Hi there, my friends! You can call me Isabela, a name I commonly take up here on Steam, and I'm here to give some tips and tricks regarding the achievements for They Breathe.

Although They Breathe doesn't have a lot of achievements, some are sort of cryptic while others are quite difficult. I've managed, after a ton of wave resets and hair pulling, to get all the achievements, which is why I'm here to help you out!

UPDATE-6/2/14: Achievements sorted into difficulty catagories. It's The Frogs! achievement information and tips separated into parts to make guide look cleaner.

UPDATE-6/11/14: I forgot to mention that all achievements are unlocked once you finish the game and Glenn resurfaces. Thanks to Jossy for bringing this point up.

UPDATE-6/21/14: Responded to some comments and added some tips for It's The Frogs! thanks to energy ≡™!

UPDATE-8/25/16: I'm officially announcing the discontinuation of updates on this guide. I hope that all that have and will use this guide are able to use this guide to 100% They Breathe! Thank you all for the views, comments, and compliments!

Glenn



Glenn is the name of our main character, the only frog that seems brave enough to dive deep into the waters below without question.

Moose



Many players say the enemies in this game look like cows or moose. They are in fact called "Moose".
They are dangerous to the touch and if Glenn is weak enough, a Moose will gladly take him in their clutches and drag him down into the depths, never to be seen again.

Poisonous Moose



Poisonous Moose are a rare sight in the depths below. They look much like regular Moose but they are bright, glowing green and they attack Glenn differently.
Some will lunge at Glenn when they spot him, especially if they have been pushed by other enemies, but mostly they will mimic Glenn's movements a few feet beneath him while releasing toxic bubbles from its body. They also tend to turn regular bubbles into huge toxic ones if they touch them.

Polyp


Thanks to developer Mange for the clarification of the terms “Polyp” and “Jellies”

The developmental stage of a Jelly, seen throughout the underwater forest Glenn swims through. They appear to be odd, swaying growths on trees and on the grass.

Jelly

Jellies are odd creatures that seem to have some awareness of what is around them.
Much like Moose, they will follow Glenn wherever he may go, but they just swim instead of stopping and going like Moose. As they continue to chase him, their speed will increase until they have captured him.
Jellies turn into Moose when they have consumed a frog.

Green Jelly

Green Jellies, much like Poisonous Moose, are rare to see. They are larger than regular Jelly and much more dangerous. Although they do not release toxic bubbles like the Poisonous Moose, they, once in contact with Glenn, will quickly drain his energy and kill him if action is not taken.
Green Jellies turn into Poisonous Moose when they have consumed a frog.

Wave

A Wave in They Breathe is one screen. For example, once you jump off of the log on the title screen, the screen shifts downwards a bit until it stops, with the surface at the very top of the screen. When the screen is stationary, this counts as a Wave.
If you hit START/ESC, you can restart a wave or you can quit and pick up from whatever wave you were on.

Quick Moose

Quick Moose only spawn when you allow a Jelly to drag one of your frog companions down into the deep. They act differently than other Moose--they are very, very quick and almost all of their lunges take them from one side of the screen to the other. The best way to deal with them is to stay stationary until you see them appear out of one side of the screen and breaststroke away in perpendicular to their lunge.
If you want to avoid Quick Moose all together, either save all the frogs on a Wave that has Jellies or kill them and push them away from the Jellies.
Quick Poisonous Moose occur in a similar fashion, but are much more dangerous.

Dealing With Moose

It's a simple game of cat and mouse (or moose haha) when dealing with a Moose. Simply avoid contact with them and also try to steal any bubbles that the Moose may come in contact with.
I'm not entirely sure about this, but Moose seem to die quickly if exposed directly to Poisonous Moose's bubbles.

Dealing with Jellies

The general way for dealing with Jellies is to swim around and try and lead them to bubbles.
If you really want to speed up the process, you can hop on to one of them and direct them that way to a bubble. Each Jelly takes three bubbles to pop. Jellies will switch heads with Moose and will trade Glenn for other frogs if they come in contact with them.
The amount of bubbles a Jelly must take to pop will reset if they switch heads with a Moose.

Take Their Breath Away
Leave five enemies completely breathless and finish the game
-Difficulty: Easy-Medium
It may not seem like it, but even the Moose (not the Poisonous Moose) need to breathe to continue their attack on Glenn. This achievement basically wants you to deny all air bubbles to 5 of the Moose you encounter on your swim and finish the game.
I would say this achievement is pretty easy with the amount of Moose in the game, but sometimes luck just isn't on your side.
How you can tell if a Moose has taken in an air bubble is by listening. Moose will moo and stop in their tracks if they have consumed an air bubble, and these ones also tend to stick around longer. So if you hear a moo and there isn't a big air bubble on screen from a dying Moose, one probably just took in an air bubble.
That being said, sometimes you can be unlucky and a Moose, before it even enters the screen, will spawn on top of an air bubble.
The best way to deny bubbles is to get the Moose near the top of the screen and take any bubbles you'd think it'd run into.
Any Wave you pass during which you left an enemy breathless will count towards your 5 breathless enemies even if you reset a Wave right after that one.
This achievement, as I see it, is a reference to the fact that although Jellies hate air and explode when taking in bubbles, Moose need to breathe and thus need to hit air bubbles to keep attacking Glenn. If you deny them bubbles, the Moose die, literally leaving them breathless!

