Portal required playing at Wabash College - Report
Students at an Indiana all-men school obligated to play Valve's puzzle shooter as part of mandatory freshmen seminar.
College students across the country are returning to coursework, friends, and parental freedom soon, but the freshmen class at an Indiana college will find an all-new type of curriculum awaiting them.
According to a Mashable report, Valve's award-winning puzzle game Portal will appear alongside The Epic of Gilgamesh, Hamlet, and other required materials for incoming freshmen at Wabash College.
The game will be part of the college's "Enduring Questions" freshman seminar, which explores "fundamental questions of humanity" through "classical and contemporary works."
Michael Abbot, a theater professor at the school, is helping to design the course. Abbot was reportedly inspired to include Portal in the course's required experience material by a game theory article that drew similarities between the game and Erving Goffman's 1959 sociology text The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.
According to the report, Abbot showed Portal to "non-gaming colleagues" and was pleased to learn that they approved of his plan to include both Goffman's work and Valve's game in the course's curriculum. During the course, students will read Goffman's text followed by a "collective playthrough" of Portal.
While experiencing Portal will not be part of every Enduring Questions section, it is currently being tested by Abbot and his colleagues in select courses.
Further, Abbot said he considered BioShock and Planescape Torment for the class but decided upon Portal because of its relative brevity.
As for the game franchise, Portal 2 is due out on February 9 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, and Mac. For more on the series, check out GameSpot's impressions of Portal 2 and review of the original Portal.
Halo Infinite - Official "This is Halo" Extended Multiplayer Trailer Crow Country | Official Launch Trailer Learn To Move Like An Ape | Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Animal Well - Official Launch Gameplay Trailer Vampire Survivors: Operation Guns | Launch Trailer | OUT NOW Historian Reacts To Manor Lords Master Detective Archives: RAIN CODE Plus - Official Announcement Trailer PAC-MAN Mega Tunnel Battle: Chomp Champs – Launch Trailer MultiVersus – Official The Joker Character Reveal Trailer | “Get a Load of Me” BPM x ROBOBEAT Crossover Gameplay Trailer l Coming May 14th Sonic Rumble - Official Announcement Trailer Dead by Daylight | Official Horror In Our Hearts Trailer
Please enter your date of birth to view this video
By clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's
Terms of Use and Privacy Policy
Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com
Join the conversation