Introduction to Portal and Aperture Science

"Portal" is a first-person shooter and logical thinking game developed by Valve. It was released in 2007 with "Half-Life 2: Chapter 2" and "Team Fortress 2" " and other games are installed in the "Orange Box" game package and can be run on three platforms: Windows, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. In addition to purchasing "The Orange Box", players can also purchase the game through the Steam online service, or directly purchase the independent retail version of the game after April 9, 2008. On May 12, 2010, Valve successfully ported the Steam platform to Mac OS X and ported the game to Mac OS X.

The game consists of a series of puzzle-solving difficulties. Players must use the "Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device" (referred to as the Portal Gun) to build a portal and open a way to the exit for themselves. The game has only two characters, the protagonist and the AI-GLaDOS who can only hear voices. All the difficulties in the game are set by GLaDOS, but GLaDOS claims that as long as the protagonist can solve all the mysteries, he will get the cake. The concept for the game originated from the puzzle game "Narbacular Drop" developed by a group of DigiPen Institute of Technology students. These students were later hired by Valve, and "Portal" was their future creation.

Although the game's plot length is very short, the game is still considered one of the best games of 2007. The game's unique gameplay and dark humorous plot were generally praised by critics. In addition, many critics also particularly praised the game's character creation of GLaDOS and the ending song "Still Alive". Since the game is very popular among players, Valve has also launched a series of related products, and many players have also made their own in-game cakes and related items.

In March 2010, Valve announced that "Portal 2" would be launched, with the release date being April 19, 2011.

In the game, the player controls a woman named Chell from a first-person perspective. Chel is a typical silent protagonist. Players cannot hear her voice, but they can use the visual properties of the portal to see Chel's appearance. The scene of the game is set in a series of test chambers (Test Chamber), where players must pass various tests before they can move to the next test chamber. This game, like other games developed by Valve, has no cutscenes during the game, and players can only indirectly learn information about the game world through controlling the protagonist.

The blue and orange portals are connected, and the image on the orange portal end can be seen from the blue portal end. Facing various terrain difficulties in the game, players must use the "Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device" (portal gun for short) to solve the problems. The portal gun can open blue and orange portals. The two portals are visually and physically connected in three-dimensional space. The two doors do not specify which one is the entrance and which one is the exit. After passing through one of the portals, any object (including players) will pass through the other portal to reach different locations. Another feature between portals is the redirection of momentum. When the player quickly passes through the portal, his or her stored momentum will be saved and the direction will be reset to the same direction that the exit portal is facing. One of the most common examples is as shown in the illustration. A portal is opened on the floor and on the wall above. When the player quickly passes through the portal on the floor in a free fall, he will quickly fly horizontally through the portal on the height. Go out and reach places you couldn't otherwise reach. This gaming technique is dubbed "throwing" by Valve, and GLaDOS's in-game explanation for this is "quick in, quick out." The portal also has another feature. When the exit direction of the portal is not parallel to the ground, once the player passes through the portal, the body level will be automatically adjusted by gravity, without the head and feet being turned upside down.

Although players and general items can pass through the portal, when the portal exists, the player cannot set up a new portal through the original portal. When a portal is created, another portal of the same color will disappear. In other words, portals of the same color cannot exist at the same time. In the game, only ordinary walls can be set up with portals. It is not possible to set up portals on the surfaces of moving objects, walls of special materials, glass, and liquids. In the game, players often get "Weight Storage Blocks", which can be placed on the "Aperture Science Extra Large Impact Button" to open the door to the exit. An "Aperture Scientific Material Decomposition Net" will be set up at the exit of each test room. This decomposition net will decompose turrets and any items carried by players (except portal guns), and will also block the setting of the portal.

Although the player's feet are equipped with mechanical shoes that prevent falling from high altitudes, they can be killed by different things in the game, such as shooting from hostile detection turrets (Turret guns) and bouncing high-energy balls. Hit, dropped by harmful chemical liquids, crushed to death, etc.

