July 28th, 2009

This is a sub-page of Proto:Portal 2.

Singleplayer CampaignI think we're in the cereal factory... Co-op CampaignBefore ATLAS and P-Body, there was Chell and Mel. Unused ModelsA whole plethora of unused models to explore! F-Stop LeftoversWoo! Let's go get into some trouble. Two Bots, One WrenchWoohoo! I'm using the toilet!

Menus#

The menus here highly resemble the ones from the original game (and other Source engine games from the same time and prior), featuring the exact same structure and features as the previous entry.

Main Menu#

• The prototype's default menu background displays concept art depicting three mannequins sitting together in a coffee break room, which seems to be a leftover from the F-Stop iteration of development.
• It features the earliest known version of the Portal 2 logo, which closely resembles the logo of the first game. It uses the exact same font and features two interlocking portals instead of one, both are slightly shaded. A small number 2 can be seen in the top-right corner, akin to the style of the Half-Life 2 logo.
• The prototype contains a Matchmaking option for multiplayer. For this feature to function, Steam must be running in the background. Otherwise, interacting with the button will have no effect, and the console will display the following message:
  "Steam must be running or matchmaking will crash"
• Developer Commentary is available, but it is merely a leftover from the previous game. Attempting to start a map with it enabled will simply launch the prototype's campaign, as no developer commentary tracks had been recorded at this point.
• All chapters appear labelled as their corresponding name followed by "Developer Commentary" with no chapter numbers - much like TF2's commentary menu - even when viewing the regular New Game menu. This happens because the code that renders the menu this way actually just checks if the game/mod supports multiplayer, regardless of if singleplayer is also supported or not.

July 2009	Final (Initial Release)

Achievements#

The achievement descriptions are completely blank, with the page listing a total of 12 achievements. The original Portal had 14 at the time of its release. However, given the fact that the number of steps required to complete some of the achievements matches those seen in the previous entry, means that these are likely leftovers.

Portal	Portal 2 (July 2009)

Matchmaking#

The matchmaking menu is incredibly basic, simply showing a list of running sessions with a button to create a new session.

Gameplay Mechanics#

Slowfield#

The Slowfield (also known as the Aperture Science Self Esteem Field) is a mechanic present in this build that slows down time to give the player more precision or time to react for a brief period. This is first triggered by slowfields placed in maps, taking the form of special portal surfaces with hazard stripes on them which slow time when exiting out of a portal on one. Later, a portal gun upgrade is obtained which enables the ability to slow down time at any point by pressing a key (default R). While time is slowed, a meter with a stopwatch icon will appear at the bottom of the screen to indicate how much longer the effect will last for.

This mechanic was scrapped from the final game.

Hover Turret#

The Hover Turret is used in this build, and is far more functional than it is in the final game, with its proper model and voice lines intact. The voice lines are all reused Offensive Bot lines from Two Bots, One Wrench. Uniquely to this build, the hover turret's eye emits a dynamic projected texture light, which does not occur if the turret is restored in the final game.

Hover turrets are featured in the Mixup course, where they are set to slowly rotate. Once they see you, they will continuously rotate to track you until you leave their line of sight, effectively turning the chambers where they appear into stealth sections.

X-Ray Tube#

The vacuum tube scanners in this build say the name of each object that passes through them. This is difficult to hear in this build though due to missing sounds being triggered to play at the same time, resulting in "Oh fiddlesticks, what now" drowning out the scanner lines. Later builds remove this missing sound while keeping the voice lines.

Audio	File Directory	Transcript
‎	sound\npc\xray\chair.wav	Chair
	sound\npc\xray\computer.wav	Computer
	sound\npc\xray\cube.wav	Box
	sound\npc\xray\error.wav	Don't Know
	sound\npc\xray\radio.wav	Radio
	sound\npc\xray\sphere.wav	Sphere
	sound\npc\xray\table.wav	Table
	sound\npc\xray\turret.wav	Turret

Cooperative#

Cooperative mode is playable in this build. ATLAS and P-Body were not added to the game yet, so you play as Mel and Chell instead. Their portal colors are also different from the final build, with Mel having Cyan and Yellow portals and Chell having Blue and Violet portals.

Pinging#

A very rudimentary form of pinging is available in this mode. Pressing the ping button will place a red X decal on the wall that stays for a few seconds.

Gestures#

Basic gestures are in cooperative mode. Unlike the final game which has 8 gestures and a gesture wheel, there are only four in this beta that play depending on context. They are:

• A fist bump by default.
• A dance, if a player is standing on a button.
• A high five/slap, if both players are facing each other.
• A flip, if a player flying through the air, similar to final.

Watch on YouTube

Music#

Smooth Jazz#

Found under portal2_tempcontent\sound\music is the track used for the "Smooth Jazz" portions of GLaDOS' pre-recorded messages. The name of the song is "Together Again" performed by artist Dave Koz. It was likely only intended to be used as placeholder during development. It is used in the game's temporary ending as well.

