Design: A Portal Board Game

"Aperture Science Laboratory Multiperson Enrichment Device"
A Portal Board Game by Seth Sivak, CEO of Proletariat Inc.

"During my second semester in grad school I took Game Design class with Jesse Schell. One of the assignments was to make a dice or board game. I tried to make a board game version of Portal. I figured I would share it."

"By far the coolest part of the game is that I made actual 3D printed companion cube dice. Now this was back in 2008, so 3D printing was not nearly as ubiquitous as it is these days. One of the things I tried to do as part of the design is make the cubes relevant to the player. I did this by making the player roll the cubes to get through doors and if they rolled poorly they would die and be forced to go back to start."

"The innovation I wanted to bring into the game was the idea of a non-linear board, where players are choosing their path with some amount of risk and reward. The game plays a bit like shoots and ladders where all the players start at one end of the board and they need to make it to the other end (where there is cake of course)"

"If you want to make a copy for yourself and try it out feel free to download the rules, board and list of all the pieces here. I even included the model I used to get the dice printed. Have fun and remember to mind the gap."

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