Portal 2 potato sack indie devs given "free reign" to design launch ARG

Portal 2 - bouncy blue turrets

The indie developers involved in the potato sack sale say that they were given "free reign" to design the ARG, as well as "access to any IP we wanted." Edge have been catching up with the potato sack developers to find out exactly how the enormous ARG came together.

Audiosurf creator Dylan Fitterer explains how Valve initiated the ARG. “Valve invited a bunch of us indie developers to come out last December for a 'Cross Game Design Event. It was a bit mysterious, but definitely sounded like fun."

“Jeep [Barnett, Portal 2 programmer] coordinated with us most closely, but Gabe kicked it all off. He asked us to work with them in creating an event that put launching Portal 2 into the community's hands. We were given free rein to design it and were also given access to any IP we wanted.”

Dejobaan president Ichiro Lambe “It felt very natural. Valve gave us a framework and said: 'You know all about GLaDOS. Now, she wants us to break out into the world. Go make it happen.'"

Fitterer explains that the number of people playing Audiosurf during the ARG jumped from 300 a day to 6000 a day. There's no news yet on the number of potato sack games sold during the ARG. Edge's full featureon the ARG is set to arrive tomorrow.

TOPICS
PRODUCTS
Tom Senior

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.

Latest in Games
An Enshrouded player in a recreation of Erebor from The Lord of the Rings
Kings under the Mountain! 33 Enshrouded players spent 10,000 hours to recreate this iconic location from The Lord of the Rings
kingdom come deliverance 2 thunderstone quest
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's masterful quest design can be summed up by one wonderfully weird search for a magic stone
A mech awakens.
Mecha Break developer is considering unlocking all mechs following open beta feedback
Blue Protocol players dancing minutes before the game closes forever
What will we do at the end of the world? If MMOs are any indication: mostly what we already do, plus a lot of dancing
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Latest in News
Two brightly colored stormtroopers dressed like Run-DMC stand in front of PAX Australia's WELCOME HOME banner.
Tickets for PAX Australia 2025 are on sale now
An Enshrouded player in a recreation of Erebor from The Lord of the Rings
Kings under the Mountain! 33 Enshrouded players spent 10,000 hours to recreate this iconic location from The Lord of the Rings
A mech awakens.
Mecha Break developer is considering unlocking all mechs following open beta feedback
Lara Croft Unified Art
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again