Operation: Squeaky Clean (Developer Commentary)

''This is the Wikia page for Operation: Squeaky Clean (Developer Commentary). If you're looking for the mission, go to Operation: Squeaky Clean.''


 * "Here's a problem we struggled with for a while. Before the window is broken, you want to be further away from the building so that interactions with the window feel good. After the window is broken, however, you want to be as close to the building as possible so that you can interact with what is inside easily. In a game where moving the player is one of the quickest ways to kick them out of the experience, this presented a huge problem. We tried several things; teleporting the player forward on window break, which players didn't notice but felt like a bug in footage; moving them forward super slowly over the course of 5 minutes, which most didn't notice but those who did freaked out; and the idea that this level could be a standing level, where the player could physically step forward and back. We even tried turning the window washing platform into a cherry-picker, where the players could move forward and backwards at will, which was interesting. Nauseating, but interesting. So how did we solve it in the end? Well, we didn't. We made it go away. David and Chris side-stepped the problem entirely by angling the window away from you so the player could be right up against the glass. It's a little architecturally weird, but never let realistic architecture get in the way of good gameplay design."


 * "This periodic table actually required a lot of iterations, despite being a simple object. When the table was big, it would obstruct huge chunks of the player's view when they brought it near, or cause them to knock things off the platform. Smaller was better, but when we made it small, the table blent into the wall and people wouldn't pick it up, getting completely blocked on the puzzle. The solution wound up being was to stop tweaking the size and just make the table a little crooked, which triggers that impulse players had to straighten it out, and thus try to interact with it. It's a good example of how the small details are so critical in a game like this, and that tweaks can change a puzzle from unbeatable to solvable."


 * "The idea of a paper airplane was something we wanted for a long time, but never got around to making it for the game. Then, the Saturday after GDC, I grabbed some of my friends in the game industry and we sat down and had a paper airplane jam. It took us about 4 hours, but it worked out well and we got it into the game."


 * "Oh, the sandwich. Since we had set aside some time for fully recording, lots of test tubes, beakers, coffee thermoses and things to tap and hit against metal and glass, I decided to do realistic fully for what it was like to throw a sandwich. Turns out, not as interesting as you would hope, but very messy. I took two slices of bread and secured them together with a toothpick in attempt to minimize mess and threw that thing against all surfaces imaginable. The result from everything? Very light tapping sounds and lots of crumbs everywhere. The final sandwich you hear in-game is doctored up in-post to be more interesting, because, sadly, real sandwiches are not as fun as you'd think."


 * "The final Operation: Squeaky Clean combined science-based puzzles with some light security evasion, but original versions of this level leaned much more into the security side of things. I'm pretty sure we could make an entirely new level based on some of the stuff we tried and cut, like hiding from security cameras and eavesdropping on conversations in adjacent rooms. Maybe we still will- if we do, pretend you never listened to this."


 * "One of the big concerns in window-washing was how players afraid of heights would react. We wanted to make it manageable for them, but we also felt the sense of height was an essential part of the setting and didn't want to lose that. We spent a lot of time changing the platform size and railing height in order to try and hit the right balance, and even created a list of everyone at Schell Games who was afraid of heights so we could object them to our cruel experiments. It's probably not completely solved, but I think we got the game to a place where agoraphobes wouldn't be driven out at least. I mean, if you are listening to this, you got through it. Though, this bubble is on the ground below, so you're probably not that afraid of heights anyway."


 * "The addition of this launch sequence actually came fairly late in the development in this level, emerging from a full-pod brainstorm focused on dressing the things we felt were not quite clicking. We previously tried several climactic encounters that took place entirely inside the lab, many of which were more about retrieving a sample of the virus, but these lacked dramatic punch. We were also dissatisfied with the fact- outside of the lab was visually cool, but hardly anything happened out there. By bringing the virus itself outside for the final act, we created a dramatic reveal and solved two problems at once."