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Aperture Desk Job is a video game developed by Valve. It was made as a tech demo that showcases the controller functions of the Steam Deck hybrid console, and was released for Windows and Linux on March 1, 2022.[1] The game is set in the Portal universe.
Gameplay
The gameplay consists of product inspection aided by Grady, an artificial intelligence "core" much like many others seen in the Portal franchise. The game serves as a tech demo for the Steam Deck, with most of the game taking place in front of a desk that acts as an in-world representation of the console. A few different scenarios are used to test different functions of the controls, such as a shooting segment making use of gyroscopic control, or a situation where the player must write their name making use of the Steam Deck's touchscreen.[2]
Synopsis
The player, whose name is up to them to decide, starts work at Aperture as a product tester at a desk that from that point on they seem incapable of leaving. A core named Grady (Nate Bargatze) arrives and tasks the player with testing toilets. One such toilet accidentally gets filled with bullets due to a faulty pipe above them and fires off with them. Inspired, Grady decides to try and pitch a new idea to the heads of Aperture.
Six months later, Grady introduces a turret designed to look like a toilet. He beckons the player to mess with it, even though it is faulty, and ends up destroying the warehouse. Grady leaves the player to take the fall while he handles the cleanup. Eighteen months later, Grady has become a parole officer and gets the player out of prison and back to work to test his new and improved turret. He claims that he got them a meeting with CEO Cave Johnson, but when they rise to get to the 80th floor, they are suddenly attacked by turrets designed after other appliances. The two manage to rocket to the top floor.
Upon reaching the top, Grady reveals that he lied about the meeting and only just learned that Johnson was a recluse. Upon entering his office, they learn that Johnson (J. K. Simmons) was stricken with a terrible disease years ago and had his consciousness uploaded into a giant robot head covered in clay. Having lived for a long time, he begs the player to kill him; the player and Grady oblige by using the turret to at first try to destroy Johnson before eventually shutting off the power supply. At first it seems to work, only for the backup power to turn Johnson back on, prompting him to fire the two. However, the weight of his head and damage caused by the player causes him to fall through the floor all the way to the bottom of the building.
Months later (it is not specified how long), Grady and the player have entered a witness protection program, due to Grady having had a bad deal with loan sharks in the past, and now go by "Gary" and "Charlie". The two of them still work in the damaged Aperture building, apparently with nothing else to do. Meanwhile, Johnson's head along with several other toilet turrets perform a choir song together.
Development
Aperture Desk Job was developed internally at Valve alongside the Steam Deck. The game was built in their Source 2 engine.[3]
