Cryptozoic Entertainment Portal CZE01823 The Uncooperative Cake Acquisition Game

Probably the most interesting board game I've ever played. Changes completely each time you play, greatly involves everyone into thinking and strategizing, and things never quite work out how you planned them. Highly recommended, doesn't take a lot to learn how to play either.

I was sceptical at first expecting the game to be a money spin with little depth. I was completely wrong! This is a really fun board game that translates all the novelty of the original games into an unusual tabletop format.To be honest I was sold when I unpacked the companion cube but still this is a great game in its own right and well worth a space on your shelf!

This game is great fun for anyone familiar with the Portal/Portal 2 videogames. Knowledge of the games isn't necessary, but I don't think you'd get much out of this without at least a passing understanding of what Portal is as the mechanics revolve around completing the test chambers depicted in the games.The game pieces and cards are very high quality, although the choice to make two of the shades of colours almost identical (purple and red) is a bit maddening. Game is pretty easy to figure out, within 2 rounds we all had the mechanics down. Highly recommended for Portal fans.

It is true what game says - you start to hate you family members and friends when they incinerate your cake...!But great game, lots of strategies to think about how to overcome your rivals.We played mostly in 2 and it was great, game always evolved differently while there are multiple ways how to end a game and then you are just surprised when it ends after a few rounds because your opponent decided to kill his test subjects with two cakes, while you are having just 1cake so far !

This game is crazy fun! I haven't played the computer game, so the theme and the flavour images and text were a little lost on me, but I like cake, so I can completely relate to the willingness to make sacrifices for a wedge of cake. Perhaps not people. Eh, maybe people. Who knows. There's some criticism about the lack of tactical play, and while from the few games I've played it does seem like you can't plan too far ahead you can pull of some neat traps and quick grabs of cake. We played two player, and I think with more than that would make it even harder to plan ahead, and it might become a bit more opportunistic--or luck driven which isn't everyone's cup of tea. Turns are short, and the games we played were frantic and fun. Glad I took the risk in buying this without knowing much about it other than... cake.

Bought as a Christmas present for my 10 year old who loves the Portal 1 PS3 game so, at this moment, unable to rate actual game play, but the board, pieces and packaging look fab! We enjoy playing board games together so I'm sure this will be a hit. Also thrilled to find that this comes with a Steam code for a full version of Portal 2 on PC. I'd missed that in the description.

Great game, the biggest issue I had was that if you don't have a table, it can be a bit awkward to be constantly moving the board after every turn as it doesn't fit together quite well enough to avoid making a bit of a mess when moving it.However, the game itself is really good, once you get the hang of it, you can certainly think of some dastardly strategies to win! My girlfriend refuses to play this with me now though.

Played this with my 8yo and 11yo sons, who both love the Portal series.After some initial confusion and some re-reading of the rules, we finally got into the swing of the game, and all really enjoyed it. We haven't had much of a chance for a re-play of it, but definitely will at some point.The board and pieces are nicely made, and certainly adhere to the Portal aesthetic.

This does not appear to be a new item, but rather a refurbished item. Pieces inside were in damaged bags (and bagged differently to each other). Booklet and cards had crinkles in them as if they had been used before. The box was beaten up: scratched, pushed in corners, paint worn away. Very disappointed that for $70 the item was not in new condition. Not suitable for a gift.

