Transmission Received? | Portal's First ARG

In 2010, Valve decided to announce and promote Portal 2 in a completely out of the box way. Through an Alternate Reality Game. After updating a 3 year old game, Valve added radios to the test chambers and waited for fans to figure out their mystery
In this video, I explore the Portal ARG, how it was solved and what the reward was.
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction
01:15 March 1st, 2010 (Radio & BBS Phase)
09:57 March 3rd, 2010 (Valuable Asset Retrieval Phase)
11:41 March 5th, 2010 (drattmann Phase)
13:34 March 11th, 2010 (Game Developers Choice Awards)
16:10 June 1st, 2010 (The Surprise)
17:08 Closing Thoughts & Ending
Half-Life 2 ARG
• Was Valve's Whiteboard...
Join the Discord Server!
/ discord
BECOME A CHANNEL MEMBER!
/ @skyrionn
BECOME A PATRON!
/ theskyrionn
Twitter
/ skyrionn
Instagram
/ skyrionn
Half-Life & Portal Playlist: • The Borealis | Half-Li...
Standard Sources
Half-Life series playthrough research
Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar
Half-Life: Alyx Playthrough
Portal/ Half-Life Fandom
Old Valve Forums
Marc Laidlaw's Twitter
Breengrub Twitter
Reddit AMA (w/ HL: Alyx Developers)
AUDIO USED
Portal 2 OST: There She Is
Half-Life 2 OST: Triage at Dawn
#Portal #ARG #Radio

[@FlyinScottsman]

Jeez, that's some dedication on the fan's part. Valve still updates Half-Life 2 and its episodes, imagine if they try to do an ARG in that to announce a new game. It would send the fanbase wild.

[@teknostyle5555]

I know, right? I really want to know more about the story of Half-Life. Will Alyx and Gordon venture to the arctic? What will soon become of the Combine? What clues are there that surrounds G-man? If we could get these subtle hints, then that would definitely help provide more context and understanding to the Half-Life story in my opinion.

[@Skyrionn]

That would be crazy. I'd love it.

[@acat6656]

for all we know it could already be out there

[@Wertyhappy27]

plot twist, Half Life 3 was made, and we havent figured out the ARG yet

[@Roomsaver]

@@teknostyle5555 Read Epistle 3

[@leviking9625]

Imagine being at E3 in 2010 Gabe just finished with the blue screen, said he is part of the ARG, he presses a button and green smoke starts to fill the room from all sides

[@pyrolysis111]

Then he disappears like a hologram and glados voice says “sorry but you all know too much…”

[@leoje1524]

That green smoke is fard and you die💀

[@neshoch3264]

@@leoje1524 dont ruin a game you 9 year old

[@leoje1524]

@@neshoch3264 aww come on im just having fun

[@leoje1524]

@@neshoch3264 it's just something from my generation that i think is funny

[@grazielamink]

14:56 imagine being one of the people that worked at the game devs choice awards like management or something and actually taking time to read the blue screen of death for once and you just see "Press any key to flood the facility with deadly neurotoxins."

[@PlebNC]

Old Valve: Partnered with their customers. New Valve: Parted with their customers.

[@aerothallji6514]

Their silence is deafening.

[@technicolourmyles]

@@aerothallji6514 huh? Did I miss something?

[@RHYTE]

@@technicolourmyles i think they are just mad that no new games are coming out

[@Hanex94]

Be careful with what you wish my friend

[@tr3vk4m]

it was either make HL3 or eat more twinkies

[@aroamingfilipino]

for me the most surprising thing isn’t the fact that the transmission leads to portal 2 leaks, it is the fact that gabe said *3*

[@LavenderSystem69]

Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me. Everyone knows that Gabe can't count to 3 xD

[@tuneingfish678]

We need more companies do stuff like this.

[@Skyrionn]

same

[@franciszekjanusztalarek7017]

We need Valve to be Valve again

[@Misterguess]

@@Skyrionn where are the files,i try to look in the aperture_ai folder and they are not here

[@misusedchair]

@@Misterguess probably set as hidden or something

[@pieterkegel888]

I remember following this ARG. And when the potato sack arc started actively started contributing. I cannot overstate how much hype this made for Portal 2. What a launch!

[@amanawolf9166]

It was impressive. I kinda screwed around and followed the clues others had found, but never discovered anything on my own. I think I went as far as the decoder to turn the sound files into images.

