Superliminal - It's All a Matter of Perspective

Attempting to fill Portal sized shoes is never an easy task. The fact that they are still referenced as such tells you just how tough of an act that duo of first person puzzle games are to follow. Instead of trying to one up the king and queen of the genre, Superliminal instead understands the lineage, knows the comparisons will be made, and plays on the players familiarity to excellent effect. Oh, and it's a pretty clever puzzle game too.

Superliminal's trick is all about perspective. The basics center around resizing objects through perceived distance - take a chess piece off of a chess board, hold it up next to the door across the room so they look about the same size, then when you put it down, the chess piece is the same size as the door. It's incredibly intuitive and fun to mess around with. You know the whole "Oh look, I can hold the sun in my hand!" or "I'm holding up the leaning tower of Piza!" photos the olds love to post on facebook? Yeah, this is very much that. At least initially.

Superliminal expands and builds on the concept of perspective in clever and cohesive ways, subverting expectations at every turn.

You've played Portal. You know that things aren't as straightforward as they initially appear. You know that you will be using the tools in your toolbox to escape your confines; you've heard the vaguely threatening robotic female voice over the loudspeaker. Superliminal knows this. Superliminal banks on that fact.

Every time you start to feel comfortable with what is going on around you, a spanner is thrown in the works to keep you guessing. Every time this happens, a new way of progressing through the puzzles in front of you keeps your knowledge from solidifying too concretely.

The use and reuse of space and objects reinforce the constant subversion of your expectations. As you progress deeper into the game, you'll keep returning to familiar spaces - though things will always be slightly different. Even the loading screens between areas switch things up every single time.

Where Portal is a great mechanic in search of a broader story, Superliminal is a great mechanic that is the story. This is the game’s largest strength. Games that tie their game play into their themes will always feel more cohesive than those that don't.

It feels like when the creators of Superliminal came up with this fascinating game concept, the question was less, "how do we build a story around this?" and more, “what does this mechanic fundamentally mean?"

It goes without saying, but "fans of the genre" etc etc is apt enough here. Enjoy first person puzzle games? Superliminal is a game you won't want to miss.

Come for the novel and trippy puzzles, leave with questions about the nature of your point of view. All in a days work, no?