Immortalized on Caturday

Real Fame is when people use cats to make pictures about your game.

The Future of Portal

Portal has received critical and popular acclaim, though the longstanding criticism is that it is "too short."

It has been reported that Valve has planned to make a sequel. Perhaps GLaD, the homicidal computer program in the first Portal, is "still alive" after all:



Portal may be exemplary of the shift in video game trends that is occuring throughout the industry. Simple shooters and fighting-based games are things of the past. Now games require logic and puzzle elements that force gamers to perform mental tasks unheard of before. And if the overwhelming positive response to Portal is any indication, that is exactly the what they want.

Portal Fandom

With all the hype it has generated, Portal has gained a practically unprecedented fan following.

1. The ApertureScience.com website, which was also a part of the game's viral advertising campaign, has served as a popular internet puzzle a la "I Heart Bees": Aperturescience.com

Aperture Science Website Details

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All the things found in the www.aperturescience.com website

As you enter the website it will bring you to a command prompt just like the style found in MSDOS. From there you are given the choice of typing "help" which will inform you that a Crisis team is coming to aid you (it will also list a bunch of random reasons for your plea for help) or "login" which will then bring you to enter in your "username" and "password". For your "username" anything is applicable as long as it's more than 2 characters long and for your "password" you will have to put in either "portal" or "portals". Either way you'll be brought to another command prompt, and as of now the only commands that are applicable are the ones present below:

Commands

* "thecakeisalie" Brings you to a message with some video feed of a "relaxation chamber"
* "help" "lib" Gives you the list of commands
* "append" "attrib" "copy" "format" "erase" "rename" Gives you an error about the disk being write protected
* "dir" "catalog" "directory" "list" "ls" "cat" Shows you "Apply.exe" as the only application available
* "ip" Shows your UID(+L) code
* "interrogate" Gives an error if no parameter is provided, otherwise gives an error about 'illegally initiating diciplinary action'
* "tapedisk" Gives an error about the user not being authorized to transfer system tapes
* "logout" "bye" "logoff" "valve" Someone says "Bye" and you are sent either to your homepage if you have one or to www.Steampowered.com
* "apply" Executes the registration application

Entering in "apply" will bring you to some instructions giving you the choice of typing "continue" or "quit" and if you enter "continue" a message giving your "(UID(+L)" (Unique Identity Number Plus Letters) will appear and you are told to memorize it, but if you notice carefully at the numbers/letters displayed blinking. Every fews seconds a random assortment of characters are being altered so remembering it is pointless. After typing "continue" it will bring you to 50
questions mostly multiple choice. Some of the things you will notice as you answer the questions: in some questions a letter will be flashing which if you record them will spell out "thecakeisalie", and at random moments you will notice a flashing cake which looks like this: thecakeisalie

After answering all the questions you will finally be told to enter in your "UID(+L)" which is CASE SENSITIVE even if you do enter it successfully you are still given the failure message, and you are neither given the choice to make lower case letters, so it really doesn't matter. After the failure message you use to be able to see a message along with some video feed of a "relaxation chamber" but now you are just told to wait for a Crisis team to come aid you. Instead, You can just
type "thecakeisalie" after you log in and it will bring you straight to the message with the video feed. And if you hit the enter key it will toggle you between the video feed and something that looks like a bill.

As far as we can tell, the site has already been decompiled and there doesn't seem to be any further information to be leaked unless we get some kind of hint from valve or more material is added on to the site. So if your curious at all go check it out yourself.

For further information and more of an in depth analysis visit this link: http://developer.valvesoftware.com/w...ureScience.com

2. As with many popular internet fads, Portal has been immortalized as an ASCII art that is often posted on forums. ASCII are often made for fads that are widely accepted as especially funny or "cool"

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Anyway this cake is great. It's so delicious and moist.

3. The companion cube has also been seen all over the internet as a sign of fan's love for the game. For example: this forum avatar

Portal on the Web.

There is also a followup Flash version of portal that offers 40 additional levels. This game was also made by Valve and has been one of the top 5 games on Newsgrounds, the flash game website on which it is hosted, since its release: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/404612

Anticipation

Portal is perhaps one of the most anticipated games of all time. made famous by its viral advertising campaign and well-known movie trailer that was passed around the internet.

I first learned about the game from a friend's Xanga post in July 2006 where he linked this trailer:



(This was posted more recently but it is the same video).

The trailer was a hit with the gaming community and brought the game enormous popularity.

For months after the trailer debuted, "If at first you don't succeed, you fail" became a catchphrase for gamers and internet posters everywhere.

Origins

The concept of Portal actually began with Narbacular Drop, a PC game developed by Nuclear Monkey Software: http://www.nuclearmonkeysoftware.com/narbaculardrop.html



The same team that worked on Narbacular Drop also worked on Portal, which is considered to be their game's spiritual successor.

Portal Project Post #1

Portal:

*reserved*