Accolades
Bob Lindstrom of A+ Magazine says that Portal “pushed his imagination to the limit,” Gerald Masters calls it a “computer novel,” in On Gaming Matthew Costello hails it as a “breakthrough game,” and Roy Wagner lauds its “outstanding computer graphics and sophisticated computer graphics.” To this day Portal remains one of the most popular games published in the mid-1980s by Activision.
[ Archive of Game Reviews at The NEXT ]
In May 2023 Rob Swigart donated his personal archives to The NEXT where they remain accessible to the public. Among the many floppy disks and CD-ROMs of games and works of interactive media that Swigart produced or collected throughout his lifetime were his archive of close to 40 reviews about Portal and the print novel that followed it. In December 2023 he sent files containing the plans for the game’s design, his contract and communications with Activision, illustrations for an envisioned graphic novel based on the game, and other important information that shed light on Portal’s development and future plans.
[ Remembering Portal ]
Though Portal was released over 35 years ago, interest in the game continues. In 2021 PDFs and images of Portal’s packaging, loading instructions, map used in gameplay, prologue, manual, images, and materials about the publisher were added to the Internet Archive for free access and download. Also available for download is an emulation of the game for the Apple II. All total, 146 files are found at the site.
[ Portal at ACM Hypertext 2023]
In September 2023 Levels 1 and 2 of the DATA ENTRY: PORTAL were demoed at the 2023 ACM Hypertext conference held in Rome, Italy. Along with this presentation of the VR adaptation, the emulated version of the original game was exhibited with other popular games and born-digital works of art in the exhibition “Hypertext & Art” A Retrospective of Forms.” During the exhibition, a conference organizer brought in his Amiga computer and copy of Portal so that the conference and exhibition audiences could experience the game on one of its original platforms.
