Portal Playing Dad Frustrates to No End

Ghengis John

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Tom Goldman said:
Like this dad, apparently. He looks inside the walls of a Portal level that most of us would ignore and says: "There's hydraulic lifts in there! There must be a button!" In reality, all he has to do is shoot a portal across a gap and walk through the one right next to him, but he just... can't... get it.
If you'll notice he skipped his dad past the first part of the game.

WHERE THEY EXPLAIN HOW THE FUCKING PORTAL GUN WORKS.

He then replies to people who ask him "And you didn't tell your dad how the portal gun works?"

with: "It's more entertaining this way."

No wonder the poor dad is so lost. His son is trolling him.
 

_Janny_

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Ghengis John said:
If you'll notice he skipped his dad past the first part of the game.
He didn't, actually. The son mentions that he just didn't start taping the whole thing till that level.
 

theriddlen

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poiumty said:
Frozen Donkey Wheel2 said:
Um, no offense, but....How exactly does this qualify as news?

I mean, its a funny video and all, but....you know....It's called the Newsroom for a reason.
I've asked this a few times in the past. Their reply was something along the lines of "Problem, user?".
Problem, fellow user?
 

Darkauthor81

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My parents would never touch video games when I was a teenager....

But then my mom stumbled onto Snood. I have no idea how. Suddenly her and my dad were addicted. Then they stumbled onto the Pogo website.

They're more gamers than I am now. They spend twice as long playing those pogo games on any given day than I play my video games.
 

geizr

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Oct 9, 2008
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That was entertaining and hilarious to watch.

Some gamers tend to forget that not everyone thinks the same way, and that things that may be obvious to those of us who are more advanced gamers may not be so obvious to more novice gamers. Even further, not everyone, including gamers, has the same level of skill in gaming, and not everyone can play every game with equal facility. Some things are just difficult for some and, yet, easy for others.

The Dad is obviously an intelligent guy, but his framework of logic seems rigid and strictly procedural(generalizing rules and patterns is not a natural process for him). A game like Portal requires a much more flexible logic framework, hence the level of difficulty he experiences trying to solve the puzzles. The type of thinking he has to use in the game is completely new and alien to his normal thought patterns. He has to learn a whole new way of thinking, and that can be difficult, no matter how intelligent a person is.

Many adults experience exactly this problem. After a certain age, for many adults, thought patterns, logical frameworks, and conceptual frameworks become frozen, and it is difficult(but not necessarily impossible) to learn new frameworks that challenge or usurp the existing ones. As adults, we become set in our ways because we have invested a life-time of learning those things which we know, and we become comfortable with the certainty of those concepts. Having that certainty disturbed is a frightening prospect because it means that the world becomes dangerously unpredictable again.

Avoiding this frozen state is something that has to start at a young age, while the brain is more plastic in nature, and has to be continuously cultivated throughout adulthood. You have to continuously challenge your mind with new ideas and concepts, and you have to work to apply and generalize those concepts to situations and contexts beyond that where the ideas and concepts were learned. In essence, you have to consciously work to keep your mind open. One has to constantly be prepared to throw away everything that is considered true in order to learn the new way. To use a Biblical reference, your mind must be that of a child to enter into Heaven. This doesn't mean you be immature; it means you have to remain open to concepts and ideas that are foreign to all your prior experience. Remember that nothing is necessarily true, not even this statement.

(Sorry, the ramble process started up again)
 

WhiteTigerShiro

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poiumty said:
Frozen Donkey Wheel2 said:
Um, no offense, but....How exactly does this qualify as news?

I mean, its a funny video and all, but....you know....It's called the Newsroom for a reason.
I've asked this a few times in the past. Their reply was something along the lines of "Problem, user?".
Question: Is it really THAT hard to just... skip news posts that don't interest you? I mean, it isn't as though there's someone forcing you to read and reply to every news post.
 

thegermanguy

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haha ^^ at least he tries, not like many other parents who don't want to do as much as look at a videogame.
 

CommanderKirov

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I guess our kids will laugh the same towards us when we try to get into "Virtual Reality Super Shootout" thirty years from now.
 

Katana314

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Continuity said:
Katana314 said:
Actually, this sort of news is especially important to me. I'm the type that is infinitely frustrated every time I see a game add yet another layer of complexity to its mechanics.

My brother's girlfriend just didn't understand Portal either. In fact, I think WASD movement didn't even make sense to her. I kind of wonder if designers need to start working on games to fill in that learning gap. Even if they aren't a monetary success, it might make more gamers.
There are plenty of softer option games out there but there needs to be games like this too for those who have already acquired the skills and want more of a challenge. In fact one of the problems with games today is that too many games are being targeted at beginners and those with lower skill levels, leaving something of a vacuum at the higher skill levels. However you cut it though, you're always going to have a first time coming up against WSAD controls, just like there is always going to be a first time using a controller... even a controller isn't that easy to use when you very first start.

To be honest WSAD controls, although not intuitive at first are the industry standard and more than that they are used for a reason... its the best key group for a right handed player to use.
Its like a QWERTY keyboard, massively unintuitive layout but once you get used to it its second nature... no sense in changing it now because hundreds of millions of computer users already know that layout.. harsh on beginners but thats the fact of the matter.
I think you are unfortunately failing at the assumption that the "people who know WASD" demographic is a very large one. It's big, but it certainly doesn't take up 50% of the world's population, often leading to stagnation of the video game market, and a rise in casual games that don't rely on complex controls, like Angry Birds.

Ironically, you defeated your own argument with QWERTY. As efficient as QWERTY is, the reason it fails is that there's no widespread movement to transition people over to it.

The way I've seen it, the safest way to have challenge is through innovation. If the concept of a game is completely new to EVERYONE, then it will be equally nonsensical to beginners as it is to FPS-experts. Then everyone gets the challenge they're looking for.
 

Solo-Wing

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Dec 15, 2010
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God that was Painful. I beat Portal in 5 hours. Would have been 3 but Chamber 18 wouldn't have been as long if I thought of hitting the turrets with the energy ball.
 

Woodsey

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Aug 9, 2009
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He's got a gun that makes portals and he's looking for a button to bring up a Stannah stair lift! xD
 

DragonChi

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Nov 1, 2008
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This is hilarious, my dad got stuck in the exact same place and took him even longer than the dad in the video. Sooo funny.