These are the achievements you'll get naturally as you play the game. You don't even have the option to grind them out, since there isn't any grinding to do.

Cast Member
Complete the story's opening sequence in any mode. Pretty straightforward, if you've played the game you have this one.

Black Marketeer
Buy a weapon. Weapons are bought in the shop for 5 yarn each. While yarn isn't required to beat any level, it's gotten easily enough that you'll probably be able to buy most of the weapons before the end of your first playthrough even if you don't look for them.
One should be a cakewalk.

Nail File Cake
Buy any head in the shop. The starting price for heads is 10 gems (it rises the more heads you already have), and you have to get 3 gems minimum per level, so you're literally guaranteed to have enough gems to buy one by the end of the fourth level. There's a head collection achievement that has a whole section dedicated to it for how annoying it is, but this isn't it.

Seasoned Performer
Complete the first four finales in any mode. If you go for any progression achievement, you'll get this one partway through as a bonus.

Hats Off
Complete all eight finales in any mode. This is given for free with any progression achievement as a bonus. If you want help with those, go to their section.

Barely above the passive achievements, these ones aren't quite gotten automatically. However, if you play the game normally, you'll still probably get them.

Armed and Dangerous
Buy every weapon.


Each weapon costs 5 yarn and there are 12 weapons in the game, for a total of 60 yarn required. There are 88 required levels in a playthrough, and yarn can only be gotten from any stage on any mode once. It might take a few modes but you'll definitely be able to get all of them with any baseline amount of effort to grab yarn when you see it. Yarn is also useless once you have all the weapons, so if you don't want to go through the effort you can just ask in the discussion tab and someone might just give you theirs.

Secret Finder
Find any secret. Secrets are marked in levels by the little shrimp-cyclops things so look around whe you see those and you'll find one, or you might just stumble onto one by accident looking for gems. This video shows every secret location if you need help.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m06PRGT-lzQ
Prison Food
Get eaten by a beast. This will probably happen naturally, but the beasts can usually be avoided easily, so it's good to know you have to do this at least once.

Traitor
Kill your co-op teammate 50 times. More people have done this than beaten the first four finales in any mode, so just mess around in normal mode co-op and you'll probably get it. If you're working well with someone you can miss this, but it's easy enough to just spam grenade or find a spike to push your teammate into.

Deadly Performer
Get 100 kills. This includes your teammate, cats, and arena foes. Some arena modes make this very easy, but you'll probably also kill at least 25 cats on any given playthrough, so this achievement should show up naturally. Still, you can grind it if you want.

Consolation Prize
Die 600 times. "Wow, 600 is a lot! I'll have to grind for this, right?" No. If you plan on beating every mode for all achievements, you'll get this. If you've gotten all the progression achievements and still don't have this one, then you can start grinding.

Virtuoso
Get an A++ in 10 levels, meaning all collectibles plus the time bonus.


You'll probably get some A++s in the first chapter by accident, and the second and third aren't too bad to get them. I'd recommend vaguely trying for A++s on the first chapter of each playthrough, and if you still don't have it once you've gotten every progression achievement, go back and replay the first chapter of casual single-player for 9 A++s that are essentially free.

Take A Bow
Complete any encore, meaning the timed levels that unlock in a chapter after you beat its finale. The encores in the first chapter are very easy, but you do have to choose to do them. Just play the first one you unlock and you'll be golden.

Jail Breaker
Get 50 heads from the shop.


The total price of 50 heads is 500 gems if you buy them correctly and around 600 gems if you don't (the correct way is explained in-depth later), and you can get an absolute minimum of ~1000 if you get all the progression achievements. This achievement is essentially passive, but it takes a bit longer to get than some others and can be sped up by playing well, so it goes here.

Secret Hat Hunter
Collect 10 golden hats.


Golden hats appear randomly during story and arena mode and you should easily find at least 10 throughout 4 playthroughs, but you still have to pick them up. There's no extra challenge in having one (aside from not dying in water, since the hat can drown), so just grab them when you see them and maybe ask your co-op buddy if you can take them until you get the achievement.

These are the four core achievements of Battleblock Theater, which mark your progression through the game's story mode as you play. Completing the game on each mode gives you one achievement.

Solo Star
Beat every level (except Encores) in Normal Solo Story Mode. This is the simplest of the achievements. Sit down and play through the game without a friend and eventually you'll get this. The finales can be a bit stressful because of the timer, but every other level is unloseable, so just have fun and learn the game.

Coop Star
Beat every level (except Encores) in Normal Co-op Story Mode. This is the default mode of the game, and unsurprisingly, the most achieved of the progression achievements. Co-op tricks and using your teammate as a checkpoint when you die makes this mode very forgiving, so just get used to working with a teammate for now.

Insane Solo Star
Beat every level (except Encores) in Normal Solo Story Mode.