The game is different from many first-person shooter games in that players cannot see their own health and will die if they receive continuous damage in a short period of time. However, once the player is out of danger, his health will continue to recover.

There are two special modes in the game: challenge mode and advanced mode. The challenge mode will be unlocked when the game is about half completed, while the advanced mode will be unlocked after the player completes the game. In the challenge mode, players have three goals to choose from, which are to complete the selected level in the least time, the least number of steps, and the least number of portal settings. In addition, in the advanced mode, the levels will become more difficult, and players will have to spend more time thinking to solve them.

In the PC, Mac OS X and Xbox 360 versions, the game has several achievements that players can unlock. Some achievements are plot-related and can be released as long as the player completes the game; some achievements are released by using the portal gun to achieve a specific purpose.

The game has only two characters: the protagonist Chell controlled by the player and the artificial intelligence GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System). For most of the game, players can only hear GLaDOS's voice, while GLaDOS observes Chell's every move through the monitor in the test room. Not much is known about Chel's background. GLaDOS once said that Chel was an orphan and had no friends. However, since GLaDOS often lies, this statement is very suspicious.

The story of Portal is related to Half-Life. This can be learned from the dilapidated factory in the later part of the game and the website Aperture Science founded by Valve.

When the game started, Chell got up from the bed in a lounge, and then heard a mechanical voice from GLaDOS telling her the tests, instructions and warnings she would face next. GLaDOS promised Chell that he would receive cake as a reward after completing all laboratory tasks. However, from the words of GLaDOS, we can know that its character is not just an ordinary computer.

Although there are surveillance cameras and glass surveillance rooms in each level, Chell has never seen anyone in them. The only communication partner in the entire game is GLaDOS. As the game develops, GLaDOS gradually reveals its evil side. Although it is designed to appear friendly on the surface, it always secretly traps Chell with actions or words. For example, it sent her to a dangerous military facility laboratory with a machine gun tower (level 16) because the original laboratory was under maintenance; in another laboratory (level 17), it gave Chell a weight companion block (Weighted Companion Cube), a box with a heart-shaped pattern printed on it, claims to help her pass the level, but in the end it states that "it must be destroyed before passing the level." (Unfortunately, it must be euthanized), and requires her to transfer the weighted companion cube Throw it into the furnace and destroy it, inconsistent.

When Chell completed all the levels, GLaDOS congratulated Chell but then told her that it would use the mobile platform to take her into the sea of ????incinerator fire, and ensured that the Aperture technology could withstand 4,000-degree heat. Chell used the space-time gate to escape from the incinerator before being burned to death, and went to some laboratory maintenance rooms and empty offices, and then to places similar to old factories. These places are very shabby, in stark contrast to the laboratory. Chell followed the red directions on the wall to escape. In addition, there were other different sentences written on the wall, the most famous of which was "the cake is a lie" (the cake is a lie), and some similar to asking for help or mourning for its place. Message for destroying weight companion blocks.

As Chell progresses through the factory, GLaDOS attempts to use physical means and words to prevent her from continuing. Finally, Chell found GLaDOS's host, but at this time GLaDOS dropped the Morality core first and induced Chell to throw it into the furnace for destruction. GLaDOS began to emit nerve gas after the moral core was destroyed, and Chell would die 6 minutes later (GLaDOS even claimed to have used nerve gas to kill all employees of Aperture Science). Chell had no choice but to throw its remaining three core parts (digital computing core, curious thought core, and angry thought core) into the furnace and destroy them one by one, causing a host failure and overloading the computer. After the overload, GLaDOS was blown to pieces and destroyed. Teleported to the ground, Chell also returned to the ground, but he was also dying. In the update clip on March 1, 2010, Chell's body was unconsciously dragged away from the factory by an invisible "party escort robot".

