Superliminal seems to end precisely when it should. After so long in Superliminal, that abstract becomes the norm and some of the sense of wonder begins to fade. You start to look for the things around you that can be shrunk, enlarged, or used in abstract ways. While it may take you a little to start thinking outside of the box, sometimes literally, it soon becomes second nature. This works both for and against the game. Superliminal challenges players to change how they perceive their environment in order to progress. I do not think that they were bad puzzles, just a little out of place. I can only assume that they were added to pad out the game for a bit longer. It was not as if these puzzles wanted you to do something drastically different from what you were already doing, but rather they just seemed like they were made and shoehorned in after the rest of the game was already made. There were only a few times where I felt the puzzles and their solutions didn't quite fit with the flow of the game. Additional bits of humor and story can be found throughout the environments, especially if you pay attention to things like whiteboards. Still, the bits and pieces of humor are a great way to break up whatever bit of stress you may have after you just spent 15 minutes overthinking an obvious puzzle solution. I think the parallels between this and Portal are obvious without much else needing to be said. Try to do something you are not supposed to and you can expect to get an earful. The story is furthered along by audio recordings of a male doctor and a somewhat snarky robotic female narrator. The inspirations are not just found in the visuals. The environments won't distract with any superfluous eye candy, allowing your mind to focus on solving the puzzles instead. The game boasts a very clean, pleasing aesthetic. Some of the obvious influences seem to be games like Valve's Portal franchise and even The Stanley Parable. It feels like a very appropriate length of time, especially for it being priced at just about $20.Īs mentioned previously, Superliminal is a game that has some clear inspirations from other popular puzzle-focused games out there. It also works out in Superliminal's favor that you will get through the game in about three to four hours for your first play through. I'm just glad that this is not one of them. It seems odd that I have to highlight something like this as a positive, but there are a number of puzzle-focused games that hammer on just one note for too long. However, it does build and expand upon ideas that you learned previously to create harder and more dynamic puzzles as you progress. It is a simple idea but the ways in which it's executed in unique ways will have you exclaiming "a-ha" right up to near the end of the game.ĭeveloper Pillow Castle Games took great care to ensure that Superliminal never repeats the same exact puzzles over the course of the game. Likewise, a small object like a chess piece suddenly becomes multiple stories tall when moved away from your view. An object that is typically huge in scale suddenly becomes small and manageable as it's brought "physically" closer to your person. The core mechanics of Superliminal are about how you handle scale. This is a title that attempts to push the boundaries of your mind, past what you consider to be possible within reality. Moreover, while you may have had the pleasure of experiencing puzzle games that urged you to alter your environment in creative ways, there are few, if any, which have you altering your environment to such drastic degrees as this game will. Superliminal is a game that wears its inspirations on its sleeve but never quite manages to reach the same level of story or presentation as its predecessors.Īt its heart, Superliminal is a straightforward puzzle game. You learn that anything can be as big or as little as you desire, just so long as you look at it just right. You are taught that signs can become steps or an alarm clock can be climbed in certain situations. Superliminal is a game that takes these simple ideas and attempts to create an entire game with that in mind. It is a game that tells you that though you believe a puzzle to be impossible, the solution could be staring you right in the face. Superliminal is a game that time after time after time suggests to you, hints to you, or outright tells you that everything is a matter of perspective.
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