Valve, Cryptozoic collaborating on Portal board game

The first details have emerged about the board game Portal: Uncooperative Cake Acquisition Game, a collaborative effort between Valve and Cryptozoic.

Cryptozoic, the gaming company that makes licensed board and card games based on popular TV and gaming franchises, has taken on one of the most popular gaming franchises of all time. Portal: Uncooperative Cake Acquisition Game (working title) will be released in late Q4 for an SRP of US$50.

The game itself, Polygon reports, will be for two to four players, and will revolve around strategy. Players will move expendable Aperture Laboratories test subjects around a modular tiled board, looking for the most desirable test chambers. To win, players will need to eliminate other players' test subjects; and, while there is an element of cooperative play — players can team up to take down another player — it's largely every player for him- or herself.

The game itself was largely developed internally by Valve, starting in 2012. The developer brought in Cryptozoic in early 2013 to bring its expertise to the table (so to speak); however, Cryptozoic left the core gameplay mostly intact, and the game mostly remains as Valve intended.

Portal: Uncooperative Cake Acquisition Game will be a standalone product: players will not need to have played Portal to jump in and start having fun.