Viewfinder looks like another ingenious, mind-melting puzzler in the vein of Portal and Superliminal. Here’s a new trailer.
Even in our futuristic era of ray tracing and eerily realistic humans, it’s refreshing to still see video games that emerge now and again and make us wonder, “How on earth did they manage that?”
The upcoming Viewfinder is one such video game. Developed by Sad Owl Studios, it’s a 3D, first-person puzzler that sees you wandering around a surreal landscape, throwing switches and interacting assorted objects to progress through the world. Its primary innovation, though, is the instant camera you carry about with you. With it, you can take a photograph, then manipulate the resulting snapshot to affect the immediate environment.
Viewfinder’s new trailer, which you can see below, shows one or two examples of this mechanic in action. The player snaps a photo of the ground, holds the photo up in front of a gap ahead of them, and the photo magically transforms into a handy platform. It’s the kind of thing that, a few years ago, would have likely gotten its creators tried for witchcraft.
There are little moments and design cues dotted around in Viewfinder that bring to mind other 3D puzzlers, including The Witness, The Stanley Parable, Superliminal, and more besides. There are puzzles that play around with shifting perspectives, much like Superliminal. Other sequences involve endlessly repeating spaces that recall Manifold Garden.
The trailer raises some intriguing questions, too. Can the camera be used anywhere and on anything, or is it rigidly confined to specific areas? Is the world we explore fairly open, as it was in The Witness, or more structured? And most importantly: who’s the cute little cat? We’re hoping to dig up some answers to these questions very soon.
Viewfinder releases in 2023 for PC and PS5.
