Chain portals together to collect all the gold!
Portal Golf is a deterministic physics puzzle game with portals. Place portals around the level in order to get the ball to collect every gold bar. You have no control over the movement of the ball and can only place portals before you start the run. Try to use as few portals as possible to earn medals, or just fill the whole level with portals and have fun!
Link to the game
This guide will go over the basics of how to play, some necessary techniques, and some advanced tips. Hopefully, with this guide, you’ll be able to beat the game without losing too much hair. If you haven’t tried playing yet, check out the link above and come back once you’re feeling stuck.
The Basics
Objective: Your goal in Portal Golf is to collect all the gold bars in the level using as few portals as possible. You collect gold bars by touching them with the green ball. You have no control over the ball. Instead, you place portals around the level in order to get the ball in just the right trajectory.
Gravity: The ball is always falling downwards. Use this to your advantage to get some free movement.
Portal Chain: Portals chain together. This means that when the ball goes into portal 1 will come out of portal 2, when it goes in to portal 2 will come out of portal 3, etc. You can place as many portals as you have room for.
Portal Orientation: When the ball travels through a portal its direction will change depending on the orientation of the portals. If the ball enters straight into a portal, it will exit straight out of the other side. See the pictures for examples.
Key Strategies
Deterministic Runs: When you hit PLAY, the exact same thing will happen every time. The only way to change the outcome is to change the portals. Don’t hit PLAY a hundred times hoping that something will change.
Iterative Solutions: Don’t try to plan out the entire path for the level and then hit PLAY. Instead, play the game one portal at a time. Each time you place or move a portal, hit PLAY to see what happens before making the next change. The series of pictures below illustrates this point by iteratively solving level 2. Tips:
- The purple trail will show you the last part of the trajectory. Use this to guide the position of your next portal.
- Any gold bars you collected in your last run will be drawn darker. Focus on getting the rest.
- The ball must be able to fit completely in a portal or it will bounce off. Sometimes this means you have to tweak a portal to get the ball to not bounce on the edge of a portal.
- You can press C as a shortcut for PLAY and STOP.
Maximize Each Portal’s Impact: This is best when combined with the iterative strategy above. Each time you place a new portal, try moving it around a couple times before moving on to the next portal. You might find that a slight tweak to a portal’s position can get you a few extra gold bars for free!
Advanced Tips
Portal Looping: If the ball enters the last portal it will come back out of the first one. Sometimes, you can use this to your advantage to beat a level with one less portal. Hint: there’s a way to beat level 2 using this strategy in 5 portals instead of 6.
Portal Clipping: When you place a portal, you’re actually replacing a piece of a wall with a portal. This means that if you place a portal on a wall where the ball will touch the corner, the ball will now pass the corner instead of bouncing on it. Another possible portal clip is by placing two portals directly adjacent. Whereas the ball might have hit the side of the wall before, it can now pass through since there’s no more wall. Sometimes you can use these tricks to your advantage, and sometimes you have to watch out for them because they can mess up your previous path.
Easter Egg (Stars)
Every level has bronze, silver, and gold medal scores. The gold medal score was the best score I could find when designing the levels. After a while I found out there were even better solutions on some of the levels! Rather than lowering the gold medal score I decided to add the stars as a bonus. Now you know – every time you get one, you beat the dev! š
Good luck and have fun! Have any questions? Ask below
Source: itch.io