If at first you don't succeed, you fail.

Is searching for alternate endings to last week’s browser game, Today I Die, getting frustrating? Then you might not want to read on. This next one is impossible.

This week’s game is a 2D Flash version of a console sensation called Portal. The original is a first-person shooter, but instead of bullets you shoot portals into walls. Put one portal where you are and another where you want to go, and voila. Before you know it, you’re thinking about infinite regressions and gravity working for you on a horizontal plane. Repeated attempts at certain levels and seemingly endless frustration is the order of the day.

The Flash version keeps the frustration but drops a dimension. There isn’t anything to say that isn’t on the introduction page to the game, but I miss GLaDOS. Check out her disembodied voice on the brilliant trailer for the original game.

Click here to play the game. The load time is a bit lengthy.

I don’t want to hear about it if you beat level 36.

Enjoy.

This article appears in May 15 • 2009.

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James graduated from Columbia University in 2000 and moved to Austin a year later. Ever since, he has followed the arts and video game scene in ATX, editing and writing stories for the Chronicle along the way. Over his more than 20 years with the paper he has climbed the "corporate" ladder from lowly intern to managing editor.