I thought sound, in particular voices and the associated gender of those voices, was rather important in level 16 of Portal. I’m pretty sure it’s test 16, but if I’m wrong, it’s the first one with the robots that are shooting at you (I don’t know if there are more levels with shooting robots, haven’t gotten beyond this test…). The gun robots have voices, and they sound like little girls. I thought it was important, as the consensus seems to be that GLaDOS is a female. So does this mean that all the robots are “female”? And since you are female, are the only characters in the game female? If you’ve finished the game, and there are “male” robots, please say so.
That level also contains the area where, for me, the nature of the game changed. I came across a small area where the sound changes so that there is music in the background. The area has “HELP” written multiple times in red (and I’m pretty sure it’s blood since there are robots shooting at me) along with “The cake is a lie” written over and over, along with what looks like day counts. I have only just gotten there, so I don’t know what happens next, but all of a sudden the game went from being solving puzzles with a slightly strange robot/computer telling me things and promising me cake, to something much different. In that one spot, the game became darker, after all, those messages had to have been written by someone. So who wrote them? Why? And where are they now? The “help” message being written in what looked like it was supposed to be blood makes me think the game is supposed to be dangerous, and if it is, then why am I going through the tests at GLaDOS’ instruction?