Portal's GlaDOS Invades Steam With Potato-Related ARG

Tom Goldman

Crying on the inside.
Aug 17, 2009
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Portal's GlaDOS Invades Steam With Potato-Related ARG



Steam's Potato Sack bundle features 13 games, each with mysterious new updates that reference Portal.

On April 1, Valve innocently unleashed a game bundle on Steam called the Potato Sack [http://store.steampowered.com/sub/7586/]. The bundle features 13 games such as Super Meat Boy, Killing Floor, and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Secretly, it may have also introduced a new Portal-related ARG, with players discovering strange new updates in each of the 13 titles.

Some of these updates are potato references that don't appear to extend beyond the tuberous crop. The ball in The Ball's title screen has been changed into a potato, Super Potato Boy was patched into the world of Super Meat Boy, and potatoes are now scattered around Killing Floor's levels. Pretty silly.

Other updates are just plain mysterious, but potentially related to Portal [http://www.amazon.com/Orange-Box-Pc/dp/B000PS2XES/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1301940999&sr=8-3], leading to the idea that there's an ARG here. The best example so far is in Cogs, where entering "potato" on the main screen unlocks a new level called "" and some very GlaDOS-like messages. After beating the level, the game writes: "Well, look at that. I guess you got lucky. Everyone gets lucky if they play long enough. Your score is "x." I bet you didn't even know I was keeping score. If you play again, I sincerely doubt you can do any better."

As Cogs runs, the score given for gets lower and lower, until eventually it becomes 0 and the message is replaced by glyphs [http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=264qrh0&s=7] and and other aspects that don't seem like part of a potato joke.

All of the discoveries are being chronicled on Portal 2 [http://valvearg.info/wiki/Valve_ARG_Wiki] with the idea that GlaDOS is somehow invading the digital world (and these games). If this is an ARG and not an April Fools prank, there's still a lot of work to be done, so get to it.

Source: Reddit [http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/ghdil/valve_potatofoolsday_arg/]


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gigastar

Insert one-liner here.
Sep 13, 2010
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Oh goodie, Valve is at it again.

Now we know where those Episode 3 manhours went, into devising The Valve Codex.
 

mattaui

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Oct 16, 2008
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Well, I had to Google 'ARG' since that's not an acronym I see very often, but I suppose 'alternative reality game' fits, despite sounding a bit awkward. I might end up picking this up after all.
 

Therumancer

Citation Needed
Nov 28, 2007
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Hmmm, well I didn't get that pack as it didn't strike me as being *that* good a deal, especially seeing as I owned a lot of the games to begin with.

The idea is amusing, but I'd be hoping there is more to it than a connection to "Portal 2".

We'll see what happens given time. If this is little more than a glorified advertisement, I can't help but wonder what people who spent $30 for the pack think about it.
 

imnot

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Apr 23, 2010
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Tom Goldman said:
the April 19 release of Portal 2 [http://www.amazon.com/Portal-2-Pc/dp/B002I0JIQW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1301940947&sr=8-3]
April 19th?

EDIT: oh you sill Americans getting things early!
*sulks in corner*
[small]Even the silly Aussies get it before me![/small]
 

mew4ever23

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Mar 21, 2008
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I'm glad other people have the spare time to decode these ARG clues, because I won't.
 

Fingerthing

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Mar 19, 2010
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I remember how deep the rabbit hole went with the portal ARG. I do love a good internetz treasure hunt.
 

V8 Ninja

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May 15, 2010
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And just when we thought that ARG was done. Darn you Valve! Will your masterwork craftsmen ever stop making us dig deeper for more incredible discoveries?! (Hopefully not. =D)

EDIT: The second symbol in that box is the logo for Dejobaan's new game titled "1...2...3...Kick It!". I actually own "Kick It!". TO MY COMPUTER FILES!!!
 

Iwana Humpalot

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Jan 22, 2011
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V8 Ninja said:
And just when we thought that ARG was done. Darn you Valve! Will your masterwork craftsmen ever stop making us dig deeper for more incredible discoveries?! (Hopefully not. =D)

EDIT: The second symbol in that box is the logo for Dejobaan's new game titled "1...2...3...Kick It!". I actually own "Kick It!". TO MY COMPUTER FILES!!!
Interesting, please tell us if you find out something :)

OT: Oh, this is cool. Too bad i can't afford the potato sack :(
 

dmcc85

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Feb 18, 2010
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the text on that board sounds like a troll, or hater or maybe just provocative.
people will get affected by that and try and try and try again and again and again...

very psycological. but i saw it through. besides i can not play portal, i get sick just watching someone else play...
guess i am not portal compatible.
(brain and three-dimensional imagination / spatial imagination ... getting confused)
 

KefkaCultist

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Jun 8, 2010
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DustyDrB said:
Soo...what is ARG?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_reality_game
Basically, in this case, its a story or mystery woven into various forms of media in the real world for clues and what not.

OT: I tried looking into some clues, but then I gave up because my brain can't think right now.
 

KefkaCultist

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Jun 8, 2010
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So I found something that could or could not be related.

looking at the wiki it was talking about the song [a href="http://dbsoundworks.bandcamp.com/track/and-potatoes"]...and potatoes[/a] from the Super Meat Boy soundtrack. Looking at the tags for the song, the last one is "Mesa" as in Black Mesa maybe? Upon clicking on the tag many songs pop up, but one of them stuck out as peculiar...
[a href="http://dbsoundworks.bandcamp.com/track/anthony-saves-title-theme"]The theme to our very own Anthony Saves the World[/a], also taggged with "Mesa"

Being that AStW is also another alternate reality themed thing the two may be related some how.
I don't know anything about the other songs tagged with "Mesa", but you can find them [a href="http://bandcamp.com/tag/mesa?artist=2457816457"]here[/a]
 

ZakCanard

Anas Charisma
Oct 17, 2007
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Carrying garden gnomes around is so 2009. This year we will surely get to carry around a potato. For science.
 

BENZOOKA

This is the most wittiest title
Oct 26, 2009
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Haha. Excellent! I kind of wondered why Super Meat Boy looked so ugly recently.
 

njsykora

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Sep 11, 2007
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No doubt it is an ARG, Ichiro from Dejobaan has confirmed as much under heavy questioning. He also confirmed that 1973 is relevant. The 'And Potatoes' track is irrelevant though, we've already gone through everything we can think of related to that and its highly unlikely this extends beyond the Potato Sack. Currently the focus is on Defense Grid since that's where the biggest clues have been found.

As for people who spent $30 to get the pack, they've got 13 great indie games. No reason to complain.