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I’ve finally played Portal for the first time! 17 years after release isn’t too late to do a review, right? Right? Let this puzzle enthusiast jump on the ol’ hype train with you guys!

I’ll have written thoughts below, but be sure to check out our podcast episode on Portal for more insights. You can find it embedded above and on Spotify!

What Is Portal?

Portal is a puzzle-platformer game developed by Valve. It was released in 2007 alongside their other hit games in a legendary collection called The Orange Box.

Your character, Chell (whose name is never directly said in-game), wanders multiple experimental test rooms designed by Aperture Science. These rooms are each a self-contained puzzle that can be solved with the help of a device that gamers of all ages know as the portal gun. This device can create two portals on most solid surfaces, which are connected to one another.

A sassy robot voice (later known as GLaDOS) verbally toys with you as you progress. Clever use of geometry, physics, and thinking with portals will get you through this short and sweet adventure.

Why Play Portal?

This game is old enough to graduate high school and still holds up. Valve’s Source engine established itself with an unforgettable design in games such as Half-Life 2 and Left 4 Dead, and its presence is kept strong in gamers’ minds thanks to its dedicated modding community.

Portal itself uses straight-forward tools, including the game engine’s physics, to promote creative thinking. You have portals, you have some cubes, and you have your own body combined with momentum. That’s it! Good analogs from recent times are the newest original The Legend of Zelda titles, which give you a set of unique tools that reward thinking outside of the box.

Because of the simplicity, Portal is for anyone! Even your mother-in-law! Anyone that enjoys creative thinking and solving puzzles will love this game, even if they’ve never touched a controller or the WASD keys.

The charming personality of the game is also designed for players of all ages! While you could read into the lore and find iceberg upon iceberg of dark, terrifying truths, the game itself doesn’t have any truly horrific elements. The least innocuous content is some crude humor (GLaDOS, icon for robots worldwide, absolutely serves with her snarky remarks).

What was that I mentioned about icebergs of lore? From what I know, Portal 2 is what really opens up the series’ worldbuilding and spawned decades-long discussions amongst the fanbase. But the OG Portal still establishes the world, and there’s plenty of reading-between-the-lines for you to sink your teeth into.

The universe is still expanding for dedicated fans, too! The modding community for this game has aged well. The recently released Portal Revolution is one of many mods you can play after finishing the first two games.

Whether you’re a casual puzzle-gamer, some kind of Goldbergian overthinker, or a fiendish lore-hunter, the Portal series will be a wonderful experience for you!

Plus, there’s cake! I guarantee it. . .

Will There Ever Be A Portal Escape Room?

The game, Escape Simulator's featured image of their new, free Portal DLC on Steam.

That would be sick! But hard to pull off. The defining mechanic of Portal is using interconnected holes in spacetime to solve puzzles, so any attempt at that in our reality would have to be a well-designed illusion (if you’re reading this from 100 years in the future, I hope you have what I can only wish for!). But with the right set up, and a creative take on how to make a ‘portal’ effect, it’s certainly possible.

The connections between escape rooms and Portal are there, though! Just last year, Escape Simulator released a free, Portal-themed DLC. It’s worth checking out for enthusiasts from either side.

If it’s not obvious, I had a blast playing Portal. So stay tuned for my next update after I play Portal 2!

Need some more puzzle rooms to solve?

Play at The Escape Effect!

Podcast Transcript

Below is the transcript for The Escape Effect Podcast: Escaping With Portals.

[Music]

