
As of August 2017, user reviews of Portal Stories: Mel on Steam are overwhelmingly positive, with 95% of reviewers praising the game one way or another. PC Gamer praised its length and the lack of a price tag, Polygon described it as "impressive", and The Washington Post called the mod "imaginative " and noted its "unusually difficult" puzzles as a unique aspect.


Portal Stories: Mel has gained critical acclaim since its release, which was reported by several major websites. On Jit appeared on Steam Greenlight and got approved by Valve within the following week, before being released free of charge on Steam on June 25, 2015. Mel was an Olympic athlete hired to help in Aperture's testing, specifically the testing of the Aperture Short-Term Relaxation Vault.

Development for the mod was first announced in May 2011, and it was originally intended to launch in early 2012. Mel lived in the Aperture golden era of the 1950s, when they could afford to hire the best of humanity to test for them. Portal Stories: Mel was developed over the course of four years by a small independent team of fans under the name Prism Studios.