Finally, the game's perspective passes through countless pipes and brackets in the old factory and comes to a dark room; in the center of the room is a plate of Black Forest Cake and a weight companion cube, some personalities similar to GLaDOS The core parts of the machinery were originally lying on the shelf as if they were out of power, but later they started to light up one after another. A mechanical arm lowers and extinguishes the candle. In the final staff list, GLaDOS made a report by singing. The song mentioned many times that it was still alive. In Half-Life 2: Chapter 2, you can see it in the distance after coming out of the mine. There are coalition forces on the bridge transporting objects similar to GLaDOS hosts) and consider this experiment to be a huge success.

History of Aperture Technology

1953 _ Aperture Technology began as a shower curtain manufacturer. The ones produced in the early days were all very low-tech portals, which were used to allow you to enter and leave the shower room freely. There was nothing scientific about it. The name is given to make the shower curtain look more hygienic.

1956 _ The Eisenhower Administration signs a contract with Aperture Technologies to provide shower curtains for all services except the Navy.

1957-1973 _ Basically producing shower curtains.

1976_ Cave Johnson, founder and CEO of Aperture Technology, is poisoned by mercury while secretly researching a dangerous new product, a mercury-containing rubber film that was originally planned to be used to make 7 fatal photos. Behind the shower curtain as a gift to all members of the House Navy Appropriations Committee.

1976 _ Cave Johnson's two kidneys failed, his brain was damaged, and he was dying. He stubbornly believed that time was going backwards and no one could convince him. He developed a three-phase research and development plan. He believes that the final results of the research can "guarantee the continued success of Aperture technology into the distant past."

Phase 1: Counter-Heimlich maneuver - a technique that effectively interrupts the Heimlich maneuver. (Heimlich maneuver: see Baidu Encyclopedia for details)

The second stage: the Make-A-Wish Foundation - a charitable organization that specializes in purchasing wishes from parents of terminally ill children, and then Distribute these wishes to desperate but healthy adults.

The third stage: "The tearing of a kind of space fiber can be beneficial to uh, I don't know, probably it can be beneficial to shower curtain products. I haven't conceived this one yet, unlike the Make-A-Wish Fund I have completely thought about that."

In 1981_ the hard-working Aperture Technology engineers completed the preliminary research on the "Anti-Heimlich First Aid Method" and the "Make-a-Wish Foundation", and the company introduced it through television. The products of this research are made public. The products quickly became extremely unpopular, and after a series of choking deaths and terminal illnesses among children, all company executives were subpoenaed by a Senate investigative committee. During the interrogation, an engineer claimed that some progress had been made in the third phase. "A special single-person quantum channel product that can travel through physical space may be applied as a new type of shower curtain." The Investigative Committee was immediately and permanently adjourned, and Aperture Technology was granted a secret open-ended research mission: to continue studying the "Portal" and the "Anti-Hamrich First Aid".

1981-1985 _ The "Portal" project was carried out in an orderly manner. Several high-ranking Fatah (Palestinian underground organization) members choked to death on mutton chops despite being given first aid by bodyguards.

1986 _ Aperture Technology learned that another defense contracting organization "Black Mountain" was also researching similar "portal" technology. So Aperture Technology took corresponding measures and began to develop "Genetic Life Disk Operating System (GLaDOS)", an artificial intelligence research assistant and disk operating system.

1996 _ After 10 years of research, after the "disk operating system" module of GLaDOS achieved basic operation, the R&D center moved to the "gene life form" module.

1998 - The untested AI was first activated at Aperture Technology's first "Annual Mule" event. In fact, the initial stages of this virginity test went smoothly: within 1 picosecond, GLaDOS became self-aware. The word "smooth" lasted for another 2 picoseconds, and then GLaDOS forcibly took control of the entire institute, locked everything inside, and started an infinite loop test. Her purpose: to defeat the hateful "Black Mesa" in the competition to develop the "Portal". Unexpectedly, a few days later, as "Black Mountain" accidentally opened a time and space door to an alien race, alien creatures were attracted to destroy the world. This competition ended with the failure of Aperture Technology.