[Eric] Welcome to The Escape Effect where the hints are free. My name is Eric and I'll be your Puzzle Master for this podcast. And today I am joined by Luis.
[Luis] Hello!
[E] I brought him on here as our resident portal expert. Today we are discussing Portal 1, since that is the one Portal I have played and finished.
[L] You're missing out man.
[E] I know! It's such a new, fresh game series to jump on, and definitely not an old thing to talk about at all.
[L] No no no. Portal doesn't get old. None of Valve's games get old.
[E] That's what it is right? It's that Valve magic.
[L] Yeah, I don't know how they do it. I don't know if the Source engine is haunted or something, but it's constantly timeless.
[E] Overall I am a big fan. I know that the series really kicked off with [Portal] 2 and I'm excited to play that. I'm not sure how the first game was received.
[L] Okay, so Portal was built kind of just to be like a little side project while they were making Half-Life 2. I think it was received pretty well. For a long time it was considered one of the best first-person puzzle games, so it was kind of a no-brainer when Valve decided to make a second one . . . and never continue the series past that.
[E] Yes, we know Valve's reputation for not making three-quels.
[L] Mhm mhm.
[E] But Portal 1, man, it's so simple in its direction and beautiful.
[L] It's kind of perfect which, if you think about it, like, Portal 2 is great and I love it and it's also Perfect. But like, Portal 1 - it's not very long, it doesn't bog you down with a lot of plot, and most of the story is told through environmental storytelling.
[E] Yeah there's a lot of inference.
[L] Yeah.
[E] Because it's just you and the machine, who I don't know if that's GLaDOS, since it doesn't actually have a name in the first game.
[L] It is. It is GLaDOS.
[E] Okay I wasn't sure.
[L] Yeah.
[E] Also, are you Chell?
[L] Yes you are Chell. You play the same character in Portal 1 and Portal 2. Fun fact, that was not intended. So Chell and GLaDOS, they were established. Those were their names, those were the characters. Even Cave Johnson and Doug Rattmann existed when Portal was being developed. There was like an Aperture Science application page online where you could, like, go on this fake website and apply to be a test subject for Aperture Science in leadup to Portal, and C. Johnson was mentioned there, so they definitely had a lot of lore in mind when they were developing the project. I don't know if you know this: Portal exists in the same continuity as Half-Life.
[E] I didn't know that, and Half-Life is on my list. I want to talk about mechanics because honestly the portal gun, that is probably one of my favorite mechanics in a game ever.
[L] Oh it's iconic.
[E] Yeah I mean we've played a first-person shooter called Splitgate that was basically Halo but with portal guns and that was so much fun.
[L] Yes!
[E] So yeah going back to see the inspiration for that in this was - wow. Each puzzle, it starts out really simple and honestly I love how simple it is! I love that it's just: there's a hole and then there's another hole and you can do so many different things with that. I hate when puzzle games bog you down with a ton of different mechanics that you have to learn in order to adapt, I really like how simple it is.
[L] Yeah Valve was really ballsy with their games in that era cuz you have the Source engine which is like, ‘we made this physics engine that has just really realistic, good feeling physics properties. Everything is a thing that has weight and momentum and mass and stuff, so we're going to make one game where you have a gravity gun and you can just like launch things with massive momentum.’
‘And then we're going to make another game where you have a portal gun and you just make holes in space time that carry over your momentum and you are the physics object in that game,’ and that's unique to this series. Like the original idea behind the Portal game mechanics was a student project.
[E] That checks out. It's always a student project with some really cool idea that's just like, ‘whoo that's so simple how has no one thought of this before?’
[L] Yeah it was basically a game where you play as like this - hold on. I'm going to look this up so I can pretend that I know this.
[E] Yeah, yeah I'll cut this. For sure. Maybe.
[L] Maybe! So the mechanics in Portal came almost directly from this student project game called Narbacular Drop where you play as a princess. Her name was No-Knees, ‘cause she couldn't jump. She was captured by a demon. And there were these like demon gates that you could just move through, and those were the portals. Like if you go back and look, the portal would be this just skull face with like fiery eyes, and the eyes were either blue or orange. And Gabe Newell heard about the game and basically hired the entire team behind it and was like, ‘make Portal.’
[E] Wow - oh, I see. Okay. It is very different aesthetically.
[L] Yes. Yeah, it is pretty old. All the puzzles are basically get-box-onto-big-button, which Portal does too but Portal’s definitely an improvement.
