can I do this? Cause if I do this, this is now negated. Right. So you're already thinking of like this negative case doesn't actually work. Mm -hmm.
Speaker: So you get this mindset of like, but that's impossible because I'm looking at these options I know of and I've talked about already and they don't work. Me fell, me fell portal. That's impossible. So it's, it's fun to kind of turn things on their head and say, but what if it is possible? What if this thing I'm saying is absolutely impossible is doable? Yeah. I'm just approaching it from a different angle.
Speaker: Yeah. So some of the things you'd kind of try and brute force, uh, the things you kind of like theory craft, and then it all comes together. I'm like, God damn it, Jake, you're so smart. You would think with like how satisfying the perspective puzzles are in portal, I would have appreciated the witness more.
Speaker: But that's neither here nor there Yeah, no the the final portals or the final puzzles I think if you If you're playing through this in co -op and you and your partner get to the end of it and you're like, you know What we're awesome. We're working well together. We're like hammering through these We we are a unit That's your test to see if you should go on to the bonus puzzles
Speaker: Because like if your partner's just killing you like he's trying to get his KDA up Not gonna worry so so well in the last bit yeah, no the frustration will break him and he will break you Don't do that coming for those knees boy. Yeah, but yeah, I mean
Speaker: They're great. I think as far as satisfaction, the final puzzles of the game, again, I don't normally like puzzle games per se. The final puzzles in co -op really, they were really satisfying to figure out and I had a lot more fun with them than even the rest of the co -op puzzles.
Speaker: And part of that was because you just knew the solution where you were just really good at them So I walked into your room and Dave's like I'm at the end. Where are I solve them? It's just that they were like simple enough to solve so it's like I'm like, oh this is what we have to do You have to have a really high IQ
Speaker: Yeah, but yeah, it's just it felt like it wasn't freebies at a point. I was like, okay, we gotta yeah You got it powdered the hands wash that I felt like if I played this again in like two weeks Mm -hmm. I would still get stumped by some of them because I would forget. It's true. I
Speaker: Forgot like almost I basically forgot all of them. Yeah, I think you had the benefit of like a refreshed memory on some of the the early co -op ones We're like, oh, yeah this one So I like trek into the man. I'm like, I had what do you what are the elements of this? There were definitely moments where I was like and now all portal this service and there's like, what are you doing? It is fun though when um
Speaker: And like in certain cases I like knew what I was doing and what Jake should be doing Yeah, I was trying to convey that and Jake was not yet on the same page. I'm just like rapid -firing portal He'd be like walking this stuff like no Jake just just come it's all set up just walk down Or vice versa would happen as well Where I'd be like, I don't know what you're doing and you're like, please stop taking my portals, please. I
Speaker: The flip side of it is as we got to the harder puzzles at the end, as soon as someone got the insight and the enlightenment to the actual solution to the puzzle, they'll be like, trust me for a second, shoot a portal here and then shoot a portal there. And then the other person would just pause and be like, oh my God.
Speaker: This is the universe. This is everything. It's full of stars, apparently. Yeah. I don't know. It's nice to be able to elevate people, to enlighten them, which I was the recipient of more than the enlightened her. But hey, Jake, did you know that Cheerios is technically a limited form of alphabet cereal?
Speaker: My god. Jeez, that's a lot. I can't continue after that. So if you have feedback, I guess. No, play Portal 2. It's really fun. It goes on sale. Check it out. Grab a friend. If you don't have a friend, grab Dave. And I'll definitely spend another 16 hours on that, yeah. Just don't kill him repeatedly over and over, and it'll probably be a good experience. It's a bannable offense. I will ban you from listening to me speak ever again. We have the power to do that. We'll stop recording the podcast.
Speaker: that would actually work. They could always go back to our earlier episodes where we talked about things such as retro games.
Speaker: You really want to handle that intro. It is fucking good though. I don't care what everybody says. I've monetized exactly one episode, figure out which one it is. No, I'm just kidding. Uh, no, super fun though. Uh, thank you guys for listening to another episode of soapstone. As always, you can reach out to us at soapstone podcast at gmail .com. If you want to contact us directly or you could join the discussion on Facebook at facebook .com slash soapstone podcast.
Speaker: What he said. Fuck off. Get out of here. Until next time. We'll see you in the next one. Have a good night.