Audio#

The Doors Use the Half-Life 2 Citadel Pod sounds for doors as placeholders, these sounds were used until the October 2010 build

Unused Audio#

GLaDOS#

19 unused lines of dialogue for an early GLaDOS bootup sequence.

GLaDOS has unused dialogue for introducing the Aperture Science Aerial Faith Plates, which are oddly not used despite Faith Plates being in this build. The last 3 lines have very similar dialogue to GLaDOS's dialogue introducing Faith Plates in the final version of the game.

Videos#

appendages_eye#

The media folder contains several videos consisting of close-up shots of eyeballs, likely used as reference material for animating the personality cores.

• The second eye belongs to former Valve developer Chet Faliszek, followed by voice actress Ellen McLain, with the fifth eye belonging to writer Jay Pinkerton.
  • The identity of the developer featured in the first clip is currently unknown.
  • The fourth eye is speculated to belong to either writer Erik Wolpaw or lead designer Greg Coomer.

testvideo.bik#

A playthough of the destroyed version of Test Chamber 12. This video is used in the videotest developer map to test, you guessed it, videos!

Developer Test Maps#

Maps that can't be accessed without the use of console commands.

p2_lab_start_01#

A map of the newer series of the Pre-Hub chapter which is "p2_lab_prehub_1" but with the complete test chamber order. It does not have the lighting compiled. The GLaDOS's lines this time now do work here since the map features the @glados actor entity. All of the chamberlock elevators have been replaced with hallways.

• Chamber 01 had a different layout, similar to the final game, but still had the timed portals.
• Instead of finding the first portal gun in chamber 05 this is found in its original location of chamber 02, but instead of being in a pedestal it's found through the exact same Rat Man Den from "p2_lab_prehub_1" accessed through a hole on the floor where the pedestal used to be, much like in the final game. In chamber 05 the Rat Man's markings are still present, however.
• Chamber 08 is missing any of its testing elements (High Energy Pellet, moving platform) and it's instead solved by placing a portal on the ceiling above the exit. This one will reach to an elevator into the next map.
• All of the other chambers that weren't included in "p2_lab_prehub_1" saw no alterations.

p2_lab_start_02#

The second part of the start map series. this one does include Chamber 09 and 10 however, not Chamber 11, the full portal gun will be found in the same place as in "p2_lab_prehub_2". However, the map ends abruptly with only a uncleared backbuffer glitch solid wall on the other side of the chamberlock.

p2_lab_prehub_2a#

A part of the pre-hub sequence which is a GLaDOS' chamber but the fuse box has missing textures and slightly different lighting. The door leading to the first testing area won't actually open despite of GLaDOS' dialogue suggesting otherwise. Noclipping through the door reveals the waiting room before it doesn't even exist. The game will fade to black and load "p2_lab_lasers_1" as usual anyways. This map was later merged with p2_lab_prehub_2.

p2_lab_hub_5#

While the other maps in p2_lab_hub are used, this one however isn't. This is the map which the landmark suggests the player would've transitioned from p2_lab_mixup, to this map, and entering the GLaDOS' chamber would take the player to the p2_lab_turrets map which was a cut course revolving around the hover turrets which is also a cut gameplay mechanic.

p2_lab_turrets#

A brief test course for the hover turrets, it starts with one stationary hover turret in a hallway facing away from the player to be easily snapped from its cord to proceed.

Then it's followed by the exact same room as the first hover turret is seen in "p2_lab_mixup".

The next room features another rotating turret at a much higher height, the player needs to sneak pass it and reach a pedestal button in a balcony using momentum to spawn a button that will fall directly into a plate that will fling it straight to the turret to take it down.

The following room features another rotating turret on an elevation, the player needs to sneak pass it using the columns in the room and then place a portal on a wall high above and another at the hard bridge right bellow the turret and sneak pass through it to reach a pedestal button in a balcony, it will spawn a cube right behind the turret, to retrieve it the player must now walk a bridge using a portalable wall reight behind the turret now visible from this height and do a sneak attack to it, grab the cube and open the exit door.

The final room has three hover turrets hanging over a large portalable wall guarding the exit. To take them down the player needs to spawn the cube and use a plate right bellow to shoot it through portals placed behind each turret. Once cleared the player only has to place the cube on the button right to where the turrets used to be to open the exit door.

