Portals Academy: Productive Gamification App Review

I’ve done a few reviews of traditional productivity apps: Notion, Edison, and ClickUp. Today I want to incorporate a new facet: gamification, which is another topic I’ve written about before more generally.

Gamification can be hugely powerful if it is used effectively, and a lot of apps use it in small doses — including achievements, or offering small rewards for completing tasks.

Portals Academy is an app that uses gamification as a core feature. I stumbled upon it through an Instagram ad, of all things. Usually I find apps like these while I’m browsing on the Productivity category of the Google Play Store, but this app actually found me.

The premise of the Portals Academy game is a little unclear at first glance. What I was able to understand before diving in is that there are 100 portals, and you commit to completing all 100 in order to reach your goals. I also noted that there’s a built-in timer, you can earn experience and presumably level up, and it keeps track of statistics on your progress.

Signing up

Once you’ve found the app (either using the link at portals.academy or searching your relevant app store), sign up requires only an email address and a password. I also noticed after compiling most of this review that this app has fewer than…