Portal (video game)

This article is about a 2007 computer game. For the 1986 computer game, see Portal (interactive novel).

Portal
The logo for Valve's game, Portal. Now you're thinking with portals.
Developer(s)	Valve Corporation
Publisher(s)	Valve Corporation (Steam)
Engine	Source engine
Platform(s)	PC, Xbox 360, PS3
Release	Q3 2007 (will be released with Half-Life 2: Episode Two)
Genre(s)	Puzzle/FPS
Mode(s)	Single player

Portal is an upcoming single-player puzzle game by Valve Corporation, shipping with Half-Life 2: Episode Two, which is due to be released in Summer of 2007.

Gameplay

Gameplay revolves around the "Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device" (ASHPD), a handheld device that can create portals, allowing instant travel and a visual and physical connection between any two different locations in 3D space. Portals are restricted to horizontal and vertical planes, but if two linked portals are on different planes, bizarre twists in geometry and gravity can occur, such as the player walking through a portal on the wall and "falling" up out of the floor several feet behind where he started. Only two portals may be open at a time. If a new portal is created, it replaces the previous portal of the same color. The device also acts as a less powerful version of Half-Life 2's gravity gun, which can grab and hold objects, though it is not able to 'punt' objects as the Gravity Gun can.

In their initial preview of Portal, GameSpot gave an example of a gameplay scenario:

In other situations, you may be under fire by a gun droid. So all you need to do is shoot a portal open over the gun, then shoot a portal open beneath a crate, then watch the crate fall through the hole and crush the gun. It gets even crazier, and the diagrams shown in the trailer showed some incredibly crazy things that you can attempt, like creating a series of Portals so that you're constantly chasing yourself.

Story

File:Portal1.PNG

A character carrying the ASHPD, seeing himself through the portal chain.

Template:Spoiler In Portal, players control a test participant in the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. Using the "Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device", players perform a variety of tests, such as creating portals to knock over turrets and other objects or moving to a previously unreachable area. Guided by an electronic female voice that is at once both comical and subtly threatening, players must either complete these objectives or fail the test. Failure or refusal of a test likely results in death, although it may not be permanent. At the end of the video the computerized voice ominously says "As part of a previously-mentioned required test protocol, we can no longer lie to you. When the testing is over, you will be... missed." Still, the gameplay video from Leipzig Games Convention mentions that "an intubation associate will be sent to revive you [the test subject/player] with peptic salve and adrenaline" in the case of consciousness loss, hinting that some care is taken to keep the test subject alive at least until the tests are over.

Portal has been confirmed to be set in the Half-Life universe. Certain aspects similar to the Half-Life universe can be noted in the official trailer, such as the turrets, which operate and sound exactly like those that the Combine implement, though this may only be due to the use of sounds from Half-Life 2 as placeholders. Also, orbs like those that the Combine use in the Citadel are also seen, with sockets similar to those seen in Half-Life 2: Episode One, again, potentially placeholders or possibly intentional (It should be noted that, unlike the orbs in Half-Life 2, the orbs in Portal will instantly kill the player if they get too close to them or attempt to grab them with the ASHPD). The Portal Gun functions much like a Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator, with the added ability of creating portals - like the "Gravity Gun", it can pull and hold inanimate objects.

According to Doug Lombardi, the protagonist in Portal is a yet-unintroduced character who will play a role in future games of Half-Life. Though Lombardi has hinted that this character might make an appearance in Episode Three, this is not a certainty. It was later asserted in an interview article from 1up.com with Portal level designer Kim Swift that the protagonist would be female, suggesting the jump-suited male character from the preview video is a placeholder character. This information, however, is asserted without a direct quotation by the article's author and appears in no other media. Assuming that it is correct, it could be hypothesized that since the trailer is in the form of a training video, the jump-suited male is intended to represent a demonstration of the portal technology, recording a video that is being viewed by test subjects as they are indoctrinated into the program.

A dark undertone is revealed in the ApertureScience.com site (see below) in that the application questionnaire (accessed when the user types APPLY at the B prompt after logging in with the password PORTAL) asks such questions as how much the applicant can withstand pain before passing out, how they'd react to torture, if they felt anyone was watching them, how long they could stay awake, etc. The questionnaire ends chillingly with the user being told to wait at their workstation to be investigated by a superior. During the questionnaire, in some questions, the user can see letters dimming and (on one page) even see an ASCII art of a cake flash for a brief moment. By taking all the dimming letters in the questionnaire and arranging them in the order of appearance, it spells out THECAKEISALIE. Typing that at the end of the questionnaire reveals a hidden message from a distraught employee and a security camera video, hinting that Aperture is not all it seems to be, with the final line, "I don't think going home is a part of our job description anymore", before telling the user to press return if a supervisor passes by (which brings up a fake spreadsheet software image. The spreadsheet listing a curious item, INTUB-XLG, of which one was ordered, costing $974,999.99. The only other things on the spreadhseet are 50 units of flour and 75 units of thumbtacks.) There is also an option to try to INTERROGATE an employee, but are rebuffed as not having clearance with an error message stating: "Illegal attempt to initiate disciplinary action". Template:Endspoiler

