During this year’s Gen Con, the playable Portal board game called Portal: The Uncooperative Cake Acquisition, developed by Valve Software and Cryptozoic Entertainment was viewed by many and proved to be an essential addition to any Aperture Science fan. Not only does the game have the Portal figures and themed board, but it comes with a Portal 2 code that can be redeemed on Steam
The goal of the game is to kill test subjects and get cake
“You want to be the winner and you’ll do anything to get the cake.” – Sara Miguel
While this pre-production copy of Portal: The Uncooperative Cake Acquisition was played at Gen Con, it became evident that the entire goal of the game is to eliminate the other test subjects. Players have a group of test subjects and you’re entire existence is a quest to obtain the fabled cake from the previous games. Sara Miguel of Cryptozoic brought it along with her to the convention to show how epic this game will be.
The test chamber board pieces are entirely moveable, where they can “fall off” the side of the table with test subjects inside, and even flip over to reveal rewards to players. A few items that are obtainable in the game include player action cards and slices of cake which players are to collect.
Action cards are very important, as they give extra advantages to the players and their test subjects; adding Portal Turrets and Companion Cubes to the board.
Like with the previous games Portal and Portal 2, you’ll find that Portal: The Uncooperative Cake Acquisition is designed to look as though it has sat in the Aperture Laboratories for many years. When Cryptozoic and Valve teamed up together to expand the Portal franchise onto a board game they pulled out all the stops and made it as realistic as they could.
Even small details on the boxing of the game have an appropriately affected look.
An entirely new experience
While Valve and Cryptozoic wanted this board game to be part of the Portal franchise, they also wanted it to be completely different from the video games.
Using the main themes from the Portal world, they developed a board game that expands on the games in the most pleasant way – which is taking down your friends.
GLaDOS would be extremely proud.
“The game has been in production for a long time, because we’ve really been working hard to make sure that it is something that Portal fans will enjoy. But it’s not Portal. You’re not playing the video game in a board game, because why would you want to do that? It’s a separate experience, but it’s still very much Portal.” – Sara Miguel, Cryptozoic
What do you think of this board game extension? I think it’s awesome and can’t wait to add it to my collection.
