Portal (video game)

Did You Know?

• The portal gun can create two distinct portal ends, blue and orange, which connect different locations within the test chambers.
• The game's physics preserve an object's momentum as it passes through a portal, while its trajectory is determined by the orientation of the exit portal.
• The phrase 'the cake is a lie' has become an internet meme.

Synopsis

Portal takes place in the Half-Life universe within the Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center. The player controls Chell, a silent protagonist, who is monitored and directed by GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System), an artificial intelligence voiced by Ellen McLain. GLaDOS taunts Chell and promises cake upon completion of all puzzles. The only background information about Chell comes from GLaDOS, whose credibility is questionable as she admits to being a liar.

According to the "Lab Rat" comic bridging Portal and Portal 2, Chell was rejected as a test subject for having too much tenacity, but former employee Doug Rattmann moved her to the top of the test queue. Aperture Science was founded by Cave Johnson in 1943 to make shower curtains for the U.S. military. After becoming mentally unstable from moon rock poisoning in 1978, Johnson created a three-tier research plan. The first two tiers failed commercially, but the third tier—a quantum tunnel through physical space—led to an open-ended government contract. Development of GLaDOS began in 1986 to speed up portal technology research.

Development

Portal originated from the 2005 freeware game Narbacular Drop, created by students at the DigiPen Institute of Technology. Valve developer Robin Walker saw the game at a DigiPen career fair and invited the team to present at Valve. Impressed, Valve president Gabe Newell offered the team jobs to develop the concept further. The team created a prototype using an in-house 2D game engine.

Elements retained from Narbacular Drop included the orange and blue portal endpoints, but the portal gun in Portal cannot create a portal through an existing portal. The original dungeon setting was replaced with the Aperture Science approach. Development took about two years and four months, with no more than ten people involved. For the first year, the team focused on gameplay without narrative.

Playtesters enjoyed the game but asked about the purpose of the test chambers, prompting the team to add a narrative. They worked with Half-Life writer Marc Laidlaw to fit Portal into the Half-Life universe, partly to reuse Half-Life 2 art assets. Laidlaw opposed the crossover, feeling it made both universes smaller.

Release

Portal was first released as part of The Orange Box for Windows and Xbox 360 on October 10, 2007, and for PlayStation 3 on December 11, 2007. The Orange Box also included Half-Life 2, its two add-on episodes, and Team Fortress 2. Valve considered Portal's inclusion an experiment, using the bundle as a safety net. The game was kept modest in length in case it did not succeed.

A standalone retail version was released on April 9, 2008, with the Windows version available via Steam. In January 2008, Valve released a free demo titled Portal: The First Slice for Steam users with Nvidia graphics hardware, later made available to all Steam users. Portal was the first Valve-developed game added to the OS X-compatible list on the launch of the Steam client for Mac on May 12, 2010, supporting Steam Play. During the two weeks following the Mac client's launch, Portal was offered free to any Steam user, with over 1.5 million copies downloaded in the first week. A similar promotion in September 2011 encouraged using the game as an educational tool for science and mathematics.

Reception

Portal received critical acclaim, often earning more praise than Half-Life 2: Episode Two or Team Fortress 2. It was praised for its unique gameplay and dark, deadpan humor. Eurogamer called the progression from simple tasks to part of the Half-Life story absolute genius, while GameSpy noted the game made up for its short length in exhilaration. The game was criticized for sparse environments and both criticized and praised for its short length.

Aggregate reviews for the standalone PC version gave it a 90 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 28 reviews. Valve stated in 2011 that Portal had sold more than four million copies through retail versions, including The Orange Box and the Xbox Live Arcade version. The Weighted Companion Cube generated a fan following, with fans creating plush and papercraft versions. GLaDOS won the Best New Character Award on G4. Ben Croshaw of Zero Punctuation praised the game as absolutely sublime from start to finish.