Viewfinder is a yet another extremely disappointing puzzle game among the endless ranks of those that try to recapture the magic of Portal by copying the tenets of its design thoroughly, but don't manage to do it well.
Just like Portal, the game is extremely short (it took me about 3 hours to reach 100% completion) and extremely easy (not a single puzzle in the whole game gave me more than a minute pause, often I've spent more time finding the teleporter to the level in the hub zone than I've spent actually solving the puzzle), but where Portal compensates for that with genuinely well-written humorous monologue by the game's antagonist, Viewfinder has unbearable Marvel-esque exclamations by the protagonist's overseer, audio logs mumbling about nothing in particular and the anemic AI cat going "wasn't this clever" at the end of every other puzzle.
The fundamental concept of changing the level's geometry by turning photos into 3D scenes, as it's usually the case with such puzzle games, is amazing.
However, as it's usually the case with such puzzle games, Viewfinder lacks the puzzle design that would actually take advantage of the concept to the fullest, instead opting to bring a whole bunch of other gimmicks into the mix, that disappear as quickly as they appear, never getting a proper time to breathe either. Most of the mechanics the game introduces get two-three levels dedicated to them (and some are ever used once), all of which feel like theyre trying to teach you the concept instead of trying to test you on it. Even the final gauntlet of the game is a complete joke.
The writing in Viewfinder is frankly terrible. I want to keep this review spoiler-free, so I won't go into specifics, but the plot doesn't even begin to make sense and the ending is so bad it wraps around to being one of the funniest things I've seen the whole year. Not a single deliberate attempt to be funny actually lands.
The level design tries to express the personalities of the characters of the story, but they're all ridiculous hyperbolized stereotypes of a "science person", "artsy person", "tech person" et cetera, and this framing of the levels kind of clashes with them being, well, puzzles to begin with.
I can't say much about how the game looks or sounds. It's functional, though some of the visual filters are really hard on the eyes.
Overall, I'm very disappointed. I really love the fundamental concept of it, and I like the mechanics it introduces before immediately discarding them, but it doesn't even feel like the game tries particularly hard to be a puzzle game, it feels more like an obligation it's trying to get over with. I have to wonder if the game would've been better if the devs committed to making it a sort of an exploration walking sim instead? But then again, the writing is awful as well, so maybe not.
I don't know if there's anyone i can recommend this game to. You would need to really love what you see in the trailer, and to be ready to accept that the game won't do anything significantly beyond the scope of what you see there for the entirety of it's short runtime, and to not mind spending $20 on it.
Just like Portal, the game is extremely short (it took me about 3 hours to reach 100% completion) and extremely easy (not a single puzzle in the whole game gave me more than a minute pause, often I've spent more time finding the teleporter to the level in the hub zone than I've spent actually solving the puzzle), but where Portal compensates for that with genuinely well-written humorous monologue by the game's antagonist, Viewfinder has unbearable Marvel-esque exclamations by the protagonist's overseer, audio logs mumbling about nothing in particular and the anemic AI cat going "wasn't this clever" at the end of every other puzzle.
The fundamental concept of changing the level's geometry by turning photos into 3D scenes, as it's usually the case with such puzzle games, is amazing.
However, as it's usually the case with such puzzle games, Viewfinder lacks the puzzle design that would actually take advantage of the concept to the fullest, instead opting to bring a whole bunch of other gimmicks into the mix, that disappear as quickly as they appear, never getting a proper time to breathe either. Most of the mechanics the game introduces get two-three levels dedicated to them (and some are ever used once), all of which feel like theyre trying to teach you the concept instead of trying to test you on it. Even the final gauntlet of the game is a complete joke.
The writing in Viewfinder is frankly terrible. I want to keep this review spoiler-free, so I won't go into specifics, but the plot doesn't even begin to make sense and the ending is so bad it wraps around to being one of the funniest things I've seen the whole year. Not a single deliberate attempt to be funny actually lands.
The level design tries to express the personalities of the characters of the story, but they're all ridiculous hyperbolized stereotypes of a "science person", "artsy person", "tech person" et cetera, and this framing of the levels kind of clashes with them being, well, puzzles to begin with.
I can't say much about how the game looks or sounds. It's functional, though some of the visual filters are really hard on the eyes.
Overall, I'm very disappointed. I really love the fundamental concept of it, and I like the mechanics it introduces before immediately discarding them, but it doesn't even feel like the game tries particularly hard to be a puzzle game, it feels more like an obligation it's trying to get over with. I have to wonder if the game would've been better if the devs committed to making it a sort of an exploration walking sim instead? But then again, the writing is awful as well, so maybe not.
I don't know if there's anyone i can recommend this game to. You would need to really love what you see in the trailer, and to be ready to accept that the game won't do anything significantly beyond the scope of what you see there for the entirety of it's short runtime, and to not mind spending $20 on it.