Pedestal Button

“

Press the button again. Click to listen — GLaDOS

”

Pedestal Buttons are a game mechanic used within the Portal series. They can be found very frequently throughout Test Chambers and are primarily used to allow the player to trigger or toggle a particular function. They can be activated with the "Use" key (E by default).

Uses

Pedestal Buttons are used for multiple purposes to initiate a particular action. More common uses include the dropping of a Cube (and fizzling of the previous cube if present), activating a Gel pipeline or opening a door. They can also be timer-based, where the action (for example, extending a platform) is only activated for a specific length of time.

Exclusively in Portal: Still Alive for the Xbox 360, there is an alternate pedestal button design which is white with red lights and an icon of a cube with a skull on the button itself. This design is used for pedestal buttons connected to cube droppers, to indicate that pressing the button will destroy the previous cube. The button itself behaves identically to a regular pedestal button. This button design does not appear in Portal 2 or the Nintendo Switch versions of the Portal: Still Alive levels, both of which replace them with regular pedestal buttons.

Gallery

The Pedestal Button as it appears in Portal.   The Pedestal Button as it appears in Portal 2.   The switch from old Aperture in Portal 2.   Portal: Still Alive's cube fizzler variation of the Pedestal Button, only used in bonus chambers

Development

In the developer commentary of Portal, players learn that originally, a weighted button was used to open the far door of Test Chamber 11, but playtesters found that they would get stuck searching hopelessly for a cube to place on it. The floor button was then changed to the pedestal button, thus removing the cube association, but since the ticking timer sound while the door was open had not been added at the time, playtesters continued to struggle realising a portal had to be placed through the door while open.

Trivia

• In Portal 2, the lights on the sides of pedestal buttons do not turn orange when the button is active, while all other button-related test elements do.