Half-life 2

Deirdre has started playing Halflife 2 completely of her own accord. What have I done?

Portal: Endgame

The first half of Portal is interesting because of its pseudo-test environment, but Deirdre really started enjoying it when escape became her purpose. Armed with the successes and failures of the first half, she solved puzzles faster and faster, and more than once quietly put me to shame in figuring things out in half the time it had taken me.

Portal: Problem Solving

When things got slightly more complicated, hints came in the form of problem-solving questions:

1. Where are you trying to go?
2. How can you get there?
3. What resources are available to you?
4. Have you exhausted those resources?

Generally, asking these questions in order led her to the answer. Occasionally, an "open your mind" reminder was useful. It is not unusual for the correct answer to be something so simple that we dismiss it outright.

Long ago, in my childhood before Macs were colored like psychedelic flowers, I asked my older brother to help me set up a desktop Mac. Start to finish, I picked up cables, he asked where I thought they went, and shrugged when I looked to him for verification. At the the end, the computer was all set up and turned on, and my brother revealed that he actually hadn't known how to set it up. He had only offered an algorithm for solving the problem.

In other words, it's not the answer that's important, so much as the methods we develop for getting there.

Portal is a good example of a place for developing those methods, since part of the design of the early game is of course this polished series of test chambers, where possibilities are limited.

Portal: Test Environment

Trying to stay true to the test-environment nature of Portal, I initially didn't offer any hints to Deirdre as she played through the early levels.

She frowned at me.

Portal

Cameron told Deirdre to play Portal. After her success with Bioshock, I happened to pick up the Orange Box.

How can I refuse?

Bioshock 2

Deirdre has expressed interest in Bioshock 2. We're watching eBay for used copies.