Aperture Desk Job

Aperture Desk Job is a 2022 freeware action game set in the Portal universe. The game was developed and published by Valve for Linux and Microsoft Windows. It is a tech demo that presents the functions of the Steam Deck.

Gameplay
Aperture Desk Job is an action game where the player takes place in front of a desk that acts as an in-world representation of the console. The game includes several sequences, including checking the toilets, shooting sequences, and a situation where the player writes own name and signature.

Why It Deserves A Promotion

 * 1) The main point of the game's existence is to show the possibilities of Valve's new hardware, that is the Steam Deck, which ultimately turns out to be a bull's eye in this case. However, despite the fact that the game was created with this hardware in mind, the game is still playable on any other gamepad (in one section, while not using the Steam Deck, you also use the keyboard and mouse), so you don't have to buy this handheld to experience a new dose of adventure from Valve. The only thing that non-Steam Deck owners will miss are the extra few exclusive buttons and the touchscreen, but the game can still be completed without them.
 * 2) Like another tech demo from Valve, Aperture Hand Lab, which was created with the Valve Index in mind, Aperture Desk Job is completely free and takes up very little disk space.
 * 3) Great graphical presentation, due to both the possibilities of Source 2 and an eye-catching art-style (which looks similar to Half-Life: Alyx), especially by the standards of free-to-play games, which very often tend to have cheaper-looking visuals than usual paid games. It features high-quality textures and models of objects, including characters that could easily be even used in full-fledged games.
 * 4) The whole aspect of audio is honey on the player's ears, both soundtrack, sound effects and voice acting.
 * 5) * Nice soundtrack which reflects the atmosphere of the Portal series games, but also allows the player to relax during the transition, while in the shooting sections, it gives a warning about the incoming chaos with the enemies, which are Turrets in the form of a washing machine. However, the icing on this non-deceitful cake is the game's ending, in which Cave Johnson and the Turrets sing a song that is reminiscent of an opera song.
 * 6) * Dazzling voice acting for both Grady, Cave Johnson and one voice from the prison section. This is due to Nate Bargatze and J.K. Simmons, who seem to be well suited to the aforementioned characters, and they perfectly showed that they had great motivation to do so.
 * 7) A surprisingly entertaining gameplay, which despite contains only a few sections, but all of them are made in such a way that you would like to replay the game more than once.
 * 8) * While the toilet checkout section is the pinnacle of absurdity Valve came up with, this one ultimately became satisfying, despite the only task being to hold down four buttons for individual toilet-related minisections.
 * 9) * There is another section that is shooting with a modified toilet (which itself serves as a Turret), which has a couple of types of firearms. Here you are tasked with shooting objects and then doing the same, only against modified machines which are also Turrets, mostly washing machines. At the end of the game, you shoot Cave Johnson's metal head covered with stones, where you also have to turn off the power and make the head fall off.
 * 10) The game introduces a new Core, Grady, the Graduation Core that informs the player that the pre-recorded message from Cave Johnson was the wrong tape, and before playing the correct tape, in which Cave tells the player to "get to work, or you're fired." This character is also easy to like because of his funny moments.
 * 11) One thing Valve never forgets about the Portal franchise is certainly the dose of humor that makes the player laugh out loud at certain moments. The main driving force in this respect is Grady, but also the absurd moments with the toilet and the moment with the prison.
 * 12) As with many Valve games, it is possible to run a console in which you enter various commands. The game will allow you to explore the whole map by using the noclip command. You can quickly see how many the developers have decided to insert some spots that you won't normally visit in the game, for example you can see an ammo room, including Grady carrying ammunition with a shopping cart. Another example is an office dominated by a huge chicken and Cores, who watch the presentation of cars in one room. When you search the endgame spot on the map, you can see a model of the cake next to the toilet Turrets.
 * 13) This game is a proof that Valve still puts its effort, heart and soul into creating the games, even if it's just a tech demo. An outstanding example is a thing forgotten by many companies, which is even asking for a revolution since late 2000s, and that is the physics, showing very detailed destruction of the objects and their reaction.

The Only Bad Quality

 * 1) The game is unimaginably short, as you can complete it in just half an hour. Considering how surprisingly entertaining both the gameplay and the story are, the player would certainly love to experience this type of game much longer. The only justification for its short length is the fact that the game does not require any money from the player and is considered by Valve itself as a tech demo, but this is not enough to defend such an argument.

Reception
The game received positive reviews from players. On Steam, the game holds the "overwhelmingly positive" rating.

Trivia

 * There are four unannounced Valve games have been found in a datamine:
 * A successor to Half-Life: Alyx.
 * Citadel, set in a Half-Life universe first-person shooter and real-time strategy hybrid.
 * A Source 2 port of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
 * The recreation of a previously cancelled game in the Portal series.

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