Oh boy. This is where the game gets hard. In Insane Mode, there are no checkpoints and every level automatically fails on death. If you want to get through these levels without too much pain, I'd recommend getting used to using items for utility, particularly the plunger for long vertical walls and the frog for long horizontal gaps (including water!!) These two items make so many parts of the game easier and save so much time getting through tricky sections just to die and start over. To give an example of what I mean (and maybe make your game easier), here's me skipping the entire final level of the game using the frog and a few precise jumps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfBX9UNKUOY

Aside from that, just have as much fun as you can and be prepared to fail. A lot.

Insane Coop Star
Beat every level (except Encores) in insane co-op story mode.


This achievement is tied for the hardest in the game, and for good reason. In insane co-op, if either player dies you both have to start from scratch. My advice is to either look for someone who's really good at video games or ask on the discussion tab in steam.
A few pieces of strategy to make your journey a bit easier:

• Mix and match weapons, and aim for two offensive weapons and two utilities. Having one offensive player and one utility player works well as long as the offensive player knows how to use their weapon without killing themselves or their teammate by accident. If you do this, I recommend giving the offensive player acid bubbles, since they function as both offense and utility. You have four weapon slots between you. Take advantage.
  
• Play some levels like they're solo. Since either of you dying means both of you restart, having both of you perform the same precise tricks at once is often more trouble than it's worth. So instead, figure out which of you is better at some specific levels and let them go ahead (using items to get past co-op sections) while the teammate sits and watches.
  
• Don't get angry. Take breaks from time to time, and stop when you get frustrated. At this point BBT is basically a rage game, so you need to have the right mentality to get through it and still have a decent time.
  
• This.

If you have any problems with any specific levels on Insane mode, walkthroughs for each individual level exist on YouTube, or you can ask for assistance in the comment section of this guide.

These achievements are pretty easy, but they all have one requirement in common: another player. For some of these your teammate works just fine, but for one you have to search a specific type of player out.

First Time Trader
Make a trade with someone. This can be a head trade, or you can just trade 0 gems for 1 yarn and get it that way (trading the same thing is an option, but it doesn't always activate the achievement).

Theater Manager
Download and host a community theater playlist.


To do this, go to online --> features --> community theater --> either difficulty, then just pick any map. The newest in recently uploaded maps should work just fine if you don't know where to click. Then invite your other player and start the game. The host (NOT the invitee) gets the achievement as soon as they leave the server, without needing to play any levels first.

Chicken Toucher
Play with someone who already has the achievement in an online game.


This is the one you might be able to rely on your teammate for. Thankfully, there are people in the steam discussion tab (including yours truly) who will join a game with anyone who asks. You should get the achievement as soon as you join the game, so if it doesn't, something might've gone wrong.

These are achievements that you'll probably have to make an effort to get, but they really aren't too bad and you can get them pretty quickly once you know that they exist.

Melee Master
Successfully use every melee attack. There are a good few melee attacks in this game, and most are outclassed by weapons, so it's pretty easy to miss one. These all count if performed on a teammate, so you can just open a multiplayer game and complete them all in the lobby.
If you don't know which melee move you haven't done, this video demonstrates them all. (Credit to GuidesForUsAll on YouTube)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnfZ3B-ceLc
Weapons Master
Successfully use every weapon. This is pretty easy once you have every weapon unlocked, since you can also use them on teammates in the lobby. Note that you can change equipped weapons from the settings in-game, so you don't need to make six sessions to get this.

Theater Critic
Complete 10 levels in a featured playlist. In the menu where you'd normally go to story, click on Features, then Furbottom's Features (community playlists won't count). Then just play through the finale. Simple as that. If the featured playlist is too hard, know that it changes every week.

All Around Joe
Win in one arena match of every mode. Play offline, go to arena, then play each gamemode until you win once and move onto the next. The AIs are pitifully easy for everything except the basketball one, and even that's not bad once you learn it.

Crowd Pleaser
Complete every Encore in any mode.


Each mode has 3 encores for each chapter (24 total) which are all timed and get progressively harder as the game goes on. The early ones aren't too bad, but the last few, particularly Encore 8-3, are genuinely awful. Seriously, if you're at the beginning of your journey, look up Encore 8-3 before deciding if you want to complete this game.

There are two saving graces to this achievement. The first is that you can pick whatever mode you like to complete it in. I recommend Normal Co-op if you have a dedicated teammate who's willing to go through it with you since the increased camera view and checkpoint scumming can make some levels way less evil. However, if you can't get someone to do this with you, Normal Solo is also fine. It's what I did, and I got the achievement just fine.

The second is that each level is different, and most of them have designs that are relatively fun and interesting. This cannot be said, however, about the next achievement.

The Professional
Be on the winning team in 100 arena matches. This achievement was made as a goal for people who play online arena, a mode which has long since died out. For you, the best way to complete this is to play offline against a bot (or dead controller) over and over again.