This was a great, chaotic boardgame that requires a lot of thought to play well. I won't go into the rules, since I think the product description explains them fairly well, but I'll focus on what I think makes the game work so well: you need to think ahead. Any one player can attempt to end the game at any point by trying to sacrifice all their test subjects, but the process of doing so often gives opponents the chance to take the lead by earning more pieces of cake. If you're going for the win, you need to set yourself up for several successful turns. But the rapidly changing gameboard means that you need to be able to anticipate the moves the other players will do, to stop them from winning or to set yourself up to win. Will they be collecting their own cake? What Aperture cards can/will they play? Which test chambers will they recycle? It truly is a dynamic experience among the players.The first three games we played (all 4-player games) went as follows:1) 20 Minutes. We learned the rules, read the cards, and then everyone started killing each others' test subjects like maniacs and generally not making much progress. I ended the game the first chance I had and won with 2 pieces of cake (out of 8 possible per player). No cake incinerated.2) 15 minutes. Winner had 3 pieces of cake, took advantage of an opening to end the game very quickly. The opening came from how other players had selected test chambers to recycle - it gave them a short-term advantage, but ultimately let him recycle a test chamber with all his guys in it and end the game. One piece of cake incinerated, but it was by an Aperture card, not by recycling test chambers.3) 80 minutes, and I only ended it because I had to go to bed. All four of us finally understood that, every turn, you needed to watch your opponents and see what their path to victory was, and then try to stop it. Twice, I had a significant lead, but was blocked from killing my subjects and ending the game. Eventually, 7 of my cake pieces had been dumped in the incinerator, so it was nearly impossible for me to win. Winner had 3 pieces of cake. There were 16 pieces of cake in the incinerator (half of all the cake pieces the game came with). I was the one who ended the game, but I did not need to - had I been so inclined, I could have begun working against the leading player, but it would have dragged the game out even longer. Another time, I probably would have done so. But not then.As I said above, once we realized that we had to actively monitor the other players' strategies, the game became so much deeper. The first two games were like the 4-move checkmate in Chess; if your opponent isn't watching, you can quickly win. But if they are paying attention, you need to utilize a more complex strategy.A ton of replayability, in my mind. The randomized board prevents common openings, and then changes shape to produce some really bizarre dynamics. I've seen some complaints that there should have been more Aperture/Character cards, but I think it's just the perfect amount, and I will address that with some specifics. There are enough that you will never run out (each player can only have 3 at a time), and their uses are very situational and they often interplay with one another. It's good that there are multiple copies of the 8 different Aperture cards, since you will want to be doing the same thing more than once. There's a good amount of Character cards, as well - some of them are great effects regardless, and some will only be useful in certain situations. There can be a fairly quick cycling, so it's possible to see the same Character come up again later in the game. For both kinds of cards, the complexity comes from interactions with other cards, and the cards available will affect the strategies of you and your opponents. An Aperture card that lets you move one test subject to an adjacent chamber plays very differently if a Character lets you freely move a Portal (giving you a straight shot to a test chamber you're about to recycle), if a Character says you cannot split groups of test subjects (since that card will effectively bypass the restriction), if you have an Aperture card that can move the test-subject-killing Turret (you thought your guy was at a safe distance? Think again!), or if you are trying to carry another player's cake away from the safe end of the board (I can take your cake and run twice as fast as you!). The Companion Cube is another good example - when you place it in a test chamber, no one gets rewards for that chamber. Usually, you place it to stop an opponent from getting rewards, but I would use it on myself to keep from accumulating test subjects when I was trying to end the game.After that glowing review, I would like to issue a few words of warning. First, the similarities to the video game are solely aesthetic. If you are looking for unique puzzles, an engaging story, or eccentric characters, this is not for you. As a board game, it is awesome, but it does not capture the experience of playing Portal (and it's not supposed to). Second, there is a ton of Kingmaking potential, so if that's a recurring problem in your group, you might also want to stay away from this game. My gaming group is comfortable with everyone else "teaming up" on the winner, but I know a lot of people would consider that a point against the game.

Tanto para los que jugaron a Portal como para los que no, este juego permite echar un rato alocado y agradable con los amigos. La pega que le pongo es que para el precio que tiene, los elementos del tablero que deben recomponerse continuamente a lo largo de la partida deberían tener un acople mucho más sencillo al estilo piezas de dominó. Estoy pensando en algún mod que permita tenerlo con un cartón debajo.

Me gustó mucho la dinámica del juego. Es como el híbrido de Fluxx y Survive. Los pasteles son muy bonitos. Llaman bastante la atención. Es un juego de estrategia. MUCHA. Y de "si no puedes ganar, haz perder a los otros".En cuanto a lo del tablero, pues si, la misma queja de todos, NO embonan bien. Y la pieza de cartón de GLADos es inútil.Pero si te gustan los juegos de estrategia. Éste es excelente. Si tú o tus amigos tardan porque le piensan qué van a hacer. Este juego puede demorar MUCHO.El instructivo NO me pareció confuso como los otros reportan, pero yo vi una video reseña antes.En general los comentarios que he recibido es "el juego es bueno, pero no es mi favorito" (Tengo más de 30 juegos que NO son de supermercado).Aún con todo, a mí sí me gustó y si regresarámos el tiempo, lo volvería a comprar.

Good game both for experienced gamers and for the new ones. Play as an evil AI and torture your test subjects to achieve victory.