Viewfinder Review
A few days ago I wrote about ULTRAKILL for my first blog entry about games from my backlog, and today I am talking about a game which is practically its opposite. A slow, relaxing, and modern-styled puzzle game called Viewfinder.
It's a game which attracted me due to it being a puzzle game, a type of game I really love, and its main mechanic interested me a lot! You use photographs to manipulate the environment around you to solve puzzles. The game is also quite short, I started and finished it today in just 4.5 hours, though I still have more than half of the achievements to hunt.
The game uses its mechanics very well! At first you're using pre-existing pictures, and then you get a camera which allows for much more experimentation.
You can make things overlap, you can use images to cut through stuff, you can copy images, there's some optical illusions, some fun filter stuff, and more.
It's quite varied but the game lasts a decent amount of time with most of them, though there are definitely a few that could have been more expanded on (such as the cutting mechanic). It introduces them in a great way as well! Starting out simple, but then making the puzzles more complicated, and eventually mixing them in with stuff you're used to.
The game also has a generally amazing atmosphere! It is an extremely calm game — it could perhaps fall under the category of a comfort game for some — with mellow colours and relaxing ambience. Also, although this isn't directly related to the aesthetic itself, it is very fun to play around with the camera since you can unlock special filters for it! This game definitely didn't help with my screenshot addiction.
My only real criticism with the game is that its story doesn't really have a lot of substance. There isn't an antagonist and although the main goal is stated kind of early on, it isn't really driven home that much, and further in the game I sort of forgot about it.
There are some things which could've definitely been expanded upon, with both the characters and the overall setting. This game kind of lacks the zest that made a game like Portal so interesting even past its groundbreaking gameplay mechanic.
(This is a view of the city where we are from, which is covered with a deep orange haze due to the lack of oxygen. I found it a very interesting set piece but we only see it once near the start of the game, and that's it.)
Fortunately, though, the gameplay and general vibes of this game definitely made up for it! The small bits of the story we do learn about are either given through small notes we see every once in a while, or stated in an indirect way.
One of the characters, Cait (who is adorable btw) often gives little bits of information that sounds like something the person who we're playing as would be more familiar with, but us as the player ourselves wouldn't, and I actually find that form of storytelling quite interesting, as it gives the sense that the things going on are very personal to the character talking.
In the end, even if the game didn't expand on its story much, the gameplay alone is so unique and interesting that it made me adore the game! And even if the story wasn't the most developed, it still struck me emotionally, and sometimes that is enough, especially for a short game that managed as much as it did in less than 5 hours.
Like many games, as of writing it's currently on sale in Steam right now, and it is a game I can safely recommend to those interested in cozy reality-bending puzzle games!
Also hmm… is this some kind of foreshadowing?
