Trivia / Portal

• DVD Commentary: The game has an alternate play mode in which speech-bubble-shaped objects appear that are triggers for audio clips of commentary. Most of the clips are the designers talking about the process of making the game.
• Refitted for Sequel: Or rather, a post-launch update instead of sequel. The first Brick Joke ("Thank you for assuming the party escort submission position...") was meant to be in the game from the beginning, but it was cut before release. In 2010, they added it in a patch in order to set up Chell's role in the newly-announced sequel; the patch notes described this as "Added valuable asset retrieval".
• Sleeper Hit: While the game was treated with care, Valve largely considered Portal a minor side project compared to their much bigger properties of the time, Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2, developed by a small team working on a successor to a student project. The game wasn't even released on its own at first, originally being stuffed into the The Orange Box compilation along with TF2 and Half-Life 2: Episode 2. Portal ended up being the surprise hit of the compilation, released to widespread acclaim and eventually spawning a massive sequel with even more resources put into it, with Portal becoming its own major Valve franchise in its own right.
• Throw It In!:
  • It's possible to skip Chapter 14 by placing a portal at the bottom of the collapsed staircase and next to the chamberlock, which was caught in beta-testing and deemed an appropriate use of portals.
  • According to the developer commentary, the reasoning behind the games taking place in the Half-Life universe was so the developers could reuse Half-Life 2 assets without it being jarring or obvious.

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