Echoes From The Past
It's only fun on the surface
-Difficulty: Easy
Another rather straight-forward achievement. On the first Wave, you can still see the surface for a while before it starts to shift to the second Wave. Linger near the surface until it begins to shift downward; if you aren't confident in just swimming near the surface, you can hit A/SPACEBAR and fling yourself out of the water.
*NOTE* Some people have mentioned that lingering near the surface and even jumping out of the water does not result in unlocking this achievement. I believe this is a glitch. If you do not recieve the achievement after doing both things and finishing the game, try to reboot the game and do it again.

20 Minute Dive
Short but sweet
-Difficulty: Easy
Honestly, I got this one without even keeping track of my time. Just finish the game under 20 minutes (credit roll not included) and you should this unlocked.
Ways to speed things up:
-Either save frogs as quickly as possible or get them killed immediately. Even if all the Moose have left the screen, you will still be stuck on said Wave until you save or kill all the frogs.
-Avoid dying. Pretty self-explanatory.
-When you reach the boss: Immediately take the first Jelly that appears TO a frog on the Root of All Evil. This is the quickest way to start the battle. When the Moose and Jelly pair appear later on, keep the Moose away from the Jelly while leading it to another frog

Impossible in '09
Blew up a green jelly and lived to tell the tale
-Difficulty: Medium
This achievement is pretty straight forward, but can be rather difficult for a few reasons. Green Jellies can only be found on two Waves--Wave 12 and wave 14*. Not only that, but both of these Waves have frogs present and the task of getting a frog out of a Green Jelly once its in there is near to impossible. Green Jellies, unlike regular Jellies, take four bubbles to pop and become enormous throughout the process of popping them.
I would recommend taking on the Green Jelly on Wave 12* because it is only the Jelly, one frog, and you. You can approach this a few ways:
-Although it's risky, you can take control of the Green Jelly and lead it to four bubbles. Be warned that unlike regualr Jellies, you can only move side to side when inside a Green Jelly and you die much, much faster. Contact with the frog will put it in there instead, and will lose you the opportunity of popping it.
-Focus on saving the frog to avoid having to fight a Quick Poisonous Moose and not being able to pop the jelly at all. Lead the Jelly away from the frog and quickly push him into bubbles whenever you can. Sometimes you may be lucky and the frog may "save itself" and just float into the bubbles it needs to escape. Making the Jelly hit bubbles will stop it momentarily and bring it down to its starting speed, but it will be much larger.
-Push the frog off screen as you attempt to lead the Green Jelly into bubbles without touching it. This is difficult because as long as it hasn't touched a bubble, it will get faster and faster until it finally touches Glenn. As I said above, exposing it to a bubble will slow it down.

I do not recommend trying to pop the Green Jelly on Wave 14*, for there are 2 frogs present and 2 Jellies. The chances of fighting a Quick Moose and dying or turning the Green Jelly into a Quick Poisonous Moose are high.

Triple Jelly!
Dev's record is 5! (still haven't beaten it myself...oh well)
-Difficulty: Medium-Hard
There is only ONE Wave you can do this on, and that's Wave 10*. Wave 10 consists of 7 Jellies total.
For this achievement, you have to use the huge bubble that comes out of a popped Jelly to start a chain reaction, resulting in 2 or more additional Jellies to pop. Simply because the sheer amount of Jellies you have to deal with on the Wave, things can either go really smoothly or you could end up popping too many individually and having to reset.
I would recommend taking control of one of the Jellies on the bottom of the pack and leading it to bubbles; this can become difficult if you take control of it while the group is too close to the bottom of the screen. You can also just watch the Jellies and, when one seems close to bursting, take control of that one and move it beneath 2 or more other Jellies.

No Hands!
Complete the game without using a single breast stroke
-Difficulty: Medium-Hard
There are a lot of achievements that become much, much harder if you're trying to get No Hands. Basically, you can't hit A or SPACEBAR at all while you delve deeper into the waters, meaning you cannot use a single breaststroke while swimming.
The only reason this can be a difficult achievement to unlock is because of the potential threat of Quick Moose and Quick Poisonous Moose. Your movements are much more important when going for No Hands.