[@MFKitten]

I wish Valve would keep this stuff up. They just did that, made insane hype, and went "hey, that was neat. Oh well!"

[@PsycheTrance65]

I was a dumb Highschooler the time when the ARG was ongoing so I hardly contributed in solving anything in it. But I can definitely confirm that it was so hype whenever something was discovered. Its also where I learned you can hide images in sound and see it via spectrographs!

[@charredeggroll1967]

Even Chell's lack of parents was teased in the little ARG~

[@demonsweatthings8493]

pretty sure glados calls her adopted (or an orphan) in the first game too lol

[@CondavourTalksGuns]

I remember recording the audio in game using audacity and then giving it to my HAM radio licensed brother to figure out the messages using various software he had. I didn't go much further than that since it quickly got beyond my level of solving at the time, but it was really exciting when we figured out it was slow scan TV and images started coming out. Would have been easier to just use the raw files, but we didnt find those.

[@Skyrionn]

It's great to see someone that actually played the ARG when it came out!

[@apchistuz]

The raw files are stored in .vpk files (or .gcf pre-2013) to open them you need GCFScape

[@EmbeddedWithin]

@@Skyrionn now the dude is a gun guy. Amazing how time passed

[@redguywithatophat1900]

@@EmbeddedWithin it is called the portal *gun*

[@morgandraegar7301]

Miss the good ol' days of pure creativity Valve poured into this world. Glad I was here for it though!

[@wubbahead1820]

I don’t think their creativity is gone, but they have huge expectations to live up to if they release a new game.

[@benthasome]

@@wubbahead1820 valve always make some huge breakthrough in gaming history so if they new game wouldn't do as others, some people may criticize them for laziness

[@RaZer12879]

@@benthasome Or probably the day they can finally count to 3

[@benthasome]

@@RaZer12879 maybe

[@TheBestRobotEver]

Yeah, I'm also GLaD.

[@Simte]

My first ARG was I love Bees for Halo 2, but my favourite one was Portal 2, Valve has some magic you can't almost find anywhere.

[@Skyrionn]

I'll be moving onto the next Portal ARG soon :D I haven't properly gotten into the Halo behind the scenes stuff yet.

[@stargost2338]

I like how he laughs when he reads "36 days before next saturday". It shows how Portal humor never gets old.

[@ondraspendlik9759]

I only recently discovered Portal, so I had no idea about any of this (with the exception of the ending changing), and I'm honestly amazed! I love this kind of stuff. I surely wouldn't be able to figure it out (not even now as an adult), but I think things like this, going a step (or rather, multiple steps) further for the fans, is incredibly cool.

[@Skyrionn]

Welcome to the Portal community. I happen to have a ton of Portal lore on the channel too!

[@stanleybochenek1862]

Haha portal gun go brrrrr

[@shinymk6562]

I really love your portal videos and the style you use, alongside your half life ones. (Although I was always a Portal fan first and never really got into Half Life) Keep up the great videos, you have a special style and voice that suits it!

[@Skyrionn]

That's really kind of you to say. Thanks for watching the videos. There is more to come too :D

[@leduckified1534]

Half life is too worth it to not play.

[@Povilaz]

I absolutely love this ARG that they did.

[@Skyrionn]

It's what made them great back then.

[@YourGamingTeam]

Wow What a work you put into this Skyrionn. Really nice work! I love your videos. Please continue.

[@takouhai]

Great video! I really like how you paced and sectioned the different arcs of the ARG in the chapters. Thank you for covering these kinds of stories/projects!

[@Catzzye]

My first ARG for Sombra release in Overwatch! Had some issues but was TONS of fun!!

[@AngelofGrace96]

wow, this was amazing, I had no idea this existed! Also, people who manage to do all that puzzle cracking are so impressive, I'd never be able to do all that :)

[@Roux36Prod]

Oh shit, this was much bigger than I thought it was. I was like, a devote Portal nerd for a few months back in 2016, and I knew about the transmission images in the first game. I thought it was just a neat little Easter egg and the next game nodded to it by only having one, but I didn’t even remotely know about the BBS terminal and the MD5 codes. In other words, I had absolutely no idea this was an entire ARG. Granted, I wasn’t in the fandom during the lead-up to Portal 2, and I wasn’t really interested enough in anything to have participated (that, and most of my time spent looking on the wiki was on the voice lines page). But now, as a 19 year-old super into puzzles, technology, and storytelling, this is exactly the kind of thing I’d be into, and now I’m really mad that I missed it by both 7 and 12 years simultaneously. XD

[@Roux36Prod]

(7 years since I left my full Portal phase and thought these were just cleverly-hidden secret images, and 12 years being me just now learning this is an ARG and being too late to participate.)

