What Happens If You Take A Picture Of YOURSELF? - Viewfinder

Viewfinder Part 4 - the selfie mechanic has arrived, which is a lot more terrifying when anything photographed can be placed into the environment. What happens when that 'anything' is your own being? Also, you have to see the final challenge in this video, it's one of my favorite puzzle game experiences period.
Edited by: Dan White

#aliensrock #puzzle #puzzlegame

[Aliensrock]

**VIDEO SPOILERS BELOW**




The original concept of Viewfinder's camera comes from F-Stop, a Valve prototype intended to be the foundation of Portal 2. This was scrapped for the Portal 2 we all know and love today, and for some reason, Valve never tried to use the camera again. Today’s Viewfinder realizes Valve’s dreams and combines them with modern advancements in technology and game design. The environments are clever and gorgeous, the mechanics are natural and satisfying, the puzzles are logical and novel, and the writing is a giant step backwards.

Walking around Viewfinder feels like a beautiful dream, and it diegetically being a simulation does not remove its awe. It’s the perfect balance of relaxing, trippy, and digestible. For gameplay, the small levels prevent the player from getting lost, and the important puzzle elements are never obnoxiously hidden. In a puzzle game, it is incredibly frustrating when non puzzle aspects get in the way of puzzle solving.

One such aspect is dexterity. There is no correlation between dexterity and puzzle solving ability, and I’m positive that many people play puzzle games to avoid dexterity challenges. Many puzzle games still suffer from the dexterity issue, which Viewfinder solves by adding the rewind function. Feeling like first person Braid, there is now no external barrier between you and the sweet dopamine of puzzle solving. Ramping up the puzzle difficulty now comes with much less frustration, and everything is in its right place for some awesome puzzles.

Unfortunately, every single puzzle in Viewfinder was easy. That’s not always a bad thing, because at least you can still provide value through novelty. Thankfully, nearly every single puzzle provides a new interaction, and this continues through the entire playtime of the game. They never gave a chance for a mechanic to get old, and that aspect goes underappreciated. So many puzzle games sputter out in the second half because they can’t innovate, but Viewfinder quits while it’s ahead. Superliminal, the most similar game out there, is half Viewfinder’s length and still manages to sputter out in the second half. Both games are piss easy.

Viewfinder is so easy because every puzzle teaches you a novelty in extremely tiny increments. A harder puzzle game would take a concept that needs 5 steps to learn and teach it over 2 puzzles, whereas this game teaches that same concept over 5 puzzles. This is the same way that Patrick’s Parabox taught its mind bending mechanics, and it’s extremely effective at teaching to non puzzle experts. It also makes the game very easy.

There was exactly one hard puzzle, and that was solving the timed challenge on my first try. I know it was hard because I spent hours afterwards watching other YouTubers play, and not a single other person got it first try. Solving this was a huge rush and the pinnacle of my enjoyment here. There is simply no better way to prove mastery on an easy skill set than to set a timer and to force the player to think fast. The length was just right for not needing dexterity, though I admit it doesn’t cater to puzzle novices like the rest of the game. If a level editor is added like it should be, then I hope they include a countdown timer. I would actually return to this game to play some timed puzzles, and I bet you guys would love watching it.

Adding a level editor would be the best way to address the game being “too short”. They could have added hard puzzles, but they must have realized that due to the overpowered nature of the camera, hard puzzles would be unfun to solve. They also could’ve let the story drag the game on like Portal 2, but after replaying the game to see the writing, I am incredibly glad that they didn’t.

As much as I want to rip on the writing, they did include an option to mute dialogue, and the game is perfectly fine to play without the story. If I had to ask one thing, it would be for an option to only mute Jessie and the cat, so you can experience the mediocre main story without the infantilizing narration of those two. I’d enjoy talking about why I don’t like the story and narration, because the reasons are greater than “I just want to play the game”, but I don't know if people would be interested.

Is it the best puzzle game it can possibly be? No, but playing it was a lot of fun. I recommend Viewfinder to puzzle game novices and anyone who can appreciate a truly special main mechanic. I hope a level editor comes out one day, and if it does, I’ll see you right back here.

Overall Rating: 8/10 (Great)

[potroast]

The fact that you got the final level first try with only a few pictures is crazy. I spent like two days gameplanning a route and thinking about every picture lmao

[doubl]

I was somehow expecting the game's final interaction to be a mirror/selfie with a black camera to delete yourself (with maybe a clever way around towards the real solution of the puzzle).

[silas]

holy shit that final level was the coolest thing ever. seeing tyler the puzzle game veteran barely make it through the challenging and well thought out puzzles that required him to think on his feet was so awesome wow

[Misty_FT]

Holy shit, the final level was such a good way to send the game off. This was such a good game

[Maker]

it getting destroyed by the void isn't that big of a deal. it's just instead of being able to infinitely duplicate anything, you are moving it instead

[electromika]

Thank you editors for putting in gameplay notes every so often!

[thedoctorfromthetardis]

So the catch with the last time based puzzle was, that you can bring pictures with yourself from earlier puzzle, for example, there was a boombox that doesn't needed at that part of the challenge, but you can take a picture of it, and then use it in the music puzzle

[Fluxaterion]

Thank you Tyler for finding out what happens when you take a picture of yourself

[ramonopia]

1:46 It's a "bark-code"!

[dylandepetro]

I am fearful that there may come a day where Tyler becomes so good at puzzle games that he ends up losing interest in them all together. It is a very real possibility to become too good at something, and thus ruin the enjoyment of it for yourself.

[the_nick_knack]

Wonderfully tense timer puzzle. Must've been a real rush getting that first try. Well done!

[swordzanderson]

IMO, Viewfinder is far from being one of the bests in puzzle games, but it deserves a very high spot for displaying to us what's in store for us in the future, like Superliminal and The Stanley Parable. These are just games that open your mind to new concepts, and for me, it makes me wonder what kind of experiences could be born from those concepts in the future, and how polished and fleshed out they could be, like how gaming became more and more complex specifically because we are now capable of merging several aspects of genres and ideas and making them blend well together.

That possibility, the novelty they introduce, and the sense of fascination and discovery they provide will always be a winner in my book. 8/10 sounds like a very fair rating. Imagine if this mechanic was fully explored, and well-implemented into all kinds of genres. The possibilities are endless.

[doctorwhere]

Man, what a sick game. Was a ton of fun watching this series, glad to see such a climactic ending.

[LordTyph]

So in other words, all of this effort was put in so that we could effectively manifest a plant and bring it back.

Guess they've got a lot of wind and solar farms to replace with forests again.

[solartaire]

I LOVE the reference to the goosebump book "say cheese and die" at the beginning. one of the few that actually stuck with me to current time

[eggyolk]

Wow, Tyler was so coolheaded in the final puzzle, it's actually insane! The first time I got to it I panicked a lot lmao

[NStripleseven]

Whenever you see the comments and there’s an Aliensrock comment that says “Video spoilers below, ” you know some stuff is about to happen

[BaconNuke]

Way the cat at the end spoke "I suppose our time has come to an end" almost makes me think maybe somehow there is a secret ending but.. doubt it since in most puzzle games secret ends also tie into bonus challenges, which you were doing as you went.. unless.. the plant *was* the true ending and not doing all the challenges just is a more generic "welp we tried" since.. that is what it sounded like until the lady asked you about the plant...

I was totally expecting to have another twist of getting "out of the simulation" just to find a teleporter in your own room

[funguy]

I like the way the character looks, it feels like no one and anyone at the same time