Valve's "Secret Weapon"

This didn't age well I guess.

kinda changed with cs2 i guess

This was absolutely fascinating! Great video thank you :)

What was the reception on the general concept of f-stop? Ik if you’re going into a portal game you would be expecting a portal game but what if they just kept the concept and made it as a standalone thing instead of branding it as “Portal 2”

Is there a reason for scrapping it fully instead of making a portal 2 and rebranding f-stop as it’s own thing?

Shame that they didn't make f-stop as standalone game. Such a unique and interesting concept.

Wait a minute. I think youre mistaken. Valve doesnt make games. They're not a game developer. 🤔

"of all time" lul

hahahha this video is a joke now that they release an unfinished game.

The approach sounds similar to Nintendo and Miyamoto's way of testing. From the book "Ask Iwata":

"What sets Miyamoto apart is that despite being extremely stubborn when it comes to his designs, he’ll watch a person play a game for the first time with extreme equanimity. He’ll see how they react, and if he decides that they’re missing the point, he’ll go back to the drawing board and try a fresh approach."

Ahhh yes good play test for cs2 💀

No, Valve did not invent this. They just simply did what EVERY process tells you to. Other companies are just not doing the process right.

Its so interesting tha portal was designed with testing in mind since the entire game is based around experimenting and testing the player.

Who else wants a job at valve now 😂

Not entirely true that players never look up. Portal 2 had A LOT of levels centered around players looking up. They will look up if you teach them to

I love how this is really a scientific method approach on solving problems. Excellent video

You know, portal is such a solidly made game that it's one of the very few I think I could get my non gamer dad to play and enjoy. Seeing just a taste of how much work they put into it is really cool

playtesting is a real use for those AIs that learns to play videogame. It by no means will replace human playtesters, but it will be able to simulate mass tests and generate tons of data that are simply impossible for even the biggest studios to generate internally with only human players, and with a humanely impossible speed. Time is very critical for game development and the current delay between creating a feature and having a feedback about it is a big bottleneck. Devs could create a feature, level or puzzle and have a preliminar analysis in minutes or even seconds. Lots of bugs and designs flaws would be found without requiring lots of people to feel the pains of it, and then when the AIs are not finding so many problems anymore, the human testers would have a way smoother time on a game without lots of its initial problems.
Small studios are the ones that could benefit the most from that, as they have the harder time on finding reliable people and handling all the feedback, as every person in indie productions should do a little of everything

Please give us Portal 3!

What made Portal 1 and 2 such great games is that, despite being puzzle games, I was never once stuck on a level, neither did I breeze through, not even once did I have to turn to google for an answer, because I got sick of a puzzle and wanted to move on quick.
It has a really fantastic gameplay loop, and great boss fights that use everything you've learned during the game.

Great video!

you're content is invaluable, thank you.

I think there should be a gamedev company which succeed by never doing playtesting. I guess it might be Bethesda, but I don't know.

The picture game at the end does work better as a non-portal title, but it's still interesting and there are so many possible ideas you could run with to manipulate your environment.

"Players don't look up" reminds me of a rule in hospitality, "nobody reads signs." You only put signs up to tell people the things that should already be completely obvious common sense so that if they do something stupid you can plausibly say "we told them not to," and you only put easter eggs or pretty skyboxes above the player in a game.

"how valve play tests" dont release any games, nothing to test. EZ

Wait, Valve makes games?

You were talking about F-Stop at the end, and I was a little heartbroken. Then you mentioned Liminal, which I've played all the way through already, and it's glorious, and Viewfinder, which I bought recently and can't wait to play. Thanks for the suggestions! There aren't enough Portal-like games in the world.

Geus play testing for 30 years is a secret weapon it aint u just lazy bums who cant make a good game anymore like Bethesda after skyrim they fell off hard probably couse their dream team devs retired

yet they are scared of the number 3

and then... Artifact and Dota: Underlords happened. Maybe they were good back then but now Valve is just a clueless game studio with a ton of money to spend, cant develop anything but FPS.

I think an important mindset that is a prerequisite to this approach is to be willing to throw everything away if your players can’t figure it out or don’t think it’s fun. This is in complete opposition to the vision-first approach of Apple et al. I think the benefit here is that it is much easier to get “lucky” since it’s more likely that ordinary people will enjoy your game, but the trade off is that you will lose creative freedom.

How fitting their obsession with testing is

wish I had seen this video before making a game 😂

kids are dumb

i think this is a lesson a lot of devs are sincerely missing nowadays. it seems like a lot of companies want to keep their game completely secret to all eyes and then give it a massive fanfare upon unveiling, but the most important thing about release is if it's finished and if it's actually fun. AAA companies are losing the thread on that the actual game is what matters, not how much money you pump into hype or PR...

great video! it's been a while since i watched a gaming video in which i didn't already know everything that was covered XD

I still can’t play the portal games for more than a hour or my brain just doesn’t brain

Valve didnt invent playtesting-- but as with everything else, the minute valve discovers a thing we all knew thirty years ago (a video game needs an antagonist? The hell you say), its a brand NEW thing and isnt Valve awesome for thinking of it!!!

Meh, valve is a great game sales and distribution platform. And thats about it.

It's so great to return to these videos - so packed with entertaining information - more to learn even on rewatching.

Valve west cs

That's why Diablo 4 sucks, the Dev don't know how to play their own game.

;-)

If only steel wool studios had Valve's mindset

stop

Hard to take advice from the company that made Artifact. lol

This is why businesses need to start inviting non-experts or "interested uninformed" in meetings, with full authority to ask questions of anyone. They can uncover new ways of working, challenge orthodoxies, and really get on everyone's nerves.

also having small teams test other teams work fixes issues greatly like how designers who know their own puzzles will never struggle on them