Erik Wolpaw Interview with Rock, Paper, Shotgun

[CSN NewsBot]

Erik Wolpaw, one of the creative minds behind the humor found in Portal and Psychonauts, sat down with Rock, Paper, Shotgun to discuss the finer points of life. Points that ask the hard questions such as, "Why cake?"

So what do you think is the hardest thing about writing for games?



Erik: At strip clubs, there’s a guy whose job is to talk between the strippers. He tries to do a good job and be entertaining and enthusiastic, but everybody’s just there for the nakedness. That’s a professional writer trick we call called an “analogy�. What I really mean is that game writers are the game equivalent of the guy who talks between the nude girls at strip clubs. Nobody cares about what that guy does, and anybody who does care is probably a little maladjusted. So I’d have to say the hardest part of being a game writer is learning all the writing tricks like “analogy�.

Now, keep in mind that the rest of the interview only gets progressively more weird. It's one hell of a humorous read.

[-:Nighthawk:-]

I wouldn't read this if you haven't beat Portal already, as it does contain a few spoilers in it.



He definitely is an odd fellow, but it is occasionally humorous and always off-the wall... worth reading if you're into that type of humor. Portal really would have been a much more sterile experience without the running commentary, and I was glad for its addition. The only downside is that when trying the time-trials in the challenges, you quickly become sick of hearing the exact same phrases over and over again as you continually fall one second short of your goal. :-\



Also, is there a quick and easy way to load the credits song? After I beat the game I assumed I would be able to click on something to load it, but I'm either blind and retarded or that feature isn't there... any ideas that don't involve creating a save point just before the end of the game?

[Thortok2000]

Use cl_showfps 1 to show what map the credits is, then changelevel to it.

appended @ [time="1194176540"]

The final map is escape_02.



However, the credits are 'part of the map', so you can save during the song (or immediately before it starts). I recommend doing that.