[@handfullofbees]

After reading the part about beekeeping I want to see a portal AU where aperture becomes a honey producer.

[@DrBagPhD]

I was there when all this went down (and the subsequent potato related ARG) and it was something else. The absolute excitement of seeing the community piece everything together was unparalleled. I miss those days.

[@Skyrionn]

It's a shame that we don't get a lot of this stuff any more. I think Bioware are trying something similar with the new Mass Effect right now. Something to look in to maybe?

[@okamiriez8070]

I got the achievement way back but never knew it had deeper meaning! How awesome of Valve

[@icen10773]

I remember when i tried to bring the first radio on the button to see if it works and then i heard beeps and i got really creeped out and i got a achievement and i tried doing all of them but sadly my brother dosent let me play on his laptop anymore

[@burping]

another wonderful video!! thank you for making these entertaining videos :D

[@mahmoudmonther4733]

Wow thats mind blowing ! Also .. great video man

[@UD503J]

Some of the most fun I've made working on an ARG was being part of an IRC channel that was trying to reverse-engineer some of the audio samples (the dinosaur samples). This was a really cool way for Valve to get their fan base excited.

[@TeionM83]

New video? About Portal, one of my favorite games? Nice!

[@Skyrionn]

A very complicated video about Portal haha. This almost broke my brain

[@Blossomfeather2_art]

I wonder if they'll do an ARG for Portal 3.

[@elbruces]

Valve can't count to 3.

[@acousticeel9695]

Wouldn’t it be hilarious if they already did and they’re just not announcing Portal 3 because no one’s even figured it out yet

[@Blossomfeather2_art]

@@acousticeel9695 Yea it would be hilarious but maybe they did and we just don't know.

[@jasperfox6821]

Valve should do ARGs again.

[@Skyrionn]

What does the code mean on the thumbnail? and Are you looking forward to the Portal with RTX update?

[@Simte]

Certainly!

[@arekrekas213]

nah

[@radiicall]

It looks like portal dx8 and its kinda sad tbh...

[@sagepuppet]

no lmfao they absolutely destroyed the art style!

[@rustynuts89836]

Hell yea

[@AlexMannVids]

Man, this ARG still gives me chills to this day

[@bunnyqueen20XX]

SO 10:30 When I was a little kid, 8 or so I LOVED playing portal, as it was the only valve game I had, and during the time of Portal 2's release and ARG, I had no idea it was happening, I was too busy playing around, pinning NPC's to walls with the crossbow, and one day I decided to beat GLaDOS again for fun, and when I heard the new ending I didn't know anything about it and I freaked out so much I screamed and ran out of my room

[@DSPrints_]

You should listen to Portal 2 with commentary. There’s even more Easter eggs to find. They explain technical stuff and then say “see if u can spot it”

[@calfeggs]

I love this so much!

[@folenfox]

this was a triumph, im making a note here, huge success. its hard to overstate my satisfaction.

[@nukfauxsho]

Also, BBS is still active and well! I myself use Synchronet. Door games are still awesome and L.O.R.D. is sick!

[@NoahGooder]

I remember this ARG it was interesting to follow. Tho I only got as far as the radios

[@soup9242]

Imagine if it all just lead to a rickroll.

[@imselfaware419]

That would be really lame.

[@jonmayer]

I've played Portal and never noticed this beyond hearing the song. Wow.

[@infatuaa]

the phone number format you pointed out was very amusing since thats just how phone numbers work in north america

[@musicdude9128]

Wow I’m early, I’ll say I’m always hooked into their channel as always.

[@Skyrionn]

Always great to see your name pop up

[@kneel1]

my favorite easter egg :). Also i had just gotten into playing portal1 later than everyone else and it was right when this happened

[@Alica303]

portal 2 was announced on my birthday! couldn't have been a better present

[@Skyrionn]

That is the perfect birthday present!

