The Portal Speedrun That Doesn't Use Portals

can you beat portal without using any portals okay well technically you can just turn on sheets and no clip your way through all of the levels but that's no fun so let's set a simple limitation you're not allowed to use any cheats by using the command sv cheats 1 in the developer console the player has access to a ton of cheat commands like time scale god mode and of course noclip so let's make all of these off limits so now can you beat portal without using any portals this is surprisingly a very complicated question back in 2007 when portal was released speedrunners were trying to find all sorts of glitches and gimmicks that could save time in a speed run and while a ton of cool tricks were found there was one little detail players discovered that had humorous implications for the speedrun that being the console command ch underscore create airboat this console command would spawn an airboat in front of the player the airboat is a vehicle used in half-life 2 seen primarily in the water hazards section of the game where the player has to navigate through a toxic waterway since the dirty water hurts the player the airboat provides a safe way to traverse the level without taking damage from the water when making portal valve just sort of copy and pasted a lot of game files from half-life 2. in fact at its core both portal and team fortress 2 are basically mods of half-life 2. as a result of this some half-life 2 assets like the airboat are buried deep in the portal game files and while this airboat nonsense should just be a fun fact things start getting interesting when we realize that the console command ch underscore create airboat is not protected by sv cheats that's right the ability to summon an airboat at will is not a cheat command by modern day standards this console command is obviously not allowed in speed runs but back around 2010 people were a bit more curious speedrunners discovered theoretical skips with airboats that could save a ton of time and technically you didn't have to turn on cheats so surely these skips could be used in speedruns right a very skilled portal speedrunner named demonstrate would respond to these airboat shenanigans in a video titled portal omg best video ever oh my god i just got the greatest idea check this bro check it out watch this watch this this is so good watch this oh look at this look at this oh oh oh i don't got cheats on oh no cheats okay that's cool that's cool see it create airboat oh i fell through the ground come on come on yeah yeah watch this let me in yes yes while this video was made just for laughs near the end demon straight jokingly says oh my god i should make an airboat speedrun well almost seven years later that's exactly what speedrunners set out to do airboat percent is a portal speedrun category that involves beating the game using only airboats you aren't even allowed to use portals in fact you never even pick up the portal gun this begs the question how are airboats so powerful that they let you beat portal without shooting portals ironically the airboat's intended purpose being able to navigate acid or dirty water cannot be used in portal as for some reason the player will still take damage in the airboat when driving on acid so most of the boat's usefulness comes in two glitches airboat clipping and airboat boosting airboat clipping gives us the ability to clip through walls since the airboat is a vehicle entering the airboat will always put us in the driver's seat near the front of the airboat however the hitbox to enter the airboat is quite large extending all the way around the airboat this means that if the player can enter the back of the airboat they will always pop out at the front with this in mind a well-placed airboat can put the back of the airboat on one side of the wall in the front of the airboat on the other side of the wall by entering the back of the airboat the player will instantly teleport to the driver's seat and effectively clip through the wall using airboat clipping we can clip through almost every obstacle in portal we can skip chambers by clipping through doors we can clip through walls to land out of bounds we can even get back inbounds by using airboats airboat clipping can overcome most challenges in the game but there are some exceptions for example this chamber is normally solved by gaining momentum with portals clipping through walls won't help us out here so we need to utilize a different airboat glitch that being airboat boosting airboat boosting is a powerful glitch that works by spawning multiple airboats in the same spot when spawning an airboat the game doesn't do any collision checks so spawning two airboats in the same place will result in them completely overlapping however the game does not like it when physics objects overlap in order to fix this the game pushes objects that overlap meaning that the objects will be given a fair amount of speed and will repel from each other we can abuse this mechanic by spawning a ton of objects in the exact same spot and the unstuck push occurs multiple times resulting in a super fast projectile done properly this essentially creates an airboat missile which usually kills the player on impact but if the player jumps at the right time they can instead get propelled by the airboat this is the airboat boost airboat boosting is absurdly powerful as it can be used to clear almost all horizontal gaps in the game and can also boost us upwards to gain seemingly infinite height to consistently perform airboat boosts speedrunners bind their mouse wheel to spawn an airboat as each tick in a mouse scroll results in one airboat spawn so a full scroll can yield 5 to 10 airboats and to top this all off there is no limit to how many airboats can be spawned if your mouse is scrolling airboats will continue to spawn it will only stop when the game eventually crashes because of an entity overload here's a quick demonstration of that with a frictionless mouse wheel and a can of compressed air with an almost infinite amount of airboats airboat clipping and airboat boosting is all we need to beat portal without portals the airboat percent speed run is around 14 minutes long so it's a little shorter than a glitchless speed run the initial chambers are much faster with the airboat exploits but the run ends up losing a ton of time in the escape sequence near the end of the run as these massive chambers benefit from use of the portal gun there are a lot of awesome chambers to highlight in the speed run but i'll show some of my favorites in the very first level of the game the player can skip the vault sequence by airbow clipping out of the vault once in chamber 0 they can once again clip through the door with an airboat i also forgot to mention that if you exit an airboat while in an elevator the game will put you on top of the elevator for some reason this can save one to two seconds in every chamber that has an elevator in chamber one the player can precisely place an airboat to balance on a glass seam and then drive to the glass with the airboat they can then clip through another door to enter the elevator and finish out the chamber these first two chambers are an explosive start to the speed run and give a great look for what's to come in chamber 8 the player can immediately airboat boost from the start of the level and flink perfectly into the end elevator in chamber 11 the player can clip out of the initial section by placing an airboat in the wall and then climbing on another airboat to get into the driver's seat then the player can place an airboat in the chamber wall where they can drive on top of the chamber in out of bounds space before clipping back inbounds to enter chamber 12. in chamber 12 the player can do airboat boosts to get height to reach the top of the level and then can finish the chamber with a clip through the ending door in chamber 15 the player normally has to use portals to solve an orb puzzle which activates moving platforms to get through this acid corridor however with air boats players can either clip through the upper wall and navigate the section out of bounds or they can spawn a ton of airboats to clog the asset and cross the obstacle with an airboat bridge a great example of thinking with airboats chamber 17 is one of the most well-known levels in the game as the player is introduced to the companion cube and later has to incinerate the cube to progress but with the power of airboats we can save the companion cube the player can clip through the glass at the start of the chamber and then line up a precise airboat over the ending door this airboat will land out of bounds but the player can then drive the airboat back in bounds to finish out the chamber the ending of chamber 18 is intended to test a player's reaction time with the portal gun as they have to land portal shots on these platforms while maintaining their vertical momentum however with air boats the player can perform a massive air bow boost to clear the entire chamber of course there are so many cool levels and strategies in the speedrun so i would recommend watching the world record for the airboat percent speedrun which is linked in the description below airboats shouldn't even be in portal but because they lacked cheap protection they ended up becoming one of portal's biggest inside jokes and eventually created one of portal's most creative speedrun categories thanks for watching and i hope you have a great day [Music] you

Channel: Msushi

Views: 1,071,225

Keywords: speedrun world record, speedrunning, meme speedrun, speedrun, world record, world record speedrun, portal speedrun world record, portal speedrun, portal 2 speedrun, msushi, msushi100, airboat%, portal airboat%, portal least portals, portal speedrun explained, portal meme speedrun, portal WR, portal world record, portal speedrunning

Id: H4q3iiAjKcI

Length: 10min 30sec (630 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 11 2021