Rapture

So I've finally finished all of Valve's games in Developers' Commentary mode. This mode allows you to play the game with a number of nodes set throughout the levels that, when activated, provide context-sensitive information, straight from Valve's employee's, about the current situation. To me, this provided great insight into Valve's thinking process and made me dearly wish I were part of their team. The numerous iterations and design changes they make collaboratively make the process seem creative and as if design incorporates the opinions of each of their employees. I think the most catching piece of advice they had to offer came in Episode 2, when one of them said something along the lines of "If we do our job correctly, you won't notice anything special... It'll just feel natural." Here he referred to the added detail on Alyx Vance's character model. It took his specific notations to bring the changes to my eye, but he was indeed correct: she was looking more organically fluid than any other installment in the series. This advice applies for all aspects of realistic game development, though; you can see it in Valve's structuring of their levels.

When the same team produced Half-Life, making it the most popular PC game of its time, it was easy for them to layout levels and explain blocks in the players' pathway: the setting was an enormous, labyrinth-like research facility set underground. Transitioning that same gameplay into the outdoor, real-world environments of Half-Life 2 was a success but definitely took some creativity. You have to look closely and know a bit about the Source engine in order to see where they cheated, where they had to come up with an obstacle. The commentary definitely helped develop my sense of how they tackled each new problem.

Dear Valve,
Ride in on a Strider, my knight in gleaming HEV armor, and carry me away to work for you forever
Love,
Pat