Portal ARG

"Thank you for assuming the party escort submission position."

- ?

In March 2010, Portal was updated, leading gamers and journalists to postulate that an announcement for Portal 2 or Episode Three may soon be made. It has been speculated that the update and what it unveiled was helmed by Adam Foster, creator of the mod MINERVA later hired by Valve.

March 1st, 2010 update


On March 1st, 2010, a first update was made, with the description "Changed radio transmission frequency to comply with federal and state spectrum management regulations". It consisted of an additional Achievement, "Transmission Received". Playing Portal reveals the game now has a total of 26 radios (including the ones already present before the update) playing in the Test Chambers, always in an area more or less difficult to reach (but given to the player by the music playing), and with a red sprite added to the switch. The radio transmission frequency is also said to have been changed, "to comply with federal and state spectrum management regulations", as said in the update. In-game, the radio must each time be moved in a particular spot of the Test Chamber. When doing so, the music will be scrambled by interferences, then Morse code or data transmission sounds will be heard, and the red sprite will turn green. To be made in each Test Chamber, finding all radios and jamming the transmission will unlock the new Achievement, "Transmission Received", although its description is simply "..?". The presence of these new radios seen through the Enrichment Center are likely non canonical, as they only serve a viral campaign. They may even be removed when their purpose is achieved.

The 26 radio sounds
The sounds added in the March 1st, 2010 update can be found in the folder "ambient" in the Portal sound files. They all bear the prefix "dinosaur". They include "dinosaur1" to "dinosaur26", used for each changed transmission, "dinosaur_noise.wav", for when the music is scrambled, and "dinosaur_fizzle.wav", as well as "dinosaur_fizzle2.wav" and "dinosaur_fizzle3.wav" (added in the March 3, 2010 update ), when the radio goes through a Material Emancipation Grid. Most sounds from "dinosaur1" to "dinosaur26" contain a hidden image that can be viewed in an SSTV software (similar to Judith Mossman's transmission), the others contain Morse code (some of them also reveal voice chatter and music after clean up). The name "dinosaur" may be a reference to the book Dinosaur Alphabet, by Harry S. Robins, notable voice actor for the Half-Life series, emphasized by the fact that there are 26 main sounds, which is also the total number of the alphabet letters.

When the update was applied, many players launched Portal to see what it was about, and slowly discovered how it consisted in-game, then soon began to investigate the radio sound files on the Steam forums, which led to many intriguing finds.

(425) 822-5251


The "dinosaur" images 2, 4, 7, 13, 16, 18, 20 25 are each cut into four images, each containing an alphanumeric highlighted or circled, and each with a number from 1 to 32 in the bottom right. Put in the order given in the bottom right numbers, these images will give: "9459 C6CA C8C2 03B8 128B 7CC6 3068 D4FD". This string is the MD5 hash of a BBS number, "(425) 822-5251", registered to an unpublished landline at 123, 5th Avenue in Kirkland, a Seattle suburb where Valve was founded.

Upon calling the number using a BBS software and entering the username ("backup") and password ("backup" again) given in "dinosaur12.wav"’s Morse code, a log will appear, starting with "Aperture Laboratories GLaDOS v3.11", followed by "Copyright (c) 1973-1997 Aperture - all rights reserved", while GLaDOS' most recent version found on ApertureScience.com is v1.09, dated 1982. It has been speculated that "3.11" refers to March 11, when Gabe Newell will be awarded the Pioneer Award during the Game Choice Awards, and that he will reveal information on Valve's future games that day. What follows are several ASCII art images and texts, most of the time being separated by the words "begin record", and "record ends" and other text. Overall, it appears like some sort of system reboot, with random backed up files showing up.

Strangely enough, at 123, 5th Avenue can be found a large building, the Kirkland City Hall, but it does not reveal anything else. When the Steam forum users were desperately looking for the password to the BBS number, Valve's Robin Walker told them on a Steam community chat: "Nobody is looking in the right place. You need to look beneath the elephant green for the login information." The "elephant green" might either refer to a dinosaur, or the Kirkland City Hall that somewhat looks like an elephant from above.

ASCII art and texts list
These images have been obtained by a large amount of different Steam forums users, with different programs and resolutions. They are not presented here in any relevant order, and some may be missing. Some are turned in their proper orientation when known. Most images have been modified in image editing programs to help identify them, with noise reduction or added colors.

ASCII art
Note that most of what these images contain is open to speculation.

March 3, 2010 update


On March 3, 2010, Portal was again updated, with the description "Added valuable asset retrieval". making further changes to the game. The game's original ending was altered, having now Chell being dragged away by something, with a robotic voice saying "Thank you for assuming the party escort submission position.". Two new "dinosaur_fizzle" sounds, "dinosaur_fizzle2.wav" and "dinosaur_fizzle3.wav", were also added.

When viewing the map where Chell is dragged away, a cube model named "GhostAnim.mdl" and using the texture files of the can of beans found several times in the game can be found (likely used as a placeholder) at the camera location. It can be found in the folder "props/camera" in the Portal game files. The game will crash if one shoots it with the ASHPD. The radio that is found there was already present when the game was released.