{"id":86,"date":"2008-03-11T04:00:50","date_gmt":"2008-03-11T11:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/?p=86"},"modified":"2008-03-11T04:00:50","modified_gmt":"2008-03-11T11:00:50","slug":"portal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/?p=86","title":{"rendered":"“Now you’re thinking with portals”"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s a computer game released by Valve I’ve been wanting to pick up ever since I heard about it 2 years ago. The game is called Portal<\/a>. Wikipedia has this to say about Portal:<\/p>\n

The game consists primarily of a series of puzzles that must be solved by teleporting the player’s character and other simple objects using the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device (“Portal Gun” for short), a unit that can create an inter-spatial portal between flat planes. The player character is challenged by an AI named “GLaDOS” to complete each puzzle in the “Aperture Science Enrichment Center” using the Portal Gun with the promise of receiving cake when all the puzzles are completed. The unusual physics allowed by the portal gun are the emphasis of this game….<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here’s are a few videos I had seen that got me lusting over the game.<\/p>\n

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Portal’s fascination for me is that it does some crazy-cool stuff with physics, i.e., preserving momentum and orientation through portals. The computer system (GlaDOS) that is narrating through the game has a serious passive-aggressive personality and the turrets say some very funny things, “there you are,” “no hard feelings,” “are you still there,” “Hey, it’s me! Don’t shoot!”<\/p>\n

Well, I finally picked up the game last week. I love it. It came in a bundle called The Orange Box with several other games included: Half Life 2, Half Life 2: Episode 1, Half Life 2: Episode 2, and Team Fortress 2. I’ve been doing my best to throttle back instead of immerse myself in a dungeon for the next month while I play. I hope Tina and Bridget don’t feel too abandoned.<\/p>\n

The ending of the game is probably the best game ending I have ever experienced. Since it is so clever and amazing, it is worthy of its own post (also then others that might end up purchasing this game will have sufficient warning before I spoil anything). Look for a follow-up post about the game’s ending and other great Portal-related findings.<\/p>\n

One last thing: I found this 2D Flash version that some people created after seeing the trailers included above. The Flash version is found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s a computer game released by Valve I’ve been wanting to pick up ever since I heard about it 2 years ago. The game is called Portal. Wikipedia has this to say about Portal: The game consists primarily of a series of puzzles that must be solved by teleporting the player’s character and other simple […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-techno-geeks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}