Happy birthday to the wonderful franchise known as Portal: the physics-redirection game from Valve that provided an amazing single-player experience as well as a friendship ending co-op one.
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Portal is a puzzle-platform game that was officially introduced to the world on October 9th, 2007 as part of the Orange Box from Valve. The player steps into the boots of Chell, the voiceless protagonist, as she generates portals thanks to her handy ‘Apetrture Science Handheld Portal Device’. By using her portal gun, players must advance through increasingly difficult stages while being taunted by the lab’s AI GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System). The promised reward for the successful completion was the promised cake, which later became an iconic punchline for players of the game.
Though the first title had a shorter story and limited cinematic features, it was still highly praised for its originality and witty one-liners. With its incredibly unique gameplay, it’s darker story, and hilarious dialogue – it quickly became a cult classic in the gaming world.
“Portal is a new single player game from Valve. Set in the mysterious Aperture Science Laboratories, Portal has been called one of the most innovative new games on the horizon and will offer gamers hours of unique gameplay.
The game is designed to change the way players approach, manipulate, and surmise the possibilities in a given environment; similar to how Half-Life 2‘s Gravity Gun innovated new ways to leverage an object in any given situation.
Players must solve physical puzzles and challenges by opening portals to maneuvering objects, and themselves, through space.”
The Portal game is set within the Aperture Science Laboratories Computer-Aided Enrichment Center – or just Aperture Science. This research facility was initially founded by Cave Johnson (who DOES NOT want your lemons, by the way) back in 1943 with the sole purpose of making shower curtains for the military. A little underwhelming given the technological state of the facility seen throughout the game.
Johnson fell later to “moon rock poisoning” that drove the man mad in 1978 and inspired him to create a three-tier research plan to further his successes in the name of science. After a series of failures, Aperture was found under investigation by the U.S Senate. The only thing that saved Johnson and his vision was his third tier of research: a “person-sized ad-hoc quantum tunnel through physical space” to be used for shower curtains. This discovery gave the Senate reason to halt their investigation and give open-ended funding for the facility.
From there – things just got weird. Here is the full history behind Aperture Science:
Aperture Science: A History
1953 – Aperture Science begins operations as a manufacturer of shower curtains. Early product line provides a very low-tech portal between the inside and outside of your shower. Very little science is actually involved. The name is chosen to make the curtains appear more hygienic.
1956 – Eisenhower administration awards Aperture a contract to provide shower curtains to all branches of the military except the Navy.
1957 – 1973 – Mostly shower curtains.
1974 – Aperture Founder and CEO, Cave Johnson, is exposed to mercury while secretly developing a dangerous mercury-injected rubber sheeting from which he plans to manufacture seven deadly shower curtains to be given as gifts to each member of the House Naval Appropriations committee.
1976 – Both of Cave Johnson’s kidneys fail. Brain damaged, dying, and incapable of being convinced that time is not now flowing backwards, Johnson lays out a three-tier R&D program. The results, he says, will “guarantee the continued success of Aperture Science far into the fast-approaching distant past.”
- The Heimlich Counter-Maneuver – A reliable technique for interrupting the life-saving Heimlich Maneuver.
- The Take-A-Wish Foundation – A charitable organization that will purchase wishes from the parents of terminally ill children and redistribute them to wish-deprived but otherwise healthy adults.
- “Some kind of rip in the fabric of space…that would…well, it’d be like, I don’t know, something that would help with the shower curtains I guess. I haven’t worked this idea out as much as the wish-taking one.”
1981 – Diligent Aperture engineers complete the Heimlich Counter-Maneuver and Take-A-Wish Foundation initiatives. The company announces products related to the research in a lavish, televised ceremony. These products immediately become wildly unpopular. After a very public string of choking and despondent sick child disasters, senior company officials are summoned before a Senate investigative committee. During these proceedings, an engineer mentions that some progress has been made on “Tier 3”, the “man-sized ad hoc quantum tunnel through physical space with possible applications as a shower curtain.” The committee is quickly and permanently recessed, and Aperture is granted an open-ended contract to continue research on the “Portal” and “Heimlich Counter-Maneuver” projects in secret.
1981-1985 – Work progresses on the “Portal” project. Several high ranking Fatah personnel choke to death on lamb chunks despite the intervention of their bodyguards.
1986 – Word reaches Aperture management that another defense contractor called Black Mesa is working on a similar portal technology. In response to this news, Aperture begins developing the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System (GLaDOS), an artificially intelligent research assistant and disk operating system.
1996 – After a decade spent bringing the disk operating parts of GLaDOS to a state of more or less basic functionality, work begins on the Genetic Lifeform component.
1998 – The untested AI is activated for the first time as one of the planned activities on Aperture’s first annual bring-your-daughter-to-work day. In many ways, the initial test goes well: Within one picosecond of being switched on, GLaDOS becomes self-aware. The “going well” phase lasts for two more picoseconds, at which point GLaDOS takes control of the facility, locks everyone inside, and begins a permanent cycle of testing. Her goal: beat the hated Black Mesa in the race to develop a functioning portal technology. Days later, that race is lost when Black Mesa successfully deploys an interdimensional gate through which an alien race emerges and effectively ends the outside world.
(History Timeline via Game Informer)
Because of the elaborate historical markers and hilarious character entanglement, which became much more apparent and expansive with the sequel Portal 2, the Portal franchise is a staple in gaming history.
So get those portal guns ready and guard that cake with your life, it’s time to celebrate 10 years of witticisms and broken physics! To Valve, thank you for the memories and send GLaDOS our condolences.
