Viewfinder Pre Review (PORTAL meets THE WITNESS)

Viewfinder Preview

(PORTAL meets THE WITNESS)

When I first saw the trailer for Viewfinder back at The Game Awards 2022, I thought it looked neat like many other first person puzzle games and having just finished The Entropy Centre, which was very good, maybe I was puzzled out for the moment. However, during the Steam Puzzle Fest, there was a demo for Viewfinder, which seemed like a perfect time to try it out.

I can’t quite explain how magical and awe inspiring this game is. You have to see it with your own eyes with your hands on the controller. I played the demo on Steam Deck which runs perfectly, possibly a little hot, but technically sound.

The best way to describe Viewfinder is that it feels like a hybrid between Portal and The Witness, leaning more towards the Valve classic. It has the aesthetic of The Witness and requires clever outside the box thinking for solving the puzzles that are not only physics based but more importantly are perspective based. This combination of puzzle elements leads to some interesting revelations. The size and length of each puzzle are perfect where you constantly get dopamine hits for breaking the world.

Similar to Portal, you feel like your part of some experiment as someone speaks to you during your journey, giving you hints and making observations every now and then. If the demo is any indication of the full game, there will be plenty of different elements to keep the game interesting to the end.

Viewfinder takes you through different art styles that is mind breaking as you travel though watercolour, cartoons, and back though what feels like castle Wolfenstein. If you combine the changes in art style to all of the different solutions required to solve each puzzle, Viewfinder will be a very special experince.