| richardhutnik said: I will admit I did push it a bit in what I wrote: "What kind of story does Portal have?" But the focus of the question was to focus on exactly what a story is, which is part of the discussion in this thread. What I see with Portal is the following: 1. A set of goals, in a progressively harder set of game levels that are well designed. 2. A player character who doesn't talk (is a puppet for completing puzzles), and an antagonist character (GLaDOS) who gives you witty banter. As you play, you learn more about GLaDOS (revealed through monology by GLaDOS), and scribblings on the background. 3. A game ending with a cut scene. 4. A detailed game environment, that has a feeling of realism to it (that does grow increasingly absurd).
What I don't see is a forced plot on the game, to make it tell a narrative. What I do see is a series of puzzles, with the GLaDOS dialog added for entertainment value. And I would say the lines start to get blurred here. This blurring I believe would enable Portal to be transformed into a possible full story. The series of Cube movies show this is possible.
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I'm not getting you anymore. There clearly is a plot and a story in Portal, though the player is not forced to get interested in it nor even to understand or get all of its elements. This can't be argued over in good faith. There is clearly a timeline, a set of events, a change in how you -the player- consider the situation and your guide/antagonist. GLaDOS is not a timeless comic relief: as I said in a previous post the order in which you're presentd with the situations is meaningful.
The narrative clearly added much to the enjoyment of the game for some players. The fact that you can happily play the game without any consideration for the narrative is a testament to the quality of the puzzle gameplay, but it doesn't take anything away from the rest.
So are you saying that since some players enjoyed just the puzzle elements, then the narrative wasn't needed, or that there wasn't one? Because neither point stands. I wouldn't have enjoyed Portal nearly as much if it was just a series of puzzles of increasing difficulty order with no background and no narrative evolution. Thus the story was needed for me and for other players to consider Portal a great game instead of a very good one.
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