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Aperture Desk Job
Introducing Aperture Desk Job — a free playable short made for the Steam Deck, set in the universe of the modestly popular Portal games.
In short, Steam reviewers most often praise “Portal-style humor and lore” (29 of 100 reviews) and “Steam Deck feature tutorials” (26); the most common complaint is “Only thirty-minute runtime” (18). What reviewers agree on ↓
What players say
Steam review score and the most-helpful voices, which may include critical ones. Score via Steam as of 2026-09-26.
What the most-helpful reviewers agree on
29 of the 100 reviews raise this.
“Very nice! It's free (stick that in your pipe and smoke it Nintendo), only takes 30 min to complete, and teaches you everything you need to know about the Steam Deck. Plus a healthy amount of lore for Portal fans!”
“Short game with funny dialouge and charming jokes. being a technical showcase for the steam deck, it does requite a controller, but you don't need specifically a steam deck to play. Worth at least one playthrough”
“what should I say, I always love Portal and its theme, world, context. This game just gave me Portal 2.5.”
26 of the 100 reviews raise this.
“Lovely little demo that showcases the depths to which you can customize your controls on a steamdeck. Everyone with a steamdeck should take the 30mins to play through and learn about what the system can do. However this…”
“Very nice! It's free (stick that in your pipe and smoke it Nintendo), only takes 30 min to complete, and teaches you everything you need to know about the Steam Deck. Plus a healthy amount of lore for Portal fans!”
“Short game with funny dialouge and charming jokes. being a technical showcase for the steam deck, it does requite a controller, but you don't need specifically a steam deck to play. Worth at least one playthrough”
12 of the 100 reviews raise this.
“Very nice! It's free (stick that in your pipe and smoke it Nintendo), only takes 30 min to complete, and teaches you everything you need to know about the Steam Deck. Plus a healthy amount of lore for Portal fans!”
“Fun game! goes by quick but overall is a great game if you need something to do that doesnt take a long time, takes about 30 minutes and is interesting. and its free”
“This game was nice and the ending with the singing head and other stuff was great would recommend. AND ITS FREE”
11 of the 100 reviews raise this.
“Fun game! goes by quick but overall is a great game if you need something to do that doesnt take a long time, takes about 30 minutes and is interesting. and its free”
“short but entertaining and its free”
“The best way to checkout the features of the steam deck and steam controller, also amazing short game and interesting story.”
7 of the 100 reviews raise this.
“Literally took me exactly 30 minutes to finish. great experience and voice acting is funny and good”
“No point in playing this if you don't own a Steam Deck. I was so disappointed when I played it on PC with a regular controller. I knew this was a game made to promote the Steam Deck, but I still expected some kind of…”
“It's only 30 minutes but if you got a Steam Deck or a Steam Controller, this is absolutely the best (and free, take note Nintendo!) way to learn about all the controls. Great humor, superb voicework, and a mantid…”
18 of the 100 reviews raise this · 18 of them still recommend the game.
“Very nice! It's free (stick that in your pipe and smoke it Nintendo), only takes 30 min to complete, and teaches you everything you need to know about the Steam Deck. Plus a healthy amount of lore for Portal fans!”
“Short game with funny dialouge and charming jokes. being a technical showcase for the steam deck, it does requite a controller, but you don't need specifically a steam deck to play. Worth at least one playthrough”
“fun little tech demo, way too short, they could actually make a full 4-5 hour game from this concept.”
7 of the 100 reviews raise this · 4 of them still recommend the game.
“Lovely little demo that showcases the depths to which you can customize your controls on a steamdeck. Everyone with a steamdeck should take the 30mins to play through and learn about what the system can do. However this…”
“No point in playing this if you don't own a Steam Deck. I was so disappointed when I played it on PC with a regular controller. I knew this was a game made to promote the Steam Deck, but I still expected some kind of…”
“I really like portal and want to like this game, but im having several issues on the one hand it feels like a glorified cutscene simulator, i thought it would be more involved on the other hand the game expects me to do…”
6 of the 100 reviews raise this · 4 of them still recommend the game.
“No point in playing this if you don't own a Steam Deck. I was so disappointed when I played it on PC with a regular controller. I knew this was a game made to promote the Steam Deck, but I still expected some kind of…”
“I just played this game on the Steam Machine. I know it was a tech demo for the Steam Deck, and the actual gameplay is simple, but it was very nice to return to Aperture Science. It's exactly how you remember. It's…”
“I really like portal and want to like this game, but im having several issues on the one hand it feels like a glorified cutscene simulator, i thought it would be more involved on the other hand the game expects me to do…”
5 of the 100 reviews raise this · 3 of them still recommend the game.
“No point in playing this if you don't own a Steam Deck. I was so disappointed when I played it on PC with a regular controller. I knew this was a game made to promote the Steam Deck, but I still expected some kind of…”
“Its short and only for steam deck, but its free and its valve so I cant complain. Great way to show off valves hardware - just remember that its not canon”
“Isn't much more than a tech demo and isn't cannon to the rest of portal. But could be good to show the controls of the steam deck. Decent Game 6/10”
Counted across 100 English reviews (the 100 most helpful) · as of 2026-09-26
“I thought Aperture Desk Job was just going to be a short little game made to show off what Valve could do with the Steam Deck. I was wrong. The gameplay is simple. You mostly sit at a desk, press buttons, and do your job. It sounds incredibly boring on paper. Somehow, Valve…”
— a player, Steam review · 2 hrs played“Aperture Desk Job is one of the best free experiences you can play on Steam Deck. Even though it's only about 30 minutes long, it perfectly showcases what modern controllers and the Steam Deck can do. Every feature, from the touchpads and gyro to haptic feedback and adaptive…”
— a player, Steam review · 1 hrs played“Great game, Even though I didn't use a team deck (Just a controller on PC) I had a blast revisiting Aperture. I kinda wish they had an endless toilet inspecting mode. I would 100% be rotting on it. But otherwise 10/10”
— a player, Steam review · 1 hrs playedPlayer activity
Monthly average concurrent players. Live data self-collected from the Steam API · history through 2026-08 via SteamCharts.
Screenshots
Official Steam store screenshots — click any shot to enlarge.
Facts & details
From the Steam store record, snapshot 2026-09-26.
| Genres | Action, Adventure, Casual, Free To Play |
| Player tags | Free to Play · Singleplayer · Funny · Casual · Action · Comedy · Robots · Controller · 3D · Simulation · Cinematic · Shooter (Steam store community voting) |
| Features | Single-player · Full controller support · DualShock Controller Support · DualShock Controller Support · DualSense Controller Support · DualSense Controller Support · Steam Input API Support · Stereo Sound |
| Languages | English * , French, Italian, German, Spanish - Spain, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese - Portugal, Portuguese - Brazil, Romanian, Russian, Simpli… |
| Controller | Full support |
| Official site | http://aperturedeskjob.com |
Minimum system requirements (PC)
Minimum: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system OS: Windows 10 Processor: Core i5-7500 / Ryzen 5 1600 Memory: 12 GB RAM Graphics: GTX 1060 / RX 580 - 6GB VRAM Storage: 4 GB available space