Portal: The Flash Version
How clever is this: a Flash-driven, totally free, ridiculously addictive recreation of Valve's new Orange Box freebie Portal by some guys called Armor Games and hosted by a site called "We Create Stuff."
The "plot," as it were:
It is finally time for your physical test, subject 15837. The ASHPD [Apertyre Science Handheld Portable Device] is now in your hands. Show us what a motivated test subject can do. Prove us [sic] you are legitimate for the job. Think with portals.
You use the A and D keys to move left or right and the W key to jump, while moving the mouse around to aim and the left button to launch a portal. As you progress between 2D side-scrolling levels, you have to somehow get over barriers or onto platforms while contending with anomalies like moving panels and surfaces that can't be affected by your portal gun and which limit your zone of creation. Momentum, susceptibility to environmental factors (electricity, crushing spikes, etc.), buttons to press, and turrets that shoots at you all eventually come into play.
Point the mouse at light-colored areas and click to open a portal -- you can have up to two open at once. Enter at either end, and you pop out the other side. In this example (minor spoiler, sorry) the spikes drop as soon as the level begins, so you have to quickly fire a portal at the upper level (blue) and then open a portal beneath you (yellow) to pop to safety on the ledge.
On my first go (a few moments ago), I was only able to rather pathetically get to "Task no. 15" out of 40. Momentum acts a little weird at times, occasionally bouncing you but at other times blasting you out of portals regardless of how fast or from what angle you enter. The learning curve escalates quickly, and sitting here staring at it, I still can't see how I'm supposed to get past the 15th level (comment solutions are welcome!).
My only technical complaints are that in the process of dragging the pointer around to drop portals, I kept inadvertently clicking on those annoying baseline Google ads, like NewsGator's "Free RSS Webinar" which canned my game (hitting 'back' forces you to reload the full 7.6 MB Flash script). To be fair, the game remembers which levels you've completed and lets you start immediately from the last one finished.
There were also a few completely invisible areas in levels where clicking would bizarrely surf to the site's home page (I'm looking at you, level-15-upper-left hand-wall). Also, a few level exits erroneously reset you to the starting point if you're jumping (as opposed to running) when you move through them.
Otherwise it's probably worth a look, though I wonder how these guys are getting away with calling it "Portal" and using a logo clearly aimed at aping / tributing Valve's. Incidentally, you can check out the latter's 3D version, just released as part of the Half-Life 2 compendium The Orange Box, in this cool YouTube clip.
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I don't think they are trying to "get away" with anything. They just made a flash version of the game, plus they didn't take any credit for the idea of the game, on for the creation of the flash version. If valve will contact them about removing this game from where it is hosted, i'm sure they will do it with no resistance.
Well let's hope they (Valve) don't, because it's extremely cool...
I just got past 15 - finally! Put a YELLOW above the in door and a BLUE about a 1/3 of the way between the wall and the glass window on the level below. Jump to the BLUE, out the YELLOW and into the BLUE - repeat till momentum high and hold the left arrow to fling yourself to the small platform under the camera. Now you have to be selective about which color portals you put where. Keep the YELLOW above the door and put a BLUE under you. Jump in the BLUE and come out back at the in door. Move to the ledge and put a YELLOW on the floor below - jumping distance away. Wait for the "lights of death" to dim and jump into the YELLOW - which should allow you to bounce over to the exit door - may take some practice... (oh, and the exact colors don't matter - just picked an iteration for clarity). Good Luck!
Weird, I can't put a yellow on that door for some reason. When I click on it, it kills the game and loads the main page, forcing me to reload the Flash app. I wonder if it's a bug in Safari (I'm using a Mac)?
Aaaahhhh! I am stuck on level 38. It appears to be impossible to push the cubes onto the buttons. In previous levels, you are able to drop them out of a portal over the buttons. But on this level, you cannot create a portal underneath the cubes. There is a turret and when it fires it will push the cubes a short distance - but even that isn't able to push the cubes onto the buttons.
Am I missing something or is this a design flaw? I'm guessing the former.
Nevermind. I just realized that you can pick objects up using the F key. That would have been nice to know during the previous 37 levels.