Viewfinder (2023)

The main mechanic is super cool and innovative. The levels, except for the very last one, are very good, going from simple to brain-twisting. The esthetic is nice and simple, but I didn't really care for the story, what little of one there is. I didn't care about the virtual world and its absent people, I didn't get the voice on the phone or why I couldn't get out. I didn't figure out why this simulation is necessary etc.

Also, the final level being timed was bullshit and unnecessary. I gave it one and a half tries and quit. That's not why I play puzzle games.

An intriguing concept and charming collection of puzzles, Portal-esque in style but with a lighter presentation.

While many puzzles gave me that satisfying “a-ha!” moment, there were several with constraints so loose that I stumbled into a solution accidentally, which felt a little deflating. And I’m still unsure how the narrative connects at all to the game’s mechanics.

But Viewfinder never overstays its welcome, so I had a fine time.

I remember seeing Viewfinder being covered on a YouTube channel once a ways back, probably MATN, and thought it was a neat little puzzle game. When I saw this as the free PS game, I did confuse this with Moncage, another game I’d like to try.

The art style of this game is all about pops of color. Lots of greens, blues, purples, and reds on foundations of light tans and whites. It’s all in that minimalist style that makes the world look like a Fischer-Price playset. You are in a simulation world, so things don’t have to make logical sense. Platforms float in space at nonsensical angles. The world is still densely populated with little items, like pastries, cups, paint brushes, general clutter, to make the world feel real enough without being too cluttered as to make the core gameplay untenable.

Viewfinder is a puzzle game about perspectives. It reminded me very much of Superliminal in that regard. You use photos to build solutions to your puzzle and reach the teleporter at the end of a level. So maybe there’s a gap you have to cross, and you find a picture of a bridge. You hold up the picture and place it in the world and boom, now there’s a bridge there. As you go through each world, they introduce new elements, such as copier machines to make multiples of a photo, a camera to take your own photos, batteries to power the teleporters, and objects that don’t appear in photos. Each level has one puzzle that each increase in challenge but never drag on. They are all nice bite-sized challenges. I enjoyed playing all of the puzzles and, while there was some head scratching, never felt like I hit a wall. The controls are simple, just picking up and placing things. There’s collectibles to find and unique hidden photos, like a barcode, that when placed, created a pretty cool scene.

The story of Viewfinder is not the main focus, the gameplay is, but it isn’t a total afterthought either. You are part of a scientific duo trying to find a way to combat climate change in the near future. The world is bathed in a red haze as all the plant life has died off. You are exploring an old virtual world where the greatest minds of the past lived while trying to solve the world’s problems. It’s much like a walking simulator in that you only interact with people through audio logs or over radio calls. Your partner can be a bit annoying at first with her constant input, but evens out later in the game. The only other character you see in-game is the simulation’s AI assistant, Cait the Cat. He offers insight about the former scientists. We learn how they formed relationships as they attempted to solve all the world’s problems. You can also tell this game was made by some English devs between all the voice actors having English or Scottish accents and the Scotched Eggs & tea biscuits everywhere.

Spoilers for the ending here. Seeing as this was an indie game, I expected this game to have a real gut punch ending where we learn how the scientists died trying or turned on each other, but instead we get more of natural drifting apart until they finally abandon the project after a big failure. The closest we get to that gut punch is we have to shut down the simulation to escape it, which means erasing Cait. He’s been a lovable little chum along with us for the journey and towards the end he questions us about if we really think we can save the world & if we’ve tunnel vision in our pursuit. He’s not happy about ‘dying’, but reconciles with his fate, and I admit to getting a twinge when I saw a little tear in his eye as he accepted his fate right before we pulled the lever. I think if we had a little more character development, it would’ve hit harder.

The game is short, which isn’t a mark against it, but I could see them setting up these questions that never got fully asked, thus never being answered in a satisfying way. There’re hints of how people handle with stress and defeat, by either shutting themselves away with their work to fix the problem, pouring themselves into their hobbies, or just leaving. You can tell in the stories of each of the 4 scientists that the developers wanted to tackle a philosophical question, but don’t stick the landing. And Cait mostly makes quick remarks that betray his opinions but rarely expands on them that you get a feel for him as a character. I think having either a little more character development or giving our protagonist a voice so they could have a philosophical back & forth with Cait.

All in all, I enjoyed my time with Viewfinder. It’s a fun puzzle game that offers lots of challenges & multiple solutions. It’s a chill game that was fun to unwind with after a long day. If you can get it for a decent price, I can highly recommend it. The story is decent with a good message, but does lack some development.

Lots of creative mechanics beyond the obvious eye-catching one that everyone has seen in the trailer. I like that none of the levels get overcomplicated. Each stage only requires a couple of moves to complete rather than an elaborate sequence of moves, which makes them tricky but satisfying.

I didn't care about the story and it didn't feel very unique, at least in how it was presented. But it had a nice ending.

