Superliminal (2019)

I remember seeing a video showing this game off years ago over on Tumblr, and I was blown away by how creative and mind-trippy it all seemed. I completely forgot the name of it, but I always remembered the video, so a few years later I went hunting for what the game title was to play it for myself and found Superliminal.

This was a genuinely super neat concept. I dig games like this, and it didn't overstay its welcome to the point that the puzzles and core mechanics lost their novelty for me.

Might replay it on stream or something when it's been long enough that I've forgotten the solutions. This is the kind of game where seeing people's reactions to it all would be fun.

Inception meets Portal with a lovely soundtrack and you can finish it in an hour or two or keep going with the challenge mode, what's not to like?

Honestly, I kind of wish the challenge mode were the main game. It would've broken the immersion so I think ultimately it's good that it's not insofar as the game is trying to Do Story, but there were aspects of the mechanics that I was able to fudge my way around understanding, and it wasn't until I dipped into the challenge mode and had to think more carefully about my actions that I started to really get a handle on what the game's doing. That being said, I don't know if I'll go all the way through the challenge mode, there's a degree of imprecision with the object placement that I think will start to frustrate me on later levels. Might just do the dev commentary mode instead, I bet that's interesting.

This was a nice little find - and as another reviewer said, it really "scratched my Portal itch," because you can easily tell that this is along the same lines. It's more of a low-rent Portal as the voice acting tries to be sarcastic, etc. And instead of portals, it's a lot of forced perspective.

The game gets a little freaky/psychedelic near the end, but the earlier puzzles were entertaining and some were downright challenging (I solved a few by accident). I even had to sleep on a couple of them and think about how to solve them. In addition, the music was very soothing and a nice soundtrack for the game.

I did like the end commentary and it did make me think about how perspective changes everything. That little life lesson was a nice way to end a short, but entertaining game.

When I was about to play Superliminal, I thought it would be more like a standard adventure/puzzle game with "weird" mechanics, something I probably would have liked less, so I'm happy that it was instead a short and surprising experience.

Overall, I'm really happy with it, but I also feel torn about it.

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The game is so surprising. I thought they just had the perspective mechanic going on, but every level, and also every step in each level is something new. It keeps subverting expectations even when you are already ready for them to be subverted.
This is not easy and Superliminal manages to always get something interesting, not just weird.

I really praise them for their creativity on this, you can feel that they had so many ideas and weren't afraid to experiment. It's what I liked more about this game.
Between the unexpected horror level (which I loved), that scene where the desk and all the chairs are "flatted" on the background (one of my favorite wtf moments), the black and white rooms, and basically everything else in the game, it felt like they were never running out of good and unexpected ideas.
This is a strong point for Superliminal, but it's also part of why I'm conflicted.

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Even though all these surprising moments are good per se, you get them one after the other, with some puzzle moment in between that sometimes feels a bit forced. It seems like they were not sure what the pace of this game should be, and just put a bit of everything everywhere.
This is especially true for the second half of the game.

Besides, even if the mechanics are all cool, they are used in such an easy and "fast" way that after a while you can feel a bit tired of all these surprises one after the other.

Other games, like Antichamber, may have less "subversion" mechanics, but the ones you discover have an impact on how you see the rest of the game, they feel more like you earned them and not just like they showed you all their tricks in sequence.

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That said, I think those issues won't be such a big deal if it wasn't for the shallow narrative and settings they went for.
It is so overused, from the classic "I'm going behind the curtains of this facility", to the "clearly Stanley Parable" hallways, to the voices, the way they are dubbed and what they say, their humor.
It feels like their creativity was not put into this part of the game, such a letdown and at some point even annoying.

Even the ending just felt like a philosophical dump, just to remind you that "hey, games can teach you how to live".
Since the narrative was so boring, it made lots of transitions in the game related to it boring as well, and it is the main reason I feel like this is more a collection of "magic tricks" than a compelling and immersive experience.