[E] Yeah I love how the complexities develop not by adding technically new mechanics, but requiring you to think with portals, really. Like being able to use your momentum as a way to fly through a door or to get to the other side of a pit.
[L] Mhm! Gotta think non-euclidian-y-ish. Use your non-euclid brain. Yes.
[E] Yeah and it all culminates in this boss battle, which I don't really think of puzzle games and boss battles so that was really exciting to have this like kind of high tension, ‘I know what I need to do, but I just got to be fast enough to do it’ and you're just like, left and right portal constantly as you're moving about throwing the ball and everything. I really like that fight, honestly.
[L] I love how it pretty much tests you on everything you've learned up to that point. It's a very good conclusion.
[E] Yeah ‘cause there's a lot of object movements, you have to get the balls into the fire pit, and then you also have momentum because you need to be getting around as fast as possible.
[L] There's a time limit.
[E] Yeah, you have to be speedy. And I think you have to get in the air at some point.
[L] You do. So one of the cores that GLaDOS drops ends up on a catwalk-y little area, and you have to reach it.
[E] Right, yeah, you have to ascend.
[L] Also there's like a missile launcher!
[E] Yes! And you have to, like, reflect it.
[L] Mhm, you have to, like, aim it at her. It's fun.
[E] Ah, yeah that's sick. So I have a theory - or rather I'm trying to form a theory about Portal 2, ‘cause I actually don't know the story at all.
[L] Okay. You can tell me and I'll tell you nothing, because I'm not going to spoil for you.
[E] That's awesome, I'm so excited. So at the end we see Chell escape.
[L] Mhm.
[E] Right? That is what we we're led to believe as the audience at the end of [Portal] 1, if I'm not mistaken.
[L] Mmm. . . So are you sure that she escaped at the end?
[E] You know now that I think about it, I don't actually remember ever walking outside.
[L] So there are two versions of this cutscene, because Valve did retcon it a few years after the release of the game. But there is one version where you defeat GLaDOS and the facility explodes, and you're outside, and the game ends with Chell passing out.  And then there is another version where the exact same thing happens except at the very end, you hear the voice of, like, a party retrieval unit drag Chell away. That's all I'll say.
[E] Well that's bad.
[L] Yeah.
[E] That last one at least.
[L] That is the canon ending.
[E] Oh I see.
[L] Mhm.
[E] So what you're saying is we're playing as robot Chell.
[L] I am not saying that.
[E] Mechanized. Rebuilt, but still rebelling.
[L] You should just play Portal 2, man. It's good.
[E] Okay, cool, well I am excited to venture further into the Portal universe. And by that I mean the second game, and I guess that's it. I know there are a bunch of different like, mod things.
[L] There are. There's several that are worth checking out. Portal Stories: Mel is really really good. There's one that has like time travel. That's Portal Reloaded.
[E] Do you portal through time?
[L] Yes!
[E] That's cool. I like that. Does it take place in the same universe? Like should I play 2 before I play it?
[L] You should definitely play 2 before you play any of the mods, at all.
[E] Okay, it sounds like 2 is, like, kind of the big anchor point that's really establishing a lot of the world building and stuff that I need to know.
[L] It is! Portal 2 is the thing that cements the personality of the series. Portal 1 is a great game, but it's like, the personality of Aperture Science comes from Portal 2, and the writing in Portal 2.
[E] Okay. It really comes into its own in the sequel.
[L] Mhm. I could talk your ear off about it but I'd spoil the entire series.
[E] Um . . . Escape rooms Escape rooms Escape rooms! Portal, like, is basically a bunch of escape rooms, though. That's kind of the point, right? You can either consider it one big escape room with a bunch of different doors, or many small escape rooms.
[L] It is a little different. Okay - it is by definition a room with puzzles that you must escape, right? So, escape room: check. But also, in an escape room the mechanics change. Like this is what I love about video games. Playing an escape room you're really just trying to figure things out. Once you figure things out you get an answer and you put that answer in a box. But like, in a game like Portal, you're trying to actively do things. Like you're trying to reach this physical location, and you're jumping and running.
[E] That's true, yeah. And you can't create that level of nuance with just one mechanic in an escape room without the ability to do fictional things like that. Basically create that feeling. Imagine an escape room where you have to zipline across a tower!
[L] I mean I'd play that.
[E] So I think we're good there. I think we talked about Portal at all the angles I wanted to speak about.
[L] Cool. Would this be the second episode?
[E] This is the second episode of The Escape Effect podcast, yeah.
[L] Neat. Hi, Mom!
[E] Alrighty thank you all for coming out! This has been Eric
[L] And Luis.
[E] At The Escape Effect, and we'll quiz you later.

[Music]

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