Portal/Chamber 11



Chamber 11 is where you acquire the ability to create orange portals as well as blue portals, and thus complete more difficult challenges; from the point at which you get this ability onwards, you have to create both ends of the portal, as no static orange portals will exist.

"The enrichment center promises to always provide a safe testing environment. In dangerous testing environments, the enrichment center promises to always provide useful advice. For instance, the floor here will kill you. Try to avoid it."

- GLaDOS

First side-room
Notice that that the orange portal gun shoots in three different locations. Two of these are above the mysterious-looking “floor” that will, as GLaDOS points out, kill you, and the third shoots somewhere you cannot see. So make an accessible portal in the room you enter, and watch the area just inside the portal. Wait for the orange portal gun in the middle of the next room to make a portal in an area with a solid floor and a red button on a podium, so that the view through the blue portal looks the same as in the image on the left. Walk through the blue portal, so that you're in that area safely.

Main room: reach the side room
Now, press the button (the game will let you know that the same key, E, you use to hold onto things presses this button) which should be situated right in front of you.

Across the room a door will open temporarily, through which a portal can be made. Do that (the portal will not disappear when the door closes; you simply cannot see it from here). Wait for an orange portal to be shot in the area where you are, and walk through it so that you come out in the second side-room, where the energy pellet required to activate the platform in the main room is situated.

Side room with pellet launcher
Briefly walk down the stairs to look at the main room from this angle. Notice that one of the locations that the orange portal is placed is directly across from the pellet receiver. So make a portal on the scorch mark where the pellet hits the wall.

Wait for the pellet to go into the pellet receiver (this may take some time, as the orange portal in the main room has to be in the right place when the pellet moves through the blue portal). When it has done so, make an accessible blue portal, and wait for the orange portal to be created in front of the moving platform. You can then walk onto the platform.

Main room: grab the orange portal gun
Take the moving platform to the middle of the room, where you will receive the orange portal gun. Press the button that appears in front of you and make a blue portal in the room behind the door. Now make an orange portal where you entered the room to get on the platform the last time, walk onto the moving platform, and enter the portal. From the room you enter you have direct access to the chamberlock.

"The device has been modified, so that it can now manufacture two linked portals at once. As part of an optional test protocol we are pleased to present an amusing fact: the device is now more valuable than the organs and combined incomes of everyone in."

- GLaDOS

Note that from now on you have the option of placing blue or orange portals, so the colors listed in this guide do not have to be the color you shoot. In this final section of Chamber 11, for example, you could have fired an orange portal through the final room and a blue portal on the wall that can be reached by the moving platform. Either configuration will achieve the same result. Simply make sure that the right portal connections are made; for example, do not shoot a blue portal in the final room, and then another blue portal next to the moving platform, as you will have gotten rid of the portal in the final room.

Notice that whatever color the last portal you shot was, a small oval appears next to your aim on the appropriate color’s side. This appears based on the shot, and not on the success of the shot, so that if you try to shoot a blue portal onto a non-portalable wall, there will still be a blue oval next to your aim. This can be very useful if you ever forget what color you just shot.

No Cheating SpeedRun in One Segment for Mere Mortals
(For background on this section, refer to the Portal speedrunning overview page.)

When you begin practicing this chamber for a speedrun, try placing the blue portal high over the door to the pellet emitter room and jumping through the orange portal to land on the platform with the dual portal gun. If you're one of the people who can do this, you can bypass a significant section of the puzzle. If you're not, then, once again, you're stuck with solving the puzzle the normal way in the minimum amount of time. The instructions below include an optional and difficult jump that can significantly cut down your time.

When the chamber lock doors open, don't waste any time walking around; place the blue portal on the floor just outside and jump through. The orange portal is positioned where you need to go and the jump and fall will give you a boost forwards. Go directly to the button and press it. Then back up, watching the door open opposite. Shoot a new blue portal through the door on the far wall and either keep backing up or turn around, but get back through the orange portal before it closes. If you can't do this, you'll have to wait a long time for the dual portal gun to cycle around again, so practice until you've got this down.

Now you're in the pellet emitter room. You will probably have just missed the pellet's impact with the wall at the top of the steps near the door. This is good; shoot the blue portal over the scorch mark to catch it the next time. If you're really quick, you might arrive just as the pellet approaches the wall. In this case, don't shoot! Let the pellet bounce first. If you place the blue portal too soon, the orange portal may not have been moved from where you were and the pellet will pass uselessly across the width of the main chamber. Once you have the blue portal in place, you have a short breathing space, so go to the windows and watch as the pellet travels the length of the main chamber, into the receiver, starting the moving platform.

When the platform nears the other end of its travel, go up to a wall, place the blue portal there and step through onto the platform when it is in position. Ride the platform to the dual portal gun and take it as in the normal walkthrough. Unless you're going to try the death-defying jump, described below, there is no need to hurry over pressing the pedestal button and placing the portal on the other side of the exit room door because your time will be set by the movement of the platform. If you are going to try the jump, then jump from the moving platform to the portal gun as soon as you can, press that button as it rises and shoot the blue portal through the door, high up and as far right as possible to minimize the walk to the exit chamberlock.

Now, for the jump, back up and take a position on the solid platform far back from the wall of the pellet emitter room (but, don't fall off). You could usefully quicksave at this point. Place the orange portal on the wall ahead of you and as low down as possible. With all haste, move forward and at the absolute last possible instant jump towards the orange portal. If all is well, you will come out in the exit room, so strafe and turn left to get into the chamberlock. If all is not well, of course, you'll be dead. If you die more times than not, maybe you should not try this jump in your speedrun and just wait for the moving platform as in the Walkthrough, above. If you usually make it, but occasionally fail, then it's worth a try as long as you quicksave as mentioned above. If you always make it, then maybe you're not a mere mortal after all.

Using the jump, you should get from the opening of the entry chamberlock door to the exit chamberlock in fifty four seconds. If you wait for the moving platform, your time will be well over a minute. With respect to the overall speedrun, try to have the dual portal gun in hand by the ten minute mark.