The Rise and Fall of PBP Chapter 2: Lonely Ones, Blathkalgians, and More

In the Summer of 2014, we began the third season of PBP. I should probably mention that we decided to make this LARP flow in a television-style format, with episodes and seasons. Arthur did this thing where he pretended that there were invisible cameramen following him around wherever he went, and when we played outside, we were acting for a TV series.
But more on that later. Arthur and I both consider PBP Season 3 to be the greatest season of the entire series.


This season introduced the Blathkalgians. They were these tentacled aliens that worked for the government, and disguised themselves as police officers. In the episode, Arthur, Chell, GLaDOS, and I were kidnapped by the Blathkalgians, and were taken to a government base where experimental aircraft were tested. In reality, the “base” was an aviation history museum in a nearby city. At this base, we found a race of monsters called “the Lonely Ones.” As Arthur stated in his intro, the Lonely Ones were the greatest monsters he had ever come up with.

The idea behind the Lonely Ones was that mirrors were actually portals into another dimension, and the Lonely Ones could access our universe through these portals and attack people. See Arthur’s story "The Lonely God", for a better description.

Although the rest of Season 3 never quite matched the amazingness and scale of the “Airbase episode”, it was still fantastic.

Both of us were excited as heck about PBP. It was unlike anything we had ever created before. No other universe we had created was this vast and grand.


As the Summer wound to a close, we decided to make “PBP: The Movie.”It revolved around everybody forgetting about Arthur, while the orphanage he had lived in as a child hunted him down with helicopters and tanks. Apparently, the orphanage was actually a military organization, probably like the IDC
This probably sounds like the dumbest idea ever. And truth be told, it was. However, I can see where it could have been a great comedy, which would have fit perfectly with PBP’s silly, comedic tone.
However, Arthur wouldn’t hear of that. He wanted the movie to be serious and dramatic.

As you can see, I wrote that part in Comic Sans, a font that’s anything but serious. That’s because we didn’t know how to do drama. At all.

I consider this to be the beginning of the official downfall of PBP.

After the movie, Arthur decided that PBP needed a spinoff series. Now, around this time, Arthur had begun watching the X-Files. So, we naturally needed to incorporate that sort of stuff into the Portal universe, right? And Aperture Sleuths was born!
It’s had to think of a part of PBP more out of place than Aperture Sleuths. In this thankfully short-lived spin-off, Arthur decides to turn Aperture into a detective agency because reasons. Then, the entire Aperture facility is moved to London because reasons. It was a melting-pot of ripping off not only the X-Files, but also bits of Sherlock Holmes and Scooby Doo.

This also began a trend that would impact PBP until its dying days, where the episodes were not centered around our own creative ideas, but rather monsters and stuff from conspiracy theories and myths that Arthur found on the Internet.

When Arthur realized that Aperture Sleuths was the worst thing ever, he had Seanathan and I start production on a sequel to PBP: The Movie 2. It introduced the Minnids: time-bending aliens. In the movie, they kidnap the Galactic Council, and Arthur fights back to free them. You’re also probably noticing that the series is moving further and further from its Portal roots. Season 4 mainly centered around the Minnids as well.
Even though the Minnids were pretty good villains, we didn’t do much with them. Villains now followed a particular formula. Introduce a villain for the heroes to fight, then have them fight more and more of them, then take out the boss. Sounds more like a videogame synopsis than a LARP.

As Season 4 finished, school began. That school year was the worst of Arthur’s life, and he continued to try and make his stories dramatic , dark , edgy and serious. This would result in Season 5, where we truly scraped the bottom of the barrel.