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Nevertheless, I'm so amazed by the creativity they showed, by how they managed to surprise me even if I have already seen stuff like that, and by all the different ways they achieve it, that in the end I feel like this was a nice and inspirational experience and I'm happy I've managed to play it.

Man... Superliminal has blown me away! It's an extremely clever game, along the likes of Portal, with less focus on action and more on looking at obstacles from more than one angle - often quite literally.

It might feel barebones to some, but for me, it was perfect. Solving the puzzles are satisfying, not to mention the secrets found through exploration and experimentation with the tools at hand. I love that kind of stuff.

It took me about 4 hours to complete, as I explored quite heavily once I realized there was hidden stuff to find, but it can be completed in 2-3 hours.

I've had this game on my list for some time, and I'm super satisfied with it. It also has an inspiring message woven into its narrative, that hit home with me. Wonderful game!

I played this and enjoyed the front half. The puzzles were really clever using perspective and most of them made me feel smart for figuring them out.

There were a few that were frustrating, not because I couldn't figure it out, but because I could execute what I was trying to do.

The other type of "puzzle" in the game was reading the in game navigation and trying to figure out where to go, and this, I did not enjoy. There was a few frustrating moments because I didn't understand what the game was telling me, and one where I nearly gave up and looked up online, before I paused my podcast and turned the volume up on the game to learn there was an auditory queue that I was missing. (I play a vast majority of games with subtitles as I listen to podcasts, so this was frustrating to me to need to have sound on suddenly).

The ending was a little heavy handed, like they tried to force a moral lesson in instead of just leaning into the game, but that just kinda fell flat.

Overall it wasn't bad, but I'm glad it was short and I didn't pay full price for it.

~David.

I found this game on sale the same time I came across Adam’s Venture. The trailer intrigued me, because the art style & gameplay had a Stanley Parable type feel. I was up for a smaller puzzle game to pass the time, so I gave this a try.

Once I started playing the game I realized it actually heavily borrows more from Portal. You are whisked away to this sleep study lab that inhabits your dreams where you run through test gauntlets to “wake up”. There’s a robotic lady on the PA who makes sarcastic quips and the goofy professor in charge leaves audiotapes for you. Neither are particularly funny and most of the humor in this game is derivative and falls flat. I vaguely remember there being one time I actually laughed at one of the jokes. The can of “Baking Soda” was kinda funny too. Then at the end of the game where your dreams are the trippiest, the professor chimes in with some “Live, Laugh, Love” level philosophy that kinda helps explain all that you went through, but mostly just seems like the game trying to sound smarter than it is.

The real meat’n’potatoes of this game is the puzzles. They are all based around forced perspective. You may be in a long hallway with a small cheese wedge at your feet, and the exit is 6ft up the wall. Well, when you pick up the cheese, holding it close to your face, and look down the hallway, when you drop it the cheese wedge becomes a giant ramp based on the perspective. It’s hard to explain and the screenshots I have don’t do it justice as this game is about moving around & viewing things from different angles. Each level has a different gimmick, like looking at spot on the wall from a certain angle to make it form a cube you can pick up or cloning a door into smaller copies of itself, creating a crude staircase. Level 3 sorta takes a dark turn into nightmares where you are walking around a poorly lit hotel with streaks of “blood” on the floor, and knives stuck menacingly in things. The ending of that level was a cute and clever enough rug pull that I won’t spoil it. I did need a guide with a few puzzles, but for the most part they are easy to understand and fun to mess around with. The game is the right length to not outstay it’s welcome either.

The art direction in this game is good, not great, but good. Most of your time is in either a hotel or warehouse type atmosphere. The color scheme is bright and catchy, but mood lighting helps some of the “spookier” areas. The last level does do a really cool thing with a black and white color scheme that definitely made the game feel artsier. The music is mostly waiting room type Muzak, by design and is thus largely forgettable.

All in all, there’s not much more to be said about this game. It’s a fun, short puzzle game that really wants Portal to notice them. Still, the forced perspective puzzles is a very cool concept and if you don’t mind a quick romp through some brain benders, it’s worth it, on sale.