Walkthroughs

Bridge Constructor Portal tips and tricks - Beginner tips for building stable structures

You'll be clearing every stage quick with our guide

Bridge Constructor Portal tips and tricks - Beginner tips for building stable structures

So you’re already a Portal pro, huh? Well that’s good, but how are you with building bridges? If you’re not the best, then welcome to Bridge Building 101, where we’ll run you through how to get from A to B.

You’ll be building a variety of bridges and ramps in Bridge Constructor Portal, so you’ll need to be aware of weights, supports, arches and more in order to get through these test chambers.

Read through our advice and you’ll be well prepared for the road ahead, but if you’re in doubt, check the Best Practices page in the menu.

For more advice on thinking with Portals, check out our guide.

Basic bridges

I mean, the game is called Bridge Constructor Portal, so it’s no surprise you’ll be building bridges, but ensuring your structures are going to handle one vehicle, or even a whole convoy, is going to require work.

Stretch girders and string them together to form basic bridges, and tap them to make them roads your vehicles can cross. To start strengthening your bridges, you’ll need to form girders around your bridges to act as supports, connecting your bridge and distributing the weight to other connection points, if possible.

You can use cables to hang your bridge on distant connection points too, or even arch your like a rounded doorway (yes, an archway) to enhance its strength.

Tricky triangles

Triangle shapes will be your go-to method of strengthening your structures. A straight bridge with just a couple of overhead connection points can hold steady if you have triangular girder shapes to support the bridge along its length.

You’ll come across many instances where you’ll have odd connection points and may struggle to get a bridge in place, but triangular supports along the top or bottom (or maybe both) will help bridges stay in place, even in odd positions.

You do have to factor in stress points and uneven weight, but you can feel fairly comfortable adding a lot of support girders in the name of stability.

Weight, think about it

Now I did say you can feel comfortable adding plenty of girders, but weight is an important factor.

Overbuilding bridges can be a problem, especially if there are few connection points to distribute the weight to. In some situations, a bridge with less support girders, to reduce the weight, might be beneficial, though that’s mainly in situations where you have both above and below supports.

Overbuilding won’t be a big problem, but you definitely need to keep it in mind when trying to balance longer and larger structures.

Hanging in suspense

This however just might get you around the weight issue. Cables can be used as supports, and unlike girders, you can stretch them as long as you like, meaning you can hang a bridge in suspense, as long as you’re smart about weight distribution.

In general though, cables are weightless additions that can support a decent amount of weight with few drawbacks, though they’re certainly not as capable as girders are.

Cables are good for hanging girders and bridges in awkward positions, and if you’re skilled enough, you can even use them to swing platforms.

Ramping up

In Bridge Constructor Portal you’ll be able to fly a surprising distance with only a small ramp. Momentum and speed definitely help, of course, but you’ll be shocked the distances you can cover if you drive up to a ramp from a flat run up.

Experimenting with ramp of differing angles will help with this - take your time, and place your girders precisely up against the grid. Ramps can simply made of triangles, but you can make larger or more elaborate ones depending on your needs.

In situations where it looks like the distance is too great to cover, try different ramp angles and look into other ways of speeding up, like Propulsion Gel.

Read more: thinking with portals and mastering puzzles!
Dave Aubrey
Dave Aubrey
Dave is the Guides Editor at Pocket Gamer. Specialises in Nintendo, complains about them for a living.