Surprise, surprise, old Valve knocks it out of the park again with 2007’s Portal. Housing only two characters in the whole game, Portal is as minimal as the clinically sterile chambers you traverse. Which is used spectacularly, as both story and puzzles are dispensed in the perfect amount from room to room. Using little else besides a lovable cube and your trusty Portal gun, you’re asked to solve a series of physics puzzles to progress beyond each door in the facility you find yourself in. Each puzzle is relatively short, but gets slightly harder each time as new mechanics are introduced. And for as common as it is for puzzle games to have at least one frustrating section, Portal never approached boring, aggravating or overly complicated once in my entire playthrough. It’s like Valve genetically engineered the ideal 5-10 minute gameplay loop that asks the user to use just enough of their brain to be engaging. It’s never immediately clear what to do, but it feels like a breeze with how fun it is to tinker around for the solution.

I don’t normally go for the whole quirky, sarcastic killer humor. It often feels different or edgy for the sake of being different or edgy. Here, it’s equal parts funny and satisfying to overcome GLaDOS’ murder attempts as she promises us infantile gifts for our cooperation. Her increasingly mask-off murderous intent and infrequent monologuing is a hearty scoop of levity that gives us a clear reason for doing what we’re doing. The facility losing its cleaner facade as she gets angrier with your attempts to escape is both a perfect mirror of her mental state as well as a fun peeling back of this micro-world in an impressively eerie way. I implore anyone to give Portal a play. It’s short, easy to follow, and never has a dull moment.