Viewfinder

While the storytelling was not that great and the characters where not very well written (except for the cat ofc) Viewfinder is a very satisfying game. The puzzles are very intuitive and rather on the easy side, the design is great and the experimentation even greater. It's interesting to find ways to solve the puzzles with as few steps as possible especially towards the end. Will always remember Cait fondly!

This is on the edge of the recommend. The mechanics are sheer brilliance. Taking photos and replicating the scenery lets you do impressive things like even "cross section" the level. The gameplay & puzzles are good. Some optional challenges give you the best examples of meaty puzzle solving and maybe there could have been more challenges and exploration of the mechanics, but it's good overall. The aesthetics are nice, interesting and cool levels. Straightforward, but nice relaxing vibes. So what's the problem? Well, the problem is that the dev team clearly spent all their energy making the game mechanics and puzzles and environment... and the actual storyline feels like a last minuite addition to give all the levels some context. The problem is, whoever they delegate the writing to, was nowhere near as good at their job as the people making the gameplay mechanics. Firstly, the theme is totally wrong. It could have been about "memory", "nostagia", "art" or "remixing", all which fit the theme of taking photographs that come to life. Instead it's about "climate change" which is way too heavy of a theme for this sort of game, especially with the "save the world" element added in The premise is that you're in a virtual world to find past technology that you can use to fix the real world and... this is just dumb. The audio logs and diaries of the scientists in the simulation clearly showed they were spending a lot of energy on solving this problem, so if they had succeeded they obviously would have released their findings and our protagonists wouldn't have been in the situation in the first place. What's more, while using a simulation for research purposes makes sense, it seems a bit deluded to spend huge amounts of time developing a hyperrealistic simulation of the real world, then spend all your time researching solutions in the simulation without even momentarily popping out to make sure your solutions work in the real world too. It also really doesn't explain why the camera mechanics are such a big part of the world... or the teleport pads for that matter. The biggest problem with the plot is that it has such a downer ending. While there's a tiny bit of (nonsensical) hope at the end, the fact the moral of the game seems to be [spoiler]maybe we shouldn't bother trying to fix climate change[/spoiler] is incredibly depressing and somewhat harmful. To add to this, the game ends with you effectively [spoiler]killing a cat and destroying the simulation, just to get back to the real word.[/spoiler] This is insanely bleak, and very contrived. However, I want to give special hatred to the last level. Not the level itself, it was fine and I got it after a few times, but the HINTS! After one failed attempt, a thing in the top right of the screen popped up telling me I could get hints in the game menu. I don't mind having accessible hints, but I detested having the game suggest this through a notification, especially after failing a level only once. I spent a while struggling to through the settings menu trying to turn off hints, but despite a bunch of accessibility settings, there was no setting to toggle this. It was frustrating, like the game was condescending to me. I was trying to get in the mood for the final big challenge of the game and its story, and instead this immersion shattering event kept taking me out it. And then it got worse. I start the level, only to see full screen message box pop up on my screen effectively telling me how to solve the level. My fury was immessurable. I play puzzle games to solve puzzles, not to be told how to solve puzzles! I'm insulted that developers felt the need to throw hints on my face and not even give me the option to turn them off. This isn't an action game with puzzle elements that some players want to skip, this is a puzzle game. Throwing up hints ruins the core gameplay unless players specifically ask for them. And the worst part is, the final level wasn't even that hard and I was making steady progress. I would have had a fine time playing it if the game had just let me play it, instead the overriding emotion from the final level of the game is anger, the developers hadn't trusted me to play the game they had made and I had paid money for. Why make a gameplay experience and then try to ruin it for the player the moment they experience any difficulty? And so that's my review of Viewfinder. Great mechanics, decent gameplay, alright puzzles though maybe a bit short, the writing sucks, and condescending and annoying hint system that seems to only kick in the final level.