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Viewfinder review: a mind-bending puzzler where perspective is everythingThinking outside the frame
Thinking outside the frame
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Thunderful Publishing
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Thunderful Publishing
It’s an incredible hook and one which I’ve never seen in apuzzle gamebefore. There are echoes ofThe Witness,Gorogoa, andSuperliminalhere, but Viewfinder’s dizzyingly mind-melting puzzles are still very much its own. It impresses from the get-go and continues to pull tricks out of its silky tophat right until the end of its four hour run time. It’s compact, brilliant, and one of the best puzzle games of 2023.
Viewfinder | Announcement Trailer | PC & PS5 | 2023Watch on YouTube
Viewfinder | Announcement Trailer | PC & PS5 | 2023
The goal of every Viewfinder puzzle is to navigate a space to get to a teleporter that will take you to the next level. There are hub worlds with strings of puzzles, and if you complete each string the next hub world will unlock. But here’s the fun part. To get to each teleporter you’ll need some help from your magical photographs. When you hold up a photo in front of you, the structures and objects in the picture will materialise into the world in front of you.
The rules of puzzles change over time. Sometimes you have to take photos yourself, other times you can only use photos you find throughout the level. Occasionally your camera might have the capacity to take five photos, but in particularly difficult puzzles it’ll only have one. The teleporters will often need a power source, too, meaning you’ll need to find and collect batteries along the way. The rules may change within each string of puzzles, but they all remain wonderfully weird, totally off the wall, and oh-so-satisfying to solve.
Is it strange to say that Viewfinder makes me feel like a magician? It’s the flair of it all: watch me materialise a chunk of this concrete skyrise out of thin air! It’s such a playful game that begs to be messed around with, and it can get really bonkers in later levels. I’ve used snippets of stone structures to build pathways, taken snapshots of desks and benches to make walkways, and I’ve even used photos of the sky to make entire walls completely disappear. When you fully realise the power you wield, you start to look at the world differently. I was constantly looking for anything with a straight edge to make platforms or any piece of furniture that would be suitable as a makeshift flight of stairs.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Thunderful Publishing
That’s just one of Viewfinder’s trippy ideas, but they evolve in so many other directions. There’s one set of puzzles where you discover that when you place a photo it’s not just the surface of that picture that gets materialised, but the entire world within it. Took a snapshot of a maze? Place it into the world and you can move through it and find a hidden prize at its core. Each photo is its own space for you to explore, like a gateway to another world.
There’s a hint system if you get stuck. It’ll kick in when you’ve spent a certain amount of time on a level. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Thunderful Publishing
It’s a sentiment that I remember clearly when playing Gorogoa: you need to start thinking about what lies beyond the frame of the photo and how you can use that for the puzzle at hand. There are also parts where you need to align your vision in a specific way to make a doorway to the next level, which is very much like The Witness. It’s a great surprise seeing the developers find new ways of breaking boundaries, and it’s impressive every time.
This narrative dressing didn’t blow me away as much as its puzzling did, but it still made for a nice backdrop to the world. I also love that each hub world belongs to a specific researcher and acts as a window in their personality. One seems to have a sweet tooth from all the chocolate, tea, and cake on display, while another loves plants, turning her hub world into a massive garden. They all seem to be good friends and leave cute sticky notes for each other, too, and there’s a general untidiness to these researchers' spaces that makes each area feel like it’s been loved and lived in. It’s all very calming and peaceful - even the menu music is lovely.
I’m desperate to the speedrunning community gets their hands on Viewfinder. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun / Thunderful Publishing
Viewfinder is a puzzle game like no other. A reality-warping, mind-bending hook keeps it constantly interesting, and it consistently wowed me with the directions it goes in. It’s a game that makes me wish I could erase my memory and play it for the first time all over again.
