I never actually played any of the Portal games myself, but I remember when the first one came out in 2007 it was a big thing. And not only because it was a new Valve game and because it wasn't the long awaited Half-Life 3, but because it blew people's minds. Suddenly everyone was humming this was a triumph... and talking about lying cakes. It surrounded me so thoroughly I think I ended up feeling I didn't even need to play the game - I had already experienced it all the way through second hand.
Playing Viewfinder I got a glimpse of what that flabbergasted feeling of "what the heck..."-ness that might've gone through people's heads back then though, because Viewfinder is a trek of endless "what the's" thrown at you.
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| Giving off Half-Life vibes... |
The premise might sound simple - Viewfinder is a puzzle game in which you use images to travel through the world. Yeah, it doesn't make sense until you try it, and trust me it barely makes sense while you are playing either. And not because of bad design, rather the opposite - because of completely mind-boggling design.
Viewfinder offers up closed puzzle scenarios in the shape of... well, basically patios, that you have to traverse using pictures. Whenever you "place" a picture in the world, you can go into it or otherwise alter the world you see around you. The game doesn't pause to let you think much about any of this before it throw new features your way, almost like it doesn't think that the original idea is cool enough or well enough executed.
But it is, the entire game through I am completely amazed - not just by the design idea but also by the implementation. Much of it is probably, maybe (?), simple on paper but the execution of the ideas and the way you get to utilize it is very well crafted. I constantly think I am going to break something, program-wise, but this only ever happened one time (more on that further down) which is in itself astonishing when you feel like you are going around pretty much breaking the world around you. I want to be vague here and not go into too many details, I really feel like the main selling point is not knowing what is going to happen when you try this game out. I am very happy I had no clue and got to be thoroughly surprised with each new stage.
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| Everything is designed with a warm fuzziness |
It is clear the game is very tightly programmed and the crazy rules set before you are never confusing within that frame work, but extremely confusing in the sense that you will probably never have experienced anything like it. I always love finding a game that shows exactly why some things can only be experienced through the game medium - Viewfinder is that game with a capital G.
If we're going to go back to the comparison of Portal here however, there is something else at play that elevated that game to the shelf of Classics, where I think Viewfinder is strongly lacking. If you had never played Portal (or heard enough about it to think you have), you probably would've never thought that story or character progression were particularly important to a puzzle game. Portal showed that it can make the difference between an interesting playthrough and a transcendent one - one that pierces the media of the game to become part of pop culture. Glados is up there with some of the best villains in video games and the beforementioned "Still Alive" song was in the minds of people who hadn't even heard of the game.
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| Empty and lifeless, but never scary |
The story in Viewfinder instead felt almost like an afterthought to me, honestly I couldn't even reiterate it comprehensively if I tried because I didn't want to pay any attention to it. Early on you learn that the space you occupy is virtual (as if that wasn't fairly obvious from the start) and that it has been inhabited by some people trying to build... something, in there. Everything is explained (using the word lightly) to you through voice clips that you find throughout the spaces. You've got a companion (also voice only) who talks to you and this is entirely my subjective likes but I found her dialogue more grating than anything. I only wished for her to never speak to me again, and fortunately she becomes a lot less prominent in the later parts of the game. There is also a virtual cat, that you can pet, and he likes to comment your progress through the game too. Even though I didn't take to the story or characters of the game, I am glad there was something in there with me because I think the place would've felt kind of creepy otherwise.
The end segment, which I don't feel the need to spoil, was the only time where the game seemed to glitch for me. Moving one object over to another place suddenly had me endlessly falling through the floor. Redoing it after a reload worked just fine though.
As it is the game offers a unique puzzling experience that I can do nothing but highly recommend to at least try out - I'ma gonna say it again, you have never played anything like it before. It is not long and most puzzles aren't too hard to figure out but full disclosure, my 12 year old son was way better than me at this game and had to give me hints several times. It helps a lot if you're a bit of an "out-of-the-box"-thinker, which I am very much not as this game very firmly confirmed for me.
