Building comparison
head to head
Mystery Case Files: Fate's CarnivalvsPortal
Neither is simply harder - they are hard in different places. Mystery Case Files: Fate's Carnival demands more variance; Portal demands more execution.
Mystery Case Files: Fate's Carnival
Optimization · Pure Optimization
Hunting hidden objects and solving puzzles through a fixed mystery narrative.
Portal
Optimization · Pure Optimization
The portal-gun puzzle game whose solutions are everything.
Mystery Case Files: Fate's Carnival leans Optimization (Pure Optimization); Portal leans Optimization (Pure Optimization).
Mystery Case Files: Fate's CarnivalPortal
Axis by axis
Execution1 vs 4
Portal leans clearly harder on execution.
Mystery Case Files: Fate's Carnival
Clicking objects has no twitch demand
Portal
Portal placement timing modest.
Reads0 vs 0
Same score on reads - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Mystery Case Files: Fate's Carnival
Solo with no opponent to model
Portal
No adversary modeling player.
Variance2 vs 0
Mystery Case Files: Fate's Carnival leans clearly harder on variance.
Mystery Case Files: Fate's Carnival
Hidden objects are fixed, just unfound until searched
Portal
Deterministic chambers; no randomness.
Optimization6 vs 8
Portal leans clearly harder on optimization.
Mystery Case Files: Fate's Carnival
Solving puzzles and finding items is the entire loop
Portal
Pure puzzle-solving optimization.
A matching score does not mean a matching test. Two games can both sit at 10 on execution and demand completely different things of you - which is why the reasoning above matters more than the number beside it.