Portal: How rules define a game

Rules.  What are rules?  Are they just guidelines we operate and live by?  Are they a crucial part of our everyday lives?  Or are they unnecessary?  Do we have to have rules for everything?  The answer is: yes.  Rules are a crucial part of the way our society work and how we live day to day.  Rules set limits, and we follow those limits.  If we chose to ignore those limits, then there are consequences.  Such is life.

Rules are also a crucial part of many games.  Rules define the limitations of the game, what a player can and cannot do, and what the consequences are for breaking the rules, much like real life.  While the number of rules a game has can vary, as seen in the piadia-ludus spectrum, they play a crucial role in defining the player’s actions.  Ranging from something as simple as establishing the number of “lives” a player has to complex set of rules that define a player’s interactions with other characters and the environment, the rules of a game define it. 

I believe that the rules of Portal are one of its most defining features, having a direct influence on the level of immersion a player has with the game and how much fun the game can be.  From the very beginning of the game, the rules define the player’s actions.  After you wake up, you are taught the controls and then begin the testing.  Right away you are taught that your character has a limited jumping ability.  Shortly thereafter, you are taught how to pick up a cube and place it on a “Heavy Duty Super Colliding Super Button”. By this point you know of six very simple rules:

1. My character can jump.
2. My character’s jumping ability is limited.
3. My character can pick up cubes.
4. These cubes can be used to hold down buttons.
5. My player can crouch.
6. The “Material Emancipation Grill” at the end of the level prevents me from taking anything from the level with me.

Simple rules, but ones that define the player’s immersion with the game from that point on.  

In the next Test Chamber (01), you am introduced to portals for the first time.  At this point you have no control over the portals, but in order to finish the test, you must interact with them.  You quickly learn that there are two colors of portals, orange and blue, and that these portals connect with each other. You learn that there can only be one of each portal color active at one time.  You also learn that you can carry cubes through the portals.  Again, simple rules, but ones that define the rest of your gameplay experience.  

In Test Chamber 02, you receive your first portal gun.  You learn that you can shoot the portal gun at the wall or the floor to create a portal.  However, you also learn that you are limited to shooting blue portals, meaning that you are limited to how you interact with the environment around you.  You also discover that there are certain surfaces which you can create portals on, and certain ones which you cannot.

Based on the rules you have received so far, you can start to interact with the game environment more successfully.  You learn where to place your portals and how to use the objects within the game (cubes, buttons, pre-placed portals) in order to solve the puzzles.  You become more immersed in the game, due to your knowledge of the rules, and you are able to have more agency over the game environment.

Once you reach Test Chamber 06, you are introduced to introduced to High Energy Pellets, which add another level to the puzzle-solving aspect of the game.  Now you have the rules for the pellets to consider:

1. The pellet comes out of the launcher.
2. The pellet needs to go into the catcher.
3. Activating the catcher with a pellet advances the test.
4. The pellet can kill you if it touches you.

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Test Chamber 08 introduces Goo, which kills you if you fall in it.  This forces the player to think through their actions, for one wrong move can mean Game Over.  This creates a sort of bond between the avatar and the player, immersing the player further into the game.

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Test Chamber 10 introduces one of the most important concepts of the game, that of “Flinging”.  “Flinging” is based on physics in that you use increasing speed to launch yourself to higher or farther places than you could reach before.  As GLaDOS says “Momentum, a function of mass and velocity, is conserved between portals. In layman's terms: speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out.” (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Portal_(game))

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inbh_3u-3xM

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Having made it to Test Chamber 11, you are trying to make your way to the portal gun upgrade.  Once you have it, you gain the ability to shoot orange portals in addition to blue portals, greatly expanding the possible ways for the player to solve puzzles.  This new piece of equipment, like every expansion, comes with some new rules, as well as the expansion of some others:

1. You can only have one blue portal and one orange portal open at any time.
2. If you have both portals open, and you shoot another one (like a blue one), it will replace the blue portal that previously existed.  The orange one will be unaffected until another orange portal is shot.
3. You cannot shoot one portal through another (say a blue portal through a orange one).

Part of the new possibilities that are opened up to the player with the ability to shoot orange portals is a more advanced version or slinging, which requires the player to use both types of portals instead of just one.  This forces the player to “grok” the rules, or display a complete understanding of the rules, at least in part.  This is especially important from Test Chamber 15 and on, where most the rules of the game have been established and the puzzles begin to drastically increase in difficult.  

The last hazard introduced in the game are Turrets, one of the deadliest obstacles encounter in the game.  Turrets come with their own set of rules, regarding how they operate and how they target you: 

1. Turrets project a easily visible laser beam directly in front of them at all times.
2. Turrets take a moment to draw their weapons.
3. Turrets can kill the player with a few seconds of continuous fire.
4. Turrets can be disintegrated with the Material Emancipation Grill. (MEG)
5. Other than the MEG, the only way to disable the turrets is by knocking them over.  This can be done multiple ways, including using cubes or other turrets to knock them over, picking them up and dropping them off a ledge, or shooting a portal beneath them.

The rules discussed so far play a crucial part in Portal, both in defining the player’s experience and the game world itself.  The limitations set by these rules are extremely important, sometimes directing the player through a level by defining what can be done, such as with the first portal gun, and at other times limiting the player’s choices and forcing them to think outside the box into order to solve the puzzles within each Test Chamber.  However, despite these limitation, the player always has a sense of agency within the game, creating a greater sense of immersion.  As McMahon stated “immersion mean the player is caught up in the world of the game’s story, but it also refers to the player’s love of the game and the strategy that goes into it.” (Immersion, Engagement, and Presence, pg. 68).  As such, the rules of Portal limit the player in such a way that it allows for a greater sense of immersion, agency within the game world, and a larger sense of enjoyment and fun.