Understand the Physics of Portal
Portal, a Sci-fi puzzle-platform game released by Valve in 2007 for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, Playstation 3 (and more recently, Mac OS X), offers a very unique approach to gaming. Instead of outwitting an enemy with sheer force and firepower, you must complete puzzle games and use your brain to win. You do this with the aid of the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device (ASHPD, also known as a "portal gun"): a device that can create inter-spatial portals between flat planes.
While the game is designed in a way to help you understand the concept of portals, it can still be a difficult idea to grasp, as it is a completely new way of thinking that humans have never had to use before. That, perhaps, is how you ended up here.
Steps
- Understand that the entire game revolves around the use of two portals; one blue and one orange. From this, you should be able to grasp the following basic rules of portals:
- There can only be one blue and one orange portal active at any given time.
- If you have both portals active, and you then shoot another one (a blue one, perhaps), it will replace the blue one that previously existed. The orange one will remain unaffected until you shoot another orange one.
- Start a new game of Portal. When you begin the game, you will be in the relaxation vault. After listening to GLaDOS (the computer voice that talks to you throughout the game) talk for a minute or so, an orange portal will open in the wall of the room you are in. If you look through the glass wall to your right, you'll see a blue portal.
- Look through the orange portal. You will be able to see a female character in an orange Put On a Jumpsuit. That's your character, Chell. Yes, you can see yourself through portals that face each other or you. The developers placed the first portals like this on purpose, to help you understand that portals do not take you into alternate dimensions. They simply allow you to move between flat surfaces, such as two walls.
- Walk through the orange portal. You will come out through the blue portal that you saw earlier. If you walked through the blue portal again, you would find yourself in the relaxation vault with the orange portal again.
- Continue playing. The room you enter after walking through that first set of portals introduces you to weighted storage cubes which become increasingly more important throughout the game, and test chamber 01 helps you become more comfortable with the idea of walking through portals.
- Acquire the blue portal gun in test chamber 02. Once you have managed to do that, you will be able to shoot your own blue portals (the orange portal will still be placed for you) by left-clicking the mouse. With this new power comes an awareness of a couple more rules of portals:
- It doesn't matter which portal you enter and which one you exit. If you haven't figured this out yet, you can go either way through either color.
- You can't shoot a portal through another portal. For instance, if you are looking through the orange portal (into the area where you shot the blue portal), you can't shoot another blue portal through the orange portal. It simply can't happen.
- You can only shoot portals on certain surfaces. As a general rule, you can shoot portals in the gray walls, ceilings, and floors that make up most of the earlier test chambers, but you can't shoot on the bronze-colored metal. If you are unsure if you can shoot a portal somewhere, look at the indicator in the middle of your screen. If it is only an outline, you can't shoot a portal where it is pointing. However, if it is filled in with color, you can shoot a portal.
- Continue playing until you reach test chamber 10. Here, you will be introduced to the way portals affect forward momentum, and a technique known as "flinging". There are two techniques for flinging, but only one will be used to get through this test chamber.
- Look for the portal that is already placed. It will either be on a section of movable wall above you, or on the ground in front of you (possibly below you, requiring jumping or falling to reach it).
- Once you determine the location of the orange portal, place a blue portal in the other location.
- Jump through the portal on the floor. This may be as simple as shooting one right below or in front of you and walking through it, or you may have to jump off a ledge and aim to fall through the one below you. If the blue one is the one you're jumping to, you may find it easier to shoot the blue portal below you as you're falling.
- If you have done this correctly, you should find that you have landed a level above where you previously were.
- Proceed to test chamber 11, where you will acquire the other piece of your portal gun that allows you to create orange portals by right-clicking. You are now fully in control of both portals.
- Continue playing until you reach test chamber 15. Here, you become familiar with two new concepts: three-portal flinging, and a new rule of portals that you may not have realized. You will see a lot of those particle fields like the ones that have been in front of all of the elevators so far. Be aware that if you shoot a portal somewhere and then walk or fling through the particle field, the portals on the other side will disappear. As for flinging...
- Set up the way you would for two-portal flinging: One portal above you, the other below you. For explanation purposes, we'll say you shot the orange one above you and plan to jump through the blue one.
- Jump through the blue one. You will realize as you are falling back down that you did not reach the other side of the gap you are trying to bridge because you haven't achieved enough Build Momentum yet. The only way to remedy this is to jump through another blue portal.
- As you are falling, shoot another blue portal in midair to fall through (or, if possible, fall through the one you fell through the first time). Assuming you don't hit the sides of the blue portal on the way in (or miss it all together), this time, you should reach your destination.
- Armed with your complete ability to shoot portals and new-found understand of the Physics behind them, finish the game. Rumor has it that there will be cake. Good luck!
Tips
- You can move objects through portals without having to pick them up and take them through with you. For instance, if you put an orange portal above one of the large red buttons and shoot a blue portal underneath a weighted storage cube, it will go through the orange portal and land on the button. If you're thinking with portals, this should be obvious.
- For fun (or achievements), you can knock "vital testing apparatus" (cameras) off the walls by shooting portals behind them, as long as both portals are active somewhere in the test chamber. Since there is no longer a wall for them to be attached to, they simply fall off. GLaDOS will scold you, but you suffer no penalty from doing this.
- When jumping down to reach portals for flinging, make sure you have "portal funnel" turned on in your options. This makes the game slightly easier, as the computer will be helping to guide you through the portal.
Warnings
- Once you become familiar with thinking with portals, it should be of no surprise to you that if you shoot one portal on the ceiling and the other one directly below it, and jump in, you will end up moving in an infinite loop. The solution to get out of this is the same as above: just walk forward. There are some times that you would actually want to do this, and you'll know when that is.
- Turrets can shoot you through portals. Be careful. Energy balls can also go through portals, but this is usually a good thing, as long as you're not standing in front of them.
- Don't be surprised if you shoot two portals in separate floors, go through one, and find yourself bobbing between the two in midair. You didn't do anything wrong; this is simply what happens according to portal physics. To get out of this infinite loop, just walk forward and you will end up standing on solid ground on whichever side you were on when you started walking. Keep this in mind, actually, as it can help you in solving some of the harder puzzles.
- This can also occur if you try to portal an object between two floors, but since the object can't walk forward, you will simply have to grab it.
- If you're very prone to motion sickness, you may have some trouble with Portal. Since you could be jumping through a wall and coming out of a ceiling and falling down, your sense of where "up" is is constantly messed with. This takes a lot of getting used to.
Things You'll Need
- Portal and the relevant playing platform
