GLaDOS - Development History

Before development of GLaDOS had begun, Erik Wolpaw was writing the script for the video game Psychonauts, where they went around the office, finding people to provide voices to the words until they could add the final voices to the game. Once they ran out of people, however, he began using a text-to-speech program. According to Wolpaw, people found the lines funnier than they were worth. He commented that "no amount of writing is funnier than this text-to-speech thing reading it".He became bitter about that, stating that he would leverage this and use it to his advantage. The creation of GLaDOS began with a discussion between the Valve team and Wolpaw on the narrative restraints they had to deal with. When they were designing the game, they found that they did not have enough time or staffing to use human characters, due to the amount of animation work and scene choreography involved.

GLaDOS went through several redesigns before artists settled on the final anthropomorphic shape. Early concepts featured a floating brain and a spider-like appearance

GLaDOS - Plot in Portal 2

Portal 2

In Portal 2, GLaDOS initially resumes her role as test monitor. This time, she is more passive aggressive and makes no attempt to hide her contempt and hatred for Chell. However, a plot twist occurs when the bumbling personality core Wheatley convinces Chell to perform a core transfer, allowing him to forcibly take GLaDOS's place as head of the facility. At this point he almost immediately becomes power-mad and decides to test or kill Chell and GLaDOS, throwing the arch-enemies into the bowels of the facility. With no other choice, Chell and GLaDOS — now reduced to a simple core powered by a potato-battery, decide to team up to prevent Wheatley from completely destroying the facility in his incompetence. Chell and GLaDOS are successful in defeating Wheatley; Chell allows GLaDOS to retake her role as head of the facility and GLaDOS saves Chell's life. She then decides to let Chell leave the facility, determining it is too much effort to kill her, and throws out the Companion Cube Chell had from the first game as a parting gift. Portal 2 also reveals background information about GLaDOS. It is disclosed she was created from the personality of Caroline, an assistant to Aperture Science's CEO, Cave Johnson, who left her in charge of the facility via a mind-to-computer transfer after his death. After being dethroned by Wheatley, GLaDOS begins to regain some of her humanity and becomes kinder to Chell. However, at the end of the game GLaDOS apparently chooses to delete this aspect of her personality and return to her sociopathic persona.

GLaDOS - Plot in Portal

Portal

In Portal, she is the main character's (known as Chell) only link with the situation she is placed in; at the game's start, GLaDOS introduces Chell to the game's Enrichment Center and the physics of the portal gun. In later stages of the center, GLaDOS admits to having lied to Chell about her progress, as part of a supposed 'test protocol. GLaDOS slowly becomes more sinister, and Chell's trust in GLaDOS is tested when the AI directs Chell into a testing area populated with live-fire turrets, a course designed for military androids. The AI claims that the regular test chamber is unavailable due to "mandatory scheduled maintenance".GLaDOS uses the lure of cake and grief counseling to encourage Chell to continue, but at the final testing area, as Chell prepares to receive the supposed cake, GLaDOS attempts to incinerate Chell in a fire pit. Once Chell escapes, GLaDOS attempts to reconcile with Chell, claiming the pit was a final test.

Chell then travels through the bowels of the Enrichment Center, battling natural hazards and further