Escape Artist
Complete the game without dying
-Difficulty: Hard
I do NOT recommend trying to get any other achievement while getting Escape Artist. Just focus on not dying and not anything else.
This is by far one of the most difficult achievements, especially because it's best to just do this one and focus on none of the others. If you allow Jellies to get the frogs when they die, especially Green Jellies, things become much more difficult and the chances of dying go way, way up. Breaststroke (A/SPACEBAR) will be your best friend when trying to get this achievement and you want to try your best to never swim off screen because you can't see what's going on there and could get yourself stuck on a Moose or stuck in a stream of Poisonous Moose bubbles.
All I can say is just keep moving and be aware of what is around you at all times. When you reach the boss, don't go in below it on either side, especially when it has expanded some, or you may get yourself cornered and killed.
Also: Not only can you not die, you CANNOT restart ANY waves during your run. Thanks to TempusMori for pointing this out!

It's The Frogs!
Save them all!
-Difficulty: Very Hard
This achievement is BY FAR the hardest achievement to get in the game. I guarantee that you will have to reset at least one or two Waves multiple times to even get halfway through this achievement.
So first thing's first: there are a total of 12 frogs you will encounter from the top to the bottom of the waters. Even though the achievement itself shows 5 frogs, THERE ARE 12.
If you count Glenn, there will be 13 frogs present at the end of the game. You also know that you have saved all the frogs when a man with a pickaxe is sitting on Glenn's log on the surface.

These are the waves frogs are encountered on:*

• Wave 2: 2 Frogs
  
• Wave 4: 1 Frog (1 Moose)
  
• Wave 5: 2 Frogs (2 Moose)
  
• Wave 8: 1 Frog (2 Moose, 1 Green Moose)
  
• Wave 11: 1 Frog (2 Moose, 1 Jelly)
  
• Wave 12: 1 Frog (1 Green Jelly)
  
• Wave 13: 2 Frogs (2 Jellies, 1 Green Moose)
  
• Wave 14: 2 Frogs (2 Jellies, 1 Green Jelly)

Wave 2, 2 Frogs: This Wave is kind of a tutorial Wave. You only have 2 frogs to help and that's it, no Moose or Jellies. The way you save a frog is the same way you keep yourself alive--by pushing them into bubbles.

Wave 4, 1 Frog: My best advice for this wave is to simply ignore the frog and lead the Moose away from it. Whenever you have a chance, breaststroke into the frog and push it off screen to keep it away from the Moose. Just like Moose and Jellies, frogs will slowly swim in your direction unless they are glitched or dead. If the frog does not hit the Moose, it should be able to survive until the Moose runs out of air and dies. Then you can focus on saving the frog.

Wave 5, 2 Frogs: Treat this Wave like Wave 4 but with an additional frog and Moose. Both frogs *should* come out on the same side and the Moose should both appear at the bottom of the screen together. Lead the Moose away from the frogs and push them off the screen with a breaststroke if they float too close. Again, if the frogs have not hit the Moose they should be able to survive until the Moose die.

Wave 8, 1 Frog: This is a Wave where you definitely want to either prioritize just pushing the frog off of the screen or navigating it to the bubbles. The Poisonous Moose will remain at the bottom of the screen and just emit toxic bubbles as it mimics your movements, unless you navigate underneath it and the Moose bump into it.
I would not recommend this--the Moose can push the Poisonous Moose upward and may potentially cause it to move faster or in a more frantic manner. So not only do you want to keep the Moose away from the frog, but the Moose away from the Poisonous Moose also. Additionally, do not go off screen because this will bring the Poisonous Moose off screen and possibly the frog; here you cannot see if the Poisonous Moose gets stuck. If this Moose gets stuck with the frog off screen as well, this may cause the frog to get stuck just above its stream of toxic bubbles.
Finally, the Moose will leave sooner if you lure them above the Poisonous Moose's toxic bubbles.

Wave 11, 1 Frog: Again, you want to push the frog off screen or at least a decent distance away from the Moose and the Jelly. To ensure the Jelly doesn't get the frog, which makes saving the frog very difficult, guide Glenn into the Jelly and direct it into bubbles. Remember that Moose can transfer their heads over to Jelly, thus eliminating all bubbles they have consumed. If you can keep the frog off the screen/away from the enemies for long enough though without it getting hurt, you can potentially kill both Moose so the Jelly can be easily popped.

Wave 12, 1 Frog: If you let the Green Jelly get the frog on this Wave, you pretty much need to restart it. It's hard to move and direct the Jelly if you get in it, and it's even harder to direct it towards a bubble if it has the frog. The frog dies very, very quickly in the Green Jelly and unless you're lucky and a bubble happens to strike it just before the frog dies, you will most likely have to restart.
The best advice I can give is take direct control of the Green Jelly and keep it away from the frog. Furthermore, shove the frog off screen and do not swim towards the frog if the Jelly has increased in speed. If you take direct control of the Jelly, know you must strike it with 4 bubbles to get it to pop; after it does, you should be able to easily save the frog.

