The first time I ever played Portal was damn near magical. Each room I walked into held promise of some diabolical new assault on both my brain and the laws of physics, but I made them look like child's play. At the time, I was certain it proved I was a genius with an IQ so huge that even my bulging genius brain couldn't count that high. Of course, I soon came to find out that everyone experienced Portal that way. So I wasn’t a genius. But the puzzle designers at Valve were.

To this day, Portal stands as the most masterful example of invisibly intuitive teaching I've ever discovered. It slowly builds upon itself - sneaking new techniques into your repertoire until you're snoozing through puzzles that would've short-circuited your synapses maybe 20 minutes earlier. Is it a fit for classrooms, though? My first inclination would be to think not. I mean, it's not exactly a hyper-accurate physics simulation - even with science jokes making up the bulk of both Portal 1 and 2's brilliantly witty dialogue. That, however, is precisely the point, according to Valve director of education Leslie Redd and designer Yasser Malaika. It's how Valve games teach - not what they're teaching - that could help save a rusty, way-behind-the-times education system.

"I think it's the design approach," begins Redd, a former senior administrator at The Evergreen School in Shoreline, WA. "It seems like it's even harder to make something fun than it is to create something that teaches well, or that demonstrates well. So we feel that it’s easier to build the teaching on top of something that's fun and engaging already."

“I think what’s really important is for kids to have genuine experiences where they feel that they can accomplish something. And when they’re using the puzzle maker, they’re using a tool which can be used and is used by adults and professionals. They see the opportunities in it. It’s that sense of flow. Portal 2 is challenging. You’re working at the outer level of your capability, but you never get so frustrated that you stop. That is how you have good learning, in pretty much anything that we’re doing.”