Comments on: Learning from Portal

By: » Level Editing Informal Learning

» Level Editing Informal Learning — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 18:18:06 +0000

[...] How can playing an FPS become a informal learning experience, and lead to other learning experiences? Granted, there are those games such as Portal that provide a reasonably new experience (ever heard of Narbacular Drop?) that requires you to learn the rules, which are based at least in a physics that at least is partly grounded in this universe, in order to succeed, but what game doesn’t do that to some degree? [...]

By: David S

David S — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:59:47 +0000

It’s amazing how quirks of systems, or ‘glitches’ as they’re generally known, quickly become accepted parts of the system itself, almost like in the Matrix movies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitch

There are loads of YouTube videos dedicated to the demonstration of such glitches.

By: Steve Howell

Steve Howell — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:15:11 +0000

I am developing a serious game for teaching science so I am interested in the comments about the importance to players of internal consistency in games. ie. it doesn’t matter what the rules are, as long as you stick to them.

I think this shows that we all have a natural desire for the world we’re exploring to obey laws – to follow patterns – and we like to discover what those patterns are. Very encouraging for the prospects for the teaching of scientific laws through simulation.

By: David S

David S — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 18:03:16 +0000

You’ve neatly reminded me of this:

http://kotaku.com/gaming/clips/watch-3000-barrels-fall-down-in-crysis-333902.php

Now that’s physics in action!

By: Ian

Ian — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:58:47 +0000

I heard an interview with one of the Portal developers on the Game Theory podcast a few months ago discussing the difference working on their student prototype project (Narbacular Drop) and their commercial product Portal for Valve.

They said that Valve told them to get a working version of a level up and running as soon as possible and start playtesting immediately. They constantly iterated on the levels developed based on both player feedback, as well as a technology which let them analyse player actions as they happen in the level – where they get stuck, how they behave.

Now they can even get this kind of detail as players play the game through their Steam platform. To get a feel for what I mean, check out http://www.steampowered.com/status/ep2/ep2_stats.php .

By: Richard Sandford

Richard Sandford — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 10:36:01 +0000

No spoilers! It’s not a lie!

You’re right, HL2 has some great physics potential as well, although the whole picking-things-up-and-putting-them-where-you-want aspect could use some work (I spent much longer than I wanted to piling bricks onto that seesaw). With Portal I was particularly thinking of momentum, and possibly the way you can see round corners (maybe some sort of activity answering the question “where would you need to place the portal so you could see X?”).

But yeah, I think there’s more lessons for devs than pupils in Portal. We’re a long way off being able to teach with it…

By: David S

David S — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 08:31:23 +0000

It’ll certainly help with childhood obesity rates, what with the cake being a lie and all.

Seriously though, it is a fantastic game, although as you say, it doesn’t necessarily teach much more than how to succeed in that particular universe. Surely you’ve played the physics-based puzzles in Half-Life 2 as well though?

By: Richard Sandford

Richard Sandford — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:36:52 +0000

Absolutely. There was a great description in the commentary of the debate the designers had when certain players found ways to circumvent a whole level: in the end, they decided that as the “ninja” way was harder than the “official” route, they should let it alone, and reward players’ skill and exploration.

By: Ben Williamson

Ben Williamson — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 15:29:16 +0000

We used to run games testing sessions with really hardcore players (some of them were 7 years old) in my last job for a range of developers. What fascinated me then was the way players of all ages wanted to experience a “fully-formed” world with believable rules (ie fantasy games still have to be “believable” and “realistic” even if they’re completely unreal in planet earth terms). That meant anything which seemed out of place to the genre rules (with the exception of things that stretched the genre logically) could completely switch players off. (On a personal note, I despaired when Spiderman turned up in Tony Hawk’s Skateboarding, and Dobermann-headed German soldiers with rifles in Medal of Honor 2.)

The smallest of oversights by the developers could also make testers really impatient. “Where are the footprints?” I remember one teenager asking while testing Operation Desert Storm, before adding, “They’re running through sand!”

Years later, what interests me about this is not so much players’ engagement with genre (or perhaps pickiness) that play-testing reveals, but what it might tell us about young people’s capacity to take a system they recognise and to give it a good shake. Can we see school students “play-testing” the 3D CAD designs for their new schools please? Can they test out all the materials and rule systems that are due to come into place with the curriculum review?

I’d say this was far more important than identifying the lack of footprints in pixellated sand, yet people who design sand pixels seem to care a lot more sometimes.