Portal Basic Guide Tips and How to Unlock Achievements

first steps

The controls for this game are pretty straight forward
W: walk to front
S: walk back
A: walk left
D: walk right
E: action (grab boxes, radios, push buttons, etc)
Shift: crouch (I personally prefer Q but that’s just me)
Mouse 1: fire blue portal
Mouse 2: fire orange portal [fun fact: the other portal was originally supposed to be red]

Most of the game is a tutorial and introduces all the concepts nice and slow and all the levels are pretty intuitive so I won’t be explaining all the concepts but I’ll tell you a couple of secrets to make the game a bit easier and don’t spend as much time stuck in a level…

Think outside the box: all levels make you think and generally have only one way to solve them but once you get the fully powered portal gun you can bend the rules a bit more, for example: you can always bring objects through portals with you and can use them to reach into higher areas which will save you time, portals and effort and even though some people say that just makes the puzzles useless and the game boring I think that coming up with alternate solutions is harder and makes the game better

you can always use momentum to your advantage to jump across levels, just build up some speed and you can reach far away areas and even the exit if you’re smart and fast enough

Achievements

as you play you’ll get some of the achievements such as “Lab rat” for getting the fully powered portal gun at test chamber 15, “fratricide” at test chamber 17, “Partygoer” at the end of the test and “Heartbraker” at the very end of the game but there are some others that are a little harder

Transmission received & Camera shy: if you’ve already beaten the game and haven’t gotten this two yet you’ll have to replay the whole story in order to get them, the first one is pretty simple: destroy all 33 cameras, simple enough but if you don’t do it since the first level you’ll have to start all over again; for the radios its a different story, you’ll first have to find them and then find a spot on the same chamber where a mysterious signal plays (You’ll be able to find the radios in weir places like under stairs, on panels on the walls, behind pushed panels and pistons and basically most parts of the level where you’re not really supposed to go and you’ll find the spot when the radio starts playing static and once you get it the radio light will turn green but most times you’ll have to go out of your way and place extra portals to find both the radios and their spots) so here’s a list of all the levels and their camera count:
reaxation Vault: 0 cameras, 1 radio
test chamber 1: 0 cameras, 1 radio
test chamber 2: 3 cameras, 1 radio
test chamber 3: 3 cameras, 1 radio
test chamber 4: 2 cameras, 1 radio
test chamber 5: 3 cameras, 1 radio
test chamber 6: 0 cameras, 1 radio
test chamber 7: 0 cameras, 1 radio
test chamber 8: 0 cameras, 1 radio
test chamber 9: 0 cameras, 1 radio
test chamber 10: 1 camera, 1 radio
test chamber 11: 1 camera, 1 radio
test chamber 12: 0 cameras, 1 radio
test chamber 13: 3 cameras, 1 radio
test chamber 14: 0 cameras, 1 radio
test chamber 15: 5 cameras, 2 radios
test chamber 16: 5 cameras, 1 radio
test chamber 17: 2 cameras, 1 radio
test chamber 18: 2 cameras, 3 radios
test chamber 19: 3 cameras, 1 radio
escape: 0 cameras, 3 radios (1 for each loading screen)

Long Jump: to get this one you’ll have to finish test chamber 19 and go all the way to the giant room with the turrets and once you clear them out (and if you haven’t already you can knock them out with each other to get the “Friendly Fire” achievement) you can use the hatches to jump a couple of times across the room using portals and momentum to make it continuous, it might take a couple of tries but you’ll get it eventually and once it pops out you can use the same portals to get back on top

Terminal velocity: this one is as simple as shooting a portal on the ceiling and then shooting the other one exactly beneath (don’t walk, just move your camera or you’ll build momentum and eventually just get out of the portal loop and won’t get the achievement) and immediately after placing the portal under your feet you’ll start falling, if you notice you’re moving slowly to the sides just get out and replace the portals, once you fall and don’t move you can go grab a drink and just wait until the notification pops out [you can do this in any level after getting the fully powered portal gun and in any place that has the appropriate surface for shooting portals on the ceiling and the floor]

Cupcake, Fruitcake and vanilla crazy cake: once you finish the game you’ll hopefully have unlocked all the previously mentioned achievements and also the bonus maps, as soon as you go back to the main menu you’ll notice a new option called ‘Advanced maps’ and all you have to do to get this achievements is completing this 6 new levels. Its not that hard once you’ve mastered the fully powered portal gun but you might need thinking a bit harder, better and faster than in the normal levels

Basic science, rocket science and Aperture Science: for these achievements you’ll have to complete the other bonus maps called ‘challenges’ which are the same 6 levels but are classified into 3 categories: Least portals, least steps and least time. in my humble opinion these ones are the hardest to get because you must be very skilled in the use of portals to accomplish any of those categories, but you are most likely going to get at least the basic science first try
even though I haven’t gotten these 3 achievements yet I can give you some tips…
-Least time: for this one and for the least steps you’ll want to use portals and jump like a maniac because jumping makes you faster and gets you further in less steps and so do portals, and you’ll mostly want to avoid traps and distractions such as turrets and cameras and just cut to the chase, so good luck
-least portals: this one in my opinion is the easier and the most interesting because it makes you think real hard to economize portals to the extent of beating the level with just 2 portals; anyways, for the most part you’ll want to use boxes and turrets to defend yourself instead of portaling away or forward and even if it’s slower just run everywhere and try avoiding puzzles and thinking outside the box to cheat the levels in creative ways.

NOW you are thinking with portals

…So this is everything I know about the game and even if I’m like 13 years late I hope you found this guide useful and the game fun. if you have any questions, you can comment them on this post or DM me for details and/or search videos such as the locations of all radios or how to beat a level without portals.
and remember, the cake is real if you believe hard enough

anyways, good luck and have fun with your new aperture science handheld portal device

Here we come to an end for Portal Basic Guide Tips and How to Unlock Achievements hope you enjoy it. If you think we forget something to include or we should make an update to the post let us know via comment, and we will fix it asap! Thanks and have a great day!