Viewfinder is an excellent idea, executed perfectly. It is a game that SHOWS really well, a brilliant bit of coding and aesthetic, meshed together in a way that when put into a trailer, it begs to be played, to be experienced. A game in which you are given a camera that allows you to take pictures of scenes that you can then spawn into the world to solve the puzzles in creative ways. Need to cross a gap, take a picture of a pathway elsewhere and then spawn that bridge into the gap.

Unfortunately, in action, it does begin to wear out its welcome at about its halfway point and relies on a sparse but effective meta-story to carry you forward after that. In some ways, Viewfinder is caught between a rock and a hardplace here. They need to add more mechanics on top of their core conceit because there is only so much you can do with an impressive but ultimately simple concept, but it also means that the purity of the core is ultimately degraded to a point of tedium as they add more and more sub-mechanics as you get closer and closer to the end. At a certain point the puzzles can often stop giving you that "I'm so smart" feeling once you figure them out, and instead can start teetering on the edge of "that was annoying".

I did find that aforementioned meta-story pretty affecting by the end. If you make sure to listen to all of the audio logs you come across and are willing to engage with the cat (Cait), I think it does a reasonable job in giving you an emotional attachment to the game by the end.

A solid 3 out of 5, it's not on the Mount Rushmoor of modern puzzle games, but its a good 4-6 hours of puzzle time in the meantime. Well worth your time for the $20 price tag and a good advertisement for the devs future work (I liked the game, didn't love the game, but I still immeditately went and bought Thalassa, their next game after Viewfinder).

Buy Viewfinder on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1382070/Viewfinder/

Starts slow but gets more engaging as it goes on. Chapter 1 and 2 worried me the game was too easy but Chapter 3 and 4 kept me engaged, when given the camera.

Never really gets hard. Stumped only a couple times but the solutions always felt good. The optional watermelon puzzle had me hard stuck for a long long time but the solution was great. Want more puzzles like that one, or ones that utilize physics.

Viewfinder is an unusual gem of sorts. It's a mixed bag of good and bad elements of design, gameplay, story, and mechanics. Right from the get-go, you are greeted with a very weird and clunky looking UI in the main menu with boxes of unusual sizes, fonts that don't quite fit, etc. It looks cobbled together and very indie.

I found myself completely LOST in how to play this game. I desperately, desperately did not want to look up a walkthrough on any of the puzzles, knowing it is not a terribly long game, but found myself completely confused on the mechanics of how to solve the very first one... (It took me HOURS) After i figured this out the second puzzle took a bit less, but still some time, then the puzzles started to feel way too easy, like I just figured it all out finally, and most of them I could just fly through in a minute or a few and just keep going.

Part of the trouble is, the puzzles don't have 'hard' solutions. You can actually solve them in different ways and exploit them (often you just have to 'fall' into an area, and since you aren't forced to lay the pieces on a flat perpendicular plane, you can construct them on inclines that will bend around to get where you are trying to go.) The fact you can bork this at times feels like cheating. Sometimes this is however the way I think it is intended to solve the puzzles though (its' not clear to me)

The game's main win is its charming aesthetic that seems to be an almost Mediterranean/Greek or Moroccan theme. The stuccos, frescos, outdoor vineyards, hanging gardens seem like a mix between Istanbul and Santorini. The game consists of Five Hub like areas, unfortunately, they don't really vary much in style or aesthetic (So, I hope you do like Santonbul/Insantorini!)

There are some twists in the mechanics such as the fact you can turn photos, or use a copying machine at times to replicate their use. As well as other gimmicks, quirks and curveballs that they can throw at you to add a layer of fun, creative complexity..., But overall, the game is pretty consistent and doesn't offer too much variety in the puzzle solving itself. At times, it can be a little difficult but overall, its generally speaking not too terribly challenging once you can wrap your head around what the game is wanting from you. Solutions are often pretty straigtht forward, and there are some ways you can seem to 'cheat' or bypass the intended solutions.

People compare this game to Superliminal. That's how I came across it actually as it was recommended to me since I said I enjoyed that game. I find however, that it doesn't really play similarly or feel similiar in setting, style or aesthetic, and while it does have 'perspective based puzzles' it really has no more in common with Superliminal than this does with The Witness or The Turing Test (both games that I also thought were arguably better) which also at times have 'perspective' based solutions.

All in all it was an okay game. It took me longer than most (maybe 8-9 hours) because I was kind of in a dumb mood on my first night of trying to play it.

As with Superliminal, this game's main gimmick runs out of steam pretty fast. On the surface it feels like the ability to turn pictures into real objects might open the doors for great an innovative puzzle design, but most puzzles are repetitive and somewhat trivial. Even as a short game, it needs to add new ancillary mechanics to spice up the puzzles, like buttons that activate with sound.

The story is also pretty meh, without any real characters to speak of. It's mostly random audiologs of a bunch of techies talking about their tech. Dialogue is generally terrible and the voice acting is mediocre at best.

There are some interesting puzzle, mostly in the optional levels, but they are few and far between and they don' t merit the slog of the rest of the game.