Portal

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Description

Where are all the humans? Upon returning from your 100 year voyage in the milky way, you find earth empty and abandoned. Between the decaying remnants of civilization, you discover a terminal for Worldnet, the global network that recorded all human activities. The answer must lie deep in its database. Anxious, you log on.

Portal is a computer novel - an attempt of creating and adapting a novel specifically for the computer. The story of the boy Peter Devore, his incredible discovery and the mysterious portal are told by an AI named Homer, who reconstructs it piece by piece out of database fragments. As the plot develops, you acquire accompanying information by accessing eleven additional databases - for example a historical archive, military files or social backgrounds. As you switch between the databases to uncover new details, an extensive sci-fi story unfolds.

Screenshots

Promo Images

There are no promo images for this game

Alternate Titles

• "Portal: A Computer Novel" -- Tag-lined title

Part of the Following Groups

• Games made into books
• Theme: Hacking / Pseudohacking

User Reviews

An unique and exciting experiment, well written, perfectly designed.

PC Booter

-Chris (7574)

Critic Reviews

Commodore User	Commodore 64	Mar, 1987	7 out of 10	70
Computer Gaming World (CGW)	Commodore 64	May, 1987	Unscored	Unscored
Computer Gaming World (CGW)	PC Booter	May, 1987	Unscored	Unscored
Computer Gaming World (CGW)	Amiga	May, 1987	Unscored	Unscored
ASM (Aktueller Software Markt)	PC Booter	Jul, 1987	Unscored	Unscored
Zzap!	Commodore 64	Mar, 1987	Unscored	Unscored
Computer Gaming World (CGW)	Atari ST	May, 1987	Unscored	Unscored
Computer Gaming World (CGW)	Apple II	May, 1987	Unscored	Unscored
Computer Gaming World (CGW)	Macintosh	May, 1987	Unscored	Unscored
ASM (Aktueller Software Markt)	Amiga	Jul, 1987	Unscored	Unscored

Forums

Topic	# Posts	Last Post
Next up to the Kickstarter trough...	1	Pseudo_Intellectual (63128) May 17, 2012

Trivia

If you don't have the patience to read the story of Portal within the game interface, Portal was also published as a novel by Rob Swigart. There was a U.S. hardcover edition from St. Martin's in 1988 (ISBN 0-312-01494-5) and a U.K. paperback edition from Grafton in 1989 (ISBN 0-586-20649-3).

The novel uses the game's format of presenting the story as short fragments "written" by Homer, supplemented by information from other databases. I haven't compared in great detail, but the text appears to be mostly unchanged from the game.

Related Web Sites

• Portal, the book (The novel adaptation of Portal was republished recently.)