Delicate Genius Blog

Last week I picked up Portal, the puzzle game that comes in The Orange Box collection. Tonight I finished it. Waaay too short!

Portal is a very innovative puzzle game with very simple controls and a very simple concept; you have a portal gun which allows you to shoot portals in walls (and floors and anywhere else), then travel through them to progress. It’s a little hard to explain and ironically very easy to understand. Check out this video which intros the game beautifully.

It’s probably one of the most innovative games that I’ve played in ages and is a totally killer game!

Things I loved:

• Very simple controls so you can pick it up any time
• Frequent saving and short levels so you can play for brief periods of time (eg between or during boring ass meetings at work where ppl are none the wiser :-))
• There’s an awesome developer commentary feature where you can add developer voice overs to the game. It’s very cool to hear what goes into making levels for games and just how hard it is to control influence the player dynamics (hi to everyone who’s been listening to me talk about MDA latley)
• The Orange Box is a bargain price. For, me Portal alone was worth the cost.

Be aware though, the game is waaaaay too short. It’s not positioned as a major part of The Orange Box collection, but it would’ve been nice to have more levels – bring on the expansion pack!

If I could request something which I reckon would take the game to another level, I’d add multi-player. I can only imagine how much fun it would be to solve the puzzles with buddy in the room too while you rely on each other to get out.

-dg