Most gamemodes take two minutes to complete, clocking in at 200 minutes (a little over 3 hours) not including loading screens or sanity breaks. The time trial mode Challenge, however, stops whenever you complete the course, which if you're good enough can go as low as one minute, but if you're slow or unlucky with map selection can be more than 2. Aside from Challenge, the easiest mode is Soul Snatcher since the AI is godawful, but my recommendation for those wanting to get this achievement is to set aside two hours and do Challenge against the bot (it automatically DNFs) until the achievement finally pops up. No, there's no way for this to reasonably take less than two hours. Sorry.

Also note that each match rewards gems. Most arena modes give four gems +1 to the MVP, decided by who landed the most hits on enemy players (yes, regardless of whether it's a fighting-based gamemode). Challenge has no MVP and can only give 4 gems, but the time save easily makes up for this in expected value.

This achievement is evil. If you don't plan around it from the beginning, it could mess up your entire game. Thankfully, there are some ways to make it much easier if you plan ahead.

Freedom Hero (and Social Butterfly)
Get every head, excluding star heads.
(Social Butterfly: Collect all heads of a single shape)

If you want to collect every head the intended way, you'll have to spend somewhere from 4640 to 4795 gems, depending on your buying order. The absolute maximum gems you can get from all four story modes is around 4000, and since that assumes all encores and all A++ rank bonuses, most players will have closer to 3000 after doing everything.

Source: https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=362616826)

This means that the average unprepared player will have to grind at least 1600 gems to get enough to buy every head. As gems cannot be farmed by playing the same level repeatedly, the fastest way to do this is to play Challenge in arena over and over again, with a return of 3-4 gems per minute depending on how skilled you are. This means that the fastest method takes somewhere from 6 to 9 hours of the same repetitive task with no idling. There's also the featured playlist which resets every week and is much slower, but also much less mind numbing. Neither of these options are good.

Thankfully, there's a better way. A few, actually.

I'm going to explain each method in detail, from worst to best.

The worst thing you can do, and what I did, is go shape-by-shape, getting every head for one before moving to the next. General head price rises with the number of heads you already own, but there's also a minimum price that rises for each head you have of a specific type. This is why I didn't mention the Social Butterfly achievement until now--it directly encourages players to get all of one shape first, a method which is objectively worse if you want to get everything. The gem cost of this method is 4795 gems, which is way above any amount you'll get without grinding.

COST: 4795

If you alternate which head shape you get and always switch when the price for one shape raises above the others, you'll pay the least you can without getting into special tactics: 4640 gems. This saves 155 gems, or around 40 minutes of mindless grinding. That's significant, but there's still far better ways of going about this.

COST: 4640

For this method you'll need a dummy account, either a friend who hasn't bought any heads yet or a side account with a completely (or almost completely) clean save file. Don't worry, this method isn't too complicated. Simply buy all the heads of one shape (yes, even though it costs more) and then trade all of those heads to your dummy account via steam when you're done. This means that the amount of heads the game thinks you have is still 0, so you'll get the basic cheap prices for every shape. Then, when you have every head for every shape except one, trade all your heads back to the main account and buy the last head at full price. This shows the game you have every head and unlocks the achievement.

The reason you need to buy all of the prisoners for a shape even with the premium is to guarantee you don't get duplicates. If you could be sure you didn't get duplicates without holding copies, the cost of this method would be 2520 gems, which is easily achievable for anyone who goes through all four modes. However, since you have to pay the somewhat inflated prices for this method to work, the total comes out to 3280 gems. This is more than our last number, but it's still more than 1000 gems less than our previous two methods, eliminating the need to grind for gems almost entirely.

COST: 3280

However, if you read closely, you might have realized that there's an even cheaper way to do the same thing.

If you're able to find someone who already has this achievement and trusts you enough (or you give good enough payment/collateral), they can use steam to trade you every head they have except one, which you then buy for 30 gems, triggering the achievement. Once you're done, trade the heads back and you still keep the achievement.

COST: 30

This does require a good connection with someone who has all the heads already, so it's a little hard to do if you don't know a 100%er. I'd offer to help, but I did this once manually before I realized that trading over steam was an option and by the end of it I was so tired that I just let them keep the heads. Even if you can't do this method, the previous one still saves hours of time.

Aaannnddd... that's it! Every achievement in Battleblock Theater. Even if you do the worst method for Freedom Hero, a sufficiently skilled player can still get every achievement in less than 100 hours pretty easily, so the grind for this isn't too bad compared to some other games.

If you have any other questions about achievements or gameplay, feel free to ask in the comments. I'm pretty familiar with all of these achievements so I should be able to help, and even if I'm not there are (hopefully) plenty of others who can give assistance.

Good luck!