Wave 13, 2 Frogs: This is the ONLY Wave where I will say success with the frogs depends heavily on luck. When I tried to clear this Wave, my 2 frogs came out of opposite sides of the screen but when I ran through the game again to get Escape Artist, both frogs came out of the same side. Where they spawn seems to be luck, but once you enter Wave 13 and they spawn one way or another, they will continue to do that even if reset.
The toxic bubbles, unlike with Moose, will actually help the Jellies and make them decrease in size if they are hit by one. So if a Jelly hit by two bubbles gets hit by one toxic bubble, it will reset to needing 3 bubbles to pop instead of 1.
-For frogs on opposite sides: I will preface this by saying I definitely reset Wave 13 over 10 times trying to save both frogs. Try to move yourself so you are not above any bubbles, thus making it so the Poisonous Moose doesn't touch them and turn them into toxic bubbles. There is also a slight glitch where regular toxic bubbles, if they touch air bubbles, will cause them to just disappear. Keep that in mind. Decide on one side and either push that frog off screen or push it towards the other side of the screen, upward. If you push one frog off screen, focus on saving the other one--this will direct the Poisonous Moose and Jellies away from the one you pushed.
-For frogs on the same side: I would just recommend pushing both off screen and directing the Jellies and Poisonous Moose to the other side of the screen.
Additional Wave 13 Tips, thanks to energy ≡™!: During wave 13 of It's The Frogs, if both frogs spawn on the left side instead of opposite of each other, it's easiest if the player actually gets himself to get caught in either of the two jellyfish on the right side. This allows the two drowning frogs to swim towards him from the other side of the screen, picking up bubbles along the way without any threat.

Wave 14, 2 Frogs: Again, this is just a lot of luck. I had both frogs come out of the same side of the screen but I'm not sure if the opposite-side deal can occur on this screen as well. The frogs getting into Jellies on this Wave...well, that's basically unavoidable; you just need to make sure that it is not the Green Jelly that gets either of the frogs. Also remember that if a frog is caught in a Jelly and it looks like its about to die, you can force yourself into it and free them. (They can do the same to you if you're in a Jelly) Focus on the Green Jelly, by either guiding that into bubbles or taking direct control of it, because that is your biggest threat. Try to use it to pop at least one of the other Jellies, or if you can't just eliminate the Green one asap and then push the frogs away while popping the remaining Jellies.

Frog Health
Glenn will slowly turn brown as he incurrs damage, and the same goes for any frogs that you need to save. Frogs will normally appear on screen a very faded-shade of green or a light brown/will normally need around 2 or 3 bubbles when they appear to be saved. So use colors, just as you do with Glenn's health, to indicate the health of the frogs and, if you are on a screen with two frogs, which one you should prioritize.

Frog Noises
The frogs will make noises to indicate what's going on. Frogs make noises when hitting bubbles, getting hurt, when they die, and when they are saved.
-When hitting bubbles: it's a very faint noise, kind of like a bubble popping.
-When getting hurt: they make the same noise Glenn makes when he gets hurt. Since they make the same sound, things can get very confusing on screens with multiple enemies attacking you and the frogs.
-When they die: frogs will release a faint "Oh" when they die.
-When they are saved: frogs will ribbit when they have enough air to swim away.

Frog Movement
Much like Jellies and Moose, frogs will very slowly swim towards Glenn from the moment they appear on screen. They will only be stopped if they are consumed by a Green Jelly or if they are dead; even when taken by a Jelly, they will continue to move towards Glenn.

Echoes From The Past
As mentioned, lingering by the surface and even jumping in and out of the water may not result in unlocking this achievement. I would just suggest rebooting the game and starting a new one.

It's The Frogs!
I know I recommend pushing frogs off screen, but DO NOT do it repeatedly, especially upwards into corners. A push or two should keep them well off screen for long enough for you to lead enemies away, so basically a breaststroke or two.
If you push too much, especially into a corner, the frog may actually get stuck off screen and will basically be unsavable. You know this has occurred when the screen will not move when no enemies are on screen.

I just want to thank you for reading this guide, and I really hope it helped you swim swiftly out of whatever problem you floated in to.
When I have free time, I will be updating and perfecting this guide to make sure I can help out as many people as I can with these handful of achievements.

If anything isn't clear, has incorrect information, or you have some tips and tricks that you would like to add to what I have above, make sure to leave a comment below! Comments, critques, and additional tips are welcome!

Thanks again!
~Isabela