Spatial Awareness

PORTAL 2: PLAYER IMPACT GUIDE Ages 8+ | 1-2 Hours

“There’s a lot of challenge in trying to figure out how as the player is moving through this, in terms of a story space, how can you make a gameplay space out of this so they can travel through it in an interesting way.”

--Jeep Barnett, designer and engineer

In Portal 2, portals are used to navigate obstacle courses filled with deadly hazards inside the mysterious Aperture Science Laboratories. To navigate the game, you must move through the space by following a simple concept: anything that enters one portal—including boxes, lasers, bridges, and you yourself—will exit the other without changing speed. In order to escape Aperture Science and defeat GLaDOS, the lab’s computerized overlord, you must think in three dimensions and use physics to solve puzzles in unusual ways.

In this guide we invite you to think about the ways Portal 2 challenges players’ special awareness. As you play, reflect HOW TO on your experience. How is spatial awareness important in Portal 2? How is it important in your life? What kind of USE THIS impact does it leave on your understanding of how the world works? GUIDE Answer the questions below and add up your points when you’re finished!

 What is a “portal?” How do portals work? [+1]  What are some tricks for using portals? What happens when you put a portal directly above you and another one directly under you? [+1] GAME  What do the different types of gels do? [+1]  How do the Excursion Funnels work? How are they different from Hard Light Bridges? [+2]  How does the game indicate the steps you need to take when solving a puzzle? [+3]

 Many Portal 2 marketing materials use the tagline “Now you’re thinking with portals!” What do you think it means to “think with portals?” Do you find yourself “thinking” in this way as you play the game? [+1]  What challenged you when thinking about using “space” in the game (e.g. using momentum and orientation)? PLAYER How did you solve those challenges? [+2]  What maneuver (either with the portal gun or other tools) was the most difficult for you? What was difficult about it and how did you overcome the challenge? [+2]  How did you decide which steps to take when solving a puzzle? How did you use the three-dimensional space around you in your strategizing? [+3]

 If you could use one feature of the game in your everyday life, what would it be and why? How would you use it? [+1]  Where do you see the effects of momentum and movement in the world around you? Why are these concepts WORLD important in understanding how our world works? [+2]  How has navigating in the game affected your thinking about how you move and use space in the real world? [+3]  How could having good spatial awareness be useful in the real world? What things could you do better if you had a greater understanding of how to use the space around you? [+3]

Bonus Level Challenge: The Perpetual Testing Initiative expansion (accessible from the Community Test Chambers option in the main menu [PC only]) gives you the ability to create your own test chambers! Using the Perpetual Testing Initiative, design a new test chamber for GLaDOS. When you finish, make a screencast to record your testing session. Post it to YouTube and send us the link!