Viewfinder

Viewfinder is a puzzle game brought to us as the first project by Scottish development team Sad Owl Studios. This experience brings us an interesting idea that involves solving puzzles by manipulating the perspective and angle of the environment using different methods and tools. In this review we give you our impressions of these ideas and how they were implemented.

The Game’s Concept and Story

The game’s events take place in a simulation that provides inventors with an environment in which to experiment with different ideas. You wander this environment solving puzzles in search of the results of the research your fellow researchers have conducted to find a solution to the problem facing your world. The story mainly plays the role of justifying the events and adds an emotional dimension to the experience through a series of records. It shows the relationship between the research team members and the interactions that took place between them during their research and the difficulties they faced. On the graphical level, the game offers a cartoonish approach that matches the beautiful variety of environments, some of which look like an artistic painting.

The Gameplay Experience

The gameplay experience is very simple and is limited to movement and a button used to interact with the images, the camera or another element in the environment. The basic idea of ​​the puzzles in the game is to interact with the images that become part of the reality surrounding you, and use these images to either advance through them to another area to get more images and tools, or to change environmental conditions manipulate that does not allow you to solve a puzzle or reach an area. The basic task in all puzzles is to reach the departure platform or power it up to complete the mission.

The game uses the idea of ​​manipulating perspective to solve puzzles in wonderful and entertaining ways. Sometimes you turn the image into reality after turning it upside down to reach a certain area, or dropping a battery that was behind a barrier you captured so you can’t jump over it. Additionally, the images can be used in a variety of other ways, such as erasing part of a fence that is preventing you from doing so. It is an advance because bringing images into reality means replacing them with all the elements that were in the player’s perspective. A number of smart environmental puzzles have also been added that require you to look at the surrounding elements in a specific way or create an image that you can temporarily walk through in the environment, which requires you to look at it from the appropriate angle around it to implement into reality. In addition to these unique ideas, the game presents a number of traditional ideas presented in the form of obstacles that must be considered intelligently in order to know how to take the right picture or achieve your goal.

Missions and Side Content

The missions in the game are divided into several areas, with you moving on to the next area after completing all the main missions. The game offers excellent side content with short puzzles that have a higher level of difficulty or whose solution method is very simple, but accessing them requires careful consideration of the environment. Items are also available. They can be collected in specific forms for each region. For example, the first region contains toys in the shape of a duck and one of the other regions presents you can get them in the form of models of the planets. Some of these items will be in the spotlight, while others will require a bit of searching to find.

Negatives and Conclusion

Speaking of negatives, the experience is that it offers many unique and entertaining ideas for solving puzzles, but unfortunately presents these ideas in a very limited number of missions and, in most stages, sticks to puzzles that have to do with taking photos with the camera have , and as mentioned, they are well implemented, but the variety makes the experience more entertaining. In addition, the solution of some puzzles related to the camera is repeated, and you will find it easy to solve some of the puzzles in the final stages of the game by repeating ideas, unlike the usual games of this type that solve the ideas at the end usually make it more varied or increase the level of complexity.

It took us four and a half hours to complete all of the game’s levels, collecting a small number of collectibles along the way. The experience can take around six to seven hours to collect them all. Viewfinder is an innovative puzzle game that offers many unique and fun ideas with a balanced level of difficulty. The experience may be flawed because it relies on a basic idea. It’s a pity to continue applying some other ideas despite their detailed presentation.