Aperture Science Face-Mounted Portal Sphere

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Aperture Science Face-Mounted Portal Sphere
General information
Faction	Aperture Science
Type	Teleportation bubble
Usage
Used by	Test Travelers
Game information
Designer(s)	David Sawyer

 

"This is the Aperture Science Face-Mounted Portal Sphere. It is your gateway to a vast continuum of undiscovered worlds. Full legal disclosure: These undiscovered worlds may also contain undiscovered spiders, poisons, acids and apex predators that hunt humans for sport."

― Lab Announcer

The Aperture Science Face-Mounted Portal Sphere is an Aperture Science teleportation technology and testing element introduced in The Lab.

Overview

The Lab

In Pocket Universe Lab 08, Test Travelers conduct various experiments in contemporaneous parallel universes accessed with Face-Mounted Portal Spheres, bubbles hovering on prongs on top of a cylindrical pedestal. Each relic to access the experiment in the hub has its dedicated Face-Mounted Portal Sphere that the Test Traveler must place near their head to teleport to the related universe by getting sucked by the head into the sphere. At any moment during the experiment, the Sphere can be summoned to go back to the hub.

Moondust

Face-Mounted Portal Spheres are used to connect between the scenes through the miniature scene selector.

Behind the scenes

Picking up the Xortex 26XX relic's Face-Mounted Portal Sphere.

• The Face-Mounted Portal Sphere was created by David Sawyer. Valve then shared the idea with hundreds of VR developers and it inspired similar interfaces in other VR software, for instance Google Earth VR that uses it to switch from Google Earth to Street View, although in that case it has to be kept near to face at all times, moving it away leading back the user to the Earth view.

• The player was originally able to throw around Face-Mounted Portal Spheres, clipboards and paperclips, a feature removed from the final game. Fetchbot was also able to fetch Portal Spheres tossed away by the player, as part of its object retrieval abilities. Throwing these items would prompt reactions from the Lab Announcer, 6 of which were made for the Portal Sphere and still exist in the game files:

- "Attention, Test Traveler: Portal Spheres cost seven trillion dollars to manufacture. If you break one, it will be deducted from your pay."

- "Attention, Test Traveler: Portal Spheres are highly explosive miniature black holes that are also highly expensive."

- "Portal Spheres are delicate scientific instruments that contain miniature universes. Though they resemble them, they are not basketballs."

- "Ad hoc experiment reassignment in Pocket Universe Lab Eight."

- "Experiment relocation project underway in Pocket Universe Lab Eight."

- "Please be advised: An experiment in Pocket Universe Lab Eight has been temporarily relocated."

Gallery

• 

  Bendies and the first Portal Sphere at the game's start.

• 

  Overview of Pocket Universe Lab 08's hub with the relics and their dedicated Portal Spheres, and Fetchbot frolicking by.

• 

  Picking up the Postcards relic's Face-Mounted Portal Sphere with Vesper Peak chosen as the destination.

List of appearances

Other

• The Lab (Non-canonical appearance) (First appearance)
• Moondust (Non-canonical appearance)