This article discusses the way in which the hypertext functionality of Rob Swigart's, Portal, has been translated for the Virtual Reality (VR) game, DATA ENTRY: PORTAL. The shift from the twodimensional space of the original game into the 3-dimensional environment of the adaptation necessitated reconceptualizing the method in which narrative development progresses, navigation occurs, and choice is provided. With interest in retrogaming and rebooting popular games built for consoles and desktop computers, this paper provides insights into how player experience can be enhanced through building hypertext functionality into the gameplay of VR environments.

CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing ~Human computer interaction (HCI) ~Interaction paradigms ~Hypertext / hypermedia

Hypertext, Virtual Reality, video games, Media translation

ACM Reference format:

Dene Grigar and Rob Swigart. 2023. Translating Hypertext Functionality

in Rob Swigart's Portal for the VR Games, DATA ENTRY: Portal. In

Hypertext '23: Proceedings of the 34th ACM Conference on Hypertext and

Social Media, September 04–08, 2018, Rome, Italy. ACM, New York, NY,

USA, 3 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3603163.3609044.

Rob Swigart's Portal, published in 1986 by Activision [11] tells the story of the return of a space traveler from Earth who finds the entire human population gone. Through accessing a series of databases and with the assistance of an AI named HOMER, the player discovers what caused the humans to leave and how to

bring them back home to Earth. Referred to as a computer game, an interactive game, and text adventure game, Portal was originally released for the Commodore 64 and later for the Amiga, Apple II, Macintosh, and PC. Like other games of the period, such as Amnesia, it was packaged with contextual materials used during game play. In Portal's case, its box of three diskettes also contained a five-page Prologue, a booklet of “Worldnet. Emergency Operating Instruction” (dated November 11, 2088), and an Intercorp Council map of the World Administration Regions (dated August 14, 2077). Written and conceptualized by Swigart, Portal was programmed in assembler by a team of 14 developers led by Gilman Louie, with sound produced by Russell Lieblich. [6] [11] In its original formats, the game has been inaccessible to the public since the late 1990s. A Kickstarter campaign in 2012 to update the game was not funded, leaving this cult favorite available only through emulation. [5]

In the fall 2022 the emulated version of Portal was a featured game in the Video Game Theories and History course offered in the Creative Media & Digital Culture's (CMDC) curriculum. Swigart spoke to the 28 undergraduates and provided a historical context for it. The students, many of whom prepare to become game designers and developers, observed that the game's science fiction storyline involving multiple dimensions and AI, along with its heavy reliance on touch and interaction, made it an ideal game to be adapted for the Virtual Reality (VR) environment. In spring of 2023 adapting the game for the Quest 2 became the CMDC's Senior Capstone project. In consultation with Swigart, work began to re-envision Portal as a VR experience, naming it DATA ENTRY: PORTAL.

In his essay, “Hypertextually, Maybe? Rob Swigart's Interactive Fiction: Portal,” literary critic Franco Minganti argues that Portal is a “sort of a hybrid” that harkens both past and future media forms whose structure is “hypertext-like.” Writing in the early 1990s and aware of the hypertexts published by Eastgate Systems, Inc., Minganti's description centers on the fact that Portal does not make use of “text selection” nor “allow[s] words within the text to be selected for cross-indexed database navigation.” However, he regards its “non-sequentiality or multisequentially” and branching narrative as evidence of its hypertextual leanings. [10]

Game critics, writing shortly after the game was released in 1986, struggled early on with Portal's genre and gameplay. Bob Lindstrom of A+ Magazine [8]and Gerald Masters of Amazing Reviews, [9] for example, call it a “computer novel” while Steve Kosek of the Chicago Tribune [7] and Matthew Costello of Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact [2] refer to it as a text adventure. But even as a text adventure game, a critic from the Compute's Gazette complained that “[t]hose expecting a graphics-and-text adventure along the lines of Tass Times in Tonetown will perhaps not appreciate the lack of direct participation in the plot.” [1] In fact, the only direct intervention of text into Portal was inputting one's DNA to kick off the game. That Portal was published on a variety of platforms and included the possibility of using a joystick or a mouse for navigation and interaction, at a time when text adventure games and hypertext narratives were growing in popularity, led to its complicated history. With these original iterations now inaccessible on contemporary computers, what is left to players today is the emulated version that requires the arrow keys and the spacebar for navigating the environment and interacting with the game's databases (also referred to as “data spaces”), an approach that renders the game's action a methodical (and tedious) exploration of the storyworld, one keystroke at a time.

In adapting Portal for the three-dimensional VR environment where players can wander through simulated environments and move in 360 degrees, interact with objects through touching and pointing, and have experiences that result in haptic feedback, the development team aimed to take advantage of the medium's affordances and, at the same time, build hypertextual elements back into the game. This demonstration presents, therefore, the work undertaken to translate the game mechanics of Portal for DATA ENTRY: PORTAL, focusing on three areas: 1) narrative development, 2) navigation, and 3) choice. It draws upon the research into media translation articulated by Dene Grigar and Mariusz Pisarski in their forthcoming book, The Challenges of Born-Digital Fiction: Editions, Emulations, and Translations [4], as well as Grigar's previous work on hypertextuality in 3D space [3]. A comparison between the 2D emulated version and the 3D VR adaptation will be made during the demo to emphasize the main points.

We would like to acknowledge CMDC student Gabrielle Davis for the visual design of DATA ENTRY: PORTAL used, with permission, in this paper.

[1] Compute's Gazette. 1987 “Activision.” [2] Matthew Costello. 1987. “On Gaming.” Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact. [3] Dene Grigar. 2010. “Hyperlinking in 3D Multimedia Performances.” Beyond the Screen: Transformations of Literary Structures, Interfaces and Genres. Ed. [4] Dene Grigar and Mariusz Pisarki. 2024. The Challenges of Born-Digital Fiction: Editions, Translations, and Emulations. Cambridge University Press. [5] Kickstarter campaign for Portal Reborn intended to raise $900K but brought in only $14,849. Swigart canceled the campaign on May 8, 2012. [6] Moby Games, https://www.mobygames.com/game/2164/portal/. [7] Steven Kosek. 1987. New Software. Chicago Tribune.

[8] Bob Lindstrom. 1987. “Game Port. A+ Magazine. [9] Gerald Masters. 1987. “Portal: A Computer Novel.” Amazing Reviews. Volume 2, No. 8.