[@c0rn651]

my. only complaint of valve (as a game dev) is they seem full of themselves to where they wont make a game unless it can be revolutionary like bruh i just want my crowbar

[@nutbastard]

They took a risk on Back 4 Blood last year which apparently people liked. I thought it was fine even though it's just a retread of Left 4 Dead. I'm biased because the original didn't hold my interest either, but even people who enjoy(ed) it would be hard pressed to call it 'revolutionary'. HL, TF, and Portal all had huge leaps between their first and second iterations. I don't have a VR rig so HL:A remains firmly out of my grasp, so I can't comment on that title in good faith. I'll be interested to see what the future of Portal and HL will bring, but honestly I'd be just as excited for a new original IP from Valve.

[@trisfaleel]

@@nutbastard valve didn't make back 4 blood though

[@TaccRaccoon]

I remember getting stuck trying to find the location for the sound to play on some of these radios, it took my 5 hours and 19 minutes

[@Skyrionn]

I'm so jealous you got to play it back in the day

[@nicolegardner1710]

8:49 It's actually interesting because Gabe Newell was a developer originally for Windows 1 through 3.11 So it's likely paying homage to that

[@Skyrionn]

Pretty interesting

[@thestickieststick]

its funny how often he said „this is the end of the portal arg“

[@Daburubareru]

Valve ARGs were so fucking amazing and badass I love them so much as always

[@mspencer712]

Hey, this was from my fifteen milliseconds of internet fame! Near as I can tell I was the first person to post the hex-to-EBCDIC translation of the "Suspend Until E3" message from 15:37 and my Penny Arcade forum post (as user mspencer) was linked/credited by Joystiq, Kotaku, etc. I was working a late tech support call center shift at First National Merchant Solutions (which later became TSYS Merchant Solutions), so there was lots of surfing-the-internet time between calls. I had previously worked for Ameristar Casino Council Bluffs in IT. I was therefore familiar with alternate "mainframe-y" character encodings like EBCDIC from times when I needed to pull down files from our AS/400 and convert them. So I was sort of the perfect combination of "technical enough to know about EBCDIC" and "bored enough to be on the internet during this announcement." As cringe as this is, I later attended PAX Prime 2010 and attempted to speak with someone at the Valve booth in the expo hall about this. I don't think the person at the booth knew about the Suspend Until EEE thing at all, and nobody at their booth had any interest in talking to me. Understandably, they had a booth to run, but I felt a bit deflated.

[@mspencer712]

Thanks for the heart! One nitpick though . . . I literally just google image search'd "EBCDIC table" and looked the hex values up in the table. There was no online tool, to my knowledge. (I didn't think it could be ASCII because the most significant bit was 1 on each letter, aka the first hex digit was greater than 7. But EBCDIC looked promising, and when I started seeing letters that spelled a word I got excited. And yes that was it. (And two years later I started a career as a professional software developer, which I've done for ten years now. I definitely cringe looking back at myself from 2010 and earlier, as I may have had a lot of talent and potential but I knew next to nothing about delivering software as a product. Yet I called myself a programmer, because I could write small programs in school. Lots of stink of "somebody notice me please, I promise I'm really smart, just give me a chance to prove it!" coming off of me back then. And I'm sure ten years from now I'll find my current self cringey in new and exciting ways I don't understand yet. I suppose it's all relative.)

[@uploader11459]

Great content! Portal 3 one day??

[@skeletonking4119]

It’s amazing how they done this!! Back to old days !! Goodness !

[@papppsanyi]

Great video. SUBBED!

[@Skyrionn]

Thanks for watching. There's more to come!

[@RusZugunder]

thank you ganen, very nice

[@CubeAtlantic]

the Portal radio is a dope addition to the game always has been. ✅

[@TheRealTheLights]

i was waiting the whole video for you to just randomly say "did you see it? on the left side of the door frame, barely visible on the camera-"

[@kshysztof9649]

Oh man. I've never heard of this ! And even if I did, I was too young to udnerstand anyway. But it's so cool that it happend.

[@kempy2]

this was amazing

[@Skyrionn]

It really was!

[@Pnezyx2056]

I cant believe how complicated this is! and also 15:24 does anyone else think that the CTRL ALT DEL kind of looks like CIT A DEL???

[@Skyrionn]

It was really hard to research and understand it too as I was putting this together!

[@ErikLavr]

6:29 Well thank you for the Windows Activation Code

[@supermaster2012]

Late to the party this week but I will never not like a Skyrionn video. May your day be free of climbing ropes.

