Back in 1993, a little game called Myst made a huge splash. It was the best-selling PC game of its time, the kind of game even your parents had heard of. In the game, you played from a first-person perspective, exploring an island filled with increasingly difficult puzzles. 30 years later, its influence is felt more than ever. The first-person puzzle game now feels like a well-established sub-genre, complete with its own standards, expectations, and tropes. The Witness, The Talos Principle, Superliminal, Antichamber, hell, even Portal and Portal 2 owe something to Myst.
Joining this genre is Viewfinder, another first-person puzzle game trying to tell a story around devious puzzles.
Imagine if you took a 2D photo, held it out in front of you, and with a snap of a finger, projected the 3D world inside of the photo onto the world around you. That’s the core idea of Viewfinder. Its puzzles start with simple ideas, like a large gap you can’t cross on your own, and a photo of a bridge. By holding up the photo in front of the gap, you can cast that once 2D image onto the world and use it to get across.
The effect is eye-popping, both visually and technically. The first time you see it, it feels like magic, and the game has enough surprises up its sleeve from there to keep the novelty going all the way to the end. Eventually, you get access to a Polaroid camera, allowing you to take your own photos of anything in the environment and cast those images into other parts of the world. This could be the solution to acquiring the right number or items, or to move a bridge from one location to another. Despite being able to chop the environment into pieces with the camera, and make an absolute mess by pasting photographed chunks every which way, the game is polished enough to seamlessly deal with it.
The core visual style of the game is reminiscent of The Witness—think pure blue skies and vibrant colors—however, the type of camera can play into this heavily. Objects captured by a black and white camera will appear in the world as black and white objects, complete with some graininess. This effect is utilized in many ways, including a set of filters you can unlock over the course of the adventure.
The game’s coolest tricks are absolutely worth saving and not spoiling here, and they’re well-dispersed throughout the well-paced, 3-5 hour long experience. It’s also worth noting that the Trophies/Achievements are pretty well designed, offering up a path to some fun surprises. One of the weirder tucked-away secrets left me stumped even after scouring over the entire game twice. I’m excited to see what people end up finding there.
All that said, while I think Viewfinder is an excellent puzzle game and absolutely worth playing for anyone who enjoys the kinds of first-person puzzle games I mentioned above, it’s also a victim of coming after so many of its peers.
Like many of these first-person puzzlers, it’s so clear that the puzzles were designed first and foremost, and then a story was bolted on after. The result is something that feels forced and unnecessary, despite being pervasive throughout all of the game’s levels.
In Myst, the story really did feel integral. The world and puzzles and exploration all felt cohesive. Part of this came down to Myst’s own influences, building on the 2D point-and-click adventure genre that was so popular at the time. Years later, when games like The Witness or The Talos Principle set themselves on weird islands and started spouting philosophical dialogue, it was more apparent that the puzzle design was the primary focus.
I think this style of storytelling has been acceptable up to now because this genre was so new. Unfortunately for Viewfinder, it comes at a time where this approach is starting to feel a bit rote. I would have liked to see a story that was more creatively embedded into the ideas behind the puzzles. Or, alternatively, skip the story altogether and just go for vibes. Viewfinder would have been a great time as a series of puzzles with no dialogue.
Still, I have to give the storytelling a bit of credit. After the initial hour or so, the snarky, cringe-inducing dialogue of one of the characters tapers off. It eventually settles into something somber and heartfelt. I think some will find the story worthwhile, and for them I suspect that will elevate this to an all-time favorite. But, for me, I just didn’t connect to it. The hunt for every story beat, voice recording, and notebook page felt more like an obligation than a compulsion.
Despite snagging on one of the increasingly obvious flaws of the genre, Viewfinder is a very engaging puzzle game. It’s an easy recommendation for both its engaging puzzle design and very impressive visual trickery. Even with the story failing to connect, that doesn’t mean the journey is dull. There are enough dazzling moments here (try the demo if you don’t believe me), that I still came away with a big smile on my face.
Red Ring Circus 