Trailer

The trailer takes the form of an introduction video produced by Aperture Labratories (sic) and given to all test participants, presumably viewed by the player. The video begins by introducing a "simple task": crossing a chasm to reach an exit. First, a computer-animated figure demonstrates how this can be accomplished: by shooting a portal onto the wall near the exit, then shooting another portal on the wall near the figure. The figure proceeds through the portals and exits successfully. The next scene yields a "real world example" (taking place in the Aperture Science Enrichment Center), where the chasm is now filled with fire and the player is threatened by a metal press. The player shoots a portal onto the far wall across the chasm, followed by another onto a nearby wall, and runs through. Notably, while the computer-animated demonstration indicates that the entry portal should be shot before the exit portal, the real world example demonstrates that the order in which the portals are shot does not matter.

File:Portal2.jpg

Figure demonstrating the use of "vertical momentum" to jump to tall ledges

The video continues by demonstrating the method to move otherwise immovable objects: by shooting a portal onto a wall, and then shooting another portal beneath the object. This will cause the object to fall through the portals and on to the ground under the first portal. Another real world example is shown. The player encounters a turret with a heavy cube nearby; the player, under fire from the turret, proceeds to shoot a portal onto the wall above the turret and another below the cube. The cube falls through the portals and successfully knocks over the turret.

File:Portal3.jpg

Player falling through an infinite portal system

The next few scenes all show the figure performing various tasks, including jumping over tall obstacles through first "building vertical momentum" by jumping into a portal located below the current level, looking through a set of lined-up portals to create an infinitely recursive view, walking through portals to fall on moving platforms, falling through an infinite portal system, and jumping off of high ledges. This is followed by a few real world feats, demonstrating the use of the ASHPD as a weak gravity gun, other complex variants of using cubes and portals to defeat turrets, and a portal-turret system set up so that it shoots itself, and concludes with the player watching himself fall through an infinite portal system.

History

Portal is Valve's professionally-developed semi-sequel to the freeware Narbacular Drop, the 2005 independent game released by students of the DigiPen Institute of Technology; the original Drop team are now all employed at Valve. Certain elements, like the orange/blue system of identifying the two different portals a player can have open at a time (one connecting to the other), seem to have been retained.

In recent interviews, Gabe Newell also revealed that Erik Wolpaw and Chet Faliszek of the classic gaming commentary/comedy website Old Man Murray had been hired and put to work on the dialogue for Portal, which so far seems chiefly composed of the lines read by the female "narrator."

Video quotes

The female narrator in the portal video says some rather unusual things during the course of the video, included are:

• "Welcome to the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. Let's look at some of the challenges you'll face as a test participant."
• "You may be required to perform simple tasks, such as locating an exit. These simple tasks may be supplemented with insurmountable obstacles."
• "Thanks to the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, the impossible is easy."
• "If at first you don't succeed, you fail, and the test will be terminated."
• "When stuck, remember our motto: there's a hole in the sky- through which things can fly."
• "At the enrichment center, we believe that a highly motivated test subject can carry out rather complex tasks, while enduring the most intense pain. So in case you don't make it through the testing, goodbye!"
• "As part of a previously-mentioned required test protocol, we can no longer lie to you. When the testing is over, you will be... missed!"
• "This next task is impossible."
• "Now that you are in control of both portals, this next test could take a very, very long time. If you become light-headed from thirst, feel free to pass out. An intubation associate will be sent to revive you with peptic salve and adrenaline."
• "Now you're thinking with portals."

Website

The website aperturescience.com is run by Valve and presents a Flash-based green monochrome computer terminal that visitors can interact with. To "login" to the terminal one must enter login, logon, user or help, followed by any username and the password portal or portals. At this point several commands prompt results, such as thecakeisalie, dir, lib, ls, apply, logoff, and valve. Entering valve will take the user to the Steam website.

See also

• Half-Life 2: Episode Two
• Narbacular Drop

References

External links

Official

Official homepage

ApertureScience.com (Viral advertising, Alternate reality game)

Press

Gamespot initial preview

IGN's interview with Portal team member Kim Swift

Community

A 'portal gun' modification for Garry's Mod

Half-Life 2 Portal mod: Exite

Impossible Is Easy A Portal Fansite