Portal Gun

Portal Gun

• Previous Map Portal Carousel
• File Name sp_a1_intro3
• Appearance Courtesy Call
• Native to Challenge Mode Yes
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• Previous Map Smooth Jazz

Overview

Portal Gun is a throwback to Chamber 02 from the original Portal game. The test chamber has decayed significantly, and what was once the platform that you received your first Portal Gun from will now collapse when stepped on, leading you into a previously unexplored section of Aperture Science.

General Route

Speedruns of this map are centered almost entirely around movement. Having a good circle jump at the start of the map, and good bunny hopping throughout is crucial to completing this chamber quickly. It's easiest to learn the hopping pattern of this map by watching others, and trying things to see how they work. The main three tricks used that aren't considered intended are as follows.

• After starting to fall through the collapsing floor, strafing into a specific area can give you a large momentum boost. You want to land near the tilted panel leaning against the left wall at the bottom, but not so close that you actually hit it (it will make you ricochet off into the corner).
• The Portal Gun can be picked up by pressing +use from the floor on the left side of the spiral staircase it lies on, instead of walking up the stairs to fetch it.
• After getting the Portal Gun and exiting the orange portal, moving forward, turning right and shooting a portal past the stairs and into the hallway, then going back through the orange portal to reach it more quickly.

Challenge Mode Specific

The Challenge Mode route doesn't differ at all from the general strategy. Good times are dependent on all three of the aforementioned tricks you can perform in the map. Getting a good time in Challenge Mode is very reliant on good movement, and the best way to improve your movement is practice and reference. The Challenge Mode Leaderboards have demos and videos from all the top runners, and this is one of the best way to learn how to improve your time.

Pre-Fall

World Record run by Zypeh

In the elevator room, runners do a hybrid of stair hops and a wall run. The stair hops help you to hit the trigger (roughly halfway up the stairs) that opens the door quicker faster, but doing full stair hops gives you too much speed as the door is relatively slow to open. Transitioning into a wall run after two/three stair hops can slow you down enough to let the door open, while not killing all your speed.

Hopping off the stairs before you reach the top, walking through the door and hopping underneath the lip of the door gives you good speed for the first room. You use this speed, and one additional hop, aimed towards the right, to land near the end of the hallway and as close to the front of the second door as you can manage. Your goal is to quickly circle jump under this second door in much the same way as you did the first, but this time, curve your momentum leftward. Your goal is to clear the wall on your left past the door and land so that you can quickly redirect your next hop of this section onto the surface with the dummy portal gun.

The time at which you land on the dummy platform is a good way to benchmark how good of a start your run has. Top runners aim for low 10 seconds, with world record almost being 10 seconds flat.

The Fall

Slope you want to hit coming out of your fall

Practicing the strafe for the fall is crucial to having a good run. Rex's practice map is a great way to learn and practice this part of the map, and the subsequent parts of the map leading up to the office. You want to gain speed with air strafes while falling and end your fall with a considerable amount of speed not only at the correct position, but in the correct direction. Runners normally achieve this by first strafing to the left after they begin falling. From there, they curve around, back to the right, and towards the correct floor position.

After landing, ideally you want to do three hops from where you land to being through the first portal after grabbing the Portal Gun. This is a quick sequence that takes a lot of practice, especially learning to grab the gun, then quickly shooting a portal onto the wall to go through. If you have issues, record and watch your failed attempts to try and understand why you aren't going through the portal correctly. Common issues include shooting too far left or right, or shooting too far up or down. A good run will have you pass through the portal and land in a good position to immediately shoot the next portal down the hallway to the right. If you have a fantastic boost, and a very solid three hop, it's entirely possible you might have to press +back to not travel too far through the portal and fall off the ledge. This is done in the world record.

Shooting the portal into the hallway quickly takes a lot of practice, and is also something you can practice with Rex's practice map. Playing on lower graphical settings or changing the lighting can make seeing up the hallway slightly easier.

Include graphical settings

Offices

Trigger to open the orange portal at the end of the map

A good hop pattern for the offices obviously starts with not hitting your head on the door frame as you hop out of your portal. Once you're through the first door frame, the conventional wisdom is to perform a right circle jump as opposed to a simple redirection. The extra speed will put you, after another hop, closer to the office table. You want to hug the table fairly tight, and have your hop pattern land you to the left of the broken ceiling. This position allows you to redirect to the right, without hitting your head on the next door frame. This sets you up for the most ideal ending, a good redirect of speed underneath the final office hallway. If you have enough speed, and good enough positioning, you should be able to two-hop this hallway, and not clip the floor. This ending is the fastest, but is considerably difficult to get, and can often be a make-or-break point for many potentially top Portal Gun times in challenge mode. A three-hop through this hallway that results in you landing quickly on the floor is the second best way this section can go. Your main focus should be avoiding having a jump at the end of the hallway. This results in you hitting the floor trigger to open the orange portal in the end section very late, and loses a large amount of time in addition to the lost time spent in the air.

Ending

Fire a blue portal at the nearest wall, press up against it and turn roughly a quarter-circle left, then strafe right through it as soon as the orange portal activates. Fire another portal to the right of the exit door at ground level, then strafe left through the portal to reach the door. Aside from performing this quickly, try not to hop through the ending door as it opens, instead pushing against it and then circle jumping after it opens. It is a small time-save to be circle jumping as it opens.

Full Game Specific

Example in a Full Game run by Betsruner

Full Game playthroughs differ slightly from the general route and the Challenge Mode route. By utilizing the end of one of Wheatley's dialogues, you can have him start his next line of dialogue and cut off of the announcer in the room you fall down from after getting through the offices.

The easier dialogue skip

Add Can't Even's lineup

This skip doesn't require you to be as fast, and has a larger 0.5 seconds of post delay for you to get the skip. Walk off the edge at the end of the offices on the cue:

"I'm going to work on the assumption that you're still alive and I'm just going to wait for you up AHEAD."

The more advanced dialogue skip

This skip requires you to be much faster, and has a less generous 0.3 seconds of post delay. Walk off the edge on the cue:

"Also, are you alive? That's important, should have asked that FIRST."