Before you get too excited, this is not an official, nor endorsed, demake of Portal. So far the only one I know of that was officially allowed by the property owner was Halo for the Atari 2600. Just like that demake for the original Atari console, this port to the Commodore 64 has had some major changes made in order for it to work on the lower powered hardware. The core components are here though and that is what matters. The core gameplay mechanic of Portal was that gun that allowed you to open “portals” in different areas so you could pass through them to new areas. That mechanic is alive and well in this Commodore 64 demake. Where things get interesting here is the rest of the gameplay mechanics – at least for Commodore 64 fans from this era. You will need a controller or a Commodore mouse to play Portal. If using a controller then it must be plugged into the second port. This control mechanism handles your portal gun aiming while the keyboard is used to move around the levels and to jump over obstacles. This is a control scheme that came into the limelight with the release of the game “Abuse” by Electronic Arts (for PC) in the mid 1990’s. That game and the Commodore 64 port of Portal focus on keyboard controls with mouse aiming. It can take a bit to get used to, even if you are a big player in the first-person shooter world. Each level in this port of Portal is limited to one screen where you can see everything you face at the moment. Action games on computers from the 80’s were often setup like this – think Impossible Mission for instance. I am fine with this setup as it makes planning your moves a lot easier than if the room scrolled. There are limitations such as not being able to simply plop a portal anywhere you want but that just adds to the challenge level. On the developers website there are instructions on how to setup VICE, a popular Commodore 64 emulator, to run Portal. Source: Upcoming & New 8 Bit Games Facebook page