[@kaukospots]

I think I had a died hearing "message could be decoded using the MD5 algorithm"

[@notdaveordaniel9711]

You should do a video about the UAC corporation from DOOM. You could film a lot of it in Gmod too since there's quite a few UAC related addons

[@MCcreedLP]

I love it. This is what i want from Valve

[@Skyrionn]

We need more

[@MCcreedLP]

@@Skyrionn I highly agree

[@BetaMinecraftVideos]

I know that f-stop isn’t in here but is sounds like a good idea

[@allanfrd]

Ok, so we need to be well aware to any HL2 updates, I believe we are closer and closer.

[@Skyrionn]

We need to watch everything!

[@bluecobalt665]

This is awesome

[@matthiasgrunwald895]

Insane! Cant wait for Portal RTX !

[@t0nito]

Pure genius!

[@babygingy4]

Dinosaur 17 said lol really quickly and got me to a mr clean ad😭

[@geuxmer2355]

im glad im in a universe where a game company has done something like this

[@im-alwaaayzwatching]

This is why I love VALVe

[@NovaJR9]

Love ur videos, underrated channel

[@Skyrionn]

Thanks Nova. We're on our way to 100k

[@NovaJR9]

u deserve it these vids are amazing

[@calebbowen6406]

ah shoot, im late. but its still good! keep it up dude

[@Skyrionn]

Thanks Caleb. Glad you liked it.

[@Pulverrostmannen]

oh boy, just think that these clues were discovered, Then ciphered, converted and organized to be used on a different site to gain even more clues about the future. put this in perspective that some people think solving the game can be a challenge. man what a dedication

[@Skyrionn]

I would not have been able to solve this back then!

[@DurpMustard]

11:25 Imagine getting to be that one employee at Valve who just said “f*ck it put it in”

[@crawlzzz]

I wish I could've been a part of this

[@Skyrionn]

Hopefully we'll get another one in the future.

[@gamingkids8262]

If only people made more content on portal 2 even if its 12 years old

[@darthjump]

I was lucky enough to have visited the Portal 2 booth in Gamescom back then. It was like visiting aperture itself and we all got a gift card to download portal 1 for free. unfortunately i don´t think i made any sneaky pictures of it. Maybe i did i´ll have to look through my old archives.

[@GhostLink92]

I miss when devs actually cared about their IPs and engaged with their community like this. Bungie used to do this too, there were a number of ARGs for Halo 2 and 3. That's true passion right there.

[@micheleviciguerra3467]

Hi Skyrionn, I want to know how ro connect to the BBS or if it is even still possible, thanks

[@foozzys]

Have you checked out Did you Know Gaming? They did a portal 3 video not to long ago that has some pretty juicy information.

[@1whospeaks]

Of course Valve invents ARGs, does it so perfectly that it remains innovative years after relative to modern ARGs, then never does it again ever. Classic Valve.

[@nolmc]

I stopped to read the morse code on the thumbnail, i was well worth the time

[@Jws20]

They better do another one someday

[@Skyrionn]

I prey

[@yay_starving]

can i have the download link to the bbs software u are usin?

[@KOTM97_]

Why does it feel like theres a secret code at 16:33 for the last part. Or maybe im just over thinking the numbers and dates.

[@Slferon]

i remember i made a lego portal radio once, it was real size, had a phone slide in so i could slide my old phone in it for music and a LED for the light! but then i woke up bad once and accidentally hit it off my shelf :( now all that's left is a old Reddit post of me showcasing it

[@shadowchu419]

I really want the video for the 2nd arg

[@Skyrionn]

It's on the list! I will get around to it :D

[@inkling1474]

They need to do something like this for portal 3

[@JiihaaS]

Gabe's suit makes it look like someone shrunk his head

[@glitchedgamerz]

Is there a SECRET arg in Portal 2's radios? I will check it out myself

[@bob-the-ice-cube3341]

He looks like he drank the one head shrink potion in goat sim

[@joshuachrist8]

wish we could still connect

[@raubana]

Really looking forward to some Potato Pack!

[@Shamman_komanch]

0:20 He said it.

[@MagWasTaken]

This video helped me realize exactly what it was that bothered me about ARG/Video essay content. It's the most interesting stuff in the world, presented by cardboard rubbing against a microphone.

[@lewisthememer]

Thats strange... i dont recall doing anything with patron (Its a different lewis. Its still funny to me)

[@jacobquestionmark]

yet another great vid

[@Skyrionn]

Thanks Jacob. There's more to come!