This course ends with the same core room as "p2_lab_lasers_1". Because of the landmark entity p2_lab_hub_6 which specifies the p2_lab_mixup from which the player was transitioned to this map, the game will kick the player out to the main menu because it's trying to transition from a different map and the game finds no connection from the maps.

p2_lab_suctionturrets_1#

Watch on YouTubeA small test course based on the scrapped Pneumatic Diversity Vent mechanic shown in the trailers. It starts by tasking the player to retreive a cube on the other side of a hazardous pit by using the vent tube's suction power to bring it into their side and place in on a button. In the next room, a group of turrets on high pillars are protecting a cube on a high pillar. The player has to use the suction power of the vent to tumble the turrets and later to grab the cube and place it on a button. In the next room, a group of both sentry and hover turrets are guarding a button, there are many cubes laying around. The player is tasked to use the vents to throw the cubes at the turrets or connect other independet tube structures through portals to snap their cords. Place one of the cubes in the button to proceed. The next room is an extremely simple hallway litered with groups of sentries, use the suction power of the vent to clear them and proceed. The final room shows that the vent can not just suck, but also blow. Use the blowing power to tumble over rows of turrents. Lastly there's a button being guarded by a group of sentry and hover turrets, use the blowing power to clear the area and place the cube the button to open the door into your reward: a photo of a rat.

videotest#

Watch on YouTubeThis map is used for testing the vgui_movie_display entity which is used for in-world videos. It has a monitor playing the Test Intro and the other one with the playthough of the destroyed Test Chamber 12 from Portal.

Notably, the monitor on the top right is supposed to play valve.bik but the file is missing on this build.

devtest#

Like in the final game, the main development test map from Portal is back! This map is used for testing the game's mechanics to make sure they are not broken. This version of the devtest map appears much closer to the Portal version of the map compared to the one from the end of development. However, it does still feature some unique differences which put it more in the middle of the two.

The first 9 rooms are unchanged from the original Portal:

1. Bucket room
2. Collision through portals
3. Portal bumping ("autofit")
4. Invisible walls
5. Cube on button
6. High Energy Pellet ("ball")
7. Material Emancipation Grill ("portal cleanser")
8. Turret test
9. Portal fling

Instead of then ending with an elevater to devtest_01 (like in Portal), 5 new rooms were added to test the new mechanics:

1. Aperture Science Self Esteem Field ("slowfield")
2. Thermal Discouragement Beam ("laser")
3. Placement helper
4. Hard Light Bridge
5. Aerial Faith Plate ("catapult")

The last room abruptly ends with nowhere to continue.

devtest_01#

The devtest_01 map from first Portal's development also makes a return here, seemingly unchanged from the original version (though, this build is missing the wall light models, so "ERROR" models will appear in their place by default). It's a very small map to test the rocket turret interacting with breakable glass and glass tubes. Clearing the task of breaking the vent tube and walking through it will reach to a dead-end with a "YOU WIN" message on it. It seems that this map was removed from Portal 2's internal map repository, as it doesn't appear in later builds nor any map leaks pertaining to the final game.

Oddities#

• In pictures for chapter 2 and 5, it reveals that the laser emitter model was different. It featured three lasers shooting to the glass causing a beam. The Laser Catcher model which temporarily used the energy ball catcher model was smaller like in the pre-release screenshot seen at GDC 2012.

• In p2_lab_prehub_2 and 2a, the full hallway from escape_02 is included. It was slightly modified to be in the same abandoned style as the rest of the hallway. Interestingly, it is much darker in 2a.

Notes#

• A majority of the textures except the ones for the Motel props, cubemaps within the devtest, mp_coop_laser_2, mp_coop_start, p2_lab_lasers_1, p2_lab_prehub_1, p2_lab_start_01-02 and p2_lab_wall_01 and Energy Ball Launcher and Catcher's backside models have a VTF version of 7.4 whereas the said ones are of version 7.5.
• The build runs on the forked version of the Left 4 Dead branch (L4D1 version, according to Protocol version which is "37", matching the release build of Left 4 Dead up to Jan 2009, which Left 4 Dead later updates it to "38" (followed by Left 4 Dead's March 2009 build which protocol version are now being tied with "PatchVersion" inside L4D's steam.inf file), while this Portal 2 build remains at "37"). While being based on L4D1 version of Left 4 Dead branch, this build has some code and features (such as VScript) from Left 4 Dead 2 (was in development when this Portal 2 build was built). The forked version of Left 4 Dead branch used in Portal 2 would eventually became the Portal 2 branch.
• The build contains FGDs files from other Valve cancelled games or in-development titles, such as Half-Life 2: Episode Three (ep3.fgd), Alien Swarm (infested.fgd and infested_base.fgd, Dota 2 (dota.fgd).
• The build already has the error.wav sound playing when the game tries to play a missing sound. This error sound is recycled from one of Dr. Kleiner's voicelines from Half-Life 2.
• You can rotate props by holding right click and moving the mouse
• The cubes have been made to make plastic sounds instead of metal ones like in Portal.
• All of the Portal maps are still present, including both title screen maps, as well as the bonus maps from the "Still Alive" Xbox 360 port.
• The singleplayer maps in this build use the p2_ prefix instead of sp_ as seen in the February 2010 prototype (841 revision 0) onwards.
• The Portal Gun makes a Half-Life 2 weapon/ammo pickup sound whenever it is picked up by the player, presumably a placeholder for the final pickup sound.
• Turrets don't to shoot the player behind glass like they do in the final game. They can also be set on fire like in the final game, where they will play GLaDOS' pain sound from the original games boss fight as a placeholder. Apart from this, they are identical to how they appeared in the first Portal
• Most returning objects from the first Portal retain their original models.