denny Architectural Art & Design

This is a commentated play through of the game Portal, by Valve Software, focusing on architecture, level design, and puzzle design. Now that I have analyzed a number of games, I feel that I am ready to tackle this one, easily one of the best designed puzzle games of all time. We start of with the most delicate part of any game: the first impression. The first few test chambers introduce us to the basic pieces of the upcoming puzzles, as well as the "visual language" of the game. A visual language is basically a consistent usage of shapes, colours, and patterns associated with certain concepts in order to make the environment easier to understand. This becomes increasingly important as the game get increasingly complex.