Indie Game of the Week 454: Viewfinder

Portal isn't exactly what I would call an Indie game, given Valve has enough money that it never needs to resort to making a second sequel for anything, but it certainly has the cadence of one: a great game conceit, multiple iterations of its formula with new elements constantly added, and a short but intense framing story to go around the whole thing if the puzzles alone weren't sufficient to hook you. That format has gone on to become one of the Mount Rushmore heads of Indie failsafes along with exploraction games, lugubrious and frequently metaphorical 2D puzzle-platformers, and run-based deckbuilding tower def- acck, sorry, got sick into my own scorn there for a moment. Regardless, though Viewfinder is but the latest to join the ranks of the vertiginous first-person perspective mindteasers it's still very able to turn heads with its particular spin on camera trickery. Literally, in this case, as you're using cameras and photos to craft your way forward.

Viewfinder is set in a simulated world created and eventually abandoned by a coterie of brilliant minds that the protagonist and their tech support Jessie have recovered from a dump somewhere and are eagerly searching for any revelations it may have stored in its data. The reason this archival investigation is vital is due to a massive environmental catastrophe that threatens the Earth, turning the sky a sickly red and choking the life out of flora the world over, and this thinktank virtual space was specifically built to address major problems like the one the world is currently facing. Upon entering you notice that there's a few cracks in the antiquated and corrupt systems and that it still has a resident of sorts: Cait, an AI seemingly based on Alice in Wonderland's Cheshire Cat, who is happy to receive a visitor for the first time in a long while. To navigate this abstract realm of floating islands the player can take photographs—initially they can only find the loose photos themselves but can eventually snap their own—and sort of overwrite the space in front of them with whatever's in the photo frame. This might mean taking a photo of a wall, flipping it on its side to make a bridge, then placing the bridge over a gap between you and the teleporter to the next area of the game. Each of the game's levels are these small, self-contained puzzles in which you have a limited number of things to interact with, including optional material like audio logs left by the scientists that used to reside here and collectibles which add towards various achievements.

Impressionist landscapes and monochrome pencil sketches mesh in a style I like to call "Take On Monet".

While this is a really cool concept it's also where the game's largest fault comes into play: it's invariably pretty easy to figure out what to do in each puzzle with so few elements to work with. That's no real fault of the game's developers, since they kept their puzzles pretty varied with new features throughout the span of the game's runtime, and there's always the distinct possibility that I just hit my head in my sleep and gained 25 IQ overnight (triple figures! Finally!), but I suspect they chose to play it safe with the puzzle difficulty to keep players engaged with the story they wanted to portray. Having come off of harder fare like The Witness or Q.U.B.E. 2 or The Talos Principle II—which I believe are the last three games I played of this type, or at least those that have stuck with me for one reason or another—I just waltzed right through this thing. Not that I don't appreciate giving my impressive grey matter a break from time to time but I suspect I'm not alone in finding the puzzles a relative breeze. Well, with the one exception that took me close to fifteen minutes, and it's the one where the scientists are having a party trying to figure it out so I feel like the game itself knew it had a stumper on its hands.

It is a great looking game, though, occasionally playing with different visual styles as you incorporate not only photos but other images into the world as something you can walk around and investigate—pixel art, crayon drawings, famous paintings; these deviations are used sparingly but it feels like there's a kernel of a whole different game to be explored there. The levels of recursion and lateral thinking made every puzzle a joy to solve, even if the solution was often immediately intuitive, and I quite liked the familiar story of a group of great thinkers finding common ground initially and then drifting apart as they retreated a little too into their own spheres and their repeated failures took a toll on their confidence and mental state alike. Vicariously living their triumphs and disappointments through the audio logs made for an occasionally somber time though Cait remains a gregarious and, perhaps redundant to say, curious host throughout your adventures in his long-abandoned home, offering his own thoughts and encouragement as he pops up in various spots as you explore. Someone maybe should've told him that AI in these games are supposed to be surly, unhelpful, and possibly homicidal.

This steaming tray of toad-in-the-hole might well be the most mystifying thing in the game for many of its international players.

All in all, while Viewfinder might not keep you stymied for long with any of its set-pieces there's plenty to commend about the game's presentation, straightforward interface, generally positive vibes as its themes relate to getting back on your feet and trying again after suffering setbacks, and a near endless imagination behind finding new ways to apply its killer concept. It reminds me most of Pillow Castle's Superliminal, which likewise made your viewpoint the weapon with which you could change reality around you, and like that game it's a short but eventful experience that never feels the need to repeat a step or show you something that you've already seen before for the sake of padding out the length. Several genuine moments of happy-surprised realizations of what could be accomplished with the tools provided and a beginner-friendly gateway to the several other brain-scrambling Indies working the same beat. (It's also as British as a bilious lord and you know I'm all about that too. Limey central over here.)

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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