I love Portal, but I have to say that I find it hard to get too terribly excited about these offshoots and remakes simply because Portal, to me, is GLaDoS–she was half the fun of the game! It’s not that I don’t love the puzzling power of the portal gun (I do; I so do) for its own sake, I’m just less entertained by a Portal experiences without one of the most compelling personalities in all the history of gaming.

Yeah, I’m a fan.

That said, even with my prejudices, this particular take on the portals looks incredible. Thanks to the color scheme and the little companion cube touches, the sparse look is utterly charming. It looks great in gameplay, too:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

I’m struggling with this new (old?) experience of talking about the “look” of ASCII “graphics,” but it’s true! This looks good. And fun. And it’s got portals. I’ll just put Jonathan Coulton’s “Still Alive” on repeat and nerd out while I play ASCIIpOrtal, I guess.

[via IndieGames]